Calling someone "terrorist" is used as such already. At least in the USA (Guantanamo Bay), and in the UK (where it seems that calling someone "terrorist" allows the police to hold the suspect extra long without even having to file charges, something like that, details I have to look up).
Even terrorists deserve a fair trial. And deserve to be treated just like any other suspect of a crime. If not, well, "the terrorists already won" isn't it?
On the whole, reasonable, intelligent parties = no ligitation = no lawyers.
Remarkable quote from a lawyer. I think a lot of your services include preventing the court case, as in negotiating a settlement between parties. Or even simply explaining the law and how they stand within the law or a contract. So even without litigation these reasonable, intelligent parties will need lawyers.
And then there are the cases where a contract between parties is not clear in the dispute, or the law is not clear or not well defined in a certain case. That's where the courts come in play. It's a necessary evil.
Amendment 5:...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
Settlement of these suits is commonly depriving people of their property without due process of law, not on the basis of any guilt by the cost of defending yourself in a lawsuit against a large corporation.
This statement of yours I call highly debatable as a settlement is part of the process of law. If you would call settlements unconstitutional then civil law has a serious problem. Then many many more cases than now would reach the courts, overloading the system with often clip and clear cases and increasing legal costs for the parties involved.
Many many civil disputes are settled out of court, often likely without even involving lawyers. The person paying the settlement apparently realises they are at least somewhat liable in the issue at hand, and choose to pay to settle. That is often the cheaper and easier solution for both parties. Both parties know the law (I assume in the USA there is also a statement that anyone is supposed to know the law - ignorance of the law is no defense) and thus know how strong or weak they would stand in court. And if you know you are the one that erred on the wrong side of the law, it may be better to just face it, settle the dispute, and move on.
The nasty thing of course in the RIAA cases is the huge strength difference between the parties, easily intimidating the defendant into settlement. Taking it to court would likely be more costly for any defendant, unless they manage to win their suit AND win the next suit for their lawyer's costs AND live long enough to see it through.
OK I didn't rtfa but did rtfs and there it seems that all books, even those in copyright, can be put online by Google for searching in full, and it is suggested maybe even for download.
The latter would be really cool: an unlimited worldwide library where the book you want to borrow is never out.
Add a decent and cheap ebook reader and I also see the market for real books disappear almost overnight.
Is this still "do no evil"? Authors should still get their dues!
If what is stated in the summary is true, then I think I've simply have to give up any trust in the prowess of NASA.
What happened to this organisation that managed to put people on the moon, that managed to build a huge telescope in orbit around the earth, that even built a permanently manned space station? How is it possible they can't even design a rocket to take us to the moon?
It is for sure not an easy task - but with the immense expertise that should be present within NASA, and commercial rocket launches now being commonplace, I'd say even geostationary orbit is an off-the-shelf technology, and I don't believe the step from there to the moon is that big, technically speaking.
Not having enough power to lift off in the first place, come on! Someone didn't read the design specs, or were they not written down properly? It is really the most mundane if not stupid problem I can imagine when designing a moon rocket system.
The other two mentioned problems (liftoff drift and the shaking) seem to me more like scaling issues, that presumably can be solved. Nasty ones I bet when you find them out, but the fact that they are found on the drawing board already means they're known issues. Then why making so much fuss about it! I bet they have had to deal with many more design issues that they found out only when modeling their new upgraded rocket.
My iBook has OS-X 1.3.9. OOo 3.0 requires 1.4 or higher. I've no intention to upgrade (just not worth the cost, it works fine as it does) so just hope NeoOffice continues to support the older OS-X versions. Or I will just not upgrade NeoOffice. After all, it works fine as it does.
Every image is different, it has quite some randomness in it overall. I'm no cryptographer but can imagine that randomness is suitable to make keys.
What this unfortunately does not seem to address is the secure exchange of those keys. Making a very large secure random key and having a strong unbreakable encryption algorithm is one, exchanging those keys in a secure manner is another. Secure as in having no way of a third party listening in undetected, and getting the actual keys.
In this case the users have to take photos of themselves, and of each other: that indicates they have to be close together. Then the whole key exchange issue is trivial as it can be handed to the other party on a memory card or cable link or whatever. It is more interesting to be able to exchange those keys over a distance, over an insecure communication channel.
