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RMS to Move Into Bill Gates Building Today
In anonymous reader writes "RMS will be moving his office to the new William H. Gates building at MIT's Stata Center starting today. This marks the end of MIT's use of building NE43, which housed the LCS and AI labs (now combined into CSAIL).
On a strangely unrelated note, shortly after Harvard, in a laudable attempt to retain solidarity with the Open Source community, dedicated the Maxwell Dworkin building (named after Gates' and Ballmer's mothers respectively), Gates' credit card was hacked. After all, they did have his mother's maiden name... "
... is the 'w' in 'Dworkin' silent?
How does this attempt to retain solidarity with the OSS community? The entire post is one gigantic run-on sentence, so maybe I am not reading it correctly?
Typical - you fund a shiny new building but no sooner is it in use than some bearded hippy moves in and lowers the property values.
Hoarders may pay to fund new buildings,
that is true, hackers, that is true.
But they cannot choose their neighbours.
That's not good, hackers, that's not good.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I think the term about those kids that felt that they were doing the "right thing" that is most apt is "shoot the messenger." Some young kids uncover security holes that could lead into millions of fraud if not patched, and then tell the authorities, let's arrest the kids. Makes it less likely that some good samaritin will do the same in the future, leaving security holes open for those less ethical to actually steal the money!
What's next, arresting the kid that stuck his finger into the dike?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Harvard, in a laudable attempt to retain solidarity with the Open Source community, dedicated the Maxwell Dworkin building (named after Gates' and Ballmer's mothers respectively)
I'm sure I'm just missing something here, but how does naming a building after the mothers of the cofounders of Microsoft build solidiarity with the OSS community in the least?
May we never see th
-
There's MIT, Stanford... anywhere else that Billy has seen fit to leave his mark?
The DOJ in Washington, DC?"Abandon all hope ye who use Outlook Express"
You haven't been paying very careful attention to University naming practices, have you? Most universities will name a building whatever the donor who gives it to them says to name it. If Bill Gates wants a building name after himself, his mother, or his favorite pet goldfish from when he was six, any school in the country will oblige him as long as he's writing the check. Besides, you could easily argue that there's a certain pleasant irony in taking a big chunk of money from Mr. Gates and using it to build a facility where the researchers will be doing work that will benefit Free Software.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Gates' credit card was hacked ...
The hack -- by Curador -- took place in 2000.
See: PBS Interview with Curador.
-kgj
-kgj
Here's a guy who started a company from scratch,
From birth, William Gates III was a millionaire. (Trust fund from wealthy parents). The lowest net-worth he's ever experienced is greater than the highest an average American can ever expect.
What's sad is bill Gates has donated well over twenty billion dollars to charities, including his own and you all still bitch and moan and call him the great satan because he doesn't want you to see his source code. That's about 1/3 of his total net worth. In contrast, how much has our Vice President Dick Cheney donated to charity....a staggering 1%.
I'm posting AC because judging by your +4 insigtful score the mods are abusing their moderation points again and I don't feel like taking the karma hit.
I saw him pissing on the side of the Supreme Court Building in DC a few weeks back...
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I just can't imagine Bill Gates having a credit card. It seems so... ordinary. I always imagined that billionaires had payment methods beyond mere credit cards - like an assistant with a suitcase full of diamonds or something.
I have a window cube looking out in the direction of the building, and it never ceases to amaze me how ungodly ugly the building is.
And the worst part is my only other option is to look at my computer and do work, using this ungodly awful Windows system.
Unless I go fooz, I can't get away from looking at Gates' handiwork. Ugh
How stupid can you be? In the article, it says he stole the credit card numbers to prove how insecure things were. If that wasn't enough, he emailed the info to NBCi. Why do these people think that they're the "good guys" when they do this?
He is right though. The credit card system is ridiculously insecure, and we all pay for it in one way or another.
There's no reason someone I buy $20 worth of pizza from should have all the information necessary to charge an arbitrary amount of money to my credit card for the next few years.
The technology exists for us to all have keyring-sized computers which employ public-private key crypto. This would mean I would authorize a one-time trasfer of $20 to the pizza place, and in order for them to be able to charge me again, I would need to give them a totally new transaction key.
Why isn't the credit card system being replaced? Who knows.....but it's silly and stupid.
I should never have to give anyone my bank account or credit card number. These days, it should all be handled using transaction keys with authorize a specfic amount, in a certain direction, to a specfic account, on a certain date.
I'm not defending this guy, I just think the current credit card system it totally stupid from a security point of view.
Life is too short to proofread.
I work at Harvard and was talking to one of the deans about the Maxwell Dworkin building. He mentioned that they used the [assembly] code for DOS (they went into the archives from when Bill G was at H) as an abstract pattern for a wall mural. I asked him whether anyone had checked the code to see if there where any buffer overflow vulnerabilities. It could make the building susceptible to a worm attack. He didn't get it. Conversation ended abruptly.
