Slashdot Mirror

Talespinner writes: "Wired has this article on THX certification being ready for the PC. Lucasfilm, in combination with Dell, created the new THX-certification standard for the PC. The new systems for Dell start around $2000 and come ready with "multimedia speakers, Dolby Digital surround sound and integrated audio and video systems." "

William L. Jones sent us a link to a wired story about spammers getting what they deserve: it amused me. What also amuses me is my new hobby: I now send the postage-page envelopes back from junk mailers. Empty. Eat that! 30 cents out of your pocket! Yeah! I guess now that we've evolved past sword fights, I need something to vent steam.

Siqnal 11 writes "Wired has a feature about Jobs meeting with resellers at the expo, and how honest he was with them. To quote the article 'Jobs gave frank and honest answers to tough questions in this time of trouble for the company and its partners, they said. "

1+1trouble writes "Wired News has an interesting article about D-VHS: 'JVC introduced the new D-VHS tape at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) along with a high definition television (HDTV) set that protects high definition content from being copied. Video on D-VHS tapes is uncompressed, so it's enormous. A 75GB hard disk would only hold around 30 minutes of the video, according to company officials, making the trading of HD content over the Internet impossible...D-VHS can record and play back up to four hours of video in high definition mode -- up to 1,080 lines per screen width, or more than double the resolution of DVD...' The proposition comes in sync with the current haggle over copy-protection schemes. But, considering it's hefty price tag and DVD's head-start, it might just be relegated to the throngs of the laserdisc."

A handful of updates and new nuggets await you below, on everything from Iraqi PlayStation purchases to package manager news of the week, in tonight's release of Slashback.

apt-get install common.sense According to this message from Pixel in the apt-rpm mailing list, Linux-Mandrake is the second RPM-based distro to use APT, after Conectiva's own distro. So, despite the existance of non-free similar products recently covered in /., APT is gaining acceptance to be the unified package manager front-end for Linux.

Can your parents install Debian?

Now there's some smidgeon of Justice for ya Foggy Tristan writes "

According to Wired news story, Uzi Nissan has won a battle, but not the war, against Nissan in a domain name dispute over nissan.com.

For now, however, Uzi Nissan must display a prominent banner on his site that tells people he has nothing to do with the car company and where people can find Nissan.

" You knew this was going to happen ... RobM9999 writes: "The BugTraq mailing list over at SecurityFocus is reporting what appears to be the first vulnerability in the NSA's Security-Enhanced Linux that was originally written about here. The original post to the BugTraq mailing list is here."

What would have been more surprising is if no security bugs were found when a project like this has its source opened to the world. Best to get that laundy clean, eh?

Could be they're just serious gamers tech81 writes "Here's an article on MSNBC that has an update to this story previously posted on Slashdot concerning Iraq possibly buying and stockpiling PS2's for military purposes. Looks like they weren't able to get an PS2's, so they grabbed the originals. . ."

So that's why the bidding on eBay went so high, eh?

Read 'em and weep The next part of our continuing reprint of Jon Katz' Hellmouth series is up.

DC2001 sent us the latest internet scare piece running at Wired. This one is about companies charging for the right to link them. Of course so far this is totally unenforcable, since it would render search engines worthless (Google says they have 1,326,920,000 pages- if they had to pay even a penny for the right to have each of these links, my guess is that we'd be back to 1992.

An anonymous reader says: "Linux kernel 2.4 got itself at the 4th position in Wired Vaporware 2000 contest! The top prize goes to ... (check the link out for yrself ;)" I have a hard time calling something Vapor that I've been running on 30 days uptime, but what do I know? I guess a "product" without a release date just isn't something comprehensible.

Way back in October we solicited ideas for Christmas presents for geeks. This was done with Wired, and the results appear in the current issue (the lime-green colored one: unless you're blind, you can't miss it. You'll only be able to find the first copy, tho). The authors' money will be a nice Christmas present to the EFF. Thanks go to Paul, who did all the really hard work compiling the final list from all your ideas. Now read on to see the list.

1. PlayStation2 - Sony list price $299.99; winning bids on eBay $550-1,375. Supplies are extremely limited. CowboyNeal has been waiting for his for months.
2. Beowulf parallel computing cluster; 3 nodes for $1,305.95. A build-your-own supercomputer: three bargain PCs with Ethernet cards ($415 each), one four-port network hub ($16), and one Building Linux Clusters book from O'Reilly and Associates ($44.95), which includes Red Hat Linux and cluster software on CD. Perfect for trolls who lack a single iota of creativity, or that guy you know who always wants to simulate weather patterns.
3. Car MP3 player - empeg $1,199 (and it even runs Linux, if you're into that sort of thing).
4. IC-R3 handheld wideband radio/TV receiver - Icom America $599. 500-kHz to 2.4-GHz spybox tunes in to everything but cell phones. Voyeurism isn't just for breakfast anymore.
5. iPAQ H3600 Linux-compatible handheld - Compaq $499, but good luck finding one. Apparently there is quite the shortage.
6. Nomad Jukebox - Creative Labs $499. Give this, instead of a CD player, to your loved one in the Napster T-shirt ...
7. Matrix- and Blade Runner-styled trench coats - TrenchCo. $375-482.
8. CD-RW drive, $150-350. No drive fits all machines, so verify compatibility before you buy. Many popular drives have to be back-ordered, but others are always in stock.
9. Voodoo5 5500 AGP or PCI graphics card - 3dfx Interactive $299.99. Better graphics than PlayStation2, on your computer instead of your TV.
10. Klein Bottle - Acme $25-250. Designed by astronomer-author Cliff Stoll.
11. MindStorms - Lego MindStorms $50-200. Classic Lego building blocks, updated with motors and microchips.
12. GlobalMap 100 GPS - Lowrance Electronics $199.95. I get lost in my backyard. I wonder if this thing has a map of my back yard.
13. TiNi Pocket PowerPlier - SOG Specialty Knives and Tools $84.95. Just keep those fingers free of extra holes.
14. Broadband Internet access $39-50 per month (plus installation charges). Check for availability in your area. Consider moving. I know I do almost every day.
15. Interactive Yoda - Tiger $39.99. A Jedi craves not these things. But if he gets one for Christmas, that's different.
16. Non-computer games - Looney Labs $5-35. Card games that modify their own rules, and board games for the brainy.
17. EverQuest - Sony $29.95 (plus $9.89 monthly service fee). Addictive multiplayer game lets you collaborate with others on the Net. Suitable even for a 200-MHz PC with a 28K connection. And the graphics look like ass. But I have many friends who've lost countless productive hours all for the lucrative reward of being able to take a bear by yourself in a virtual world.
18. Tech-book gift certificate - Fatbrain.com $10-25. Let her choose her own robot-building manual.
19. Klein Bottle knit cap or Mobius ear band - Math Hatter $12-22.
20. Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints - ifive brands $12 (four-pack). Essential fuel for all-night hacking: sugar and caffeine wrapped in a handy breath mint. I'll never forget the time Trae ate a whole tin at ALS and traveled forward through time.

