It does seem like that. Maybe I should ask one of the lawyers who work right next to me to look it over. If my Linux distro ever gets off the ground I will need a rock solid knowledge of the GPL.
Interesting article. I'm not sure what Stallman means here:
Strictly speaking, nothing we free software developers do can legally require others to release their code in any particular way. If someone has used some of my GPL-covered code in a program, and releases the program, I cannot make that person release the program under the GPL. I can, however, deny permission to release my code on any other basis. That is what the GPL does.
So, if you use GPL code, the originator cannot make you release the result under the GPL. They can deny permission to release their own code then. Does this mean that when alls said and done, the GPL code must be removed before the program is released, or that that part of the code must be released?
If he has used a large amount of my code, he might decide to release the whole program under the GNU GPL, rather than taking out my code (which he is always entitled to do). This is how the GPL works, pragmatically, to encourage free software development.
This seems to say that when using a large amount(how much?) of code you must either remove the GPL code(probably rendering the program useless) or release it GPL'd. This contradicts his claim that he cannot force you to use the GPL if he uses some GPL code in his own program. And is this just an example of practicality when you have a large amount of GPL code ot does it mean that there is a cutoff point on code use, if you use less you are clear to not GPL your release and if you are above you must GPL the release?
And what about the issues raised in the original article, that of linking to libraries and other software that is not GPL'd? Anyone else notice RMS did not mention or even refer to those issues?
Now I can't believe he got a 100 for that piece of writing, although I don't claim to be up on writing standards for (7th?) graders.
I'm personally assuming that there was confusion along the line, and the extra credit was actually awarded as part of the total of 100 points, rather than on top of it. The fact that the 100 points is the only score listed supports that idea, as does the atrocious grammar, spelling, and apparently poor penmanship. Indecipherable word? Come on.
True, true, except for the fact that dracula didn't kill people "because they pissed him off" or smoke dope and inhale freon. True. The drug part is a little unnecesary to the story, and there probably is a better paralel in literature, Dracula was the first I came up with. But look at it another way- Not only did he follow instructions, his story could be used to show the evils of drugs. In his story being high he obviously wasn't thinking clearly, and several people paid with their lives. While it may have been a smartass retort to a seemingly stupid assignement, it could also have been intended as social commentary. I'd love to see a statement from the kid about what he intended the story to be apart from simple homework.
possibilities: Family doesn't want the publicity, or the identity of the agent could cause a compromise of security, or lead back to the family which would then be a target of foreign agents hoping the NSA guy told them something they shouldn't have.
Katz this has nothing to do with Columbine. Stop exploiting those dead students for your own gain This doesn't have anything to do with columbine directly, but there are common threads that make Columbine a valid incident to use for purposes of allusion. The killers there were alienated for being different. This kid has been thrown in jail for having a unique imagination. There has also been a pattern of excessive harrasment of different people since Columbine, and exposing this pattern is the first step in ending it.
This is a horrible thing. He was tasked to write a horror story. Many horror stories have a component where the hero turns and destroys his friends and loved ones. Innocent people often get caught in the crossfire. Heres some parralels:
Dracula was about a great warrior for good turning into an evil monster who destroyed and corrupted all he held dear.
This story is about two friends who were heroes fending off an assault, then turned and destroyed their friends.
Dracula had innocent people get caught up and destroyed.
This story had an innocent bystander get caught up in things and destroyed.
Looks to me that expanding on the basic concept, this kids story, rather than a terrorist threat, could have become a great classic of horror. What would have happened in Bram Stoker was sent to jail or a mental institution for his work? A great classic would not be on bookshelves, some of the greatest movies of all time would not exist, The best RPG would not exist, my favorite 3 tv shows wouldn't exist... A huge selection of artwork in various mediums simply would not exist. What if this is done to all artwork deemed contreversial? That would be a sad day for art.
Pay-per-View? No. A broadcast channel. On the big screen in Times Square. On all the Demo tv's in the stores. Execution would be an excellent unquestioned deterrent if people saw it. They'd say "I let my anger get out of control and kill my wife that will be me!" It won't stop everyone, but it will at least get some borderline evil/crazy people who would otherwise commit murder from crossing the line.
