So we ought to be railing against the really stupid laws that got us here. The usual fodder for Slashdot: stupid copyright laws and stupid new laws about airwave allocation and allowing media cosolidation. Pointing out the consequences of those stupid laws, after predicting them and illustrating how it happens is the way to fight it.
Now let me make clear one of those consequences. Where I live, I now have about zero chance of hearing any of these boring comercial songs that have been played millions of times before:
Elvis "(You're the) Devil in Disguise"
Zombies "She's Not There"
Elton John "Benny & The Jets"
Elton John "Daniel"
Elton John "Rocket Man"
Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls of Fire"
Kansas "Dust in the Wind"
Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven"
The Beatles "A Day in the Life"
The Beatles "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
The Beatles "Ticket To Ride"
The Beatles "Obla Di, Obla Da"
Norman Greenbaum "Spirit in the Sky"
Brooklyn Bridge "Worst That Could Happen"
Three Degrees "When Will I See You Again"
Cat Stevens "Peace Train"
Cat Stevens "Morning Has Broken"
Don McLean "American Pie"
Nina "99 Luft Balloons/99 Red Balloons"
They were cut because their content was somehow offensive to Clear Channel's management. They censored their playlist.
Accusing ClearChannel of censorship is like accusing a colon of being full of shit.
Clever. To pharaphrase a movie that lots of people enjoyed, "Ever thought about why everything sounds like shit? How would a machine know how things are supposed to sound? So that's what they have been feeding us."
You might try ebay or the local paper for used models. In five years, when the new models support speach recognition, have built in cameras, support multiple users as a swarm via 1Mbit/s satilite upload and play digital movies, I'll be hard pressed to sell my 2M basic visor for more than three dollars. That's the way it goes.
What I'm waiting for is a steep price decline in springboard modules and instrumentation type modules. Cheap scopes, forrier analysis, that kind of thing.
As another poster has noted, most news papers have been calling this a "technically sophisticated" attack. They seem to think that encrypted email made the co-ordination possible and that wholsale government postal privacy violations will be able to keep such things from happening again. It was backhanded and disturbingly stupid. An article like this in last weeks New York Times and an interview with Dan Quale finally made me realize this was more than speculation.
This week the papers are getting down to business. Check out these two articles from today's New York Times:
This one recomends ISP censorship. with the lame excuse for corporate control of the public network as, "But the community standards that most Internet service providers apply can be more restrictive." Today it's hate speach, tomorow it will be embarasing or unpopular speach.
This one detailing the FBI making it easier for an ISP to turn over email. Try this thrilling quote that got their attention, "The online posting on Aug. 30 sounded like the rantings of a crank: The subject was "911," and it warned "Something is going to happen tomorrow . . . REPENT!" On Sept. 4, the author of the first message, "Xinoehpoel," was back: "Wait 7 days," he wrote." At least the article goes on to worry about improper collection making such priceless quotes inadmissable. So what's the solution, hint hint? Monitoring? Geee, to bad that it won't work as the above quote really could contain a message and is indiscerable from pure garbage.
There you go. Reputable, non speculative reporting for you advocating government and corporate controls on the internet. Why would big publishers like that? Other news sources have not even bothered to mention privacy.
Every time a new employee comes to work for the company they have to train that person. Using MS-Office in the company ? 95% of the new employees will know how it works allready... that will save them heaps of money.
There are so many ways this is just wrong. Word processor should require NO training, and other productivity apps should require very little. MS "training" never ends, but right now KDE's applications follow most of the MS input conventions. Anyone familiar with MS junk will pick up KDE in no time, but will be much happier with the better organization. Those that stick with MS are losing time and money everyday fighting an evershifting and ineficient interface.
If you need "training" to work a word processor, the word processor is cumbersome and poorly designed. I taught myself how to use Word Perfect and Word. Word remains an illogical mess with too little user control and too many second rate tools cluttering up disorganized menues. Word Perfect was easier to learn and did most things better. I have not used KWord enough to really comment on all that it can do, but it was not difficult to learn.
The "features" that most MS Word lovers praise as being the most powerful, and certianly require the most training, is second rate and inconstant. Word 2000 breaks previous macros! Word XP will certianly do the same. So there you are, constantly chasing broken junk that never looked quite right. It's worse than VB. Where is the economy?
We use NT at work. The Red Cross deserves better and it's money could be better spent than paying the M$ tax.
"Linux good, Microsoft bad" drivel. There is a time and place for most things, and this is absolutely not it.
