What you suggest is unreasonable and probably illegal. WEP is broken to a few minutes, and you can't demand users trash WEP only equipment.
I'm all for authenticated wireless but it is nearly impossible to implement on a scale like this unless we use verisign certificates and a public auth server that is free. Most APs can't do it anyway at the moment, and neither can many consumer devices, most can't even do WPA. Linksys has a for-pay auth setup they provide but this is nowhere near being universally compatible.
I would argue it is not the consumers problem anyway and most consumers barely understand how Wi-Fi works, much less an integrated 802.1x wireless authentication system using public servers. Not only will it fail to accomplish its goals, going after individual users does not help the situation in any way.
I have no idea if MS would actually do this in the US, but if they did we would see Trusted Computing on all of them to an extreme.
A major part of current Vista sales are for older machines (and even new ones), that lack the required hardware for Trusted Computing style security, if they had required this hardware to run Vista it would have sold far less than it has.
Richard Stallman will start using Vista cause it looks kewl
Apple will go back to PowerPC cause of all the people stealing MacOS (see: kext)
George Bush will physically launch himself at the evildoers in a selfless act of courage
Microsoft will sue everyone, everywhere, for everything. Its all MS property Bitches.
Ok that last one shouldn't be filed away yet nevermind carry on your safe for now
After reading this thread its amazing to me how many Slashdot readers don't know how microcode works, making broad statements about how patching a processor is impossible without an EEPROM burner, or using a DOS boot disk.
Unless Intel has an update mechanism I'm not aware of, this is a Microcode update, and this is how they are always released.
And for what its worth it doesn't patch anything, it loads into the processor at boot. Delete the microcode file or remove the OS and the processor will be just as you bought it.
Just be glad they were smart enough to use such a system where the processor can be updated while running and temporarily, allowing you to revert back to its purchased state.
I see no advantage to having this many Linux systems at once, I do see plenty of problems.
So rather than fix the real problem (too many possible configurations in production use), you would have me use a test box which is currently being used to test things.... it isn't a stable build environment, nor does it perfectly match the running server, that's why its a test box and not a hot spare. So in addition to having a test server which i use all the time, i should keep a perfect copy of the production server just to compile stuff....why should I do that? To make up for the fact that the Linux environment is fragmented beyond belief?
VMwares installer isn't a packaging system, it compiles and installs these things, it doesn't put them in a nice package to move around.
"If someone in Ubuntu finds a bug in gcc, all of the distributions will benefit from it (heck even BSD)."
I wish I could say code made it back upstream and to others quickly and reliably but I doubt it, even if it does its an extra step for little gain. You also have 6+ companies doing the same work at the same time. It's all bit of a waste.
RHEL and Suse are the exception, everything else is forked to infinity.
Heres an example, I have a production server I need to run VMware server on, if my running kernel doesn't exactly match one of the 50+ modules VMware was nice enough to compile and include (wasting their time), I have to keep a build toolchain on a production server just to install the kernel module. That is not acceptable.
We don't need forks of everything just to change one small part of the system, we don't need 2 package formats, we don't even need 2 desktops (gnome is at best a thin client right now).
It has already hurt the Linux environment and anyone using Linux.
h264 and the newer wmv9 are both pretty good, its flash that has always been crap, but even then its because of the bitrate.
When you don't have much bandwidth it makes sense to compress things as far as possible and make use of excess processing at the end point, such as h264.
They already allow all unpaid copies of Windows to grab critical updates but I don't think thats enough.
The cost to Microsoft for updating unpaid copies of Windows is far less than the cost to the network and everyone else. We will end up with even more exploited boxes ready to attack US government systems and businesses with mission critical apps.
I have a feeling this little set of questions is a hypothetical, most of the questions are ridiculous.
You don't have to switch to FreeBSD just because you want to avoid the GPL. The various BSD and GPL libraries can be used anywhere you want to use them all you have to do is satisfy the license. Alternative? Write one/Buy one.
Also, whenever stuff comes up even remotely related to BSD licensing, there seem to be a lot of people getting into a fanboi fit trying to convert developers away from the GPL because it restricts developers rights (free software is about users not developers). I think it's because people are so fond of FreeBSD they feel they have to defend the BSD license at every turn. You can love FreeBSD and not be a rabid BSD license weasel at every turn.
I would hope that the 600$ for this phone would mean well made hardware, but i don't know that this is true.
People who spend $600 for a phone right now want Exchange, others who will buy it are geeks and early adopters. The rest of the people get free crap phones and don't really care, most of them have no interest in looking at google maps while in a restaurant because most of them can barely use the start button in Windows. I say that because, like the iPod, if the iPhone is successful most of the customers will be using Windows, not Macs.
Thats partially true, but what i see right now is Microsoft making deals with vendors who supply the most usable finished Linux desktops available.