1. The government finds major criminals fast because they don't want the american public breathing down their neck. Thus, the more of a public issue it is, the more they devote to solving it.
2. They construct a plausible theory, declare it true because it fits the available evidence, ignore the 50 other possibilities that fit the available evidence as well, stop looking for more evidence, and declare the case solved.
I'd be willing to bet a whole years pay that the vast majority of quickly solved major crimes and terrorist actions are the result of either one or both of these issues at work, or stupidity on the part of the criminal/terrorist, rather than any Echelon system.
Technically, it is possible to examine every email. Encryption can be cracked and I'm sure the NSA has a few tricks to get around tempest shielding. Of course the budget would be truly immense. Not to mention the staffing requirements as I've discussed.
Interesting thought-Some people have mentioned the bandwith drain that Echelon would obviously cause. Lets assume that they came up with a way to bug every router, every mail server, every web site with forms, etc... and managed to make the bugs undetectable. While it is certain that bandwith would degrade(no way radio transmissions would work, there wold be too much interference and Tempest shielding could get in the way) maybe the bandwith we are seeing is so low because of echelon? Maybe a T-1 is really capable of 50 56k channels vice 24? Maybe regs limit modems to 53k actual speed because Echelon eats up too much bandwith? Granted this scenario is very unlikely, I doubt the US has enough money for it even if taxes were 90% of income wit no deductions allowed for anything, but it is interesting to consider...
Echelon is not a harbinger of ultimate doom. Trust me, if it was real, and as effective as many of you think it is, military intelligence collection would be extremely easy. Or, perhaps, the Echelon team is simply committing treason and should be executed. In my service as an intelligence analyst in the Marine Corps, I saw nothing about an echelon system. Obviously the NSA monitors foreign broadcasts, but to monitor every electronic transmission would require more money than the US has in its entire budget. The staffing requirements would be at least several million full time analysts. How many of you have said "Thats the bomb!" in an email or phone call referring to something that excited you? Probably most of us. Quite a few of us have expressed a desire to have the current political structure changed, sometimes in quite strong language. Echelon in some form certainly exists. But spying on US citizens, examining every email, every phone call, every fax? Not a chance. They could never afford to do that and remain unnoticed.
I think some people have watche Enemy of the State a few too many times. The US government is not that corrupt. If it was it would have been overthrown by now.
The law in question is Executive order 12333 or 12456(can't remember which) which states in essence that the CIA, NSA, NRO, military intelligence cannot perform intelligence gathering operations of any kind against US entities, unless evidence can be shown that there is a legitimate foreign intelligence interest, such as tips that XYZ country club is really a front for a foreign terrorist group or intelligence or special forces agency. If there is simply a drug operation going on at XYZ country club, according to the order the FBI, state, and local law enforcement has jurisdiction. If its really an insertion point for North Korean SOF troops, the CIA, DIA, NSA and intel components of the armed services take over. If Echelon is in fact all its supposed to be, and in fact scans all communications, it would be required to either filter out all US communications or pass them along to the FBI. If Echelon fails to do either of these things, it is illegal and I hope Bob Barr finds those responsible and has them executed for treason. The power of Echelon is great, and with great power comes great responsibility. I don't believe in an all or nothing view regarding security vs freedom, too much security and we have no freedom, too little and we have no freedom(because then ANYONE with bigger guns or more money can take it from us)
Re:Well now that everyone's hopped on the bandwago
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SuSE Coming on DVD
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You have a point, but, without a new laser, the increased storage capacity would be irrelavant as nothing could access it. LArge advances in storage size occur with advances in read/write head design. This goes for all storage media.
Re:Well now that everyone's hopped on the bandwago
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SuSE Coming on DVD
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The only difference between DVD drives and CD drives are the lasers used to read the data off the disk.
And of course the little side effect of drastically increased storage capacity means nothing.
Why is it that techie types seem to get obsessed about the technology behind the result and sometimes act like the technology behind something is everything, when the technology is nothing more than a means to an end, and the end is what is really important.