Bingo, you hit the nail on the head. More Linux FUD by the original poster was outrageous. I've clearly stepped into a nest of trolls who could worry about nothing more than filling Slashdot's pages with such uninfomative, intentionally missleading and outrageous material.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that the US government has ever censored the mail of combat troops. If that's not a life treatening, national security priority, I'm not sure what is.
Mandatory backdoors and other invasive technology represent a far greater threat to freedom than any terrorist. Enacting big brother style government makes a mockery of all the things that this country has fought for since it's founding.
Do not push Linux. If people can't use it, it won't help right now... This will probably networking Pentium class machines so people can do data entry.
Yeah right! This site has never been a site for such stupid M$ promotion, and this is not the time to be doing stuff like this.
1. What the hell do you know about Red Cross ops? Do you work for them? Have you ever? I have but not much. They are not a lame bunch.
2. The rest of your comment is the usual anti Linux troll juice. People can't use Linux, it's too hard and therfore useless. Linux users are a bunch of do nothing whiners. What a load of crap you have tried pushed here. Go Away!
If anything you have said is true, Linux set up by cheerful and knowledgable volunteers is just what the situation calls for and advocacy will come in it's place. It's easy to set up, requiring only a single CD to be ready to roll and works better on light hardware. I'm sure the Red Cross will be happy to have anything up and working and that volunteers will follow their directions to the letter with good humor. They may then contribute more with the Free software in their hands. Linux is what it is because people in the comunity get out and do things, not because they sit around bitching.
Kudos to MS for donating $10,000,000 worth of equipment and aid. I'm sure those on site will make good use of it and it will get the job done well enough. It's doubtful that the Red Cross is dependent on such things however and the usual M$ bugs won't matter.
You saved yourself and me landfill money. One day you might spend $100 and get a nicer motherboard, like an AT K6/2, and have a nicer computer in that box. The 486 should do till failure. That's good use of resources.
I've got SSH on mine, and a configurable 3 legged network.
People who are not interested in being sysadmins have a right to NAT too!
People who are not interested in being linguists have a right to speak Russian too! Rise up and overthrow they Tyrany of Ihgnorance!
Re:encourage people to conserve bandwith
on
More On Tragedy
·
· Score: 1
I don't have a TV in my cube, but it did not matter. My wife was home and told me stuff while it happened. Lots of people here had radios, and anyone can for less than ten bucks. That and a few still images were all I needed. If you surf with images and plugins turned off, your surfing will be faster and less taxing to the rest of the world. I did not even bother to watch reruns when I got home.
Please try to limit your communications to text and a few small images until everyone is accounted for. Real information exchange is more important than adverts and canned junk that looks better on TV anyway.
encourage people to conserve bandwith
on
More On Tragedy
·
· Score: 2, Flamebait
What's up with the promotion of audio and video sites?! The phone network is dammaged and jammed so the internet is the only useful means of communication many people have. Let them use it for their mail or personal communications! We should disscourage people from visiting sites that simply package things that can be had by traditional broadcast methods (remember radio and TV?), especially video formats.
Go look up some history, come back, and tell me that again with a straight face. There are still Hiroshima babies and survivors alive now - many of the former were born grossly deformed, and you say there's "no evidence". Wake up and smell the mushroom cloud, mate!
Check your biology book. Genetic damage is something that's passed down, not a simple deformity to an individual. There are no elevated rates of such things in the population of survivors.
A troll is a mistatement designed to pull out ignorant responses.
I'm replying to your message in order to correct some of the facts you state.
That's a funny abuse of language. Kind of like the correct truth.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Blacks." Palestinians are not called "black" in Israel. They are called "Arab" or "Palestinian."
I'm not sure what the exact word is either. A friend of mine who spent some time in Israel assured me that is what the derogatory term used to describe Palestinians translates to in English. I wish it were not so but I believe what my friend, who loves Israel, told me. She was asshamed, just as I am asshamed and enraged when I see Negros abused here.
The name is defining! The person you refer to when you say, "There is no shaheed, his 'heroic' face plastered throughout the Palestinian Authority.", is less than a man to you. Not even worth of a capital S. Try to see a person like yourself, regardless of the differences, rather than an animal.
When all is said and done, it's important to remember that when you are merciful to cruel people, you are cruel to merciful people.
Nonsense! There is no cruelty in mercy and no mercy in cruelty. Thoughts like that simply justify cruelty. It's time for Israel to stick to the treaties already signed and share the land it stole, including that rock named Jeruselem. There is no end to any other way, no matter how you try to correct the facts.