Interesting idea but I'm afraid it won't ever happen as it would not only put the telemarketers out of business (and I bet this is a pretty powerful lobby if only for the number of people they employ), it would cost the phone companies revenue as less calls are made.
And this would also assume the telemarketers would follow the rules and publish their numbers correctly and so...
Hong Kong has the same: fuses in the plugs, and many outlets with an extra switch. Again UK influence of course.
Netherlands, Germany, France and anywhere else I have been (two dozen countries at least in total) don't have this arrangement. UK and some of it's former colonies are the exception.
Actually I think you're not that far off (even though you got the quite appropriate "funny" mod, I think "insightful" may have been OK as well), as a lot of the connectivity you mention exists already, including the display glasses. Albeit in the lab, and some standardisation is required of course.
Now all we need is a speed upgrade for Bluetooth (or a new short-distance wireless standard) to transmit the display info and we're technically there.
Apple is also fond of pointing out that Macs are not PCs. It is illegal for Ford to insist that it's engines can only be installed in a Ford manufactured automobile....
It is not illegal for Ford to simply not sell their engines other than in the form of a complete Ford branded automobile or as replacement part for owners of Ford branded automobiles. Just like Apple can choose to not sell their OS to other computer makers, and sell it only as a package with Apple branded computers.
It is theirs, and it is theirs to sell it to who they want.
What happens after sales though is another matter: it is not illegal for someone to take apart his Ford, and sell all the parts to who-ever wants to buy them.
Just like it is legal for me to wipe the hard disk of my iBook and install e.g. YellowDog Linux, and then sell it and the original copy of OS/X that Apple supplied with it (iirc I have an installation CD somewhere) separately.
How about re-install from the disk shipped with the Apple computer? No chance for Psystar here to grab it legally as each disk is linked to a single install. So that would mean either the Psystar clone, or the original Apple can have it installed (legally speaking), not both at the same time.
Even if Apple had a say 80% market share - still I don't think anti-trust laws should (could? I don't know this law in detail) apply. They have a business, a successful one, producing hardware and software. What is stopping them selling the software for their hardware only? This is not anti-competitive as anyone can build a computer and write an O/S by themselves.
Anti-trust laws, as applied against Microsoft, are for leveraging ones existing monopoly to gain entry into other markets. It would be a hard sell for a judge to convince Apple is doing that by setting up a business model (sell hardware with software tied together) and then gaining a great success with it. Only if Apple would have this market share and then starts e.g. blocking competing web browsers from their systems, now that would be an issue for anti-trust laws.
The only thing Psystar may have a case with is the first-sale doctrine: that a seller can not restrict what a buyer is doing with a product. Now there is the clash with copyrights, however afaik that means the buyer can re-sell the copy they bought (on CD or what-ever medium), but is not allowed to make copies of it. Installation on a computer is by nature making a copy of it, complicating the matter. I have no idea how copyright law provides for this kind of copy - one way or another it should be legal, or each software package should include a license allowing such copying for installation.
Complicated matter, but it is certainly not anti-trust matter. It's copyright and first-sale doctrine matter.
I never said that, not even intended it. Piracy is your interpretation - I said "protests and circumvention". That can very well be limited to complaints on message boards all over the Internet, and cracks to remove the DRM from legally purchased software. Piracy of course is also an option, though not one I can recommend as it is illegal.
Mind that removing/circumventing DRM is not illegal in most of the world, only in the US afaik.
In that case, assuming he didn't use it under water, I'd call it a case of poor material choice by the manufacturer. Corrosion is well understood and easy enough to prevent. A camera costing that much should be corrosion resistant. Particularly as cameras are meant for outdoor use.
Also a camera is normally at ambient temperature, maybe lower when moving from a colder to a warmer room or so. It's a low power device. Computers are normally warmer than their environment, especially servers.
If 99.8% of the customers don't have an issue with the DRM (presumably they are not restricted in what they are doing), why have it implemented in the first place?