This is a great thing. Like the days before the CD-ROM became universal, there were wonderful things like "Insert disk #15". We are seeing software ship with multiple CDs, in some cases all of which are absolutely necesary to use the software. DVD can buy us at least a few years before that happens again. Linux distributions won't have to think twice about whether or not its worth putting that last program on the disc, or devoting the space to something else, after this catches on. Good move SUSE, this will improve Linux and get me to buy a DVD drive.
How do you propose to defend against corruption in that organization? How do you propose to defend against corruption in the current voting system? The same people would oversee the vote counting process. Corruption would be just as likely, no more no less than under the current system.
You make good points, but there are other issues... What about hadicapped people, or elderly who have are failing physically? Or those too sick to leave the house? Maybe your kid comes down with a bad flu or something right before election day. Not nearly enough time to get an absentee ballot, and if a parent will leave a sick child alone to vote, thats just wrong. If there are two parents, and one can be at home at all times, great, but that doesn't happen all the time. Single mothers and fathers should vote too, but if their children are sick on election day, they shouldn't leave them alone, and day care for a sick child isn't always available, especially if the child is too sick to go somewhere. Internet voting would be wonderful for them. No more judging between civic and parental duty, they can easily fulfill both. My idea I mentioned about Bill Gates or some other rich computer geek starting an internet based voting service could help voter knowledge. Imagine a free online service devoted to nothing but information on candidates and voting on them. Log on, links to the candidates campaign materials, as well as news articles about them from independent sources. You can log on, quickly learn about the various candidates and their views, and make an informed vote without the hours upon hours of watching commercials, reading the paper, going to rallys, etc... that properly researching a candidate requires now. And all it would require is a computer and a modem. Make it HTML based rather than a full program like AOL so that you can use any web browser to access it, any links to the net as a whole through some CGI program to prevent the free service from being abused, and you have a great way to get people informed and voting with convenience.
If it's closed source, and only a few people ever see it, then there will be many bugs. With that kind of power directed at trying to break the system, those bugs will be found. Then we're screwed. The bugs will be found. NSA would be responsible for finding them on our side. They would find them much faster than the enemy would, they would be able to have access to the source, binaries, be able to test it in varying systems both on the client and server end, they would be found.
If it's open source and the code is made available well before the election, you'll have millions of geeks, the ACLU, political parties, etc., all looking for bugs and trying to figure out how to fix them
Good in theory, but a recent article either here or at geeknews.net talked about how very few OSS developers contribute to much of anything. Not many geeks will be out there trying to fix something they won't use. And I don't want any private group writing the server software for this system. Especially not those with political aims like the ACLU or any political party. They may insert something subtle, to help their side. This may slip through. Unlikely, but no special interest group should have even the chance to try. Bugs slip through even on open source with thousands or millions reviewing the code. And what if Kim Chong-il or Saddam Hussein gets ahold of the code? Every effort will be made to get special code into the final release to give them a backdoor. If one attempt is caught, they will try again. With closed source, even though you may not have as many people trying to fix it, you don't have to worry about backdoors being slipped in by anti american interests. If it is done as an NSA project, the first beta will probably be sufficiently secure. By final release after heavy testing, maybe a few mock nationwide elections, any exploitable bug should be found. Trust me, after 3 or 4 years of testing, the NSA will be able to make this the most secure software available. It will be easier to hack the system through the servers BIOS chip than the software. And make it a non flash BIOS and the only hole would be the operating system.
Open source is great for some things, like operating systems and consumer software, but purely internal applications it does nothing, because noone except the user has any real interest in it. Open sourcing this properly would require that you return all code mods to the government, report anything you can't fix, and that you devote a huge amount of time just to this project. Some of the problems there are the same reasons the OSS community dislikes the Sun OSS license. Plus, how many OSS developers would devote their time, time that can be spent improving linux, emacs, atc... and their time advocating open source. Probably not nearly enough.
So here is how it should be done. NSA along with the voting people designs server software to process internet votes. It is made client independent so that the widest variety of voters can access it. NSA and the voting people put it through 3-4 years of heavy duty testing, at least one mock election a week internally, at least one per quarter nationwide. Have hacker/cracker groups invited to crack the system and report methods tried, successes, failures. Give them immunity to prosecution for all previous cracking activity, at least on the criminal side of the law. Pass the code to all programmers who are cleared for TS/SCI for code review and comment. Then after 3 or 4 years of this constant testing and review(during which the code and binaries will be classified Top Secret) the binaries can be unclassified and put on servers for a real election. Or, if there are still problems, kept classified and worked on for a few more months or years until it is as close to uncrackable as software can possibly be.
