Europe is a continent with many very different cultures that have fought bitterly in a not so distant past, just take the troubles in the Balkan.
It does not take much imagination to see new flare ups of extremely damaging violence in parts of Europe when certain scrupulous groups and individuals would not be constrained.
I agree with this; but I would point out that in the 200+ years the US has been around, France has had no less than four governments, and
Germany has had six. During the same time period, the US struggled with issues of Manifest Destiny (and the "Indian problem"), slavery and the Civil War, the Great Depression, racism, and the Cold War. In spite of these challenges, the US has remained relatively stable from a civil perspective. It seems that whenever there are problems in Europe, rather than discussing the issue, they take up arms and slaughter each other.
Interestingly, the US has more cultures and the cultures we have are farther separated ideologically from each other. It was the US in which the term "Melting Pot" was coined. We have cultural divides larger than Europe, and yet manage to get along without much violence.
I guess I have a different perspective because I'm Christian and understand the nature of evil, but I'd like someone to point out any case in history where yielding one's freedoms to another didn't result in oppression and even greater evils. The US has been relatively stable even during periods of unrest because the population has always had recourse to change the government without having to resort to violence. If certain people feel they are being unfairly excluded from the political process because of their deeply held beliefs, it is an invitation for revolution in which the strongest party wins. This would be consistent with Europe's history, and it seems they have not learned a thing from the history of their past 200 years.
And we could probably agree on what is acceptable and not.
But, the effect of an a priori prohibition speech based on its content damages society as a whole.
Those who hold errant and hateful views are not known - as they are afraid to express their views.
Those who hold errant and hateful views are never held accountable for their views. The topic discussion of discussion is prohibited. Instead, their hatred turns into action, and then the evil manifests itself in ways far worse than name-calling.
Those who hold errant and hateful views in secret never have their views challenged or corrected - that is, prior to their arrival in court. Even a rational person can grow up racist if their views on racism are never challenged. Societies which encourage open and unlimited discourse provide a mechanism for reform of would-be offenders without ever having to resort to legal proceedings.
Those unafraid to express their opinions can appeal to government for change, rather than having to resort to violent revolution.
The prohibition of certain topics of discussion prevents the study and greater knowledge of the subject, and withholds legitimate research. Furthermore, it prevents legitimate social progress through changing of public opinion.
The battle over free speech isn't merely about public statements. It is also a battle over how best to address the problem of troubled individuals, who, while not criminal (yet), exhibit pathological tendencies. Without freedom of speech, we would have to wonder if everyone was out to get us. With freedom of speech, I have a reasonable assurance that I'm on good terms with others because they are free to let me know if they hate me or love me, or are merely indifferent. Hence, our collective sense of security and civil stability is very much tied to our freedom of speech.
This is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by the EU to outlaw religion (both Muslim and Christian religions believe homosexuality to be immoral; the reasoning goes that even condeming immoral behavior (as opposed to people)is sufficient to trigger the statute.
IIRC, a similar law has been passed in the Netherlands, with pastors being warned that there are certain sins they are no longer allowed to mention in public.
Even if you are an atheist, the premise is troubling. I would be likewise disturbed if questioning the existence of God was made illegal - certainly this development is not going to expand and enlighten public discourse on sensitive subjects.
That is, this legislation would protect Microsoft snooping in on your Linux box for an "unauthorized" copy of Windows.
Companies have always been able to legally install spyware via the EULA. Now, they can install it without your consent, and leave you without any legal recourse should you incur damages.
To complete an open-source hardware project (say, design a complete computer) yourself, you would need an all-consuming geek passion.
But, if you work as part of a team with others, your contribution can be quite small, and the project can still have a large impact.
The idea is that you break up a project into small enough chunks that even those who don't have much time - say, only an hour a week - can contribute to a larger, exciting project.
For example, consider designing a computer motherboard. Think of the tasks that can be done independently:
The power supply.
The memory subsystem.
The various busses and bus architecture.
Various peripherals.
The boot code and ROM/EPROM/EEPROM/FLASH programming.
The CPU and memory architecture.
The overall board schematic - partitioned among several people.
The board layout.
One individual could do all of these, or the task could be split up among several people. Even those of us with packed schedules could manage to design the motherboard's power supply given a 6 month goal.
I think the issue is that apathy is all too common. Yes, there are people interested in doing these things, but unfortunately, we are so few and far between that the social connections upon which these projects are contingent never get formed.
I'm surrounded by engineers with the capability to produce open source computers, but...
Nobody has the time or interest.
Yes, I (among many) could design and implement a computer complete from the gate-level design all the way up to the compiler and operating system.
Ironically, now that I have the knowledge, I don't have the time to work on it. It gets worse:
I could split it up into small projects and split the workload among several people, but none of my colleagues are interested in doing *anything* outside of work.
Prototyping a single board is prohibitively expensive. I could bring the cost down if I had a few people to share the cost (quantity discount), but without others interested in the project, I'm stuck footing the entire bill for the prototype.
It is actually cheaper to buy a computer than it is to build a new one from scratch. The BOM for a new computer at retail prices is more expensive than the finished product (which was built from wholesale-priced parts).