DRM has the purpose of restricting what one can do with a digital product - be it a game, a song, whatever. If no-one ever runs into those restrictions, it's been a waste of effort. However if the restrictions are tight and many people run into them, they are presumably effective for what the manufacturer wanted, but will result in customers trying to circumvent it as they want to do things they are not allowed to out of the box. Such as making a back-up copy.
So either DRM is a priori ineffective (restrictions so loose no-one notices them, so there is no effect of the DRM) to prevent complaints, or it is effective in restricting people but then will guaranteed result in protests and circumvention, rendering it ineffective after all.
Somehow I doubt datacentres like the ones Google operates use switching power supplies, located next to the hardware they power, like in your home computer. I for one would consider building a single power supply pushing a lot of amps through some fat cables that branch off to where-ever power is needed.
But then I've never seen a datacentre from the inside, so I may be totally wrong.
This humidity: how much is this really an issue? (genuine question). I can imagine that when you reach 100% and your equipment is cooler than ambient you get condensation issues. However here we are talking about equipment that needs cooling, i.e. is well above ambient temperatures. Condensation is therefore surely not an issue.
If you would say "dust", that I can see as an issue as it clogs up ventilation openings and can put a nice blanket on equipment keeping it all nice and hot. Dust however is very easy to filter, particularly the larger particles of dust that are an issue in this kind of equipment.
And finally, if a higher or varying humidity would cause more system failures, that may not be a big issue. Considering the numbers of servers Google uses this becomes really statistical, and they have already designed the whole system with failures in mind. So the failure itself is not an issue (just rip it out and replace the failed part), and cost is easily and reliably calculated using normal statistics (or own experience).
In the case of Google, a 1-2% failure rate due to humidity issues can very well be more than offset by the savings on cooling. Cooling is very expensive after all.
Why the hell the manufacturers don't just use Ubuntu[...]
It seems you give the answer yourself already:
the intelligent optimisation that Acer etc, put into it
Laptop manufacturer optimises software to work better with their hardware. Then of course it's not compatible anymore with whatever distro it was based on originally. And you will have to start waiting for said laptop manufacturer to update their complete distro before you can update your system.
You can't have it all, unless you require the laptop manufacturer to submit all their changes to the original distribution - not sure whether that's so great an idea, as you end up with a lot of software that is useful for only one piece of hardware, and we're not talking about just device drivers for sure. So very tough to keep it all separate.
In that case you should say the same about Windows. Most of the attacks (particularly drive-by attacks related to surfing) are targeted at IE, an application. Oh bad example, according to MS it's an integral part of the OS. Never mind.
Then there are attacks directed at Outlook, ISS, and so on. Very few are directed at the Windows core. Same will account for Linux: unless the attack is done locally (most are over a network), it is always an application that is the first line of defense.
Yes I know, big strides have been made by Microsoft to improve it. The whole design of Windows unfortunately has never been with security in mind, this in contrast to Unix and it's clones and derivatives which is designed to be part of a network and multi-user.
Microsoft has a lot to do to really make it secure, and when seven years of development for a minor upgrade (XP to Vista) can't fix it, nothing short of starting from scratch can.
Win XP/Vista is a huge improvement over 98 and ME, however the number and sophistication of attacks against it have increased probably even more so, resulting in an ever increasing mess of zombies, connected to an ever increasing amount of bandwidth to dispatch their rubbish.
I'm truly impressed that people can come up with security warnings about Windows that are not true... after all, is there anything as insecure as Windows?
The only thing I think they may have a case with is of course the fake software, as in software that does not do what is advertised. And I'm not even thinking of Windows itself this time.
Which, from the face of it, makes the feat even more impressive. Cloning means "simply" reading the data from one passport, and copying it onto another. It is not necessary to decrypt this data, as long as the chip is tricked into releasing it.
Instead, they created a completely new data set, put this on the chip, and programmed the chip so it correctly answers to the challenge posed by the reader.
Now the idea of having the data encrypted in the passport chip may be wishful thinking of course... I would expect it is encrypted, if not then it's of course one step less for these hackers. At the very least I would expect some cryptographic checksum, based on some secret key or so, to verify that the passport (i.e. the data on the chip) has been government issued.
No matter what, a neat hack, and scary that it is possible in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Calling someone "terrorist" is used as such already. At least in the USA (Guantanamo Bay), and in the UK (where it seems that calling someone "terrorist" allows the police to hold the suspect extra long without even having to file charges, something like that, details I have to look up).