Way back in October we solicited ideas for Christmas presents for geeks. This was done with Wired, and the results appear in the current issue (the lime-green colored one: unless you're blind, you can't miss it. You'll only be able to find the first copy, tho). The authors' money will be a nice Christmas present to the EFF. Thanks go to Paul, who did all the really hard work compiling the final list from all your ideas. Now read on to see the list.

1. PlayStation2 - Sony list price $299.99; winning bids on eBay $550-1,375. Supplies are extremely limited. CowboyNeal has been waiting for his for months.
2. Beowulf parallel computing cluster; 3 nodes for $1,305.95. A build-your-own supercomputer: three bargain PCs with Ethernet cards ($415 each), one four-port network hub ($16), and one Building Linux Clusters book from O'Reilly and Associates ($44.95), which includes Red Hat Linux and cluster software on CD. Perfect for trolls who lack a single iota of creativity, or that guy you know who always wants to simulate weather patterns.
3. Car MP3 player - empeg $1,199 (and it even runs Linux, if you're into that sort of thing).
4. IC-R3 handheld wideband radio/TV receiver - Icom America $599. 500-kHz to 2.4-GHz spybox tunes in to everything but cell phones. Voyeurism isn't just for breakfast anymore.
5. iPAQ H3600 Linux-compatible handheld - Compaq $499, but good luck finding one. Apparently there is quite the shortage.
6. Nomad Jukebox - Creative Labs $499. Give this, instead of a CD player, to your loved one in the Napster T-shirt ...
7. Matrix- and Blade Runner-styled trench coats - TrenchCo. $375-482.
8. CD-RW drive, $150-350. No drive fits all machines, so verify compatibility before you buy. Many popular drives have to be back-ordered, but others are always in stock.
9. Voodoo5 5500 AGP or PCI graphics card - 3dfx Interactive $299.99. Better graphics than PlayStation2, on your computer instead of your TV.
10. Klein Bottle - Acme $25-250. Designed by astronomer-author Cliff Stoll.
11. MindStorms - Lego MindStorms $50-200. Classic Lego building blocks, updated with motors and microchips.
12. GlobalMap 100 GPS - Lowrance Electronics $199.95. I get lost in my backyard. I wonder if this thing has a map of my back yard.
13. TiNi Pocket PowerPlier - SOG Specialty Knives and Tools $84.95. Just keep those fingers free of extra holes.
14. Broadband Internet access $39-50 per month (plus installation charges). Check for availability in your area. Consider moving. I know I do almost every day.
15. Interactive Yoda - Tiger $39.99. A Jedi craves not these things. But if he gets one for Christmas, that's different.
16. Non-computer games - Looney Labs $5-35. Card games that modify their own rules, and board games for the brainy.
17. EverQuest - Sony $29.95 (plus $9.89 monthly service fee). Addictive multiplayer game lets you collaborate with others on the Net. Suitable even for a 200-MHz PC with a 28K connection. And the graphics look like ass. But I have many friends who've lost countless productive hours all for the lucrative reward of being able to take a bear by yourself in a virtual world.
18. Tech-book gift certificate - Fatbrain.com $10-25. Let her choose her own robot-building manual.
19. Klein Bottle knit cap or Mobius ear band - Math Hatter $12-22.
20. Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints - ifive brands $12 (four-pack). Essential fuel for all-night hacking: sugar and caffeine wrapped in a handy breath mint. I'll never forget the time Trae ate a whole tin at ALS and traveled forward through time.

edibleplastic writes: "Wired is running an article about how many beta testers of Aqua are hacking the software in order to return it somewhat to its previous appearance. From the article: '"The most distressing part is feeling like a complete novice again." McIntyre said. "I've been using and programming Macs for ten years, and now I'm sitting in front of it going 'What? Huh? How do I launch an application? Where did my icons go?' Talk about disorientation."' Among the hacks are a desktop trash bin and the OpenStrip, an Open Source version of the Control Strip."

pmccallick writes: "Wired is reporting that Red Hat just closed its SF office. The article goes beyond stating the facts to suggest that RH's business model is flawed." To be fair, the article also quotes an analyst who points out that Red Hat "has $320 million in cash on hand, that it consistently meets quarterly revenue expectations, and that its gross margins are improving."

Johan Jonasson cites a story at Wired which reads in part: "Low vision can't be corrected with medical procedures, glasses or contact lenses. But a new product from Microvision that uses lasers to 'paint' rows of pixels directly onto the eye is helping people with low-vision see clearly again." "The device, called Nomad, consists of two pieces: a small control module worn clipped on to a belt, and the head-worn display. The control module receives a video signal from a computer -- a desktop, laptop or a wearable computer -- which processes this signal to drive a low-power laser. The light is then scanned by a small mirror to create images." Essentially, it's the same type of display that many wearables come with, but with the image enhanced to compensate for the low-vision user's greater needs.

angkor writes: "It seems the new dot biz domain conflicts with domains registered in an alternative root system." This is where all the alternative root servers conflict with the (ahem) interesting name choices made by the ICANN board.

