...but if I come up with a solution to a problem, I'll be damned if I'll pay a licensing fee if it happens to be patented. Especially if I had no prior knowledge of the concept.
You can't pattent ideas, since when is anone allowed to control my thoughts and ideas? Never. Imagine if Copernicus had a patent on his idea that the world was round...no one else could talk about it until his patent expired.
I can give you a will go wrong choice... stay away from NVDIA Geforce 2 mmx based chips. It works wondefully for games under windows, but I personally can't get X Windows running under it.
Of course if I'm wrong someone please correct me, I'd love to get X running on my box again.
Exactly, you're talking about all software, the article is about security software.
Hah the average high school dropout may not understand the issues?...your average college graduate doesn't.
You've just proven my point, just because the customer does not know about the issues is no excuse not to include the feature. I'm not going to argue about all software because this isn't what this is about. It's about the security industry burying their heads in the sand, and getting irate when a bug is found.
I guess I'll ignore the first line, being flamebait and all, though I will make the point that you definitely don't deserve the extra posting point if you're going to use it to spew lines like that
Back to the real topic... that's bullshit. Any software company, and especially the programming staff working for it, has the responsibility to make sure that when they tout a product as secure, it is to a reasonable level.
And we're not talking about an average software company, we're talking about a company that writes security software. I'm sure that they have a whole list of features that claim to give their product the edge over others and yet it was obviously easily cracked.
school: "Your security software doesn't work" company:"Well no one should have been trying to abuse the system that's why it failed school"Oh I see, it's the student's fault for trying to break in, the security software works as long as no one tries to break in
Thats ridiculous.
And even worse is your defense; that because the consumer is uneducated and isn't aware of the need for security software companies don't need to build it in. I guess car manufacturers can start leaving out vital safety parts since the ignorant customer soesn't know about the need for them.
Some 15yolds are surprisingly good at picking up on this sort of thing.
Oh some definitely are, I know that even younger than that I was put in similar situations. In my case I knew the teacher was joking, but I'd do whatever it was anyway, in order to wipe the smug look off of the teachers face , and to prove that I could do it. Unfotunately we'll never really know about this kid. At that age it's a crap shoot whether or not they do understand that it was a joke. Or if they did understand and did it anyway.
Regardless you're correct, even if I don't believe that the act of craking the software was wrong, I do, in context, believe that the teacher was wrong. It really un-nerves me to think the teacher wasn't joking at the tim, but lied later to cover his own ass.
Of course I still don't understand the motivation to tell the children about a reward, if not to encourage them to try.
...for conspiracy to commit a crime, with a minor no less. Regardless of whether or not the teacher was kidding he was wrong. You can never garauntee that a 15 year old is mature enough to pock up the nuances of adult humor, or sarcasm.
My initial reaction was that the teacher was kidding and was just telling the students about the reward from the security company, but they claim that there never was a reward. So what would make a teacher lie like that?
And as far as the kid getting in trouble, at most maybe the school should have explained that it was a joke, this kid caused no damage, and in fact, immediately told the teacher when he had accomplished it.
Of courser the major problem is this: This is just another case of people ignoiring the real problem, the fact that security is pretty much a joke field. The attitude of "our lock is broken, and you have to pretend that it isn't, and if you don't play along we'll penalize you for pointing out our mistakes." Gotta love that.
Now I'm not one to bash Katz I think there's far too much of that done in the comments, however this article is pretty off.
But most people are not, of course. Flamers and corporations and lawyers have thundered online, along with e-traders, role-players, spammers, governments -- everyone! -- with a long list of other agendas, from improved market share to con games
God forbid the net be a place where free speech would carry more weight than any other medium. I mean how dare they let just anyone on the net. We should all aspire to be as enlightened as Rheinhold and other god-like creatures.
The net is for EVERYBODY, how about that for 60's ideals, not just those like us that we want to associate with. If you want a private place on the net where only the people you want granted access are allowed then build it, but don't claim that you want an open and free exchange of ideas and then complain when people say or do things you don't like. As time goes on the net will increasingly become a microcosm of the real world, and you'll have to deal with all the problems that we do in the real world, crime, people who don't agree with us ect. If that's not acceptable, turn off your computer and go join a commune, I'm sure there some crackpots out there trying to emulate the oh so perfect community of Walden Two, (right next to the cemetary of Walden Two inspired suicides).
collapsed under an onslaught of messages, often obscene and hostile, posted by the first generation of adolescents with personal computers and modems. (Understandably, there is something about adolescence that doesn't care for free, intellectual and spiritual discussions.)