Even terrorists deserve a fair trial. And deserve to be treated just like any other suspect of a crime. If not, well, "the terrorists already won" isn't it?
]
On the whole, reasonable, intelligent parties = no ligitation = no lawyers.
Remarkable quote from a lawyer. I think a lot of your services include preventing the court case, as in negotiating a settlement between parties. Or even simply explaining the law and how they stand within the law or a contract. So even without litigation these reasonable, intelligent parties will need lawyers.
And then there are the cases where a contract between parties is not clear in the dispute, or the law is not clear or not well defined in a certain case. That's where the courts come in play. It's a necessary evil.
Amendment 5: ...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
Settlement of these suits is commonly depriving people of their property without due process of law, not on the basis of any guilt by the cost of defending yourself in a lawsuit against a large corporation.
This statement of yours I call highly debatable as a settlement is part of the process of law. If you would call settlements unconstitutional then civil law has a serious problem. Then many many more cases than now would reach the courts, overloading the system with often clip and clear cases and increasing legal costs for the parties involved.
Many many civil disputes are settled out of court, often likely without even involving lawyers. The person paying the settlement apparently realises they are at least somewhat liable in the issue at hand, and choose to pay to settle. That is often the cheaper and easier solution for both parties. Both parties know the law (I assume in the USA there is also a statement that anyone is supposed to know the law - ignorance of the law is no defense) and thus know how strong or weak they would stand in court. And if you know you are the one that erred on the wrong side of the law, it may be better to just face it, settle the dispute, and move on.
The nasty thing of course in the RIAA cases is the huge strength difference between the parties, easily intimidating the defendant into settlement. Taking it to court would likely be more costly for any defendant, unless they manage to win their suit AND win the next suit for their lawyer's costs AND live long enough to see it through.
Considering your UID I think you're here so long you completely lost any anonymity you may have ever had. We know you Adrian.
OK I didn't rtfa but did rtfs and there it seems that all books, even those in copyright, can be put online by Google for searching in full, and it is suggested maybe even for download.
The latter would be really cool: an unlimited worldwide library where the book you want to borrow is never out.
Add a decent and cheap ebook reader and I also see the market for real books disappear almost overnight.
Is this still "do no evil"? Authors should still get their dues!
If what is stated in the summary is true, then I think I've simply have to give up any trust in the prowess of NASA.
What happened to this organisation that managed to put people on the moon, that managed to build a huge telescope in orbit around the earth, that even built a permanently manned space station? How is it possible they can't even design a rocket to take us to the moon?
It is for sure not an easy task - but with the immense expertise that should be present within NASA, and commercial rocket launches now being commonplace, I'd say even geostationary orbit is an off-the-shelf technology, and I don't believe the step from there to the moon is that big, technically speaking.
Not having enough power to lift off in the first place, come on! Someone didn't read the design specs, or were they not written down properly? It is really the most mundane if not stupid problem I can imagine when designing a moon rocket system.
The other two mentioned problems (liftoff drift and the shaking) seem to me more like scaling issues, that presumably can be solved. Nasty ones I bet when you find them out, but the fact that they are found on the drawing board already means they're known issues. Then why making so much fuss about it! I bet they have had to deal with many more design issues that they found out only when modeling their new upgraded rocket.
My iBook has OS-X 1.3.9. OOo 3.0 requires 1.4 or higher. I've no intention to upgrade (just not worth the cost, it works fine as it does) so just hope NeoOffice continues to support the older OS-X versions. Or I will just not upgrade NeoOffice. After all, it works fine as it does.
Take the pictures for this purpose only and then delete them after making the keys, problem solved.
Every image is different, it has quite some randomness in it overall. I'm no cryptographer but can imagine that randomness is suitable to make keys.
What this unfortunately does not seem to address is the secure exchange of those keys. Making a very large secure random key and having a strong unbreakable encryption algorithm is one, exchanging those keys in a secure manner is another. Secure as in having no way of a third party listening in undetected, and getting the actual keys.
