Re:Backdoor challenge for you hackers...
on
NSA Linux In Depth
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· Score: 1
Infect the compiler with a little reproducing bit of code that inserts itself into all code compiled with NSA Linux's copy of GCC. Compile a new version of GCC? Not to worry - you compile it with your current GCC and the new version is infected, too.
Or...
Put a "mostly harmless" virus into some of the base system apps and the kernel so that there's always something running as root that's infected and can make sure everything else infected.
Then this nice little guy in the binaries but not in the source will call home to No Such Agency every once in awhile.
Just a couple thoughts. Mind you, they might put the sneaky little present in the source, but we'd be able to find that by diff'ing their sources to ours. If there's lots of little changes, they might be able to sneak something past us.
I'm really not as paranoid as I sound, just kicking around ideas.
"Libraries and second hand shops do not infringe on copyright."
Hrmm... maybe from the perspective of the middleman it is different, but not from the perspectives of the publishers, authors, or readers. I get to read a book for free I would have otherwise not been able to. The author doesn't get compensated for quit a lot of reading of his works. The publishers don't get any money for the repeated distribution of their (or their author's) intellectual property. As if that's not enough, many libraries have copiers availiable for anyone to use, temptingly right beside all those books. That's contributary infringement of copyright right there.
"you're saying you do not want to get paid for your work."
I do not want paid for my already-completed works. I expect to be paid for doing work for someone else. Huge, huge difference.
We were talking about intellectual works - why the sudden change of subject?
Presumably, you earn money from your work, and so do I. Trading hours for dollars is not what I object to. Treating copies of information/art as property is not what I object to. Treating information/art itself as property is what I object to.
"...are losing their income thanks to piracy. And it's often the people who like science fiction the most who are doing the most damage to "their" authors."
Are you telling me that for 15 years of reading SF in public libraries I was hurting my favorite authors? Despite the fact that I now pay for any of their books any chance I get? I do not believe you.
You and he will have to shut down used book stores and music trading joints, as well as public libraries. I don't know, maybe the pirates are wrong, but I know for sure that Ellison is wrong.
"That he has a right to be paid for his unique genius goes without saying."
It doesn't go without saying. Maybe he has a right to *be paid* for his unique genius, but he does not have the right to *force me to pay* for the pleasure of reading his books. I don't have to be a pirate to read his works without paying him one penny. I just need a library card, or maybe I'll drop by a used book sale.
> At what point did everyone start to believe "as long as I've got one legal copy, I can make as many copies of as many damn times as I want, in any format I want?"
Fair use - time/space shifting. This part, at least, the US courts have upheld as legal.
"how would _you_ feel if someone copied your work just before you handed it in to the client and got the cash instead of you."
I fail to see the parallel. Harlan Ellison is not losing money, nor is anyone else taking credit for his works, or selling his manuscripts to publishers. What is happening is books that he wrote are being copied without his permission. No more, no less.
And to answer the question I think you meant to ask: Personally, my work would be Free for anyone to copy, read, translate, or sell. I would be flattered that they thought I was worth the attention.
"But it's his property, and he can do with it what he wants."
It is his property? Anarchists, for one, don't think so. Neither do some Libertarians. Should authors have the right to dictate what happens to their works?
Until this question is settled, we're talking past each other. A lot of people in this argument are making different assumptions, so they are making no sense to each other.
"For instance, the Queen probabally isn't really as crucial as she lets on."
Aye, she's probably the borg's version of a sound card.
Ah, well... when the Borg first appeared, I loved that thrill of fear from seeing a dark, mysterious, invincible enemy. When they wiped out a large fraction of starfleet at Wolf 359, I was awed. Yeah, the "go to sleep" solution was a bit of a letdown, I expected something more desperate, more costly to our heros. But after First Contact and Voyager, I don't fear the Borg anymore. They are boring to me. That's why I'm a little bitter about the whole mess. They took what could have been a great villian, and made them weak and silly. When I see the Borg I want to be scared.
Doesn't anyone know how to write good, scary sf villians anymore? Dukat was good before he went nuts. Kai Winn was rather chilling, for a time. G'Kar was very good, imho. Khan was wonderful. Morden was good, but Bester was great.
Darmok
The Inner Light
The Dyson Sphere
Contagion
The Best of Both Worlds
Q Who?
many more, IMHO
I loved TNG, personally. DS9, too, but in a completely different way. DS9 was more B5ish, and more realistic, and I loved the ep where Eddington joined the Maquis, esp his rant to Sisko at the end.