Assides that this is an offtopic troll (ie not a first person account of anything but you spamming your friends email and slashdot with a long winded piece of garbage.) I have two related complaints.
The U.S. response at the time of Pearl Harbor was to be the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons, causing genetic damage that continued long after Japan became a favored trading partner of the U.S.
There is no evidence of elevated rates of genetic damage in survivors of nuclear weapons in Japan. Sorry, it's not there and they are as healthy as you and me.
My second complaint goes to your whole idea. The Japanese are wonderful people who treat each other and US visitors very well. People forgive acts of war when all is said and done. Violence, justly used does not make eternal hatred.
The ususal petty trolls like this piss me off more in times when bandwith could be used to comfort and reasure people who have no other means of communication. Please cease and desist for a few days.
Palestinians are not called "Blacks" here as they are in Israel. They are considered potential citizens and given all the consideration people from other places get. In Israel they are kept badged in concentration camps without sewerage, water, electricity or schools. The privileged are allowed outside to labor for their masters. Those that find slavery depressing are shot down like dogs.
Another difference is that few of the thousands of people killed yesterday benefit from occupation of Palestine. Asides from paying taxes, they have no part in that dirty little fight.
My brother in law missed this by a single day. Today, he had a meeting on the 58th floor of one of those now destroyed towers. Thankfully, he was not there when this happened, but I will never forget that he might have been there.
I'm furious at both sides of that fight, but especially at Israel. They so obviously have the upper hand and have been so ugly about it. Was this done by Palestinian sympathizers? That's hard to say. The same folks who assassinated their own prime minister a few years ago are every bit as fanatical and depraved as Yasser Arafat ever was. You know, the tear down the mosque and build a temple crowd. Nuts. This could have been done by the IRA for all I know. That does not mollify me towards any of these losers around the world that might do something like this. Their stupid little pissing match has just taken the lives of thousands of innocent people, one of who could have been my bother in law.
The people responsible for this are going to hang. After that, how about you do something nice for some of those huge impersonal black faces in the Palestinan Authority, and encourage your friends to make a fair and lasting peace? Surely, most of them share your horror.
Troll: another poster has pointed out that no terrorist would be in the area. If the police or FBI want such a thing, they will ask for it. In the mean time, you will be flooding already strained resources and sound like a crank.
Flamebait: the inclusion of such a trivial troll into this discussion is obviously infuriating, as is the belittling of principles. Posts like this and this show gnovos to be a flaming troll.
Why would anyone think to blame the dude who tried to do this in 1995, and again in 1998, and openly states the goal of his organization is to "kill Americans"? Concluding that this as you put it, gun-toting radical Islamic militant, did this is common sense. When the facts come in, that man is going to swing. Hell, if he were ever brought to trial he might just hang for all the other things he's done.
We're up again, and clearly we're going to be smashing the hell out of _somebody_...
Not so fast. W has promised to hunt and punish those responsible. That does not mean he's going to do the coward Bill Clinton thing and lob cruise missiles to cover some kind of domestic scandal. No, I expect US agents will hunt down the dirt bags responsible for this, extridite them, prove them guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, and hang them high.
The M$ dam is breaking. If reasonable restrictions against anti-competive pricing are really put in at the wholsale and device manufacturing level, the industry and public will slip out from MS's grip quicker than you can say, "BASH kicks DOS shells ass". The quicker restrictions that work are put into place the faster things will work.
Reserve your judgement until you see an inefective wrist slap instead of reasonable judgements. Reasonable restrictions on MS dirty and market forces will make you happier much faster than an unregulated MS or an unrestricted MSOS company. Know anyone that really wants XP? I don't.
Let's see if they can really do it. If by this time next year, Dell, Gateway, etc. are free to put any software on the machines they sell, I will be very happy the Feds decided not to waste any more time on now hoplessly obsolete issues. What M$ does with it's platform makes absolutely no difference if people are free to do what they want on alternate platforms. If the DOJ pushes through, and makes stick, regs and laws on anitcompetitive behavior for vendors M$'s unfair power and advantages will vanish like last years.DOC format.
Google is a good place to start, but we all know people who can use our help. As Bill Gates once predicted in an amazing self furfilling profacy, computing machienery will be limited by the software that runs it. That chunk of hardware is only the begining. It won't work without some time and care.