Nice Geek sent us a wired story talking about EMusic tracking MP3s on Napster. Several issues: mainly the flaws of using MD5 checksums to determine the source of the MP3, but also the problem that using a bot violates Napster's terms of service. I don't really have any problems with this, but it'll be interesting to see what the next step will be.

Kyle writes: "According to this story on Wired, most of the new TLDs selected by ICANN will be restricted. For example, .biz will sport a $2000 price tag with an annual $150 fee, and will be limited to verifiable, legitimate businesses with specific commercial intent. The .pro TLD will be used exclusively by certified "professionals," including doctors, lawyers, etc. If the point is to introduce competition for .com, ICANN might have missed the target. Might this exclusivity limit the popularity of new domains? If almost no one is allowed to use them, the general consumer will likely be unaware that they exist, and continue in their .com'ocentric mindset." Problem is, who says what's bona fide? Would officious rules like this allow eccentric, personal Web-museums (like the online LED Museum) into.museum?

AltGrendel writes "Wired has a story about Judge Kaplan of DVD Piracy trials fame. He has an interesting view of hackers, to say the least." Doesn't say really anything we haven't heard elsewhere, but it does make a few interesting points. He's a smart guy, no doubt about it. I just wish he wasn't wrong.

NO WAY! writes: "Wired has a story about Dimensonal Media's demonstration of a holographic projection system at this year's Comdex. Apparently the damn thing can project 3-d videos or create a live projection of an object as it goes. This sounds unbelievable -- has anyone else heard of this? Check out the article." It does sound unbelievable, but then, so does the idea of thousands of tiny nanoprobes hidden in our food.

jwater asks: "As we become more entrenched into a digital economy, do companies like eZsize and TheRightSize, who are discussed in this article from Wired News, seem to make sense? Would you use these ideas to buy a 'fitting' gift for your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend this Christmas season? Customization seems like the next big wave for e-business, but are you willing to sacrifice the personal information to make such concepts take off?" A certain degree of personal information is necessary for the production of customized commercial items, but how should those commercial entities treat and protect your data, and what penalties should they risk if they fail?

Azog, joined by a bevy of like-mindeds, wrote with the news: "ICANN has selected several proposals for new TLDs for further negotiation. The selected entries, and their proposed TLDs, are: JVTeam (.biz), Afilias (.info), Global Name Registry (.name), RegistryPro (.pro), MDMA (.museum), SITA (.aero), and NCBA (.coop)." Here is the unanimously accepted resolution. cyrdog points to Wired's coverage, and pavelivanov points to the story at CNET. And as several people have pointed out, .web is conspicously absent, even though it seems like a shoo-in. Someone, somewhere is going to get that one day ... Update: 11/17 09:48 PM by H :Check out SatireWire's coverage as well *grin*.

spectro writes: "Wired is reporting the first two-way satellite Internet service has been launched by StarBand. The service promises speeds up to 500Kbps down and 150Kbps up, but a ping latency of about 400ms, so gamers are out of the question. Anyway a nice alternative for those of us who cannot get DSL yet, but watch out... The Evil Empire is part of the joint venture." It's nice to know that someone has finally made the leap, after years of promises and millions of R&D dollars. Check out the article for information on some of the competition, too.

spectro writes: "Wired is reporting the first two-way satellite Internet service has been launched by StarBand. The service promises speeds up to 500Kbps down and 150Kbps up, but a ping latency of about 400ms, so gamers are out of the question. Anyway a nice alternative for those of us who cannot get DSL yet, but watch out... The Evil Empire is part of the joint venture." It's nice to know that someone has finally made the leap, after years of promises and millions of R&D dollars. Check out the article for information on some of the competition, too.

Today we have Ralph Nader's -- or at least his staff's -- answers to your questions. And, as a little bonus, one Slashdot reader's question we sent over to WebWhite&Blue (at their request) was answered by both Gore and Bush, neither of whom has yet seen fit to answer Slashdot questions directly.

This came out as a series of position papers rather than as direct answers to our questions. Reportedly, Mr. Nader "...wasn't going to answer any more questionnaires," so this is what we get. Note that not all questions were addressed. (Draw your own conclusions.)

1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran

The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?

Reply:

"Nader said the current war on drugs is a colossal failure that is costing the taxpayers dearly and coming up pitifully short on results."

Read More: "Sept. 8. "Nader Urges New Strategy for the War on Drugs"

"The War on Drugs has failed. It has corrupted many law-enforcement institutions and officials, it's filled our prisons with nonviolent offenders at a cost of billions of dollars a year to the taxpayer. We've got to look at the drug situation in this country the way we look at alcoholism and nicotine addiction - as a health problem, as a prevention problem... Drug addicts represent a serious health problem, and they've got to be dealt with in a very humane and effective manner. You don't throw them in jail with hardened criminals and allow corporations to build more jails with more tax dollars." Read More: "Ralph Nader Hemp Raider" interview in the Sept. 2000 issue of High Times magazine

2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst

What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?

No Reply

3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman

With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year)

A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do. A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing.

Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?

Reply:

"I'd really put meat in the process of progressive taxation. The richer people are, the more the percentage you pay. After all, it's their influence that rigged the system to get them that rich to begin with. And, second, we should tax things we don't like. We should tax stock market speculation. We should tax pollution. We should tax activities that we don't like, like sprawl, in order to get a better planning system and better zoning system. And we should lighten the taxes on things we do like, like honest labor, like food."