Can someone please tell me what is a queen worth in a distributed network of drones? The Borg would never have just one of anything important. And how could Picard have just forgotten about her? That's just an excuse for not having mentioned her before, because Paramount wanted an actual, visible villain. As for task management and command decisions, that would be made shipwide, or what's the use of having a network of linked minds in the first place?
As for Picard's destruction of the Cube, that was far too easy. The Borg would never build their ships with a huge weakness like that - they don't have control centers, and their fuel must be distributed shipwide in many small tanks, each one shielded from all the others to prevent chain reaction. We saw in Q Who the Enterprise-D vaporize 20% of a Cube with no chain reaction.
And how come Starfleet weapons are suddenly so effective against the Borg? Shouldn't the Borg be adapting after the first 3 hits or so? We saw quantum torpedos do damage several times - the Borg should have adapted in minutes like they always did before.
As for Voyager, Seven of Nine makes me feel like a statistic. An oversexed male in his twenties who doesn't care about plot or writing or continuity as long as the blondes are buxom. She insults me.
"if ip doesnt exsist then what do you listen to? what do you read? what do you look at? what does your computer run? without ip the world would be a boring place, and advances in science in technology would have stopped at the blunt object used to kill dinner."
I don't think it's possible for us to understand each other.
"what it comes down to is this. the laws are screwed up. they need to be changed."
FWIW, I agree with you about that. I believe all "IP" should be in the public domain. That is, after all, the original purpose of copyright and patent law in the US: to make sure more art and science reached the public domain. It's not to reward artists and inventors, though that's an admirable goal. There are other ways to reward artists and inventors. Sacrificing the freedoms of the mass public for the benefit of intellectual "property" holders is abuse, even if the mass public agrees to it.
For there to be theft, there would have to be some kind of property being stolen. No property is being stolen.
Allow me to quote TheCarp:
I call it a monopoly because the people who originally instituted it called it a monopoly. That is what copyright is!
Need I remind you that IP doesn't exist? Not in any legal sense. It really doesn't. What we are talking about is copyright.
Copyright, by its very definition, is a "limited monopoly" given to the creator of a work. It is given NOT because the author owns the work, or has some "god given right" to it, but to encourage people to produce art and other socially useful things. It is social contract by the people, with the authors saying "We will cede our rights to copy your works to you for a limited time".
---
Their legal monopolyright is being violated, but nothing is being stolen from them. They claim they are losing "potential revenue." That's a sick laugh. Potential revenue cannot be stolen because *it isn't theirs yet.*
The members of the MPAA lost potential revenue from me when I decided they were all scumbags and I would not support them. I will not support the MPAA members in any way, shape, or form. Have I stolen anything from them? Hardly. I'm merely withholding money that I otherwise would have given them. Huge difference.
Btw, their legal monopolyright, some of us would argue, has no basis in right. Since most people in the US decide to grant monopolyright to "artists" and "inventors", it is the people's will that monopolyright be respected. If it becomes the will of the people that monopolyright not be respected, it will not be, whether that disrespect comes in the form of civil disobediance like Napster, creating art for the public domain like free software, or a constitutional amendment repealing copyright and patent law.
Copyright violation is not theft. It is not theft of potential revenue, since I'm never giving money to Microsoft, the RIAA, or the MPAA. It is not theft of data, because their copies still exist.
Copyright violation is *not* theft. Ever heard a lawyer call the two the same? There's a reason why not: by current law, copyright violation is illegal, but it is not theft.
Proprietary, copyrighted data is more innovative and creative than free data? Hardly. The only case in software where this could be true is in games, and I could think of some good free games, too. For example, take a look at AisleRiot: 34 different kinds of solitaire. Freeciv is a wonderful civ for me, maybe you don't like it but I love it. These games are fairly new, and I expect to see a lot more good, free games. XPilot, for example.
The reason I don't respect proprietary, copyrighted software is because I've seen how much better free can be. Unless I see a good reason not to, I'll generalize this over to music. Now Microsoft becomes the RIAA, and neither get one whit of respect from me.
I love, admire, and respect creativity and innovation. However, Microsoft and the RIAA have *nothing* to do with either of those.
There are a few valid arguments that the Fundamentalists/Literalists bring up, like "Is there really no argon existing in molten rock when it solidifies?" and "Do carbon and nitrogen leach out of organic matter in the presence of water?" and "How long has the Moon been in orbit, given the fact that tidal forces are pushing it away?"
However, they ask these questions, then they assume their 4004 BC Creation is the answer, and start preaching.