Ok heres some water before you burst into flames. Ok think about this, ignore everything you've heard about open source vs. closed source for a moment and consider this situation on its own merits. Open source is secure due to a large number of people reviewing the code and finding holes and fixing them. For the most part, OSS developers code for software they use. Noone but governments will be using the voting server software, which will drastically decrease the number of developers looking at the code to try to improve its security. Due to the great significance of a voting server, there will however be a huge amount of resources spent by terrorist groups, rogue states like Iraq and North Korea, potential superpowers like the PRC, militia groups, maybe even some fanatics in more mainstream special interest groups. Or if one of the political parties is expecting a losing election... Simply put if just the US, or even one of the states, implements an open source voting system the resources devoted to finding and fixing security wholes will be dwarfed by the resources devoted to finding and exploiting security holes. With a closed source program, the government will have control over who sees the code, so that any security holes will require binaries to run through trial and error which will take a much longer time to find and exploit bugs than in open source. With proper security on the servers and strong physical security at server sites, it will take a huge investment of resources to even get binaries to test in isolation, away from IP traces, connection drops, etc... By the time the bad guys get the binaries, the good guys will have a head start finding and fixing the obscure bugs that inevitably will slip though. Maybe when the software is widely deployed, throughout the fifty states, through hundereds of municipalities, and in a few (trusted) foreign countries, the resources that Open Source can bring to bear on finding and fixing security flaws will be greater than that expended on cracking the system. Until then, anything that might give enemies of US national security an edge, like the source code, must be kept extremely tightly controlled. Classified Top Secret/US Only, and binaries For Official Use Only-Releasable to Britain, Canada, maybe Austrailia. This is something that if deployed, and compromised, could cause the hammer and sickle to rise over Washington. While I would accept that if it was the will of the people, as I hope you would, I also hope you would be horrified if it was because the wrong people got ahold of the software and cracked it. Closed source is the only way to go, at least in the beginning.
Interesting comment. But open source gives people full knowledge of the inner workings of a program, including security issues. While this is normally offset by the much faster response to fixing the holes than in the closed source community, it does give greater oppotunity to find, and even create holes. Imagine the resources a terrorist group would throw at finding every possible hole in our "holy" open source voting system. They could singlehandedly choose our president and congress. If it is closed, maybe even classified source, it will be much more difficult for them to find and exploit flaws. Besides, the server software would only be used by one organization. If its done right special client software wouldn't be needed. The only special software needed would be by the voting beracracy. This software would have to be kept secure. I'm sorry, but the risks of open source outweigh the benefits considering the resources that will be thrown into cracking it. Keep it simple, and closed. At least until it has a large installed base, at national, state, and local level and possibly even international customers. Then, maybe the number of users(thus potential developers) could be high enough for the open source speed of bug fixes to be high enough to counteract all the resources thrown into cracking it.
I think this is great. Some people have extremely busy lives and getting to vote can be difficult or even out of the question occasionally. Internet voting could allow these people a chance to vote quickly and easily, without requiring them to skip out on work or family. The potential problems are security and the fact that most net users are white. The first is relatively simple. Simply require people, when they register to vote, to specify if they want an internet vote ID number. This ID number would be a random string of characters unique to the individual. The system will check to see if that ID had been marked off as voting traditionally, and one or both ballots would be cancelled and referred to whoever handles voter fraud. Since the numbers would be random, the odds of someone guessing another ID in attempting to stack the vote would have a hard time at the least. If you let someone get your ID, and they vote in your place, you get issued a new ID. I'm not sure if your votes should be cancelled... some people might want to change it for silly reasons like embarrasment. Once it passes the check for duplicate voting, the vote passes on, stripped of the ID number, to be tallied with the rest, and the ID number is logged, stripped of the actual votes cast, so that future voting attempts for that election can be checked.