Let us now make age a bias, in a place where all people are virtually ageless. Of course let's also look at the facts, there are many adults who don't care for such things, possibly more so the youger people. Not that it matters, this is baswed on the assumption that free, intellectual, discussions are inherently a good thing. Tha'ts just an opinion. Some people may want to log on to talk superficially about sports, or fashion, or whatever the hell they want, and they have that right.
My point is that there are thousands upon thousands of voices on the net. And they all have the right to be heard, and shape the internet the way they want. Not just those of us that do value discussion. And those of use that log on to talk about what we want to whether it's deep spiritual subjects, or (as equally deep, but how could a journalist begin to understand) technological or mathmematical subjects, or the latest video game, or about how we're the most 3l1t3 hax0r in the world, that right is ours. You want to shape a society in your vision, go buy an island.
I agree, the only way to succeed without ads is to make a product that is far and away the best.
And yes the TV ads today are about how cool/friendly ect. a vedo is, but that's because that's what works. Ads have to target the largest group of people, who by nature are the most easily influenced.
Oh but it does contribute to everyone. The value of branding is well known. For every company that does well because of consumer support the entire economy benifits by providing more jobs, and a richer economy.
Branding is especially effective. It's almost subliminal, but the more you see those logos, and the more you hear the jignles, the more likely you are to buy a product. You can deny it all you want, but product awareness affects everyone on a subunconcious level.
The only intrinsic things of interest to anyone are those that provide for food, and shelter. Everything else is essentially luxury, and there are more than enough people to pay for these luxuries that they would be, for the most part, unaware of without advertising. And you my friend are one of them. Evidently their efforts worked since you bought the fizzy water that you're throwing out the window of that car that has had a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.
Which is exactly what advertisers want. If they know they can get an equal or higher rate of activity based on ads by a method that cost them less (by virtue of being able to show them to a smaller amount of people) they'll jump all over it.
Which is where things are heading, internet privacy is under attack on a daily basis, and I'll fight for my provacy and anonyminity along woth everyone else, but sooner or later that provacy will disappear, and corporations will have the means to target on an individual basis, which will lead to more ads being shown to those who respond to them and less to those that do not.
Web based businesses have gone belly up for two reasons, no business sense (oxymoron), and the ease that new companies can jump onto the internet. These two factors combine to form a situation where almost anyone can start a business, and since the majority of these people shouldn't because of having no business sense, these companies fail. Compare this to the difficulty of starting a brick and mortar company, where business sense is required just to get started.
As for the millions of dollars thrown at dot coms, it's a similar situation. You have hundreds of companies, who had no product, who pitch an idea to corporations in order to get investments, so they can boostrap themselves into being a real company. Of course many of these companies fail, they had nothing to begin with, it has nothing to do with advertisements. There are plenty of dot coms that are succesful and making plenty of money, for less overhead than traditional companies.
I'm not sure I see your paradox. You just described the only way that commercial interests could act, not a way in which they logically couldn't. Commerce rarely produces something new. It takes something that exists, invests, extends, and does what it can to try and make it profitable. Look at sports, or computers. Both of these were done intitially as hobbies, they weren't created by businesses, but businesses used them to turn a profit, and threw so much money around that they became what they are today.
The Internet as a mass market medium is still young. No one really knows how to maximize the internet as a marketing tool yet, especially not with the rate that it changes day to day. Not everything that people try is going to work and in any mediums infancy there's going to be a high rate of failure due to the amount of experimentation that goes on. There are some things that are certain, the rate of failures will go down as a result of businesses finding better ways to utilize their net presence, and advertising will always be on the net.
No you're not alone, but you are in the minority. The only reason that people become aware of sites that are profitable to the provider is because somewhere sometime they saw an ad.
It's not as though I don't miss the old days. But I get 100 times more use of the net now. And so does everyone else.
The net has exploded due to corporations becoming involved, and things such as Linux would never have gained the popularity that they have if the net hadn't expanded the wa it did.