If I did build my own computer, friends and family would inevitably ask, "So why did you spend $(Multiple thousands) for a computer slower than the $299 Sam's club special?", and "Isn't that just an expensive hobby? - you don't really expect people to buy a 1 GHz ARM machine, do you?" etc..
I would like to work on open source hardware. I do have experience porting Linux to new architectures. But sadly, I think something about corporate america just takes away the passion from the discipline. Since I started programming more than 10 years ago, I have met only one person who was passionate enough about it to do it outside of work. And you know what he did? - mods for a game. Nothing really serious or interesting.
It's not that there is a lack of talent. Rather, apathy is fatal to open source. And we need to come to terms with the fact that the overwhelming majority of those with the knowledge to do something disruptive, to use their skill to change their world for the better, choose just to go home at night and watch tv.
They have no geek passion. They are irrelevant to the discipline. And they are exactly what Corporate America wants them to be.
If you can do the layout, they'll make your board for you. Yes, it is kind of expensive for hobby projects, but for a computer motherboard it's not *terribly* bad. A commercially made motherboard is still cheaper, but I guess if you want something without DRM, you're always welcome to implement it yourself.
Now, the only problem is that implementing and debugging a computer from scratch could be a rather time consuming undertaking. But, if you've got the time, there are places who will build it for you, whatever *it* is.
It is how banks and other institutions carry out identification. Typically, your name, address, and SSN are all that is needed for a criminal to commit fraud.
And typically, the worst you'll have to put up with should your identity be "stolen" is signing an affidavit to that effect. I'm not aware of any case in which someone whose identity was stolen ended up with out of pocket expenses. Typically, the merchant eats the fraud.
The banks, merchants, etc... are the real losers. However, if it was a serious problem, banks and merchants would be doing something about it. When you think about it, someone unwilling to do something as small as changing their identification process can't be too concerned about the problem. Yes, they'll pay lip service to it, but in the end, it just isn't large enough a problem to do something about.
Now, I haven't had personal experience with this, but I am not aware of anyone who has been defrauded (i.e. cleaned out their bank account) and have not received their money back from the bank.
A number. A negative number on their balance sheet. Your call is costing them money, dipping into their profit margins. They have a greater incentive to drop you as a customer than to spend time trying to fix your problem.
Businesses today have very little incentive to treat people like people. They design as much cost out of their processes as possible, leaving only the absolute minimum necessary to conduct business. Extraneous circumstances don't happen in the mind of the business analyst - or even if they do, the business isn't willing to pay to write code for all of those "what if" scenarios. Instead, they write support process to minimize cost, hoping the customer with a valid problem will just figure it out on their own. Long hold times are used to discourage people from calling in the first place. Being unable to talk to a human also discourages callers. And let's not forget making it near impossible to talk to someone in the company who actually has the power to fix the problem.
I guess the bigger question is why we as a people consider it appropriate for businesses to do these things to us.
But, here are some things you can try:
Send the business a written letter explaining your situation. Use phrases like, "I can no longer recommend your services to my colleagues..." and "Litigation would be premature at this stage, but we are fully prepared to seek legal remedies should your redress prove unsatisfactory..."
Try to talk to someone with power. Find the vice president's feedback forum, or better yet, give him a call - if you can find his number.
Explain to the company that unless their service improves, your business will be forced to remove them from consideration from all present and future contracts. Remind them that if they are placed on the list, company policy prevents conducting business with them for at least three years.
Keep it positive, but remain assertive. If they don't want your business, or could care less whether you quit them or not, don't give them your business. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for a company is to take your business elsewhere.
I'm writing this on a Toshiba laptop that has gone through two DVD drives, a power supply, a processor fan, and a hard drive. After replacing the first DVD drive under warranty, the unit failed again a year later, along with the power supply. Now out of warranty, I was looking at having to spend quite a bit of my own money to have them replaced. A few weeks after a carefully crafted letter was sent, Toshiba replaced the DVD drive and power supply at no cost to me.
So if the company is ethical, a letter can work wonders. If not, well, you would be doing us all a favor to take your business elsewhere.
What happens to the law. He knows just as well as everyone else that this law will get struck down as unconstitutional.
What he is seeking is to establish himself as the politician who did something to protect the children.
However, elections are coming up for the Republican party, and he needs to show the people that the Republicans are thinking of the children. It doesn't matter what the ultimate fate of the bill is, this is just political posturing for himself and the Republican party.
The Republicans know that in order to gain political traction, they have to shift the focus away from Iraq and onto other issues.
Ok, who does project planning. Really. I would be interested in doing some coding for educational purposes, but I'm not sure that my efforts would meet the needs of the educational community. What we really need is for teachers to come together to tell us what they need, rather than scratching our own itch. The site is targetted primarily at programmers, not the end user right now.
But let's do some work on this. I have years of source code which for which the whole is less than the sum of the pieces because the efforts weren't focused on a single goal. Maybe I can put that to use if I have a clear goal to work toward.
There goes democracy...
on
AMD's New DRM
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· Score: 1
No more whistle-blower hassles for Diebold.
Not really
on
AMD's New DRM
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I work for a major corporation. Why don't we bother with this DRM sort of thing? The short list:
It means employees can't work from home, or work at home. The prospect of unpaid overtime is too valuable for a corporation to give up.