Recycling centers need help making those "broken" computers useful. The local school needs help getting started with older equipment. If you've got time to donate, please do. Lend your time to institutions you care about. Their needs are suprisingly simple, and once started down the Free software road, they will be able to help themselves. A small investement of your time can save your favorite institution a great deal of money and trouble.
Not trying to start a flame war or anything, but why do you assume that other people would be dense on this?
Ignorance is not stupidity. People just don't know how much monitoring power the NT sysadmin has. Honest people don't suspect such things.
He is never connected to the buildings network when he is dialed in.
That won't protect his privacy nor will it maintain the building's security. Keystroke monitors can share his information with both the network administrators and external crackers. A number of trojaned toys are available to burn him like that. If he leaves that machine on at night, those toys could enable an outside caller to access the building's network with all of the judge's privaliges. The judge is naked under his cloak and might be sitting on a photocopier. Please help him out.
A dial up modem attatched to an IT monitored computer, what was he thinking? If he did not put that modem on a seperate non networked computer, he not only failed to protect his privacy, he also threatened everyone else's privacy by significantly weakening security. How long was it going to take for someone to call that modem, su circuit court judge and have all of that judge's network privalidges? If he's using NT and he's attached to the building network, the NT admins can monitor his screen and keystrokes and defeat all of his efforts.
Please, please help your friend if you have not already. Set him up with a real OS and configure it well. If you do things right, you can hook him up to the normal network and preserve his privacy. If you explain these things to him and show him a little about how it works, you may do the rest of us a big favor. It would be nice for him to know just how bad things are already. Good luck!
Slashdot Mirror
Soilent Purple is Barney! My God, don't eat it, it's Barney!
Now let me make clear one of those consequences. Where I live, I now have about zero chance of hearing any of these boring comercial songs that have been played millions of times before:
Elvis "(You're the) Devil in Disguise"
Zombies "She's Not There"
Elton John "Benny & The Jets"
Elton John "Daniel"
Elton John "Rocket Man"
Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls of Fire"
Kansas "Dust in the Wind"
Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven"
The Beatles "A Day in the Life"
The Beatles "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
The Beatles "Ticket To Ride"
The Beatles "Obla Di, Obla Da"
Norman Greenbaum "Spirit in the Sky"
Brooklyn Bridge "Worst That Could Happen"
Three Degrees "When Will I See You Again"
Cat Stevens "Peace Train"
Cat Stevens "Morning Has Broken"
Don McLean "American Pie"
Nina "99 Luft Balloons/99 Red Balloons"
They were cut because their content was somehow offensive to Clear Channel's management. They censored their playlist.
Accusing ClearChannel of censorship is like accusing a colon of being full of shit.
Clever. To pharaphrase a movie that lots of people enjoyed, "Ever thought about why everything sounds like shit? How would a machine know how things are supposed to sound? So that's what they have been feeding us."
You might try ebay or the local paper for used models. In five years, when the new models support speach recognition, have built in cameras, support multiple users as a swarm via 1Mbit/s satilite upload and play digital movies, I'll be hard pressed to sell my 2M basic visor for more than three dollars. That's the way it goes.
What I'm waiting for is a steep price decline in springboard modules and instrumentation type modules. Cheap scopes, forrier analysis, that kind of thing.
This week the papers are getting down to business. Check out these two articles from today's New York Times:
This one recomends ISP censorship. with the lame excuse for corporate control of the public network as, "But the community standards that most Internet service providers apply can be more restrictive." Today it's hate speach, tomorow it will be embarasing or unpopular speach.
This one detailing the FBI making it easier for an ISP to turn over email. Try this thrilling quote that got their attention, "The online posting on Aug. 30 sounded like the rantings of a crank: The subject was "911," and it warned "Something is going to happen tomorrow . . . REPENT!" On Sept. 4, the author of the first message, "Xinoehpoel," was back: "Wait 7 days," he wrote." At least the article goes on to worry about improper collection making such priceless quotes inadmissable. So what's the solution, hint hint? Monitoring? Geee, to bad that it won't work as the above quote really could contain a message and is indiscerable from pure garbage.
There you go. Reputable, non speculative reporting for you advocating government and corporate controls on the internet. Why would big publishers like that? Other news sources have not even bothered to mention privacy.
There are so many ways this is just wrong. Word processor should require NO training, and other productivity apps should require very little. MS "training" never ends, but right now KDE's applications follow most of the MS input conventions. Anyone familiar with MS junk will pick up KDE in no time, but will be much happier with the better organization. Those that stick with MS are losing time and money everyday fighting an evershifting and ineficient interface.