Read More: Jim Lehrer interview with Ralph Nader, June 30, '00

Corporate Vs. Individual Taxation

Hey, Corporate America! Show Taxpayers Some Appreciation!
By Ralph Nader
February 23, 1999

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that April 15th of each year be designated Taxpayer Appreciation Day, a day when corporations receiving taxpayer subsidies, bailouts, and other forms of corporate welfare can express their thanks to the citizens who provide them.

Though it may not be evident, quite a few industries - and the profits they generate -- can be traced back to taxpayer-financed programs whose fruits have been given away to (mostly) larger businesses.

Read More: Ralph Nader's "In The Public Interest" column, Feb. 23, 1999

Also see:
Ralph Nader's "In The Public Interest" column, "Distribution of Wealth" June 12, 2000

4) electoral reform
by carleton

Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the electoral college system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?

Reply:

Open up the two-party system: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

The two major parties, thanks to their addiction to big money, are converging into one corporate party with two heads. This leaves voters who are longing for alternatives without any significant choice on the ballot. This must change.

Every one of us has to stop saying that we are going to surrender to a winner-take-all political system. In our country we need a discussion about proportional representation and we're going to get it. With proportional representation, more votes count. There is greater voter turnout and more citizen interests can participate in government.

Read More: http://www.votenader.org/issues/politicalreform.html

5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory

In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.

Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?

Reply:

Then there is the Clinton/Gore policy on the scope of patents. The administration is embracing the policy of patenting "anything under the sun." This includes, for example, political campaigning on the Internet, picking stocks, accounting methods, uses of tax shelters and even golf swings. The administration is rushing through thousands of poorly conceived and unnecessary patents on business methods, including many which deal with e-commerce.

In the area of copyright protection, the administration has been extremely aggressive supporting legislation to reduce privacy and ban new technologies that could lead to unauthorized use of copyrighted materials. The theft of company trade secrets is now a federal crime.

Read More: Wired Debate, "Nader: Al Takes Too Much Credit"

In looking at the Internet, one might also ask what has the administration done to support the open-source movement, either through procurement policies (very little), funding for open-source software (not something the administration talks about) or protecting free software developers from software patents and anticompetitive practices targeted at the free-software movement?

In the area of corporate welfare, tax breaks and subsidies for big corporations, there is no end to what this administration will do for the e-commerce industry.

But when it comes to supporting an astonishing citizen movement that is protecting the Internet from Microsoft and other would-be monopolies and providing huge benefits to the economy, the administration is completely inarticulate.

During the government's antitrust investigation of Microsoft, Mr. Gore's daughter went to work for Microsoft. Could he at least respond to the repeated requests for the administration to talk about procurement and the free-software movement? Or find a way to use the federal acquisition regulations to fund the development of public-domain software?

And what can we expect from Mr. Gore on the issue of intellectual property rights? Right now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is pushing as hard as it can for the public to accept patents on business methods.

We have patents on methods of Internet auctions, patents on one-click shopping, patents on methods of picking stocks, patents on methods of avoiding taxes on credit card transactions, patents on methods of political campaigning on the Internet, and even patents on Internet Web standards.

Mastercard has foolishly sued me, claiming their trademark rights can stop my use of parody in political ads, including using the word "priceless" itself.

There are lawsuits over hypertext links in Web pages. The Girl Scouts are told to pay royalties on campfire songs. Trade-secret laws are now a federal criminal offense. Students have been thrown in jail for refusing to turn patents over to giant corporations who fund university facilities.

I am opposed to patents on software, and opposed to patents on business methods. I believe that parody should be protected in copyright and trademark, that copyright enforcement should not override privacy rights, and that use of patents, trademarks and copyrights should be limited by fair use, and when necessary, compulsory licenses.

The public domain should be protected, and public figures need to speak out against the ever-escalated march of corporate lobbying for expanding intellectual property rights.

There is finally the issue of the privatization of law and policy making on the Internet, and the easy way that Mr. Gore has pushed for the elimination of democratic institutions. The creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is at the center of the Clinton/Gore Internet strategy...

The next issue will be copyright, as ICANN considers corporate proposals to use the ICANN control over domain names and IP numbers, to become an ever-ambitious police for alleged intellectual property infringements. In the trademark areas, ICANN is already throwing concepts such as fair use or free speech out the window. Mostly, however, it is an issue of corporate privatization.

Read More: Wired Debate, "Nader: Al Isn't Net's Best Friend"

The entire Wired Debate can be viewed at: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39293,00.html

6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy

Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private. Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?

No Reply

7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno

In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?

Reply:

"Things have changed dramatically in the movement against corporate globalization in the last six months. However unlikely such large-scale protests against international financial institutions which cultivate secrecy might have seemed last year, they now appear to have emerged as a part of the political landscape.

The growing protest movement against the IMF, World Bank and the World Trade Organization -- and the even broader public disenchantment with these organizations -- in part reflects a demand for minimal accountability from public institutions...

Read More: "In the Public Interest" column, 4/18/00

- Also check out Ralph Nader's speech before the April 16 (A16) Protest against the International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC www.votenader.org/downloads/000416NaderSpeech.mp3

8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed

Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?

No Reply

9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223

I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.

I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)

Reply:

Over the past twenty years we have seen the unfortunate resurgence of big business influence, generating its unique brand of wreckage, propaganda and ultimatums on American labor, consumers, taxpayers and most generically, American voters. Big business has been colliding with American democracy and democracy has been losing. The results of this democracy gap are everywhere to be observed by those who suffer these results and by those who employ people's yardsticks to measure the quality of the economy, not corporate yardsticks and their frameworks. What we must collectively understand about the prevalent inequalities is important because so many of these conditions have been normalized in our country.

Read More: Acceptance Statement of Ralph Nader For the Association of State Green Parties Nomination

Today we have Ralph Nader's -- or at least his staff's -- answers to your questions. And, as a little bonus, one Slashdot reader's question we sent over to WebWhite&Blue (at their request) was answered by both Gore and Bush, neither of whom has yet seen fit to answer Slashdot questions directly.