And i have a feeling Microsoft feels threatened by OpenSuSE and Xandros more than Debian or Ubuntu for a reason, namely that the first 2 are much more usable out of the box and in many cases come with custom software the others dont, such as Xandros which comes with Codeweavers in the pro version. They seem to be poisoning the Linux systems that are easy for Windows users to transition to, probably to make converting to Linux as hard as possible.
The ability of a court to subpoena encryption keys is severely problematic, most secure authentication and encryption systems don't use a static key for actual messages, and in fact that would be very stupid. This is true of SSL, IPsec, and numerous other systems. In addition, none of these systems give the user any means to control, copy or possess the session keys used, such that there is no way for someone to hand them over regardless of court order.
In particular if someone is using OTR for instant messaging, all they have is a key pair to be used for authentication and session key generation, they don't actually have each session key and indeed that session key disappears when the conversation is closed, being present only in memory. You can give up your private key because it does no good and wont decrypt any prior messages sent.
I fully expect some senator to introduce a law requiring software to retain these session keys, and that senator will be immediately ridiculed by everyone, but that doesn't mean such a law would not pass, which is the real problem. This session key security is what gives encryption systems the ability to authenticate and ensure security. This is going to turn into a situation where your encrypted data is only secure against everyone BUT the government.
If most of the posters had looked at the site, they claim that the new version of iTunes attempts to prevent iPods from loading songs that have been burned and then ripped again. If thats true, its just another example of Apple serving their own interests now that they want to be part of the non-drm game.
First of all, Steve Ballmer needs to shut the fuck up. There that felt better. In addition, I would remind everyone that Microsoft got where it is today by profiting from cloned versions of IBMs "BIOS".
Regardless of what Microsoft's escaped zoo animals say, it has absolutely no interest in interoperability, their interest is to remain the only desktop and server software vendor, and NOTHING else.
I would also suggest that open source developers don't actually need Microsoft's help or money, but if Microsoft wants to help they can grant patent rights to implementations of NTFS or SMB, including modifications and all future users of those modifications. Those are valid patents I'm sure, the rest is invalid, you can't patent universal ideas.
Slashdot Mirror
NO you must not say that
plz sign up for Linux re-education class k thx bye
With Apples iMac, the screen IS the computer.
Perhaps you should have thought of that before posting.
I would include researching things that were previously secret and held from the public as "new ground".
I'm not one to give out second chances much.
RIAA and MPAA have used at least 50 by now.
Let's also not forget the "Open" standard of ACPI that was intentionally complicated to ensure Microsoft had an edge.
I would rather support one each of OS X, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD, than one of Windows.
What you suggest is unreasonable and probably illegal. WEP is broken to a few minutes, and you can't demand users trash WEP only equipment.
I'm all for authenticated wireless but it is nearly impossible to implement on a scale like this unless we use verisign certificates and a public auth server that is free. Most APs can't do it anyway at the moment, and neither can many consumer devices, most can't even do WPA. Linksys has a for-pay auth setup they provide but this is nowhere near being universally compatible.
I would argue it is not the consumers problem anyway and most consumers barely understand how Wi-Fi works, much less an integrated 802.1x wireless authentication system using public servers. Not only will it fail to accomplish its goals, going after individual users does not help the situation in any way.
I have no idea if MS would actually do this in the US, but if they did we would see Trusted Computing on all of them to an extreme.
A major part of current Vista sales are for older machines (and even new ones), that lack the required hardware for Trusted Computing style security, if they had required this hardware to run Vista it would have sold far less than it has.
Things necessary for the world to implode:
Richard Stallman will start using Vista cause it looks kewl
Apple will go back to PowerPC cause of all the people stealing MacOS (see: kext)
George Bush will physically launch himself at the evildoers in a selfless act of courage
Microsoft will sue everyone, everywhere, for everything. Its all MS property Bitches.
Ok that last one shouldn't be filed away yet nevermind carry on your safe for now
I agree, a "-1 incorrect" mod is required at this point.
After reading this thread its amazing to me how many Slashdot readers don't know how microcode works, making broad statements about how patching a processor is impossible without an EEPROM burner, or using a DOS boot disk.
Unless Intel has an update mechanism I'm not aware of, this is a Microcode update, and this is how they are always released.
And for what its worth it doesn't patch anything, it loads into the processor at boot. Delete the microcode file or remove the OS and the processor will be just as you bought it.
Just be glad they were smart enough to use such a system where the processor can be updated while running and temporarily, allowing you to revert back to its purchased state.
I see no advantage to having this many Linux systems at once, I do see plenty of problems.
So rather than fix the real problem (too many possible configurations in production use), you would have me use a test box which is currently being used to test things.... it isn't a stable build environment, nor does it perfectly match the running server, that's why its a test box and not a hot spare. So in addition to having a test server which i use all the time, i should keep a perfect copy of the production server just to compile stuff....why should I do that? To make up for the fact that the Linux environment is fragmented beyond belief?
VMwares installer isn't a packaging system, it compiles and installs these things, it doesn't put them in a nice package to move around.