If you need "training" to work a word processor, the word processor is cumbersome and poorly designed. I taught myself how to use Word Perfect and Word. Word remains an illogical mess with too little user control and too many second rate tools cluttering up disorganized menues. Word Perfect was easier to learn and did most things better. I have not used KWord enough to really comment on all that it can do, but it was not difficult to learn.
The "features" that most MS Word lovers praise as being the most powerful, and certianly require the most training, is second rate and inconstant. Word 2000 breaks previous macros! Word XP will certianly do the same. So there you are, constantly chasing broken junk that never looked quite right. It's worse than VB. Where is the economy?
Well put, but you know that these folks trained in Florida. I never did like that state. Guilty, all of you are guilty!
We use NT at work. The Red Cross deserves better and it's money could be better spent than paying the M$ tax.
"Linux good, Microsoft bad" drivel. There is a time and place for most things, and this is absolutely not it.
Bingo, you hit the nail on the head. More Linux FUD by the original poster was outrageous. I've clearly stepped into a nest of trolls who could worry about nothing more than filling Slashdot's pages with such uninfomative, intentionally missleading and outrageous material.
Mandatory backdoors and other invasive technology represent a far greater threat to freedom than any terrorist. Enacting big brother style government makes a mockery of all the things that this country has fought for since it's founding.
Do not push Linux. If people can't use it, it won't help right now... This will probably networking Pentium class machines so people can do data entry.
Yeah right! This site has never been a site for such stupid M$ promotion, and this is not the time to be doing stuff like this.
1. What the hell do you know about Red Cross ops? Do you work for them? Have you ever? I have but not much. They are not a lame bunch.
2. The rest of your comment is the usual anti Linux troll juice. People can't use Linux, it's too hard and therfore useless. Linux users are a bunch of do nothing whiners. What a load of crap you have tried pushed here. Go Away!
If anything you have said is true, Linux set up by cheerful and knowledgable volunteers is just what the situation calls for and advocacy will come in it's place. It's easy to set up, requiring only a single CD to be ready to roll and works better on light hardware. I'm sure the Red Cross will be happy to have anything up and working and that volunteers will follow their directions to the letter with good humor. They may then contribute more with the Free software in their hands. Linux is what it is because people in the comunity get out and do things, not because they sit around bitching.
Kudos to MS for donating $10,000,000 worth of equipment and aid. I'm sure those on site will make good use of it and it will get the job done well enough. It's doubtful that the Red Cross is dependent on such things however and the usual M$ bugs won't matter.
Moderators, do your thing to parent.
I've got SSH on mine, and a configurable 3 legged network.
People who are not interested in being linguists have a right to speak Russian too! Rise up and overthrow they Tyrany of Ihgnorance!
Please try to limit your communications to text and a few small images until everyone is accounted for. Real information exchange is more important than adverts and canned junk that looks better on TV anyway.
What's up with the promotion of audio and video sites?! The phone network is dammaged and jammed so the internet is the only useful means of communication many people have. Let them use it for their mail or personal communications! We should disscourage people from visiting sites that simply package things that can be had by traditional broadcast methods (remember radio and TV?), especially video formats.
Check your biology book. Genetic damage is something that's passed down, not a simple deformity to an individual. There are no elevated rates of such things in the population of survivors.
A troll is a mistatement designed to pull out ignorant responses.
That's a funny abuse of language. Kind of like the correct truth.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Blacks." Palestinians are not called "black" in Israel. They are called "Arab" or "Palestinian."
I'm not sure what the exact word is either. A friend of mine who spent some time in Israel assured me that is what the derogatory term used to describe Palestinians translates to in English. I wish it were not so but I believe what my friend, who loves Israel, told me. She was asshamed, just as I am asshamed and enraged when I see Negros abused here.
The name is defining! The person you refer to when you say, "There is no shaheed, his 'heroic' face plastered throughout the Palestinian Authority.", is less than a man to you. Not even worth of a capital S. Try to see a person like yourself, regardless of the differences, rather than an animal.
When all is said and done, it's important to remember that when you are merciful to cruel people, you are cruel to merciful people.
Nonsense! There is no cruelty in mercy and no mercy in cruelty. Thoughts like that simply justify cruelty. It's time for Israel to stick to the treaties already signed and share the land it stole, including that rock named Jeruselem. There is no end to any other way, no matter how you try to correct the facts.