This came out as a series of position papers rather than as direct answers to our questions. Reportedly, Mr. Nader "...wasn't going to answer any more questionnaires," so this is what we get. Note that not all questions were addressed. (Draw your own conclusions.)

1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran

The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?

Reply:

"Nader said the current war on drugs is a colossal failure that is costing the taxpayers dearly and coming up pitifully short on results."

Read More: "Sept. 8. "Nader Urges New Strategy for the War on Drugs"

"The War on Drugs has failed. It has corrupted many law-enforcement institutions and officials, it's filled our prisons with nonviolent offenders at a cost of billions of dollars a year to the taxpayer. We've got to look at the drug situation in this country the way we look at alcoholism and nicotine addiction - as a health problem, as a prevention problem... Drug addicts represent a serious health problem, and they've got to be dealt with in a very humane and effective manner. You don't throw them in jail with hardened criminals and allow corporations to build more jails with more tax dollars." Read More: "Ralph Nader Hemp Raider" interview in the Sept. 2000 issue of High Times magazine

2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst

What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?

No Reply

3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman

With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year)

A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do. A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing.

Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?

Reply:

"I'd really put meat in the process of progressive taxation. The richer people are, the more the percentage you pay. After all, it's their influence that rigged the system to get them that rich to begin with. And, second, we should tax things we don't like. We should tax stock market speculation. We should tax pollution. We should tax activities that we don't like, like sprawl, in order to get a better planning system and better zoning system. And we should lighten the taxes on things we do like, like honest labor, like food."

Read More: Jim Lehrer interview with Ralph Nader, June 30, '00

Corporate Vs. Individual Taxation

Hey, Corporate America! Show Taxpayers Some Appreciation!
By Ralph Nader
February 23, 1999

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that April 15th of each year be designated Taxpayer Appreciation Day, a day when corporations receiving taxpayer subsidies, bailouts, and other forms of corporate welfare can express their thanks to the citizens who provide them.

Though it may not be evident, quite a few industries - and the profits they generate -- can be traced back to taxpayer-financed programs whose fruits have been given away to (mostly) larger businesses.

Read More: Ralph Nader's "In The Public Interest" column, Feb. 23, 1999

Also see:
Ralph Nader's "In The Public Interest" column, "Distribution of Wealth" June 12, 2000

4) electoral reform
by carleton

Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the electoral college system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?

Reply:

Open up the two-party system: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

The two major parties, thanks to their addiction to big money, are converging into one corporate party with two heads. This leaves voters who are longing for alternatives without any significant choice on the ballot. This must change.

Every one of us has to stop saying that we are going to surrender to a winner-take-all political system. In our country we need a discussion about proportional representation and we're going to get it. With proportional representation, more votes count. There is greater voter turnout and more citizen interests can participate in government.

Read More: http://www.votenader.org/issues/politicalreform.html

5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory

In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.

Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?

Reply:

Then there is the Clinton/Gore policy on the scope of patents. The administration is embracing the policy of patenting "anything under the sun." This includes, for example, political campaigning on the Internet, picking stocks, accounting methods, uses of tax shelters and even golf swings. The administration is rushing through thousands of poorly conceived and unnecessary patents on business methods, including many which deal with e-commerce.

In the area of copyright protection, the administration has been extremely aggressive supporting legislation to reduce privacy and ban new technologies that could lead to unauthorized use of copyrighted materials. The theft of company trade secrets is now a federal crime.

Read More: Wired Debate, "Nader: Al Takes Too Much Credit"

In looking at the Internet, one might also ask what has the administration done to support the open-source movement, either through procurement policies (very little), funding for open-source software (not something the administration talks about) or protecting free software developers from software patents and anticompetitive practices targeted at the free-software movement?

In the area of corporate welfare, tax breaks and subsidies for big corporations, there is no end to what this administration will do for the e-commerce industry.

But when it comes to supporting an astonishing citizen movement that is protecting the Internet from Microsoft and other would-be monopolies and providing huge benefits to the economy, the administration is completely inarticulate.

During the government's antitrust investigation of Microsoft, Mr. Gore's daughter went to work for Microsoft. Could he at least respond to the repeated requests for the administration to talk about procurement and the free-software movement? Or find a way to use the federal acquisition regulations to fund the development of public-domain software?

And what can we expect from Mr. Gore on the issue of intellectual property rights? Right now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is pushing as hard as it can for the public to accept patents on business methods.

We have patents on methods of Internet auctions, patents on one-click shopping, patents on methods of picking stocks, patents on methods of avoiding taxes on credit card transactions, patents on methods of political campaigning on the Internet, and even patents on Internet Web standards.

Mastercard has foolishly sued me, claiming their trademark rights can stop my use of parody in political ads, including using the word "priceless" itself.

There are lawsuits over hypertext links in Web pages. The Girl Scouts are told to pay royalties on campfire songs. Trade-secret laws are now a federal criminal offense. Students have been thrown in jail for refusing to turn patents over to giant corporations who fund university facilities.

I am opposed to patents on software, and opposed to patents on business methods. I believe that parody should be protected in copyright and trademark, that copyright enforcement should not override privacy rights, and that use of patents, trademarks and copyrights should be limited by fair use, and when necessary, compulsory licenses.

The public domain should be protected, and public figures need to speak out against the ever-escalated march of corporate lobbying for expanding intellectual property rights.

There is finally the issue of the privatization of law and policy making on the Internet, and the easy way that Mr. Gore has pushed for the elimination of democratic institutions. The creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is at the center of the Clinton/Gore Internet strategy...

The next issue will be copyright, as ICANN considers corporate proposals to use the ICANN control over domain names and IP numbers, to become an ever-ambitious police for alleged intellectual property infringements. In the trademark areas, ICANN is already throwing concepts such as fair use or free speech out the window. Mostly, however, it is an issue of corporate privatization.

Read More: Wired Debate, "Nader: Al Isn't Net's Best Friend"

The entire Wired Debate can be viewed at: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39293,00.html

6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy

Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private. Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?