"If someone in Ubuntu finds a bug in gcc, all of the distributions will benefit from it (heck even BSD)."
I wish I could say code made it back upstream and to others quickly and reliably but I doubt it, even if it does its an extra step for little gain. You also have 6+ companies doing the same work at the same time. It's all bit of a waste.
RHEL and Suse are the exception, everything else is forked to infinity.
Heres an example, I have a production server I need to run VMware server on, if my running kernel doesn't exactly match one of the 50+ modules VMware was nice enough to compile and include (wasting their time), I have to keep a build toolchain on a production server just to install the kernel module. That is not acceptable.
We don't need forks of everything just to change one small part of the system, we don't need 2 package formats, we don't even need 2 desktops (gnome is at best a thin client right now).
It has already hurt the Linux environment and anyone using Linux.
h264 and the newer wmv9 are both pretty good, its flash that has always been crap, but even then its because of the bitrate.
When you don't have much bandwidth it makes sense to compress things as far as possible and make use of excess processing at the end point, such as h264.
Google and Microsoft would probably be ready and standing by with software to selectively filter out those pictures.
They will get far, far more technical with this censorship before they give up (if they give up that is).
They already allow all unpaid copies of Windows to grab critical updates but I don't think thats enough.
The cost to Microsoft for updating unpaid copies of Windows is far less than the cost to the network and everyone else. We will end up with even more exploited boxes ready to attack US government systems and businesses with mission critical apps.
I have a feeling this little set of questions is a hypothetical, most of the questions are ridiculous.
You don't have to switch to FreeBSD just because you want to avoid the GPL. The various BSD and GPL libraries can be used anywhere you want to use them all you have to do is satisfy the license. Alternative? Write one/Buy one.
Also, whenever stuff comes up even remotely related to BSD licensing, there seem to be a lot of people getting into a fanboi fit trying to convert developers away from the GPL because it restricts developers rights (free software is about users not developers). I think it's because people are so fond of FreeBSD they feel they have to defend the BSD license at every turn. You can love FreeBSD and not be a rabid BSD license weasel at every turn.
I would hope that the 600$ for this phone would mean well made hardware, but i don't know that this is true.
People who spend $600 for a phone right now want Exchange, others who will buy it are geeks and early adopters. The rest of the people get free crap phones and don't really care, most of them have no interest in looking at google maps while in a restaurant because most of them can barely use the start button in Windows. I say that because, like the iPod, if the iPhone is successful most of the customers will be using Windows, not Macs.
Thats partially true, but what i see right now is Microsoft making deals with vendors who supply the most usable finished Linux desktops available.
And i have a feeling Microsoft feels threatened by OpenSuSE and Xandros more than Debian or Ubuntu for a reason, namely that the first 2 are much more usable out of the box and in many cases come with custom software the others dont, such as Xandros which comes with Codeweavers in the pro version. They seem to be poisoning the Linux systems that are easy for Windows users to transition to, probably to make converting to Linux as hard as possible.
The ability of a court to subpoena encryption keys is severely problematic, most secure authentication and encryption systems don't use a static key for actual messages, and in fact that would be very stupid. This is true of SSL, IPsec, and numerous other systems. In addition, none of these systems give the user any means to control, copy or possess the session keys used, such that there is no way for someone to hand them over regardless of court order.
In particular if someone is using OTR for instant messaging, all they have is a key pair to be used for authentication and session key generation, they don't actually have each session key and indeed that session key disappears when the conversation is closed, being present only in memory. You can give up your private key because it does no good and wont decrypt any prior messages sent.
I fully expect some senator to introduce a law requiring software to retain these session keys, and that senator will be immediately ridiculed by everyone, but that doesn't mean such a law would not pass, which is the real problem. This session key security is what gives encryption systems the ability to authenticate and ensure security. This is going to turn into a situation where your encrypted data is only secure against everyone BUT the government.
Inability to drop in commodity hardware remains one of the biggest reasons Apple will not gain as many converts as people think.
As much as Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on software, Apple has a literal monopoly on nearly everything that touches their machines.
If most of the posters had looked at the site, they claim that the new version of iTunes attempts to prevent iPods from loading songs that have been burned and then ripped again. If thats true, its just another example of Apple serving their own interests now that they want to be part of the non-drm game.
I would support Apple using personalized watermarking, but if they don't do that I don't see the point of tagging files with user info.
First of all, Steve Ballmer needs to shut the fuck up. There that felt better. In addition, I would remind everyone that Microsoft got where it is today by profiting from cloned versions of IBMs "BIOS".
Regardless of what Microsoft's escaped zoo animals say, it has absolutely no interest in interoperability, their interest is to remain the only desktop and server software vendor, and NOTHING else.
I would also suggest that open source developers don't actually need Microsoft's help or money, but if Microsoft wants to help they can grant patent rights to implementations of NTFS or SMB, including modifications and all future users of those modifications. Those are valid patents I'm sure, the rest is invalid, you can't patent universal ideas.