The possibility of whites stacking the election is more complex. First off, perhaps a law that all companies that have an internet terminal let their employees use it to vote? With some exceptions of course, in cases like a 200 person company with one internet terminal. Perhaps a non-binding resolution encouraging businesses to let employees use the net to vote? That should allow a wider audience to use net voting. Maybe some regular, non internet businesses with net access can advertise "Free internet vote with purchase". Internet Cafes can give a free cup of coffee and free net access for the purposes of voting. Bill Gates could use some of his billions to set up a free online service that gives all candidates equal access to speak their views, and gives access to internet voting. Internet voting should of course be platform independent, accessible through email(including web based like hotmail), the web, telnet, maybe someone can even set up an IRC bot or java applet. The white dominance of the net is a much more complex and expensive problem to solve, but solvable, and well worth the effort for the benefits it will provide.
This is great. A modern look back at the genesis of the first person shooters. I've noticed most people seem to refer to Doom as starting off the trend. But it started before Doom. Wolfenstein 3d, Corridor 7, and a handful of other pioneers, while they didn't look as pretty on my SLT 286 as Quake 2 does on my K6-2 box, had all the vital elements. You, guns, a maze, and things to kill.
That is a problem. But newbies often misunderstand the distribution thing. I always make a point to refer to "RedHat Linux 5.2" or "McMillan Deluxe Linux 6.5" and if refering to linux version independent of distro, use the kernel version. Perhaps a page in the manuals shipped with the distros could explain proper usage?
1. Open Linux the only one that has partition magic. This article implies that that applies across the board. McMillans package of Linux Mandrake includes it too.
2. Interface Choices, documentation. Again, why did they not even mention McMillans distro? At least in passing they could have mentioned "However, both of our distributions are beaten in these categories by McMillan Delux Linux 6.5, which contains thousands of pages of books on CD-Rom, and its default installation allows you to choose between KDE and Gnome on bootup, you can change which one you want to use whenever you want without installing anything extra. "
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It does seem like that. Maybe I should ask one of the lawyers who work right next to me to look it over. If my Linux distro ever gets off the ground I will need a rock solid knowledge of the GPL.
Interesting article. I'm not sure what Stallman means here:
Strictly speaking, nothing we free software developers do can legally require others to release their code in any particular way. If someone has used some of my GPL-covered code in a program, and releases the program, I cannot make that person release the program under the GPL. I can, however, deny permission to release my code on any other basis. That is what the GPL does.
So, if you use GPL code, the originator cannot make you release the result under the GPL. They can deny permission to release their own code then. Does this mean that when alls said and done, the GPL code must be removed before the program is released, or that that part of the code must be released?
If he has used a large amount of my code, he might decide to release the whole program under the GNU GPL, rather than taking out my code (which he is always entitled to do). This is how the GPL works, pragmatically, to encourage free software development.
This seems to say that when using a large amount(how much?) of code you must either remove the GPL code(probably rendering the program useless) or release it GPL'd. This contradicts his claim that he cannot force you to use the GPL if he uses some GPL code in his own program. And is this just an example of practicality when you have a large amount of GPL code ot does it mean that there is a cutoff point on code use, if you use less you are clear to not GPL your release and if you are above you must GPL the release?
And what about the issues raised in the original article, that of linking to libraries and other software that is not GPL'd? Anyone else notice RMS did not mention or even refer to those issues?
Look at the front to the right of the control plugs. There is a windows logo and the words "Compatible with WindowsCE"
Now I can't believe he got a 100 for that piece of writing, although I don't claim to be up on writing standards for (7th?) graders.
I'm personally assuming that there was confusion along the line, and the extra credit was actually awarded as part of the total of 100 points, rather than on top of it. The fact that the 100 points is the only score listed supports that idea, as does the atrocious grammar, spelling, and apparently poor penmanship. Indecipherable word? Come on.
True, true, except for the fact that dracula didn't kill people "because they pissed him off" or smoke dope and inhale freon. True. The drug part is a little unnecesary to the story, and there probably is a better paralel in literature, Dracula was the first I came up with. But look at it another way- Not only did he follow instructions, his story could be used to show the evils of drugs. In his story being high he obviously wasn't thinking clearly, and several people paid with their lives. While it may have been a smartass retort to a seemingly stupid assignement, it could also have been intended as social commentary. I'd love to see a statement from the kid about what he intended the story to be apart from simple homework.