No Reply

7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno

In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?

Reply:

"Things have changed dramatically in the movement against corporate globalization in the last six months. However unlikely such large-scale protests against international financial institutions which cultivate secrecy might have seemed last year, they now appear to have emerged as a part of the political landscape.

The growing protest movement against the IMF, World Bank and the World Trade Organization -- and the even broader public disenchantment with these organizations -- in part reflects a demand for minimal accountability from public institutions...

Read More: "In the Public Interest" column, 4/18/00

- Also check out Ralph Nader's speech before the April 16 (A16) Protest against the International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC www.votenader.org/downloads/000416NaderSpeech.mp3

8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed

Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?

No Reply

9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223

I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.

I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)

Reply:

Over the past twenty years we have seen the unfortunate resurgence of big business influence, generating its unique brand of wreckage, propaganda and ultimatums on American labor, consumers, taxpayers and most generically, American voters. Big business has been colliding with American democracy and democracy has been losing. The results of this democracy gap are everywhere to be observed by those who suffer these results and by those who employ people's yardsticks to measure the quality of the economy, not corporate yardsticks and their frameworks. What we must collectively understand about the prevalent inequalities is important because so many of these conditions have been normalized in our country.

Read More: Acceptance Statement of Ralph Nader For the Association of State Green Parties Nomination

Today we have Ralph Nader's -- or at least his staff's -- answers to your questions. And, as a little bonus, one Slashdot reader's question we sent over to WebWhite&Blue (at their request) was answered by both Gore and Bush, neither of whom has yet seen fit to answer Slashdot questions directly.

This came out as a series of position papers rather than as direct answers to our questions. Reportedly, Mr. Nader "...wasn't going to answer any more questionnaires," so this is what we get. Note that not all questions were addressed. (Draw your own conclusions.)

1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran

The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?

Reply:

"Nader said the current war on drugs is a colossal failure that is costing the taxpayers dearly and coming up pitifully short on results."

Read More: "Sept. 8. "Nader Urges New Strategy for the War on Drugs"

"The War on Drugs has failed. It has corrupted many law-enforcement institutions and officials, it's filled our prisons with nonviolent offenders at a cost of billions of dollars a year to the taxpayer. We've got to look at the drug situation in this country the way we look at alcoholism and nicotine addiction - as a health problem, as a prevention problem... Drug addicts represent a serious health problem, and they've got to be dealt with in a very humane and effective manner. You don't throw them in jail with hardened criminals and allow corporations to build more jails with more tax dollars." Read More: "Ralph Nader Hemp Raider" interview in the Sept. 2000 issue of High Times magazine

2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst

What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?

No Reply

3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman

With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year)

A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do. A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing.

Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?

Reply:

"I'd really put meat in the process of progressive taxation. The richer people are, the more the percentage you pay. After all, it's their influence that rigged the system to get them that rich to begin with. And, second, we should tax things we don't like. We should tax stock market speculation. We should tax pollution. We should tax activities that we don't like, like sprawl, in order to get a better planning system and better zoning system. And we should lighten the taxes on things we do like, like honest labor, like food."

Read More: Jim Lehrer interview with Ralph Nader, June 30, '00

Corporate Vs. Individual Taxation

Hey, Corporate America! Show Taxpayers Some Appreciation!
By Ralph Nader
February 23, 1999

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that April 15th of each year be designated Taxpayer Appreciation Day, a day when corporations receiving taxpayer subsidies, bailouts, and other forms of corporate welfare can express their thanks to the citizens who provide them.

Though it may not be evident, quite a few industries - and the profits they generate -- can be traced back to taxpayer-financed programs whose fruits have been given away to (mostly) larger businesses.

Read More: Ralph Nader's "In The Public Interest" column, Feb. 23, 1999

Also see:
Ralph Nader's "In The Public Interest" column, "Distribution of Wealth" June 12, 2000

4) electoral reform
by carleton

Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the electoral college system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?

Reply:

Open up the two-party system: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

The two major parties, thanks to their addiction to big money, are converging into one corporate party with two heads. This leaves voters who are longing for alternatives without any significant choice on the ballot. This must change.

Every one of us has to stop saying that we are going to surrender to a winner-take-all political system. In our country we need a discussion about proportional representation and we're going to get it. With proportional representation, more votes count. There is greater voter turnout and more citizen interests can participate in government.

Read More: http://www.votenader.org/issues/politicalreform.html

5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory

In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.

Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?

Reply:

Then there is the Clinton/Gore policy on the scope of patents. The administration is embracing the policy of patenting "anything under the sun." This includes, for example, political campaigning on the Internet, picking stocks, accounting methods, uses of tax shelters and even golf swings. The administration is rushing through thousands of poorly conceived and unnecessary patents on business methods, including many which deal with e-commerce.

In the area of copyright protection, the administration has been extremely aggressive supporting legislation to reduce privacy and ban new technologies that could lead to unauthorized use of copyrighted materials. The theft of company trade secrets is now a federal crime.

Read More: Wired Debate, "Nader: Al Takes Too Much Credit"

In looking at the Internet, one might also ask what has the administration done to support the open-source movement, either through procurement policies (very little), funding for open-source software (not something the administration talks about) or protecting free software developers from software patents and anticompetitive practices targeted at the free-software movement?

In the area of corporate welfare, tax breaks and subsidies for big corporations, there is no end to what this administration will do for the e-commerce industry.

But when it comes to supporting an astonishing citizen movement that is protecting the Internet from Microsoft and other would-be monopolies and providing huge benefits to the economy, the administration is completely inarticulate.

During the government's antitrust investigation of Microsoft, Mr. Gore's daughter went to work for Microsoft. Could he at least respond to the repeated requests for the administration to talk about procurement and the free-software movement? Or find a way to use the federal acquisition regulations to fund the development of public-domain software?

