I think people need to be a little careful about bandying around the word "innovations". Pike was very careful NOT to say that Linux was not innovative. He said it was not innovative SYSTEMS RESEARCH. What you and other posters have said is true: it is innovative in other ways (for instance, development model, making it accessible as another poster has said, etc).
It's worth pointing out here that the US does not formally recognize Taiwan as a nation, yet other than perhaps the Chinese, few would argue that it's not.
Unfortunately, high frequencies don't travel well underwater, so you would indeed need a LOT of juice. This is why whales talk to each other (over thousands of miles!) using very low frequency audio. Similarly, the Navy uses very low frequency RF to talk to subs, etc.
Besides, if they couldn't make iridium pay, how could a company EVER make a go of this, technical reasons notwithstanding?
If this is indeed a one-time pad as most of the people who have studied these codes think, we might as well save our breath to cool our porridge.
Perhaps traffic analysis might be a more fruitful approach. Of course, as Schneider pointed out on the show, we know who's sending, but we don't know who's listening:-(
The wired article is very vague on the claims of increased precision in the search, so I wouldn't make any judgement about that as the/. headline implies.
Quantum computing does not change any of the basic tenents of computability, as far as I know. SO, if Grover's new algorithm does lead to more precise searches, it should lead to more precise searches in traditonal algorithms and computers.
Why do you think most major cruise lines have non-US registry, such as Liberia? Liberia is an unmitigated hell-hole on the west coast of Africa, but a lot of fancy ships seem to come from there. Reason? More beneficial laws.
I'm honestly surprised that the response would consist of so many questions. Yes, these are good ones to ask, but hardly points of law (I mean, if you can point to a law that says that protocols used on the internet can be freely copied, I would like to see it). Rather, I would have said either that slashdot is a journalistic enterprise and that articles are protected under the first amendment, and postings are akin to letters to the editor. This seems to be much more direct and to the point, and sets a VERY high bar for Microsoft to cross. They would have to prove that a) slashdot is NOT a journalistic enterprise, and therefore not entitled to first amendment protection, or b) that if slashdot IS a journalistic enterprise, that they (MSFT) have an overriding concern in having the first amendment rights abrogated. Keep in mind that the U.S. government was unable to do this with the New York Times when the Pentagon Papers were published. This is what I mean when I say "a high bar to cross". The letter written by the editor seemed to just be beating around the bush.
30 minute running time (was re:real info?)
on
Quantum Project
·
· Score: 2
Why do you think that just because it's 32 minutes it can't be deep or good? The short story and novella written form has been around for a long time, and they are every bit as good as "full length" novels in many cases.
The "short" in the movie industry is making a big comeback now (and actually, 30 minutes is probably at the high end of a short).
Now that I think of it, there are quite a few 2 hour movies that could have had 3/4 lopped off them without losing much if anything!
In fact, it is a misnomer to call this a University. A University is a degree-granting institution offering a diverse body of study across several colleges. This *might* be a college, but a college offers a number of degrees within a broad field (Engineering, Arts and Sciences, etc).
This *might* be a trade school.
Beefs w/the book (was Re:Friggin Netscape)
on
The Code Book
·
· Score: 2
I thought that the digression into the breaking of Linear B was a fascinating comparison to the efforts of codebreakers. The point that he made was that the techniques are >remarkably the same -- a code is like a language (in the information theory/machine automata sense), and in this case you need to use BOTH mathematics AND a knowledge of the people communicating to successfully break the code. I actually went out and bought "The Decipherment of Linear B" by John Chadwick after reading "The Code Book". When I read it, maybe I'll post a review to Slashdot!
I do agree with your point about the "unbreakable" nature of Quantum Crypto. If there is any historical lesson to be learned here, it's that cryptography is a neverending arms race between the maker and the breaker. It just gets more interesting and has higher stakes as it goes on!
Not comfortable with direct deposit for checks? Sheesh, it's only been around for 20 years! I'm surprised you use an ATM!
By the way, posters should keep in mind that there is a lot more here than bill PAYING. The service pointed to by the article does BILL PRESENTING. So, they actually RECEIVE your bill from the electric company, phone co, visa co, SCAN it, and present it to you for payment, which you can then do. Talk about opportunities for things to go wrong! If they screw up your visa bill, there goes your credit rating.
The real problem with ALL these systems is that they are just bandaids over paper. Even Checkfree, the service used by most banks, sends paper checks to most of the recipients of its payments. Only a few recipients are set up for automatic funds transfer. Similarly, the only reason this bill pay thing exists is that people like your visa company or electric company don't have a standard way to GIVE you an electronic bill.
Ok, then how much would YOU value it at? There are multiple ways to value this:
o How much did it cost to produce? o How much would someone who really wanted it, pay for it?
Let's look at bullet one. According to Epicor's 4th quarter release (from http://www.epicor.com), they did $258M in sales last year. According to their balance sheet from the Feb.2 earnings release, last year's cost of sales and marketing was $89M. That makes $2.5M for the customer list (the primary product of that $89M) seem pretty darn reasonable to me.