The U.S. response at the time of Pearl Harbor was to be the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons, causing genetic damage that continued long after Japan became a favored trading partner of the U.S.
There is no evidence of elevated rates of genetic damage in survivors of nuclear weapons in Japan. Sorry, it's not there and they are as healthy as you and me.
My second complaint goes to your whole idea. The Japanese are wonderful people who treat each other and US visitors very well. People forgive acts of war when all is said and done. Violence, justly used does not make eternal hatred.
The ususal petty trolls like this piss me off more in times when bandwith could be used to comfort and reasure people who have no other means of communication. Please cease and desist for a few days.
Another difference is that few of the thousands of people killed yesterday benefit from occupation of Palestine. Asides from paying taxes, they have no part in that dirty little fight.
My brother in law missed this by a single day. Today, he had a meeting on the 58th floor of one of those now destroyed towers. Thankfully, he was not there when this happened, but I will never forget that he might have been there.
I'm furious at both sides of that fight, but especially at Israel. They so obviously have the upper hand and have been so ugly about it. Was this done by Palestinian sympathizers? That's hard to say. The same folks who assassinated their own prime minister a few years ago are every bit as fanatical and depraved as Yasser Arafat ever was. You know, the tear down the mosque and build a temple crowd. Nuts. This could have been done by the IRA for all I know. That does not mollify me towards any of these losers around the world that might do something like this. Their stupid little pissing match has just taken the lives of thousands of innocent people, one of who could have been my bother in law.
The people responsible for this are going to hang. After that, how about you do something nice for some of those huge impersonal black faces in the Palestinan Authority, and encourage your friends to make a fair and lasting peace? Surely, most of them share your horror.
Offtopic: parent is not a first hand account.
Troll: another poster has pointed out that no terrorist would be in the area. If the police or FBI want such a thing, they will ask for it. In the mean time, you will be flooding already strained resources and sound like a crank.
Flamebait: the inclusion of such a trivial troll into this discussion is obviously infuriating, as is the belittling of principles. Posts like this and this show gnovos to be a flaming troll.
Why would anyone think to blame the dude who tried to do this in 1995, and again in 1998, and openly states the goal of his organization is to "kill Americans"? Concluding that this as you put it, gun-toting radical Islamic militant, did this is common sense. When the facts come in, that man is going to swing. Hell, if he were ever brought to trial he might just hang for all the other things he's done.
Not so fast. W has promised to hunt and punish those responsible. That does not mean he's going to do the coward Bill Clinton thing and lob cruise missiles to cover some kind of domestic scandal. No, I expect US agents will hunt down the dirt bags responsible for this, extridite them, prove them guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, and hang them high.
Reserve your judgement until you see an inefective wrist slap instead of reasonable judgements. Reasonable restrictions on MS dirty and market forces will make you happier much faster than an unregulated MS or an unrestricted MSOS company. Know anyone that really wants XP? I don't.
Let's see if they can really do it. If by this time next year, Dell, Gateway, etc. are free to put any software on the machines they sell, I will be very happy the Feds decided not to waste any more time on now hoplessly obsolete issues. What M$ does with it's platform makes absolutely no difference if people are free to do what they want on alternate platforms. If the DOJ pushes through, and makes stick, regs and laws on anitcompetitive behavior for vendors M$'s unfair power and advantages will vanish like last years .DOC format.
Recycling centers need help making those "broken" computers useful. The local school needs help getting started with older equipment. If you've got time to donate, please do. Lend your time to institutions you care about. Their needs are suprisingly simple, and once started down the Free software road, they will be able to help themselves. A small investement of your time can save your favorite institution a great deal of money and trouble.
I assumed the worst based on what I've seen.
Not trying to start a flame war or anything, but why do you assume that other people would be dense on this?
Ignorance is not stupidity. People just don't know how much monitoring power the NT sysadmin has. Honest people don't suspect such things.
He is never connected to the buildings network when he is dialed in.
That won't protect his privacy nor will it maintain the building's security. Keystroke monitors can share his information with both the network administrators and external crackers. A number of trojaned toys are available to burn him like that. If he leaves that machine on at night, those toys could enable an outside caller to access the building's network with all of the judge's privaliges. The judge is naked under his cloak and might be sitting on a photocopier. Please help him out.
Please, please help your friend if you have not already. Set him up with a real OS and configure it well. If you do things right, you can hook him up to the normal network and preserve his privacy. If you explain these things to him and show him a little about how it works, you may do the rest of us a big favor. It would be nice for him to know just how bad things are already. Good luck!