In this case the users have to take photos of themselves, and of each other: that indicates they have to be close together. Then the whole key exchange issue is trivial as it can be handed to the other party on a memory card or cable link or whatever. It is more interesting to be able to exchange those keys over a distance, over an insecure communication channel.
Interesting idea but I'm afraid it won't ever happen as it would not only put the telemarketers out of business (and I bet this is a pretty powerful lobby if only for the number of people they employ), it would cost the phone companies revenue as less calls are made.
And this would also assume the telemarketers would follow the rules and publish their numbers correctly and so...
Hong Kong has the same: fuses in the plugs, and many outlets with an extra switch. Again UK influence of course.
Netherlands, Germany, France and anywhere else I have been (two dozen countries at least in total) don't have this arrangement. UK and some of it's former colonies are the exception.
Actually I think you're not that far off (even though you got the quite appropriate "funny" mod, I think "insightful" may have been OK as well), as a lot of the connectivity you mention exists already, including the display glasses. Albeit in the lab, and some standardisation is required of course.
Now all we need is a speed upgrade for Bluetooth (or a new short-distance wireless standard) to transmit the display info and we're technically there.
Apple is also fond of pointing out that Macs are not PCs. It is illegal for Ford to insist that it's engines can only be installed in a Ford manufactured automobile....
It is not illegal for Ford to simply not sell their engines other than in the form of a complete Ford branded automobile or as replacement part for owners of Ford branded automobiles. Just like Apple can choose to not sell their OS to other computer makers, and sell it only as a package with Apple branded computers.
It is theirs, and it is theirs to sell it to who they want.
What happens after sales though is another matter: it is not illegal for someone to take apart his Ford, and sell all the parts to who-ever wants to buy them.
Just like it is legal for me to wipe the hard disk of my iBook and install e.g. YellowDog Linux, and then sell it and the original copy of OS/X that Apple supplied with it (iirc I have an installation CD somewhere) separately.
How about re-install from the disk shipped with the Apple computer? No chance for Psystar here to grab it legally as each disk is linked to a single install. So that would mean either the Psystar clone, or the original Apple can have it installed (legally speaking), not both at the same time.
Even if Apple had a say 80% market share - still I don't think anti-trust laws should (could? I don't know this law in detail) apply. They have a business, a successful one, producing hardware and software. What is stopping them selling the software for their hardware only? This is not anti-competitive as anyone can build a computer and write an O/S by themselves.
Anti-trust laws, as applied against Microsoft, are for leveraging ones existing monopoly to gain entry into other markets. It would be a hard sell for a judge to convince Apple is doing that by setting up a business model (sell hardware with software tied together) and then gaining a great success with it. Only if Apple would have this market share and then starts e.g. blocking competing web browsers from their systems, now that would be an issue for anti-trust laws.
The only thing Psystar may have a case with is the first-sale doctrine: that a seller can not restrict what a buyer is doing with a product. Now there is the clash with copyrights, however afaik that means the buyer can re-sell the copy they bought (on CD or what-ever medium), but is not allowed to make copies of it. Installation on a computer is by nature making a copy of it, complicating the matter. I have no idea how copyright law provides for this kind of copy - one way or another it should be legal, or each software package should include a license allowing such copying for installation.
Complicated matter, but it is certainly not anti-trust matter. It's copyright and first-sale doctrine matter.
I never said that, not even intended it. Piracy is your interpretation - I said "protests and circumvention". That can very well be limited to complaints on message boards all over the Internet, and cracks to remove the DRM from legally purchased software. Piracy of course is also an option, though not one I can recommend as it is illegal.
Mind that removing/circumventing DRM is not illegal in most of the world, only in the US afaik.
In that case, assuming he didn't use it under water, I'd call it a case of poor material choice by the manufacturer. Corrosion is well understood and easy enough to prevent. A camera costing that much should be corrosion resistant. Particularly as cameras are meant for outdoor use.
Also a camera is normally at ambient temperature, maybe lower when moving from a colder to a warmer room or so. It's a low power device. Computers are normally warmer than their environment, especially servers.
If 99.8% of the customers don't have an issue with the DRM (presumably they are not restricted in what they are doing), why have it implemented in the first place?