And what can we expect from Mr. Gore on the issue of intellectual property rights? Right now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is pushing as hard as it can for the public to accept patents on business methods.

We have patents on methods of Internet auctions, patents on one-click shopping, patents on methods of picking stocks, patents on methods of avoiding taxes on credit card transactions, patents on methods of political campaigning on the Internet, and even patents on Internet Web standards.

Mastercard has foolishly sued me, claiming their trademark rights can stop my use of parody in political ads, including using the word "priceless" itself.

There are lawsuits over hypertext links in Web pages. The Girl Scouts are told to pay royalties on campfire songs. Trade-secret laws are now a federal criminal offense. Students have been thrown in jail for refusing to turn patents over to giant corporations who fund university facilities.

I am opposed to patents on software, and opposed to patents on business methods. I believe that parody should be protected in copyright and trademark, that copyright enforcement should not override privacy rights, and that use of patents, trademarks and copyrights should be limited by fair use, and when necessary, compulsory licenses.

The public domain should be protected, and public figures need to speak out against the ever-escalated march of corporate lobbying for expanding intellectual property rights.

There is finally the issue of the privatization of law and policy making on the Internet, and the easy way that Mr. Gore has pushed for the elimination of democratic institutions. The creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is at the center of the Clinton/Gore Internet strategy...

The next issue will be copyright, as ICANN considers corporate proposals to use the ICANN control over domain names and IP numbers, to become an ever-ambitious police for alleged intellectual property infringements. In the trademark areas, ICANN is already throwing concepts such as fair use or free speech out the window. Mostly, however, it is an issue of corporate privatization.

Read More: Wired Debate, "Nader: Al Isn't Net's Best Friend"

The entire Wired Debate can be viewed at: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39293,00.html

6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy

Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private. Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?

No Reply

7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno

In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?

Reply:

"Things have changed dramatically in the movement against corporate globalization in the last six months. However unlikely such large-scale protests against international financial institutions which cultivate secrecy might have seemed last year, they now appear to have emerged as a part of the political landscape.

The growing protest movement against the IMF, World Bank and the World Trade Organization -- and the even broader public disenchantment with these organizations -- in part reflects a demand for minimal accountability from public institutions...

Read More: "In the Public Interest" column, 4/18/00

- Also check out Ralph Nader's speech before the April 16 (A16) Protest against the International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC www.votenader.org/downloads/000416NaderSpeech.mp3

8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed

Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?

No Reply

9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223

I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.

I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)

Reply:

Over the past twenty years we have seen the unfortunate resurgence of big business influence, generating its unique brand of wreckage, propaganda and ultimatums on American labor, consumers, taxpayers and most generically, American voters. Big business has been colliding with American democracy and democracy has been losing. The results of this democracy gap are everywhere to be observed by those who suffer these results and by those who employ people's yardsticks to measure the quality of the economy, not corporate yardsticks and their frameworks. What we must collectively understand about the prevalent inequalities is important because so many of these conditions have been normalized in our country.

Read More: Acceptance Statement of Ralph Nader For the Association of State Green Parties Nomination

Baldrson writes: "Wired reports that the only scheduled rocket launch for the CATS Prize has failed. Since the CATS Prize has a deadline of November 8, the enormous hard work and enthusiasm that has gone into this competition will meet with a lot of disappointment. This is unfortunate, because in my original prize announcement, I specifically requested that many individuals put up small amounts of money for their own awards so that there would be no single point of failure. The bright side of all this is that others are now taking that meta-challenge seriously. See, for example the Stark Draper Open Source Rocketry Award."

BillyZ writes: "A Denver billionaire has started laying fiber and setting up the infrastructure to deliver fiber optic connections to residences in the southwest. Wired has the story. They hope to be offering the services to the public by the middle of next year. Now if only someone would be doing the same thing in the northeast." Tell me again why I moved out of Austin?

BillyZ writes: "A Denver billionaire has started laying fiber and setting up the infrastructure to deliver fiber optic connections to residences in the southwest. Wired has the story. They hope to be offering the services to the public by the middle of next year. Now if only someone would be doing the same thing in the northeast." Tell me again why I moved out of Austin?

photozz writes: "Ya know it's rare when an article can get me angry, but this has managed. Cable provider Excite@Home claims that their users are 'relatively' free of attack from hackers due to DHCP, and say you should only be concerned if they are storing private information on their PC's. From the article:'The fear created in consumers' minds is actually greater than the risk that exists,' he said. 'If a customer operates the computer in a safe manner, there shouldn't be any problem.'" Perhaps not surprising that @Home would downplay the risk, but photozz is right -- the fear in broadband customers' minds ought actually be higher, not lower. BackOrifice, zombie attacks etc., ought to frighten the broadband providers into pushing at least simple firewall software themselves perhaps.

wiredog points us to a Wired article talking about a debate at least as critical as the race for U.S. president: e-mail vs email. Well? Which is it? Personally I'm too lazy to care about the proper use of homonyms, much less type an extra hyphen.

jalefkowit writes "Wired News has a great story about uWink, Nolan Bushnell's new game company. Bushnell is the creator of "Pong" and the man who was behind the early successes of Atari, including the 2600 console and its pioneering stand-up arcade machines. Now he's launched a line of new stand-up, net-connected game machines that are powered by Linux."

jalefkowit writes "Wired News has a great story about uWink, Nolan Bushnell's new game company. Bushnell is the creator of "Pong" and the man who was behind the early successes of Atari, including the 2600 console and its pioneering stand-up arcade machines. Now he's launched a line of new stand-up, net-connected game machines that are powered by Linux."

sdo1 pointed us to the major candidates take on napster. Here's Bush and here's Gore. A phenomenal number of submissions have arrived regarding Gore's invention of the Internet (mostly surrounding the fact that Vint Cerf credits Gore as being the most influential politician in its creation). And lastly is a series of more techie oriented interviews with Nader and Gore (well, Gore's advisor anyway) that is running on Wired.