Now bullet two. You are the primary competitor of Epicor. Don't you want to know what sales they just landed? Don't you want to know what regions they are expanding into? What companies bought the newest product? How much would you be willing to pay for that? $500K? $1M? How much of YOUR $89M will having that list save you?
My point being: damages are up to a jury to decide. The company is in the best position to figure out how much they have been damaged. I imagine that estimate could be 2x-5x off from reality. But I doubt it's much more than that. This estimate seems pretty close to me.
So you are saying that the customer list of the company YOU work for has absolutely NO value, and you won't mind handing it over to me immediately, then?
No? I didn't think so.
Think about it this way -- how much $ was spent to acquire each and every customer? Wouldn't it have some value approximate to that?
I don't know about you, but my company bills my time (when not posting to/.:-) to our customers at in excess of $250/hr. $12500 is 50 hours of time. Actually, it's worse than that, because while working on the password problem I am not only NOT earning income for my company, I am having to be carried on overhead. So let's say 25 hours. If they had 1k users, it could easilly take that long to clean up the mess.
How are the actions referred to in the article even remotely comparable to either of the things you cite?
Do you actually claim that the man and woman did nothing wrong? I just can't see it. Bell was *FIRED* and then used both his contact on the inside and l0Phtcrack to break in and steal stuff. It's clear he wasn't supposed to be there. There's no way he could use the defense "I was just looking around/experimenting/playing/didn't know what I was doing". It was pretty clear he was persona non grata.
The main page headline for this article is just sensationalistic. Please, read, then THINK, then post.
It's not true that most shares are non-voting. Quite the opposite, in fact -- I get proxies all the time for companies I own stock in. I've even been to a (albeit regional) AT&T shareholder's meeting that I was invited to because I own 5 shares of AT&T that I was given by my Grandmother 10 years ago.
And, speaking of AT&T, I voted on ballot issues that were on the annual ballot that had been brought forth by shareholders holding POLITE---- letter to the Fidelity fund managers that hold blocks of stock and urge them to put pressure on the companies and support your issues.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a lot of name calling from an AC :-)
Are you claiming that Linux gave us the web, streaming media, voice recognition?
I think people need to be a little careful about bandying around the word "innovations". Pike was very careful NOT to say that Linux was not innovative. He said it was not innovative SYSTEMS RESEARCH. What you and other posters have said is true: it is innovative in other ways (for instance, development model, making it accessible as another poster has said, etc).
It's worth pointing out here that the US does not formally recognize Taiwan as a nation, yet other than perhaps the Chinese, few would argue that it's not.
Um, NOT. That royalty is for ENCODERS, not DECODERS.
Unfortunately, high frequencies don't travel well underwater, so you would indeed need a LOT of juice. This is why whales talk to each other (over thousands of miles!) using very low frequency audio. Similarly, the Navy uses very low frequency RF to talk to subs, etc.
Besides, if they couldn't make iridium pay, how could a company EVER make a go of this, technical reasons notwithstanding?
If this is indeed a one-time pad as most of the people who have studied these codes think, we might as well save our breath to cool our porridge.
:-(
Perhaps traffic analysis might be a more fruitful approach. Of course, as Schneider pointed out on the show, we know who's sending, but we don't know who's listening
The wired article is very vague on the claims of increased precision in the search, so I wouldn't make any judgement about that as the /. headline implies.
Quantum computing does not change any of the basic tenents of computability, as far as I know. SO, if Grover's new algorithm does lead to more precise searches, it should lead to more precise searches in traditonal algorithms and computers.
Indeed, if you piss off a major corporation, they might send these guys after you:
http://www.sandline.com
Or somebody like Executive Outcomes, though they've gone out of business.
Why do you think most major cruise lines have non-US registry, such as Liberia? Liberia is an unmitigated hell-hole on the west coast of Africa, but a lot of fancy ships seem to come from there. Reason? More beneficial laws.
Similar to incorporating in Delaware, I suppose.
I'm honestly surprised that the response would consist of so many questions. Yes, these are good ones to ask, but hardly points of law (I mean, if you can point to a law that says that protocols used on the internet can be freely copied, I would like to see it). Rather, I would have said either that slashdot is a journalistic enterprise and that articles are protected under the first amendment, and postings are akin to letters to the editor. This seems to be much more direct and to the point, and sets a VERY high bar for Microsoft to cross. They would have to prove that a) slashdot is NOT a journalistic enterprise, and therefore not entitled to first amendment protection, or b) that if slashdot IS a journalistic enterprise, that they (MSFT) have an overriding concern in having the first amendment rights abrogated. Keep in mind that the U.S. government was unable to do this with the New York Times when the Pentagon Papers were published. This is what I mean when I say "a high bar to cross". The letter written by the editor seemed to just be beating around the bush.
Why do you think that just because it's 32 minutes it can't be deep or good? The short story and novella written form has been around for a long time, and they are every bit as good as "full length" novels in many cases.