It doesn't prevent someone from photographing their screen, or even hand copying the information.
It doesn't prevent the employee from picking up the phone and describing the invention to their competitor.
Often, the truly valuable things in a company are the ideas and business strategies. This is low bandwidth information. The others - such as code, source masks, etc... already have the legal protection afforded trade secrets and copyrights.
While it might not be practical to hand copy source code, this kind of espionage is rare and not very valuable. If company A stole company B's source code, company B would probably have a pretty good legal case against company A. However, the case for stealing ideas is a bit murkier and harder to prove.
Finally, CPUs have long supported the notion of microcode
I believe you could have saved yourself some embarassment by reading the article. The author specifically mentions microcode and explains why this approach does not work for patching processors. If microcode patching could solve every problem, then why did Intel go through a 500 million dollar recall when the FDIV bug was discovered in the Pentium?
Calling the researcher dumb doesn't make you look any better. In fact, I'm not sure how you consider the writeup dumb when it appears you haven't read it:
Your point about memory access bottlenecks is irrelevant, because the design proposed by the author doesn't impose any constraints on memory access. Rather, the FPGA is used to monitor signal lines to detect fault conditions, per programming.
The blurb about hardware failure is specifically beyond the scope of the paper, so I'm not sure why you mentioned it. Even so, I'm not sure why you would want to patch failing hardware. If the hardware has been compromised by something like thermal failure or over-voltage, you have no assurances that even the detection circuit works correctly. So you likewise could not trust any patching mechanism, either. The best solution for hardware failure is to build the system such that it can be detected, and route around the failed processor, and/or alert the user to have it replaced. Those are the only sane options - everything else relies on assumptions which may not be true.
The notion of designing silicon to mitigate the effects of hardware design defects and bugs is nothing new, but the technique is new. While I wouldn't consider it worthy of a patent, it does address the problem of recalling processors when a design flaw is discovered.
The author suggests using an FPGA, but I found nothing in the paper which suggested that using an FPGA is required. Moreover, I think the FPGA approach was suggested because it is likely that system designers would be familiar with using FPGAs.
Granted, it isn't earth shattering, but neither is it dumb.
The threat of being completely cut off from the ability to distribute GPL code can easily be seen as extreme and unfair for any company...
I believe even Microsoft is being forced to admit the power of free software.
Remember when Microsoft said Linux was irrelevant? When Balmer called it a toy?
Now it seems they are making the claim that free software developers must allow Novell to distribute their works, according to Novell's conditions, or suffer liability under a claim of tortious interference.
So it would seem that:
Free Software does have an impact on the business world, and:
Microsoft is laying claim to it, as if they own it.
Developers of free software could be forced to distribute it under Microsoft's terms, or face liability under theory of tortious interference. That is, even though you gave away your software for free, you aren't allowed to change the license terms if it interferes with someone else's established business.
What is particularly galling about this position is that Microsoft's lawyers seem to be of the opinion that if someone stopped giving away their software - software upon which Microsoft has built a business relationship - that Microsoft can now sue the author, who received no money for his work, for damages.
Yes, this is our legal system at work. Where the refusal to give away software can get you sued.
I imagine by this reasoning, Microsoft could be sued for tortious influence the next time they raise the price of Vista.
We note that the draft of the GPLv3 does not tear down the bridge Microsoft and Novell have built for their customers. It is unfortunate, however, that the FSF is attempting to use the GPLv3 to prevent future collaboration among industry leaders to benefit customers..
I believe what Horacio Gutierrez really meant was: "It is unfortunate, however, that the FSF is attempting to use the GPLv3... to benefit customers..."
Because Horacio's argument just doesn't make sense. Typically, industry collaboration works to benefit the industry, not the consumer. In fact, I believe the boards of most corporations would consider collaboration among companies to reduce price and increase features (thereby reducing profit margins) to be a breach of fiduciary duty on the part of the CEO. I'm not aware of any company trying to decrease its profit margin, yet this is what Horacio suggests. In fact, I think it is just the opposite: industry collaboration tends to stifle new features, increase cost, and reduce the functionality and usability of software. The FSF is actually having a positive impact on the industry by virtue of its increasing competition. It is the classic example of how capitalism minimizes inefficiencies in markets - currently, the major proprietary software makers aren't very efficient at producing what the market wants. In comes the FSF, and solves the problem.
It may be a violation of the terms of the EULA, but it is not illegal, and it is not a violation of copyright, or the DMCA. (Standard Disclaimer: IANAL).
Furthermore, I would argue that a computer owner cannot legally be stopped from looking at their own machine. For example, what if WoW was being used (surrepetitiously) to traffic child porn? Would the WoW EULA be a legal defense for the owner of the computer? That he was contractually prevented from looking at his own system, therefore he can't be liable for whatever the police find on his computer?
I don't think these arguments would hold sway in a court of law. While Blizzard does have a right to ensure that people don't use their computers to cheat, they don't have a right to prevent a user from looking at their own machine, or modifying the contents thereof.