Ick. Those are scientific questions, and they should be asked and answered in a scientific way. It's a pity the creationists misuse anything they find to help them push their version of christianity.
Aye, sir. I hate to write a "Me, too" message, but I don't have any moderator points, and I want you to know that you're not the only one who's made that choice.
"but unlike, say Euclidian Geometry, there's no way to prove that evolution theory is correct."
1. To draw a straight line from any point to any other.
2. To produce a finite straight line continuously in a straight line.
3. To describe a circle with any centre and distance.
4. That all right angles are equal to each other.
5. That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.
Euclid decided to accept these postulates on faith, and proved all of plane geometery with them. However, he never proved his assumptions, and we now know of other kinds of geometery.
You can't prove everything, and to prove anything, you've got to start by assuming something. Don't tell me science can prove evolution - science can only disprove scientific theories. Creationism is not a scientific theory because it cannot be disproved.
"Neither does Bill Gates. If I chose to distribute my software under the GPL, then he can either abide by its terms or keep his filthy mitts off of it."
Bill Gates will do whatever he feels like. If your code is worth plagarizing, he will plagarize. What will you do, sue him? He's been there, done that.
Aye. Putting a restrictive license on a program only keeps honest people from breaking it. My question is, why not just release it into the public domain, or use the BSD license? Microsoft will plagarize whatever it wants to, regardless.
You're right, Redhat isn't using a great business model. However, it's working for them for now, and I wish them well. But even if Redhat were to close tomorrow, Linux, Open Source, GNU, and Free software would continue.
As for cost of creation vs cost of duplication, free software can pay for itself very quickly if you handle it right. There are people who get paid by corporations to write GPL'd software. That takes care of cost of creation, and cost of duplication is practically zero already. Yes, it costs time and money to create original content, but as long as there are people willing to donate, everyone can benefit greatly. And there *are* people willing to donate their time and money to free software, and I believe there will always be. Cost of duplication approaches zero. Cost of creation is so distributed, it approaches zero, too.
Slashdot Mirror
Infect the compiler with a little reproducing bit of code that inserts itself into all code compiled with NSA Linux's copy of GCC. Compile a new version of GCC? Not to worry - you compile it with your current GCC and the new version is infected, too.
Or...
Put a "mostly harmless" virus into some of the base system apps and the kernel so that there's always something running as root that's infected and can make sure everything else infected.
Then this nice little guy in the binaries but not in the source will call home to No Such Agency every once in awhile.
Just a couple thoughts. Mind you, they might put the sneaky little present in the source, but we'd be able to find that by diff'ing their sources to ours. If there's lots of little changes, they might be able to sneak something past us.
I'm really not as paranoid as I sound, just kicking around ideas.
No need to stoop to insults. :)
"Libraries and second hand shops do not infringe on copyright."
Hrmm... maybe from the perspective of the middleman it is different, but not from the perspectives of the publishers, authors, or readers. I get to read a book for free I would have otherwise not been able to. The author doesn't get compensated for quit a lot of reading of his works. The publishers don't get any money for the repeated distribution of their (or their author's) intellectual property. As if that's not enough, many libraries have copiers availiable for anyone to use, temptingly right beside all those books. That's contributary infringement of copyright right there.
"you're saying you do not want to get paid for your work."
I do not want paid for my already-completed works. I expect to be paid for doing work for someone else. Huge, huge difference.
We were talking about intellectual works - why the sudden change of subject?
Presumably, you earn money from your work, and so do I. Trading hours for dollars is not what I object to. Treating copies of information/art as property is not what I object to. Treating information/art itself as property is what I object to.
"...are losing their income thanks to piracy. And it's often the people who like science fiction the most who are doing the most damage to "their" authors."
Are you telling me that for 15 years of reading SF in public libraries I was hurting my favorite authors? Despite the fact that I now pay for any of their books any chance I get? I do not believe you.
"I am a SF reader and you can be damn sure I'll NEVER buy anything from you again "
And I'll second that. Not one cent of mine will go to Harlan Ellison.
"I happen to think he has a valid point,"
You and he will have to shut down used book stores and music trading joints, as well as public libraries. I don't know, maybe the pirates are wrong, but I know for sure that Ellison is wrong.
"That he has a right to be paid for his unique genius goes without saying."
It doesn't go without saying. Maybe he has a right to *be paid* for his unique genius, but he does not have the right to *force me to pay* for the pleasure of reading his books. I don't have to be a pirate to read his works without paying him one penny. I just need a library card, or maybe I'll drop by a used book sale.