How generous: give some money away AFTER you have ruthlessly and greedily made more than you could possibly actually use yourself.
I prefer Jesus' view of what constitutes generosity to yours.
4, Insightful? FFS. Using the CC numbers to buy yourself a small country might be vaguely similar, but if you think it's equivalent you're showing very little regard for the value of a human life.
Picking up a gun you saw/found on a fairground ride and waiving it around shouting "Look, gun!" would be a closer firearms analogy...
There are a few RMSes there, and on a news site an acronym should never be used without using the full form first.
Considering many of his 'donations' are Windows PC's and Microsoft software...
Gray says he is actually the good guy. He said "I just wanted to prove how insecure these sites are. I have done the honest thing, but I have been ignored."
That's like shooting someone just to prove how unsafe firearms are.
I disagree. Hacking is one thing, and I believe his statement is correct. However, using the information he obtained for illegal acts is just stupid. If he can hack a credit company he needs to apply for a job.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Cambridge:
t ml
p .php3?id=401
c hap-37.htm
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/UoCCL/intro/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/site-maps/gates.html
+ Washington:
http://www.law.washington.edu/GatesHall/
+ Stanford:
http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/keller/gates-map.h
+ Pennsilvania:
http://www.facilities.upenn.edu/mapsBldgs/view_ma
+ MIT:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V119/N20/20lcs.20n.html
+ RIBA:
http://www.riba.org/go/RIBA/About/About_162.html
+ Southern Indiana:
http://www.usi.edu/visit/map/housing.asp
+ Michigan:
http://www.admin.mtu.edu/admin/prov/facbook/ch9/9
= University Building Monopoly !!!!
Basically he quit but they never made him move out and he still has offices there. Among other places it is mentioned here.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
For christ's sakes, must absolutely _everything_ be turned into some anti-MS rant?! Someone gets Gate's CC info and people try to spin it into being MS's fault. This is totally and completely bullshit. There are tons of serious reasons to speak out against the Microsoft, when you go off on them by trying to spin something this idiotic all you do is make everyone else who has valid points look like idiots in relation.
Nobody cares about them being ruled a monopoly anymore becuase of the mindless drones going "Linux raa, Microsoft boo" in Orwelian duckspeak every time they open their mouths. I exclusively use a copy of GNU/Linux I built myself and even I find this crap to be aggrivating! You want to help the forces that are working against Microsoft? Shut up. Just shut. The. Fuck. Up. To say that it's Bill's fault that his CC numbers is stolen is on the same level as saying that a girl diserved to get raped for wearing a sexy dress. Asshole or not, he is the victim and not the perpetrator.
So goddamn tired of the Linux zealots that it makes me ashamed to know I am one.... sheesh...
Screw Anonymous Coward. Kill my karma. I don't give a fsck.
Hmmm... Clearly some testing is required.
Maybe if somebody could forward it, I could test it out by buying something that will prove that it is actually Gates' card.
I'm thinking that South Dakota should be adequate for this task.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Even their mothers have buildings named after them! This is insane.
That's because they can't name the buildings after their fathers. It wouldn't look good to name the building "UPS-Man and Pool-Boy Building."
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Don't get me wrong -- there's nothing wrong with taking grant money. Just because something isn't economically sustainable, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I just get very tired of the way the "Free Software" folk insist that they've transcended the evils of software "ownership". Which they've never actually done. Their bills are paid for by revenues from the very businesses they are too pure to work for.
So of course RMS now works in a building that was paid for by the license fees that Microsoft gouged out of hapless computer buyers. What could be more appropriate?
"Also I don't buy pizza with a credit card. Jesus man, don't you have an ATM near by."
Cash is a hassle; you have to keep track of how many slips of paper you have in your wallet. Credit card? It's always right there with me.
Plus, with my Discover and American Express, I get some tiny percentage back, so by buying that $20 pizza, I earn a few cents back.
Not having to deal with maintaining an inventory of cash _and_ a discount on everything I buy? That's a deal in my book.
Plus, as long as I pay my bill on time, it's free; I don't carry a balance, so I don't get charged interest.
AND, it builds good credit for me, so I'll have a better rating when I want to do something larger (i.e. buy a house)
So to recap:
1) Reuse a piece of plastic, rather than having to keep track of and replenish a supply of paper
2) Get money back. Sure, it's small, but $100 a year is better than $0.
3) It improves my credit rating.
Yeah, that makes me want to run to the ATM.
How do you know there was no damage? Can you not look beyond the murder part of what he said, and see that he was implying that you have no right to break a law to prove a point like this. And what point did he prove? No public system is unhackable. Just like any house can be broken into and any bank vault can be cracked. .45 caliber holes in your chest.