Really, the problem is the manner in which Blizzard designed their game. Had it been built using a secure architecture from the outset, these drastic measures wouldn't be necessary. Yes, cheaters suck. But, had Blizzard followed the simple mantra, never trust the client, they wouldn't be in this fix and we could all get on with gameplay without the attendant invasion of privacy.
What next? Am I going to setup a special PC just for gaming, and use another one for all of my other, private business? As part of my work, I deal with my employer's private, confidential information. I cannot have a software program peeking in on me from time to time; it would be a breach of my duty to safeguard my employer's data.
Blizzard needs to understand that users expect their machines to be private. If their program invades this privacy, my only option is to refrain from buying it. I'll have to play other games, which would be a shame.
But what of our responsibility to our fellow neighbors?
We hear so much about first amendment freedoms, but we don't hear about the flip side of crimes that remain unsolved because the investigative ability of law enforcement is hampered by self-righteous individuals.
If I had had my skull cracked by a protester, I would be very angry if someone who saw the incident, or knew the identity of the perpetrator, refused to testify because he thought himself a journalist. If the goal of a journalist is to report the news, why would they refrain from telling law enforcement what happened? Or is it more likely that the so-called journalist is attempting to skew the public's perception of the event toward his own prejudices? If journalists are really supposed to be fair and unbiased, why would they withhold information from both the public and law enforcement?
I understand full well the problem of maintaining individual rights against a police state. But in this case, a journalist was asked to testify to what he saw in public. There was no reasonable expectation of confidentiality between the protesters and Josh Wolf. It was not as if he was asked to reveal the confidential sources to his reporting (which the FBI has done before, btw). He was asked simply to testify to what he had seen in public.
Our first amendment freedoms are important. But this case hinges lightly on first amendment freedoms and heavily upon individual responsibility. Your exercise of your first amendment rights ends when they are used to deny justice to others. This case does not revolve around the crux of the issue of abuse of police authority. Instead, a grand jury compelled him to testify, and he refused. Basically, two branches of government were in agreement, which means that the checks and balances of the system were preserved. So in this case, our government worked as intended. What Josh seems to have forgotten is that his responsibility as a journalist is to preserve justice in society, rather than prevent it.
If we as Americans are not willing to make sacrifices in defense of our liberties, our liberties - Constitutional or otherwise - are already in mortal peril. But we should not forget that our liberties come with certain responsibilities to our neighbor as well. We could not be a free society if the police were unable to maintain order in the streets.
We need to guarantee rights based upon the real criteria upon which they should be based, that is to say the traits that are worthy of those rights,
Exactly. They should be based on objective criteria.
I must be in some kind of slashdot twilight zone here, because it seems you understood my point...
But moving on, I would go further and say that morality is objective, rather than subjective. The fact that each person might be viewing the same objective truth through a slightly different lens does not mean that the truth is subjective, or as some claim, different. It only means that we as individuals see the same truth from different perspectives. The truth doesn't change, though sometimes we aren't able to discover all of it. So we work with what we do know. As individuals (and even as societies) we can't possibly know everything.
But, society as a whole is capable of knowing a great deal more than any one individual. The knowledge acquired through the centuries can be passed down so that future generations do not have to repeat the same mistakes that previous ones did. There is a very good reason why we were taught about the Nazis in school, and why our children will hear the story as well. The reason why I believe someone should be granted the full rights of a human being by simply being a member of the species (or instance of, if you will) is that no other standard completely guarantees human rights:
It is essential that the definition of a human be unalterable, for if it is alterable, it is no different from the law, which can be changed by the majority at any time. The idea is that you have something which prevents the majority from taking advantage of the minority, a bulwark against the abuse of power. If the standard is changeable, it was no standard at all; it is incapable of providing protection to those who need it the most.
If we specify sentience as a criteria, the level at which one is considered human becomes completely arbitrary. Someone of insufficient intelligence or cognitive ability is loved no less by his parents because of this fact.
If we specify moral criteria, who defines what "moral ability" is? Again, it becomes completely arbitrary.
While racism may now seem repugnant, at the time of its heyday there were logical arguments in its favor. Proponents of racism claimed that other races lacked intelligence or moral uprightness, and hence, were less than fully human. If we want to avoid the error of the past, we would be wise to define humans strictly according to species.
If you specify what criteria qualifies someone as human, you create a situation in which redefinition of that criteria can disenfranchise a whole class of people. Suppose we define human as possessing some degree of intelligence and reason, and perhaps some moral attribute - say, self control. As an animal can only do as its primal urges compel it, and a human can refrain from acting on impulses, it would seem this would make a good criteria. The problem is that taken to its logical conclusion, it means homosexuals are not people - for if someone had complete control over their impulses, they would refrain from doing anything less than optimal, including homosexual sex (high chance of disease, no chance of procreation, thus, it is illogical). (And keep in mind that in a democracy, the majority opinion is the ruling opinion. I understand the fallacy of the argument just presented, but realize that the majority of people would not. Thus, it could become a very popular opinion, in spite of its problems.)
The problem comes when society at large becomes generally indifferent of truth, or even deliberately ignorant of its existence. Without truth and knowledge, our skills of reasoning have no foundation upon which to build. We can't discuss the merits of embryonic stem cell research if we are unable to foresee the consequences of our actions. If we do not understand the motivations of human beings, we
Refraining from imposing personal morality on the public at large is a theme of the Democrats, and their campaigns. The fact that they do it anyway only shows their character.