I'd mod you up if I could. :)
> At what point did everyone start to believe "as long as I've got one legal copy, I can make as many copies of as many damn times as I want, in any format I want?"
Fair use - time/space shifting. This part, at least, the US courts have upheld as legal.
"how would _you_ feel if someone copied your work just before you handed it in to the client and got the cash instead of you."
I fail to see the parallel. Harlan Ellison is not losing money, nor is anyone else taking credit for his works, or selling his manuscripts to publishers. What is happening is books that he wrote are being copied without his permission. No more, no less.
And to answer the question I think you meant to ask: Personally, my work would be Free for anyone to copy, read, translate, or sell. I would be flattered that they thought I was worth the attention.
"But it's his property, and he can do with it what he wants."
It is his property? Anarchists, for one, don't think so. Neither do some Libertarians. Should authors have the right to dictate what happens to their works?
Until this question is settled, we're talking past each other. A lot of people in this argument are making different assumptions, so they are making no sense to each other.
"For instance, the Queen probabally isn't really as crucial as she lets on."
Aye, she's probably the borg's version of a sound card.
Ah, well... when the Borg first appeared, I loved that thrill of fear from seeing a dark, mysterious, invincible enemy. When they wiped out a large fraction of starfleet at Wolf 359, I was awed. Yeah, the "go to sleep" solution was a bit of a letdown, I expected something more desperate, more costly to our heros. But after First Contact and Voyager, I don't fear the Borg anymore. They are boring to me. That's why I'm a little bitter about the whole mess. They took what could have been a great villian, and made them weak and silly. When I see the Borg I want to be scared.
Doesn't anyone know how to write good, scary sf villians anymore? Dukat was good before he went nuts. Kai Winn was rather chilling, for a time. G'Kar was very good, imho. Khan was wonderful. Morden was good, but Bester was great.
Darmok
The Inner Light
The Dyson Sphere
Contagion
The Best of Both Worlds
Q Who?
many more, IMHO
I loved TNG, personally. DS9, too, but in a completely different way. DS9 was more B5ish, and more realistic, and I loved the ep where Eddington joined the Maquis, esp his rant to Sisko at the end.
Actually, I didn't like First Contact, either. :)
:)
Can someone please tell me what is a queen worth in a distributed network of drones? The Borg would never have just one of anything important. And how could Picard have just forgotten about her? That's just an excuse for not having mentioned her before, because Paramount wanted an actual, visible villain. As for task management and command decisions, that would be made shipwide, or what's the use of having a network of linked minds in the first place?
As for Picard's destruction of the Cube, that was far too easy. The Borg would never build their ships with a huge weakness like that - they don't have control centers, and their fuel must be distributed shipwide in many small tanks, each one shielded from all the others to prevent chain reaction. We saw in Q Who the Enterprise-D vaporize 20% of a Cube with no chain reaction.
And how come Starfleet weapons are suddenly so effective against the Borg? Shouldn't the Borg be adapting after the first 3 hits or so? We saw quantum torpedos do damage several times - the Borg should have adapted in minutes like they always did before.
As for Voyager, Seven of Nine makes me feel like a statistic. An oversexed male in his twenties who doesn't care about plot or writing or continuity as long as the blondes are buxom. She insults me.
Now DS9, I loved.
The theory of evolution tells us why our antibiotics are failing, and where new strains of diseases come from.
"if ip doesnt exsist then what do you listen to? what do you read? what do you look at? what does your computer run? without ip the world would be a boring place, and advances in science in technology would have stopped at the blunt object used to kill dinner."
I don't think it's possible for us to understand each other.
"what it comes down to is this. the laws are screwed up. they need to be changed."
FWIW, I agree with you about that. I believe all "IP" should be in the public domain. That is, after all, the original purpose of copyright and patent law in the US: to make sure more art and science reached the public domain. It's not to reward artists and inventors, though that's an admirable goal. There are other ways to reward artists and inventors. Sacrificing the freedoms of the mass public for the benefit of intellectual "property" holders is abuse, even if the mass public agrees to it.
For there to be theft, there would have to be some kind of property being stolen. No property is being stolen.
Allow me to quote TheCarp:
I call it a monopoly because the people who originally instituted it called it a monopoly. That is what copyright is!
Need I remind you that IP doesn't exist? Not in any legal sense. It really doesn't. What we are talking about is copyright.