I see a lot of people complaining that ads don't work and they just ignore them, but if they didn't work companies wouldn't be spending billions of dollars to place them. And when they stop being effective, new methods will be developed and tried until something does work.
I agree with you for the most part, however, more hits DO turn into sales in a linear relationship, (or maybe not strickly linear, it could be exponential, but the point is there is a growth relationship between the two). In any case more hits do generate more sales, it's pretty basic, the more viewers of an ad, the greater the probability to find a consumer among the viewers.
But it may become your responsibility. It may come to the point wher sites will shut down because the revenue they were using to run the site (even if they only make back enough to break even) will shut down the site. Quality sites will vanish because people who aren't getting paid are people who need to spend their time elsewhere to put food on the table.
Not to mention the economic benefits that are driven by advertising on the internet. I remember when there was no advertising and yes it was nice. But every time I get angry at ads I take a look at the information avaiable to me now. The out of print books, and cd's I can now find easily, and the fact that I'm getting information at cable modem speeds instead of over a phone line. None of this would exist if it weren't for the fact that ad revenue drove expansion of the internet.
Most of the fun was spoiled by those things.Hell no, most of the fun was because of those things. Remember ansi bombs in the 80's, crashing WWIV ?
And the good boards provided something that the internet struggles with, a strong sense of community. Don't get me wrong the internet instills a sense of it, but not nearly as tightly as the old bbs's used to do.
And this is all besides the fact that 90% of it was free.
Please,please, please tell me you're being sarcastic.
The list of other offences weren't for Giffiths, it was intended to show what offences actually warrant a suspension and contrast it with this ridiculous situation.
Re:There's also an education issue
on
Should You Vote?
·
· Score: 1
whoops I left off my tags, my post should have been wrapped with
Re:There's also an education issue
on
Should You Vote?
·
· Score: 1
Boy that's a great idea , I guess we should start giving all of our elected officials iq tests. Although somehow I have a feeling that the majority of them would be found not to be above average enough to participate in government.
Uhhh, I hate to break it to you, but you DON'T get to vote for the president anyway. The electoral college does that. And there is nothing to prevent a candidate from being elected by the electoral college when he didn't win the popular vote...in fact it's happend before in history, twice I think.
This is all true, but it still isn't a basis for excluding virtual communities from the concept of community. I can see it being used as an argument that the internet is not the sort of community that it claims to be. However, I still don't buy it. Money is not required, it just makes it easier. Anyone can find a way to get on if they tried hard enough.
I agree that the cost should not be held against it, but for a different reason. Cost cannot be a factor is deciding what is and is not a community. It's a major fallacy on the author's part to assume this. There are many (non-virtual)communities that exist where money is the only thing that defines the community.
MKS allready does this, it has a web interface, that you can do everything through. The software patent thing gets even more ridiculous when you start talking about web material. No one owns the internet, it is the only truly 'public' place in the world. If you post something publicly it's fair game.
The whole software patent issue tends to give me the attitude 'bite me I'll do what I want'.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't pattent ideas, since when is anone allowed to control my thoughts and ideas? Never. Imagine if Copernicus had a patent on his idea that the world was round...no one else could talk about it until his patent expired.
Of course if I'm wrong someone please correct me, I'd love to get X running on my box again.
Hah the average high school dropout may not understand the issues? ...your average college graduate doesn't.
You've just proven my point, just because the customer does not know about the issues is no excuse not to include the feature. I'm not going to argue about all software because this isn't what this is about. It's about the security industry burying their heads in the sand, and getting irate when a bug is found.
Back to the real topic... that's bullshit. Any software company, and especially the programming staff working for it, has the responsibility to make sure that when they tout a product as secure, it is to a reasonable level.
And we're not talking about an average software company, we're talking about a company that writes security software. I'm sure that they have a whole list of features that claim to give their product the edge over others and yet it was obviously easily cracked.
school: "Your security software doesn't work"
company: "Well no one should have been trying to abuse the system that's why it failed
school "Oh I see, it's the student's fault for trying to break in, the security software works as long as no one tries to break in
Thats ridiculous.
And even worse is your defense; that because the consumer is uneducated and isn't aware of the need for security software companies don't need to build it in. I guess car manufacturers can start leaving out vital safety parts since the ignorant customer soesn't know about the need for them.