I mean, it's no different than Republicans and the pro-life issue. They all pay lip service to ending abortion, yet haven't done anything about it. You can bet that if 1.3 million Americans were being killed each year by terrorism, the Republicans would be doing more than just confirming conservative judges and declaring their support for the cause. Kind of makes you wonder what they really stand for.
I respect life, human or otherwise, that I find deserving of that respect, based upon the qualities I value and my own ethics.[emphasis added]
I think this sums up the problem in a single sentence. Unless there exists an objective standard of morality (or ethics, if you will) which is independently verifiable, you will always have the problem of differing opinions. Should you find me undeserving of your respect, would that justify murdering me?
Or, what happens if I no longer fit your criteria for being human? Would you care if I died? Or what if you had committed some act, so heinous, that I no longer considered you human? Would I have the right to hunt you down and shoot you like an animal?
The conflict between private morality and public ethics was played out in the Terry Schiavo debacle. To her husband, Terry was dead. To her mother, Terry was still very much alive. So who decides when a human being is considered not a human, from the perspective of the law? The judge? Yes, directly, but he only interprets the law, which is effected by the majority of the voting public. Not minorities. Not those who cannot speak for themselves. Not those disenfranchized by youthful indiscretions (yes, pulling a fire alarm pulls your voting rights!)
The problem is that the law changes. In the 1800's, a Black person didn't count as fully human, simply because of the color of their skin. In the 1930's, Jews were not considered fully human simply because of their ancestry. And this happened in democratic republics. The legal definition of what constituted a human being was capricious, subject to the purely arbitrary whims of the public. If you allow the public to decide who is and isn't human, and consequently, deserving of the protection of law, inevitably the criteria will be changed to benefit those in power. In effect, you no longer have a democracy where everyone is equal, but rather a dog-eat-dog world where anyone's basic right to life can be destroyed by simply reclassifying them as non human.
And we do this a lot:
Enemy Combatant
Illegal Combatant
Persistent Vegetative State
A Terminal Patient
A fetus, rather than baby human.
A suspect.
Our society uses terminology to minimize the rights of others. We should not be naive in thinking that if we do not hold to the most basic definition of what a human being is - that is, a member of the human species - that others will modify the definition to disenfranchise those which they despise. Our history is filled with examples of doing just that.
Slashdot Mirror
Europe is a continent with many very different cultures that have fought bitterly in a not so distant past, just take the troubles in the Balkan. It does not take much imagination to see new flare ups of extremely damaging violence in parts of Europe when certain scrupulous groups and individuals would not be constrained.
I agree with this; but I would point out that in the 200+ years the US has been around, France has had no less than four governments, and Germany has had six. During the same time period, the US struggled with issues of Manifest Destiny (and the "Indian problem"), slavery and the Civil War, the Great Depression, racism, and the Cold War. In spite of these challenges, the US has remained relatively stable from a civil perspective. It seems that whenever there are problems in Europe, rather than discussing the issue, they take up arms and slaughter each other.
Interestingly, the US has more cultures and the cultures we have are farther separated ideologically from each other. It was the US in which the term "Melting Pot" was coined. We have cultural divides larger than Europe, and yet manage to get along without much violence.
I guess I have a different perspective because I'm Christian and understand the nature of evil, but I'd like someone to point out any case in history where yielding one's freedoms to another didn't result in oppression and even greater evils. The US has been relatively stable even during periods of unrest because the population has always had recourse to change the government without having to resort to violence. If certain people feel they are being unfairly excluded from the political process because of their deeply held beliefs, it is an invitation for revolution in which the strongest party wins. This would be consistent with Europe's history, and it seems they have not learned a thing from the history of their past 200 years.
So you can define hate speech.
And we could probably agree on what is acceptable and not.
But, the effect of an a priori prohibition speech based on its content damages society as a whole.
The battle over free speech isn't merely about public statements. It is also a battle over how best to address the problem of troubled individuals, who, while not criminal (yet), exhibit pathological tendencies. Without freedom of speech, we would have to wonder if everyone was out to get us. With freedom of speech, I have a reasonable assurance that I'm on good terms with others because they are free to let me know if they hate me or love me, or are merely indifferent. Hence, our collective sense of security and civil stability is very much tied to our freedom of speech.
Or expressions of religious belief?
This is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by the EU to outlaw religion (both Muslim and Christian religions believe homosexuality to be immoral; the reasoning goes that even condeming immoral behavior (as opposed to people)is sufficient to trigger the statute.
IIRC, a similar law has been passed in the Netherlands, with pastors being warned that there are certain sins they are no longer allowed to mention in public.
Even if you are an atheist, the premise is troubling. I would be likewise disturbed if questioning the existence of God was made illegal - certainly this development is not going to expand and enlighten public discourse on sensitive subjects.
Truly a troubling development.
But cold water also acts like a solid at times.
Even if you don't use their software.
That is, this legislation would protect Microsoft snooping in on your Linux box for an "unauthorized" copy of Windows.