Copyright, by its very definition, is a "limited monopoly" given to the creator of a work. It is given NOT because the author owns the work, or has some "god given right" to it, but to encourage people to produce art and other socially useful things. It is social contract by the people, with the authors saying "We will cede our rights to copy your works to you for a limited time".
---
Their legal monopolyright is being violated, but nothing is being stolen from them. They claim they are losing "potential revenue." That's a sick laugh. Potential revenue cannot be stolen because *it isn't theirs yet.*
The members of the MPAA lost potential revenue from me when I decided they were all scumbags and I would not support them. I will not support the MPAA members in any way, shape, or form. Have I stolen anything from them? Hardly. I'm merely withholding money that I otherwise would have given them. Huge difference.
Btw, their legal monopolyright, some of us would argue, has no basis in right. Since most people in the US decide to grant monopolyright to "artists" and "inventors", it is the people's will that monopolyright be respected. If it becomes the will of the people that monopolyright not be respected, it will not be, whether that disrespect comes in the form of civil disobediance like Napster, creating art for the public domain like free software, or a constitutional amendment repealing copyright and patent law.
Copyright violation is not theft. It is not theft of potential revenue, since I'm never giving money to Microsoft, the RIAA, or the MPAA. It is not theft of data, because their copies still exist.
Tell me, oh wise gimpboy, what is being stolen?
Copyright violation is *not* theft. Ever heard a lawyer call the two the same? There's a reason why not: by current law, copyright violation is illegal, but it is not theft.
Proprietary, copyrighted data is more innovative and creative than free data? Hardly. The only case in software where this could be true is in games, and I could think of some good free games, too. For example, take a look at AisleRiot: 34 different kinds of solitaire. Freeciv is a wonderful civ for me, maybe you don't like it but I love it. These games are fairly new, and I expect to see a lot more good, free games. XPilot, for example.
The reason I don't respect proprietary, copyrighted software is because I've seen how much better free can be. Unless I see a good reason not to, I'll generalize this over to music. Now Microsoft becomes the RIAA, and neither get one whit of respect from me.
I love, admire, and respect creativity and innovation. However, Microsoft and the RIAA have *nothing* to do with either of those.
Ahh, thanks. Then we completely agree.
There are a few valid arguments that the Fundamentalists/Literalists bring up, like "Is there really no argon existing in molten rock when it solidifies?" and "Do carbon and nitrogen leach out of organic matter in the presence of water?" and "How long has the Moon been in orbit, given the fact that tidal forces are pushing it away?"
However, they ask these questions, then they assume their 4004 BC Creation is the answer, and start preaching.
Ick. Those are scientific questions, and they should be asked and answered in a scientific way. It's a pity the creationists misuse anything they find to help them push their version of christianity.
Aye, sir. I hate to write a "Me, too" message, but I don't have any moderator points, and I want you to know that you're not the only one who's made that choice.
"but unlike, say Euclidian Geometry, there's no way to prove that evolution theory is correct."
1. To draw a straight line from any point to any other.
2. To produce a finite straight line continuously in a straight line.
3. To describe a circle with any centre and distance.
4. That all right angles are equal to each other.
5. That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.
Euclid decided to accept these postulates on faith, and proved all of plane geometery with them. However, he never proved his assumptions, and we now know of other kinds of geometery.
You can't prove everything, and to prove anything, you've got to start by assuming something. Don't tell me science can prove evolution - science can only disprove scientific theories. Creationism is not a scientific theory because it cannot be disproved.
"Neither does Bill Gates. If I chose to distribute my software under the GPL, then he can either abide by its terms or keep his filthy mitts off of it."
Bill Gates will do whatever he feels like. If your code is worth plagarizing, he will plagarize. What will you do, sue him? He's been there, done that.
Aye. Putting a restrictive license on a program only keeps honest people from breaking it. My question is, why not just release it into the public domain, or use the BSD license? Microsoft will plagarize whatever it wants to, regardless.
You're right, Redhat isn't using a great business model. However, it's working for them for now, and I wish them well. But even if Redhat were to close tomorrow, Linux, Open Source, GNU, and Free software would continue.
As for cost of creation vs cost of duplication, free software can pay for itself very quickly if you handle it right. There are people who get paid by corporations to write GPL'd software. That takes care of cost of creation, and cost of duplication is practically zero already. Yes, it costs time and money to create original content, but as long as there are people willing to donate, everyone can benefit greatly. And there *are* people willing to donate their time and money to free software, and I believe there will always be. Cost of duplication approaches zero. Cost of creation is so distributed, it approaches zero, too.