Oh some definitely are, I know that even younger than that I was put in similar situations. In my case I knew the teacher was joking, but I'd do whatever it was anyway, in order to wipe the smug look off of the teachers face , and to prove that I could do it. Unfotunately we'll never really know about this kid. At that age it's a crap shoot whether or not they do understand that it was a joke. Or if they did understand and did it anyway.
Regardless you're correct, even if I don't believe that the act of craking the software was wrong, I do, in context, believe that the teacher was wrong. It really un-nerves me to think the teacher wasn't joking at the tim, but lied later to cover his own ass.
Of course I still don't understand the motivation to tell the children about a reward, if not to encourage them to try.
My initial reaction was that the teacher was kidding and was just telling the students about the reward from the security company, but they claim that there never was a reward. So what would make a teacher lie like that?
And as far as the kid getting in trouble, at most maybe the school should have explained that it was a joke, this kid caused no damage, and in fact, immediately told the teacher when he had accomplished it.
Of courser the major problem is this: This is just another case of people ignoiring the real problem, the fact that security is pretty much a joke field. The attitude of "our lock is broken, and you have to pretend that it isn't, and if you don't play along we'll penalize you for pointing out our mistakes." Gotta love that.
But most people are not, of course. Flamers and corporations and lawyers have thundered online, along with e-traders, role-players, spammers, governments -- everyone! -- with a long list of other agendas, from improved market share to con games
God forbid the net be a place where free speech would carry more weight than any other medium. I mean how dare they let just anyone on the net. We should all aspire to be as enlightened as Rheinhold and other god-like creatures.
The net is for EVERYBODY, how about that for 60's ideals, not just those like us that we want to associate with. If you want a private place on the net where only the people you want granted access are allowed then build it, but don't claim that you want an open and free exchange of ideas and then complain when people say or do things you don't like. As time goes on the net will increasingly become a microcosm of the real world, and you'll have to deal with all the problems that we do in the real world, crime, people who don't agree with us ect. If that's not acceptable, turn off your computer and go join a commune, I'm sure there some crackpots out there trying to emulate the oh so perfect community of Walden Two, (right next to the cemetary of Walden Two inspired suicides).
collapsed under an onslaught of messages, often obscene and hostile, posted by the first generation of adolescents with personal computers and modems. (Understandably, there is something about adolescence that doesn't care for free, intellectual and spiritual discussions.)
Let us now make age a bias, in a place where all people are virtually ageless. Of course let's also look at the facts, there are many adults who don't care for such things, possibly more so the youger people. Not that it matters, this is baswed on the assumption that free, intellectual, discussions are inherently a good thing. Tha'ts just an opinion. Some people may want to log on to talk superficially about sports, or fashion, or whatever the hell they want, and they have that right.
My point is that there are thousands upon thousands of voices on the net. And they all have the right to be heard, and shape the internet the way they want. Not just those of us that do value discussion. And those of use that log on to talk about what we want to whether it's deep spiritual subjects, or (as equally deep, but how could a journalist begin to understand) technological or mathmematical subjects, or the latest video game, or about how we're the most 3l1t3 hax0r in the world, that right is ours. You want to shape a society in your vision, go buy an island.
And yes the TV ads today are about how cool/friendly ect. a vedo is, but that's because that's what works. Ads have to target the largest group of people, who by nature are the most easily influenced.
1. Having the best name and the best product are not mtally exclusive.
2. Most advertising is aimed at selling a product via it's qaulities, most ads give reasons why their prodct is best.
Branding is especially effective. It's almost subliminal, but the more you see those logos, and the more you hear the jignles, the more likely you are to buy a product. You can deny it all you want, but product awareness affects everyone on a subunconcious level.
The only intrinsic things of interest to anyone are those that provide for food, and shelter. Everything else is essentially luxury, and there are more than enough people to pay for these luxuries that they would be, for the most part, unaware of without advertising. And you my friend are one of them. Evidently their efforts worked since you bought the fizzy water that you're throwing out the window of that car that has had a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.