Companies have always been able to legally install spyware via the EULA. Now, they can install it without your consent, and leave you without any legal recourse should you incur damages.
To complete an open-source hardware project (say, design a complete computer) yourself, you would need an all-consuming geek passion.
But, if you work as part of a team with others, your contribution can be quite small, and the project can still have a large impact.
The idea is that you break up a project into small enough chunks that even those who don't have much time - say, only an hour a week - can contribute to a larger, exciting project.
For example, consider designing a computer motherboard. Think of the tasks that can be done independently:
- The power supply.
- The memory subsystem.
- The various busses and bus architecture.
- Various peripherals.
- The boot code and ROM/EPROM/EEPROM/FLASH programming.
- The CPU and memory architecture.
- The overall board schematic - partitioned among several people.
- The board layout.
One individual could do all of these, or the task could be split up among several people. Even those of us with packed schedules could manage to design the motherboard's power supply given a 6 month goal.I think the issue is that apathy is all too common. Yes, there are people interested in doing these things, but unfortunately, we are so few and far between that the social connections upon which these projects are contingent never get formed.
I'm surrounded by engineers with the capability to produce open source computers, but...
Nobody has the time or interest.
Yes, I (among many) could design and implement a computer complete from the gate-level design all the way up to the compiler and operating system.
Ironically, now that I have the knowledge, I don't have the time to work on it. It gets worse:
If I did build my own computer, friends and family would inevitably ask, "So why did you spend $(Multiple thousands) for a computer slower than the $299 Sam's club special?", and "Isn't that just an expensive hobby? - you don't really expect people to buy a 1 GHz ARM machine, do you?" etc..
I would like to work on open source hardware. I do have experience porting Linux to new architectures. But sadly, I think something about corporate america just takes away the passion from the discipline. Since I started programming more than 10 years ago, I have met only one person who was passionate enough about it to do it outside of work. And you know what he did? - mods for a game. Nothing really serious or interesting.
It's not that there is a lack of talent. Rather, apathy is fatal to open source. And we need to come to terms with the fact that the overwhelming majority of those with the knowledge to do something disruptive, to use their skill to change their world for the better, choose just to go home at night and watch tv.
They have no geek passion. They are irrelevant to the discipline. And they are exactly what Corporate America wants them to be.
No, you have that right now.
Every hear of Pad2Pad.com?
If you can do the layout, they'll make your board for you. Yes, it is kind of expensive for hobby projects, but for a computer motherboard it's not *terribly* bad. A commercially made motherboard is still cheaper, but I guess if you want something without DRM, you're always welcome to implement it yourself.
Now, the only problem is that implementing and debugging a computer from scratch could be a rather time consuming undertaking. But, if you've got the time, there are places who will build it for you, whatever *it* is.
It is how banks and other institutions carry out identification. Typically, your name, address, and SSN are all that is needed for a criminal to commit fraud.
And typically, the worst you'll have to put up with should your identity be "stolen" is signing an affidavit to that effect. I'm not aware of any case in which someone whose identity was stolen ended up with out of pocket expenses. Typically, the merchant eats the fraud.
The banks, merchants, etc... are the real losers. However, if it was a serious problem, banks and merchants would be doing something about it. When you think about it, someone unwilling to do something as small as changing their identification process can't be too concerned about the problem. Yes, they'll pay lip service to it, but in the end, it just isn't large enough a problem to do something about.
Now, I haven't had personal experience with this, but I am not aware of anyone who has been defrauded (i.e. cleaned out their bank account) and have not received their money back from the bank.
You are a support call.
A number. A negative number on their balance sheet. Your call is costing them money, dipping into their profit margins. They have a greater incentive to drop you as a customer than to spend time trying to fix your problem.
Businesses today have very little incentive to treat people like people. They design as much cost out of their processes as possible, leaving only the absolute minimum necessary to conduct business. Extraneous circumstances don't happen in the mind of the business analyst - or even if they do, the business isn't willing to pay to write code for all of those "what if" scenarios. Instead, they write support process to minimize cost, hoping the customer with a valid problem will just figure it out on their own. Long hold times are used to discourage people from calling in the first place. Being unable to talk to a human also discourages callers. And let's not forget making it near impossible to talk to someone in the company who actually has the power to fix the problem.
I guess the bigger question is why we as a people consider it appropriate for businesses to do these things to us.
But, here are some things you can try:
I'm writing this on a Toshiba laptop that has gone through two DVD drives, a power supply, a processor fan, and a hard drive. After replacing the first DVD drive under warranty, the unit failed again a year later, along with the power supply. Now out of warranty, I was looking at having to spend quite a bit of my own money to have them replaced. A few weeks after a carefully crafted letter was sent, Toshiba replaced the DVD drive and power supply at no cost to me.
So if the company is ethical, a letter can work wonders. If not, well, you would be doing us all a favor to take your business elsewhere.
Tell us how you *really* feel.
Sorry, but I just couldn't resist. You understand, of course.
Not sure why I thought him a Republican, though. Of course, I'm not from New York...
What happens to the law. He knows just as well as everyone else that this law will get struck down as unconstitutional. What he is seeking is to establish himself as the politician who did something to protect the children.