MikeD--NULL writes "President Clinton urges the departments of commerce and defense to identify spectrum suitable for upcoming 3rd generation wireless technology. The 700MHz freed from TV's transition to digital appears to be insufficient. This along with the any new found spectrum will be auctioned off on March 6, 2001. Better start saving now."

MikeD--NULL writes "President Clinton urges the departments of commerce and defense to identify spectrum suitable for upcoming 3rd generation wireless technology. The 700MHz freed from TV's transition to digital appears to be insufficient. This along with the any new found spectrum will be auctioned off on March 6, 2001. Better start saving now."

Ant wrote to us about depression and the cubicle blues. That's what the International Labor Organization, the UN's labor and human rights agency, says at least. They say that around 1 in 10 employees is either depressed, has anxiety, or is burnt-out -- do you find that to be true?

Ant writes " NASA scientists are beginning to suspect that the widely reported water channels on Mars were actually caused by jets of carbon dioxide. At a conference at NASA's Ames Research Center, NASA researcher Robert Haberle said scientists now think Martian gullies believed to have been carved by liquid water may instead have been produced by flutes of liquid carbon dioxide, a finding that could have profound effects on future missions to the Red Planet." This story has been bouncing around for a while.h

ChazeFroy writes: "About 150 physicists gathered to discuss how Mars could become habitable. They suggested that by introducing PFCs (a cousin of CFCs) into the Martian atmosphere, they could transform the climate of Mars into something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae). This process would take only 100 years, but they estimate it would take nearly 100,000 years for the oxygen levels to increase to a suitable level to sustain human life." Heh -- or you could say, "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars."

bl968 writes "Wired has an excellent article entitled "Fear of a Pay-Per-Use World" on the upcoming Librarian of Congress decision on granting exceptions to the DMCA anti circumvention provisions. The DMCA, which was enacted in 1998, bans the circumvision of technical protection measures like encryption systems and other methods designed to prevent access to copyrighted works. When the DMCA was passed it contained, a delay to the date the anti-circumvention provisions take effect. This delay is about up and your comments are needed"

bl968 writes "Wired has an excellent article entitled "Fear of a Pay-Per-Use World" on the upcoming Librarian of Congress decision on granting exceptions to the DMCA anti circumvention provisions. The DMCA, which was enacted in 1998, bans the circumvision of technical protection measures like encryption systems and other methods designed to prevent access to copyrighted works. When the DMCA was passed it contained, a delay to the date the anti-circumvention provisions take effect. This delay is about up and your comments are needed"

macsox writes: "Wired News has an article about surfaces that, using vibrations, can move objects around at the owner's whim -- for example, using a mouse as a remote desktop arranger. Also envisioned: rooms that redecorate themselves. The scientist's page is here."

macsox writes: "Wired News has an article about surfaces that, using vibrations, can move objects around at the owner's whim -- for example, using a mouse as a remote desktop arranger. Also envisioned: rooms that redecorate themselves. The scientist's page is here."

msassak writes: "Wired is carrying a short piece on a new patent bill introduced that hopes to cut down on "obvious" patents. It would also give the public the chance to challenge a patent before it was granted."

msassak writes: "Wired is carrying a short piece on a new patent bill introduced that hopes to cut down on "obvious" patents. It would also give the public the chance to challenge a patent before it was granted."

sconeu writes "Wired News has this article wherein they claim that they like hackers, and that the whole thing is overblown. It says that 'Doug Davis, Digital Convergence's CTO, said he applauds the hackers' ingenuity and 'chuckles' at some of the ideas they have dreamed up.' " Meanwhile, driver sites remain offline and software writers continue to be threatened. That's how much they like it. C'mon, guys.

sconeu writes "Wired News has this article wherein they claim that they like hackers, and that the whole thing is overblown. It says that 'Doug Davis, Digital Convergence's CTO, said he applauds the hackers' ingenuity and 'chuckles' at some of the ideas they have dreamed up.' " Meanwhile, driver sites remain offline and software writers continue to be threatened. That's how much they like it. C'mon, guys.

nbruinooge asks: "I just reread Neal Stephenson's profile In the Kingdom of Mao Bell in Wired, Feb. 1994. In it Stephenson speculates about what will become of Hong Kong in '97, and predicts a Chinese backlash against Western technology in the next couple of decades. Hong Kong shifting hands is old news now, and it occurs to me that other Slashdot readers must know more than I do about how things have been going there, from a technological perspective. Is Hong Kong transforming China, or is it the other way around? Was Stephenson his good ol' prescient self when he wrote this article, or have things taken unexpected turns? And how does that China-Linux announcement from a while back play into it?"

Agent Z5q writes "According to this article at Wired News, the names of the Carnivore review team have leaked. (Cryptome.org on the ball as always.) The team consists of members who have all either worked on large-scale government projects or currently hold active security clearances, including a top secret rating from the National Security Agency, a top secret rating from the Department of Defense and other ratings from the Treasury Department. Looks like the deck is just a bit stacked."

Agent Z5q writes "According to this article at Wired News, the names of the Carnivore review team have leaked. (Cryptome.org on the ball as always.) The team consists of members who have all either worked on large-scale government projects or currently hold active security clearances, including a top secret rating from the National Security Agency, a top secret rating from the Department of Defense and other ratings from the Treasury Department. Looks like the deck is just a bit stacked."

Lost Soul writes: "Wired has an article on a new law being proposed in the United States House of Representatives to immunize databases of songs a la mp3.com from copyright violations that are now plaguing the company and giving recording companies licensing fees they don't deserve. Please signal your support for this bill to your local representatives." It would protect databases that people could get access to if they had already purchased the CDs, as my.mp3.com was set up to do.

A reader writes: "Junkyard Wars is quite possibly the only thing on TV that is cooler than Battlebots (I loved the one where they build a hang-glider). Wired reports that TLC has taken registrations from potential teams, and is going to do another season."