Which is exactly what advertisers want. If they know they can get an equal or higher rate of activity based on ads by a method that cost them less (by virtue of being able to show them to a smaller amount of people) they'll jump all over it. Which is where things are heading, internet privacy is under attack on a daily basis, and I'll fight for my provacy and anonyminity along woth everyone else, but sooner or later that provacy will disappear, and corporations will have the means to target on an individual basis, which will lead to more ads being shown to those who respond to them and less to those that do not.
As for the millions of dollars thrown at dot coms, it's a similar situation. You have hundreds of companies, who had no product, who pitch an idea to corporations in order to get investments, so they can boostrap themselves into being a real company. Of course many of these companies fail, they had nothing to begin with, it has nothing to do with advertisements. There are plenty of dot coms that are succesful and making plenty of money, for less overhead than traditional companies.
I'm not sure I see your paradox. You just described the only way that commercial interests could act, not a way in which they logically couldn't. Commerce rarely produces something new. It takes something that exists, invests, extends, and does what it can to try and make it profitable. Look at sports, or computers. Both of these were done intitially as hobbies, they weren't created by businesses, but businesses used them to turn a profit, and threw so much money around that they became what they are today.
The Internet as a mass market medium is still young. No one really knows how to maximize the internet as a marketing tool yet, especially not with the rate that it changes day to day. Not everything that people try is going to work and in any mediums infancy there's going to be a high rate of failure due to the amount of experimentation that goes on. There are some things that are certain, the rate of failures will go down as a result of businesses finding better ways to utilize their net presence, and advertising will always be on the net.
It's not as though I don't miss the old days. But I get 100 times more use of the net now. And so does everyone else.
The net has exploded due to corporations becoming involved, and things such as Linux would never have gained the popularity that they have if the net hadn't expanded the wa it did.
I see a lot of people complaining that ads don't work and they just ignore them, but if they didn't work companies wouldn't be spending billions of dollars to place them. And when they stop being effective, new methods will be developed and tried until something does work.
I agree with you for the most part, however, more hits DO turn into sales in a linear relationship, (or maybe not strickly linear, it could be exponential, but the point is there is a growth relationship between the two). In any case more hits do generate more sales, it's pretty basic, the more viewers of an ad, the greater the probability to find a consumer among the viewers.
Not to mention the economic benefits that are driven by advertising on the internet. I remember when there was no advertising and yes it was nice. But every time I get angry at ads I take a look at the information avaiable to me now. The out of print books, and cd's I can now find easily, and the fact that I'm getting information at cable modem speeds instead of over a phone line. None of this would exist if it weren't for the fact that ad revenue drove expansion of the internet.
I know, I know I shoulda used preview, but hey, it's early.
http://www.rocketaware.com/cgi-bin/rktshow4.cgi?c= /orbit/Tq/comm/prog/terminal/
Most of the fun was spoiled by those things.Hell no, most of the fun was because of those things. Remember ansi bombs in the 80's, crashing WWIV ? And the good boards provided something that the internet struggles with, a strong sense of community. Don't get me wrong the internet instills a sense of it, but not nearly as tightly as the old bbs's used to do. And this is all besides the fact that 90% of it was free.
I beleive that's written somewhere in the Microsoft Employee Handbook.
The list of other offences weren't for Giffiths, it was intended to show what offences actually warrant a suspension and contrast it with this ridiculous situation.
whoops I left off my tags, my post should have been wrapped with
Boy that's a great idea , I guess we should start giving all of our elected officials iq tests. Although somehow I have a feeling that the majority of them would be found not to be above average enough to participate in government.
Uhhh, I hate to break it to you, but you DON'T get to vote for the president anyway. The electoral college does that. And there is nothing to prevent a candidate from being elected by the electoral college when he didn't win the popular vote...in fact it's happend before in history, twice I think.
This is all true, but it still isn't a basis for excluding virtual communities from the concept of community. I can see it being used as an argument that the internet is not the sort of community that it claims to be. However, I still don't buy it. Money is not required, it just makes it easier. Anyone can find a way to get on if they tried hard enough.
I agree that the cost should not be held against it, but for a different reason. Cost cannot be a factor is deciding what is and is not a community. It's a major fallacy on the author's part to assume this. There are many (non-virtual)communities that exist where money is the only thing that defines the community.
The whole software patent issue tends to give me the attitude 'bite me I'll do what I want'.