However, elections are coming up for the Republican party, and he needs to show the people that the Republicans are thinking of the children. It doesn't matter what the ultimate fate of the bill is, this is just political posturing for himself and the Republican party.
The Republicans know that in order to gain political traction, they have to shift the focus away from Iraq and onto other issues.
Ok, who does project planning. Really. I would be interested in doing some coding for educational purposes, but I'm not sure that my efforts would meet the needs of the educational community. What we really need is for teachers to come together to tell us what they need, rather than scratching our own itch. The site is targetted primarily at programmers, not the end user right now.
But let's do some work on this. I have years of source code which for which the whole is less than the sum of the pieces because the efforts weren't focused on a single goal. Maybe I can put that to use if I have a clear goal to work toward.
No more whistle-blower hassles for Diebold.
I work for a major corporation. Why don't we bother with this DRM sort of thing? The short list:
Often, the truly valuable things in a company are the ideas and business strategies. This is low bandwidth information. The others - such as code, source masks, etc... already have the legal protection afforded trade secrets and copyrights. While it might not be practical to hand copy source code, this kind of espionage is rare and not very valuable. If company A stole company B's source code, company B would probably have a pretty good legal case against company A. However, the case for stealing ideas is a bit murkier and harder to prove.
Sounds like a good idea. I could really go for paid work developing educational software.
Finally, CPUs have long supported the notion of microcode
I believe you could have saved yourself some embarassment by reading the article. The author specifically mentions microcode and explains why this approach does not work for patching processors. If microcode patching could solve every problem, then why did Intel go through a 500 million dollar recall when the FDIV bug was discovered in the Pentium?
Calling the researcher dumb doesn't make you look any better. In fact, I'm not sure how you consider the writeup dumb when it appears you haven't read it:
Granted, it isn't earth shattering, but neither is it dumb.
The threat of being completely cut off from the ability to distribute GPL code can easily be seen as extreme and unfair for any company...
I believe even Microsoft is being forced to admit the power of free software.
Remember when Microsoft said Linux was irrelevant? When Balmer called it a toy?
Now it seems they are making the claim that free software developers must allow Novell to distribute their works, according to Novell's conditions, or suffer liability under a claim of tortious interference.
So it would seem that:
What is particularly galling about this position is that Microsoft's lawyers seem to be of the opinion that if someone stopped giving away their software - software upon which Microsoft has built a business relationship - that Microsoft can now sue the author, who received no money for his work, for damages.
Yes, this is our legal system at work. Where the refusal to give away software can get you sued.
I imagine by this reasoning, Microsoft could be sued for tortious influence the next time they raise the price of Vista.
We note that the draft of the GPLv3 does not tear down the bridge Microsoft and Novell have built for their customers. It is unfortunate, however, that the FSF is attempting to use the GPLv3 to prevent future collaboration among industry leaders to benefit customers..
I believe what Horacio Gutierrez really meant was: "It is unfortunate, however, that the FSF is attempting to use the GPLv3 ... to benefit customers..."
Because Horacio's argument just doesn't make sense. Typically, industry collaboration works to benefit the industry, not the consumer. In fact, I believe the boards of most corporations would consider collaboration among companies to reduce price and increase features (thereby reducing profit margins) to be a breach of fiduciary duty on the part of the CEO. I'm not aware of any company trying to decrease its profit margin, yet this is what Horacio suggests. In fact, I think it is just the opposite: industry collaboration tends to stifle new features, increase cost, and reduce the functionality and usability of software. The FSF is actually having a positive impact on the industry by virtue of its increasing competition. It is the classic example of how capitalism minimizes inefficiencies in markets - currently, the major proprietary software makers aren't very efficient at producing what the market wants. In comes the FSF, and solves the problem.
Reverse engineering is not illegal.
It may be a violation of the terms of the EULA, but it is not illegal, and it is not a violation of copyright, or the DMCA. (Standard Disclaimer: IANAL).
Furthermore, I would argue that a computer owner cannot legally be stopped from looking at their own machine. For example, what if WoW was being used (surrepetitiously) to traffic child porn? Would the WoW EULA be a legal defense for the owner of the computer? That he was contractually prevented from looking at his own system, therefore he can't be liable for whatever the police find on his computer?
I don't think these arguments would hold sway in a court of law. While Blizzard does have a right to ensure that people don't use their computers to cheat, they don't have a right to prevent a user from looking at their own machine, or modifying the contents thereof.
Really, the problem is the manner in which Blizzard designed their game. Had it been built using a secure architecture from the outset, these drastic measures wouldn't be necessary. Yes, cheaters suck. But, had Blizzard followed the simple mantra, never trust the client, they wouldn't be in this fix and we could all get on with gameplay without the attendant invasion of privacy.
What next? Am I going to setup a special PC just for gaming, and use another one for all of my other, private business? As part of my work, I deal with my employer's private, confidential information. I cannot have a software program peeking in on me from time to time; it would be a breach of my duty to safeguard my employer's data.
Blizzard needs to understand that users expect their machines to be private. If their program invades this privacy, my only option is to refrain from buying it. I'll have to play other games, which would be a shame.
But what of our responsibility to our fellow neighbors?