The "short" in the movie industry is making a big comeback now (and actually, 30 minutes is probably at the high end of a short).
Now that I think of it, there are quite a few 2 hour movies that could have had 3/4 lopped off them without losing much if anything!
In fact, it is a misnomer to call this a University. A University is a degree-granting institution offering a diverse body of study across several colleges. This *might* be a college, but a college offers a number of degrees within a broad field (Engineering, Arts and Sciences, etc).
This *might* be a trade school.
I thought that the digression into the breaking of Linear B was a fascinating comparison to the efforts of codebreakers. The point that he made was that the techniques are >remarkably the same -- a code is like a language (in the information theory/machine automata sense), and in this case you need to use BOTH mathematics AND a knowledge of the people communicating to successfully break the code. I actually went out and bought "The Decipherment of Linear B" by John Chadwick after reading "The Code Book". When I read it, maybe I'll post a review to Slashdot!
I do agree with your point about the "unbreakable" nature of Quantum Crypto. If there is any historical lesson to be learned here, it's that cryptography is a neverending arms race between the maker and the breaker. It just gets more interesting and has higher stakes as it goes on!
Not comfortable with direct deposit for checks? Sheesh, it's only been around for 20 years! I'm surprised you use an ATM!
By the way, posters should keep in mind that there is a lot more here than bill PAYING. The service pointed to by the article does BILL PRESENTING. So, they actually RECEIVE your bill from the electric company, phone co, visa co, SCAN it, and present it to you for payment, which you can then do. Talk about opportunities for things to go wrong! If they screw up your visa bill, there goes your credit rating.
The real problem with ALL these systems is that they are just bandaids over paper. Even Checkfree, the service used by most banks, sends paper checks to most of the recipients of its payments. Only a few recipients are set up for automatic funds transfer. Similarly, the only reason this bill pay thing exists is that people like your visa company or electric company don't have a standard way to GIVE you an electronic bill.
Right, but they don't get the float if you pay your bill immediately at the due date. If you wait 'till the due date, well, no float.
And more to the point, to whom are we supposed to send Shakespeare's royalties? (and Jane Austin, and Homer, and.....)
All I can say is, if Hart doesn't change his diet, he won't live to see 54...! yikes!
Ok, then how much would YOU value it at? There are multiple ways to value this:
o How much did it cost to produce?
o How much would someone who really wanted it, pay for it?
Let's look at bullet one. According to Epicor's 4th quarter release (from http://www.epicor.com), they did $258M in sales last year. According to their balance sheet from the Feb.2 earnings release, last year's cost of sales and marketing was $89M. That makes $2.5M for the customer list (the primary product of that $89M) seem pretty darn reasonable to me.
Now bullet two. You are the primary competitor of Epicor. Don't you want to know what sales they just landed? Don't you want to know what regions they are expanding into? What companies bought the newest product? How much would you be willing to pay for that? $500K? $1M? How much of YOUR $89M will having that list save you?
My point being: damages are up to a jury to decide. The company is in the best position to figure out how much they have been damaged. I imagine that estimate could be 2x-5x off from reality. But I doubt it's much more than that. This estimate seems pretty close to me.
So you are saying that the customer list of the company YOU work for has absolutely NO value, and you won't mind handing it over to me immediately, then?
No? I didn't think so.
Think about it this way -- how much $ was spent to acquire each and every customer? Wouldn't it have some value approximate to that?
I don't know about you, but my company bills my time (when not posting to /. :-) to our customers at in excess of $250/hr. $12500 is 50 hours of time. Actually, it's worse than that, because while working on the password problem I am not only NOT earning income for my company, I am having to be carried on overhead. So let's say 25 hours. If they had 1k users, it could easilly take that long to clean up the mess.
How are the actions referred to in the article even remotely comparable to either of the things you cite?
Do you actually claim that the man and woman did nothing wrong? I just can't see it. Bell was *FIRED* and then used both his contact on the inside and l0Phtcrack to break in and steal stuff. It's clear he wasn't supposed to be there. There's no way he could use the defense "I was just looking around/experimenting/playing/didn't know what I was doing". It was pretty clear he was persona non grata.
The main page headline for this article is just sensationalistic. Please, read, then THINK, then post.
....with the notable exception of FRANCE, who assigned the 2.4ghz range to the military. DOH!
How is this different from what Lisp machines (Symbolics and LMI) did 15-20 years ago?
It's not true that most shares are non-voting. Quite the opposite, in fact -- I get proxies all the time for companies I own stock in. I've even been to a (albeit regional) AT&T shareholder's meeting that I was invited to because I own 5 shares of AT&T that I was given by my Grandmother 10 years ago.
And, speaking of AT&T, I voted on ballot issues that were on the annual ballot that had been brought forth by shareholders holding POLITE---- letter to the Fidelity fund managers that hold blocks of stock and urge them to put pressure on the companies and support your issues.
But it will be an uphill battle...!