He had no right to do what he did. No right whatsoever. Come break into my house to prove how easy it is, don't steal anything, just break into my house and call my cell from my home phone, and I'll prove how happy I am you showed me my security hole by putting two
There isn't enough rope in the world to show hackers how much we love them
For instance I had to put up an anonymous FTP for one day. It is dumb I know, but the user needed to upload something from home, didn't know their home IP off hand and didn't understand log ons and that stuff from the FTP end. SO I did it, I allowed anonymous upload to my FTP, and guess what i got, undeletable folders in my ftp folder, so that some guy could use me as a mirror for files on his warez site.
your right they showed me the error of my ways, but truth is I knew the error, I just hoped no one would be such a jerk as to have no respect for other peoples property. Hackers are vandals, I can piss in your mailbox, throw shit at your door, there are lots of things I can do, and probably not get caught to prove I can do them, but I don't, because I don't want to screw with other peoples shit. I have respect for other peoples property.
Hackers probably read their sisters Diaries and say she shouldn't have left it somewhere where I could find it.
It's oppurtunism at it's worst, and they make me sick.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
It would be nice if slashdot didn't partake in the sensationalisim that tends to pervade the media. The reason I say this is is that the summary reads "Gates' credit card was hacked. After all, they did have his mother's maiden name... "
If the moderators had read the article, they would have noted that Gates card number was not USED for anything, but that some stupid kid had it in his posession. And it's linked to a list of names stolen sometime in the past. As a result the kid was picked up by the FBI. Nothing actually happened concerning gates card.
Bah.
Um, no, I bitch because he's committed the rest of his vast resources to destroying my livelihood (as a software developer).
Incidentally, are you seriously trying to make him look good by comparing him to Dick Cheney? There's a popularity contest that's hard to lose.
sic transit gloria mundi
This may sound corny, but I'm of the opinion that somebody who donates 10% of their meager substainance is far more generous than somebody that gives away 90% of his luxury, leaving him with, well, luxury.
It's nice that Gates is giving away money -- even if it was obtained dishonestly/unethically/illegally. However, to applaud his gifts is a bit silly methinks. The money he gives has little value to him, in the sense that it cannot be used to greatly improve his quality of life. Therefore, his gifts have cost him little.
So, from my perspective: he gives away plenty of money, but isn't at all generous with it.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I'm the same as you. I *didn't* start from scratch.
I had upper-middle class parents, a Mom who didn't work outside the home and who always had time for homework. I had a decent public school to go to, then an even better private one, followed by a college paid for by my folks. (Public, so I didn't need loans.)
Compare that to someone growing up in a single parent home, with that parent holding two jobs to pay the rent on a crappy apartment in a war zone. The nearby schools graduate kids who can barely read and have no college prep classes. College is funded totally by loans because they've got to work 40+ hours a week to live while going to school. After college, they've got a pile of debt to pay off-get a job now, no matter how bad. Failure doesn't mean that you go back and live with Daddy while you sort out your options, failure means going on welfare or being homeless.
You are I are blessed far beyond what you think. We've got the education, we've got the parents to bail us out if we get into serious trouble, we don't have to worry about Mom losing one of her two dead-end jobs and getting tossed out of her apartment. Gates was even more so- he *never* had to worry about money, even if MS tanked. He was a millionaire to start.
In grad school, I had a long discussion with my (black) roommate asking why there were huge numbers of blacks in med, law and engineering schools and less than 1% in my chemistry department. His answer: when you're the first kid to get this far, money matters. Money matters a *lot*- you're going to have to pay back a fortune. (And he commented that he needed to be able to give back to others as well- someone's got to help pull the other smart but forgotten kids out of the hole.) Chemistry is great for middle class white kids who can afford to not think about the bottom line.
From what you say, you've *never* had to really think about the bottom line. Neither have I. We're lucky.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Query: does the Bill Gates Building have....Windows?
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
As someone else has pointed out, the Stata center (which is the new building complex housing CSAIL) contains both the Gates tower and the Dreyfoos tower. However, the poster incorrecly stated that RMS will be in the Dreyfoos tower. In fact he is in the space between the two towers - known as the "warehouse" space (for reasons which escape me).
:-)
Office location in the Stata Center can be identified by letters attached to the office number. Stallman's office is 32-381, here:
http://www.csail.mit.edu/resources/maps/3/381.gif
(I'm right across the hall, in 32-386.) A Gates office would be, e.g., 32-G585. A Dreyfoos office would be, e.g., 32-D585. Yes, as someone else pointed out, we have a holodeck.
Most of us are hoping / assuming that, like almost all other buildings at MIT, the new building(s) will be referred to by number, not by name.
IMHO MIT missed a great opportunity to influence the world for the better by publicly snubbing Gates' offer to fund (a small part of) the new building. But, I'm told, that's just not the way things work...