We hear so much about first amendment freedoms, but we don't hear about the flip side of crimes that remain unsolved because the investigative ability of law enforcement is hampered by self-righteous individuals.
If I had had my skull cracked by a protester, I would be very angry if someone who saw the incident, or knew the identity of the perpetrator, refused to testify because he thought himself a journalist. If the goal of a journalist is to report the news, why would they refrain from telling law enforcement what happened? Or is it more likely that the so-called journalist is attempting to skew the public's perception of the event toward his own prejudices? If journalists are really supposed to be fair and unbiased, why would they withhold information from both the public and law enforcement?
I understand full well the problem of maintaining individual rights against a police state. But in this case, a journalist was asked to testify to what he saw in public. There was no reasonable expectation of confidentiality between the protesters and Josh Wolf. It was not as if he was asked to reveal the confidential sources to his reporting (which the FBI has done before, btw). He was asked simply to testify to what he had seen in public.
Our first amendment freedoms are important. But this case hinges lightly on first amendment freedoms and heavily upon individual responsibility. Your exercise of your first amendment rights ends when they are used to deny justice to others. This case does not revolve around the crux of the issue of abuse of police authority. Instead, a grand jury compelled him to testify, and he refused. Basically, two branches of government were in agreement, which means that the checks and balances of the system were preserved. So in this case, our government worked as intended. What Josh seems to have forgotten is that his responsibility as a journalist is to preserve justice in society, rather than prevent it.
If we as Americans are not willing to make sacrifices in defense of our liberties, our liberties - Constitutional or otherwise - are already in mortal peril. But we should not forget that our liberties come with certain responsibilities to our neighbor as well. We could not be a free society if the police were unable to maintain order in the streets.
We need to guarantee rights based upon the real criteria upon which they should be based, that is to say the traits that are worthy of those rights,
Exactly. They should be based on objective criteria.
I must be in some kind of slashdot twilight zone here, because it seems you understood my point...
But moving on, I would go further and say that morality is objective, rather than subjective. The fact that each person might be viewing the same objective truth through a slightly different lens does not mean that the truth is subjective, or as some claim, different. It only means that we as individuals see the same truth from different perspectives. The truth doesn't change, though sometimes we aren't able to discover all of it. So we work with what we do know. As individuals (and even as societies) we can't possibly know everything.
But, society as a whole is capable of knowing a great deal more than any one individual. The knowledge acquired through the centuries can be passed down so that future generations do not have to repeat the same mistakes that previous ones did. There is a very good reason why we were taught about the Nazis in school, and why our children will hear the story as well. The reason why I believe someone should be granted the full rights of a human being by simply being a member of the species (or instance of, if you will) is that no other standard completely guarantees human rights:
The problem comes when society at large becomes generally indifferent of truth, or even deliberately ignorant of its existence. Without truth and knowledge, our skills of reasoning have no foundation upon which to build. We can't discuss the merits of embryonic stem cell research if we are unable to foresee the consequences of our actions. If we do not understand the motivations of human beings, we
Refraining from imposing personal morality on the public at large is a theme of the Democrats, and their campaigns. The fact that they do it anyway only shows their character.
I mean, it's no different than Republicans and the pro-life issue. They all pay lip service to ending abortion, yet haven't done anything about it. You can bet that if 1.3 million Americans were being killed each year by terrorism, the Republicans would be doing more than just confirming conservative judges and declaring their support for the cause. Kind of makes you wonder what they really stand for.
I respect life, human or otherwise, that I find deserving of that respect, based upon the qualities I value and my own ethics.[emphasis added]
I think this sums up the problem in a single sentence. Unless there exists an objective standard of morality (or ethics, if you will) which is independently verifiable, you will always have the problem of differing opinions. Should you find me undeserving of your respect, would that justify murdering me?
Or, what happens if I no longer fit your criteria for being human? Would you care if I died? Or what if you had committed some act, so heinous, that I no longer considered you human? Would I have the right to hunt you down and shoot you like an animal?
The conflict between private morality and public ethics was played out in the Terry Schiavo debacle. To her husband, Terry was dead. To her mother, Terry was still very much alive. So who decides when a human being is considered not a human, from the perspective of the law? The judge? Yes, directly, but he only interprets the law, which is effected by the majority of the voting public. Not minorities. Not those who cannot speak for themselves. Not those disenfranchized by youthful indiscretions (yes, pulling a fire alarm pulls your voting rights!)
The problem is that the law changes. In the 1800's, a Black person didn't count as fully human, simply because of the color of their skin. In the 1930's, Jews were not considered fully human simply because of their ancestry. And this happened in democratic republics. The legal definition of what constituted a human being was capricious, subject to the purely arbitrary whims of the public. If you allow the public to decide who is and isn't human, and consequently, deserving of the protection of law, inevitably the criteria will be changed to benefit those in power. In effect, you no longer have a democracy where everyone is equal, but rather a dog-eat-dog world where anyone's basic right to life can be destroyed by simply reclassifying them as non human.
And we do this a lot:
Our society uses terminology to minimize the rights of others. We should not be naive in thinking that if we do not hold to the most basic definition of what a human being is - that is, a member of the human species - that others will modify the definition to disenfranchise those which they despise. Our history is filled with examples of doing just that.