DRM has the purpose of restricting what one can do with a digital product - be it a game, a song, whatever. If no-one ever runs into those restrictions, it's been a waste of effort. However if the restrictions are tight and many people run into them, they are presumably effective for what the manufacturer wanted, but will result in customers trying to circumvent it as they want to do things they are not allowed to out of the box. Such as making a back-up copy.
So either DRM is a priori ineffective (restrictions so loose no-one notices them, so there is no effect of the DRM) to prevent complaints, or it is effective in restricting people but then will guaranteed result in protests and circumvention, rendering it ineffective after all.
Somehow I doubt datacentres like the ones Google operates use switching power supplies, located next to the hardware they power, like in your home computer. I for one would consider building a single power supply pushing a lot of amps through some fat cables that branch off to where-ever power is needed.
But then I've never seen a datacentre from the inside, so I may be totally wrong.
This humidity: how much is this really an issue? (genuine question). I can imagine that when you reach 100% and your equipment is cooler than ambient you get condensation issues. However here we are talking about equipment that needs cooling, i.e. is well above ambient temperatures. Condensation is therefore surely not an issue.
If you would say "dust", that I can see as an issue as it clogs up ventilation openings and can put a nice blanket on equipment keeping it all nice and hot. Dust however is very easy to filter, particularly the larger particles of dust that are an issue in this kind of equipment.
And finally, if a higher or varying humidity would cause more system failures, that may not be a big issue. Considering the numbers of servers Google uses this becomes really statistical, and they have already designed the whole system with failures in mind. So the failure itself is not an issue (just rip it out and replace the failed part), and cost is easily and reliably calculated using normal statistics (or own experience).
In the case of Google, a 1-2% failure rate due to humidity issues can very well be more than offset by the savings on cooling. Cooling is very expensive after all.
rant about update problems removed.
Why the hell the manufacturers don't just use Ubuntu[...]
It seems you give the answer yourself already:
the intelligent optimisation that Acer etc, put into it
Laptop manufacturer optimises software to work better with their hardware. Then of course it's not compatible anymore with whatever distro it was based on originally. And you will have to start waiting for said laptop manufacturer to update their complete distro before you can update your system.
You can't have it all, unless you require the laptop manufacturer to submit all their changes to the original distribution - not sure whether that's so great an idea, as you end up with a lot of software that is useful for only one piece of hardware, and we're not talking about just device drivers for sure. So very tough to keep it all separate.
In that case you should say the same about Windows. Most of the attacks (particularly drive-by attacks related to surfing) are targeted at IE, an application. Oh bad example, according to MS it's an integral part of the OS. Never mind.
Then there are attacks directed at Outlook, ISS, and so on. Very few are directed at the Windows core. Same will account for Linux: unless the attack is done locally (most are over a network), it is always an application that is the first line of defense.
Yes I know, big strides have been made by Microsoft to improve it. The whole design of Windows unfortunately has never been with security in mind, this in contrast to Unix and it's clones and derivatives which is designed to be part of a network and multi-user.
Microsoft has a lot to do to really make it secure, and when seven years of development for a minor upgrade (XP to Vista) can't fix it, nothing short of starting from scratch can.
Win XP/Vista is a huge improvement over 98 and ME, however the number and sophistication of attacks against it have increased probably even more so, resulting in an ever increasing mess of zombies, connected to an ever increasing amount of bandwidth to dispatch their rubbish.
I'm truly impressed that people can come up with security warnings about Windows that are not true... after all, is there anything as insecure as Windows?
The only thing I think they may have a case with is of course the fake software, as in software that does not do what is advertised. And I'm not even thinking of Windows itself this time.
Which, from the face of it, makes the feat even more impressive. Cloning means "simply" reading the data from one passport, and copying it onto another. It is not necessary to decrypt this data, as long as the chip is tricked into releasing it.
Instead, they created a completely new data set, put this on the chip, and programmed the chip so it correctly answers to the challenge posed by the reader.
Now the idea of having the data encrypted in the passport chip may be wishful thinking of course... I would expect it is encrypted, if not then it's of course one step less for these hackers. At the very least I would expect some cryptographic checksum, based on some secret key or so, to verify that the passport (i.e. the data on the chip) has been government issued.
No matter what, a neat hack, and scary that it is possible in the first place.