Good point, but was his extra credit for reading it aloud included in those 100 points? Maybe he only got an 80 but got 20 points extra credit?
possibilities: Family doesn't want the publicity, or the identity of the agent could cause a compromise of security, or lead back to the family which would then be a target of foreign agents hoping the NSA guy told them something they shouldn't have.
Katz this has nothing to do with Columbine. Stop exploiting those dead students for your own gain
This doesn't have anything to do with columbine directly, but there are common threads that make Columbine a valid incident to use for purposes of allusion. The killers there were alienated for being different. This kid has been thrown in jail for having a unique imagination. There has also been a pattern of excessive harrasment of different people since Columbine, and exposing this pattern is the first step in ending it.
This is a horrible thing. He was tasked to write a horror story. Many horror stories have a component where the hero turns and destroys his friends and loved ones. Innocent people often get caught in the crossfire. Heres some parralels:
Dracula was about a great warrior for good turning into an evil monster who destroyed and corrupted all he held dear.
This story is about two friends who were heroes fending off an assault, then turned and destroyed their friends.
Dracula had innocent people get caught up and destroyed.
This story had an innocent bystander get caught up in things and destroyed.
Looks to me that expanding on the basic concept, this kids story, rather than a terrorist threat, could have become a great classic of horror. What would have happened in Bram Stoker was sent to jail or a mental institution for his work? A great classic would not be on bookshelves, some of the greatest movies of all time would not exist, The best RPG would not exist, my favorite 3 tv shows wouldn't exist... A huge selection of artwork in various mediums simply would not exist. What if this is done to all artwork deemed contreversial? That would be a sad day for art.
Pay-per-View? No. A broadcast channel. On the big screen in Times Square. On all the Demo tv's in the stores. Execution would be an excellent unquestioned deterrent if people saw it. They'd say "I let my anger get out of control and kill my wife that will be me!" It won't stop everyone, but it will at least get some borderline evil/crazy people who would otherwise commit murder from crossing the line.
Reasons are:
1. The government finds major criminals fast because they don't want the american public breathing down their neck. Thus, the more of a public issue it is, the more they devote to solving it.
2. They construct a plausible theory, declare it true because it fits the available evidence, ignore the 50 other possibilities that fit the available evidence as well, stop looking for more evidence, and declare the case solved.
I'd be willing to bet a whole years pay that the vast majority of quickly solved major crimes and terrorist actions are the result of either one or both of these issues at work, or stupidity on the part of the criminal/terrorist, rather than any Echelon system.
Technically, it is possible to examine every email. Encryption can be cracked and I'm sure the NSA has a few tricks to get around tempest shielding. Of course the budget would be truly immense. Not to mention the staffing requirements as I've discussed.
Interesting thought-Some people have mentioned the bandwith drain that Echelon would obviously cause. Lets assume that they came up with a way to bug every router, every mail server, every web site with forms, etc... and managed to make the bugs undetectable. While it is certain that bandwith would degrade(no way radio transmissions would work, there wold be too much interference and Tempest shielding could get in the way) maybe the bandwith we are seeing is so low because of echelon? Maybe a T-1 is really capable of 50 56k channels vice 24? Maybe regs limit modems to 53k actual speed because Echelon eats up too much bandwith? Granted this scenario is very unlikely, I doubt the US has enough money for it even if taxes were 90% of income wit no deductions allowed for anything, but it is interesting to consider...
Echelon is not a harbinger of ultimate doom. Trust me, if it was real, and as effective as many of you think it is, military intelligence collection would be extremely easy. Or, perhaps, the Echelon team is simply committing treason and should be executed. In my service as an intelligence analyst in the Marine Corps, I saw nothing about an echelon system. Obviously the NSA monitors foreign broadcasts, but to monitor every electronic transmission would require more money than the US has in its entire budget. The staffing requirements would be at least several million full time analysts. How many of you have said "Thats the bomb!" in an email or phone call referring to something that excited you? Probably most of us. Quite a few of us have expressed a desire to have the current political structure changed, sometimes in quite strong language. Echelon in some form certainly exists. But spying on US citizens, examining every email, every phone call, every fax? Not a chance. They could never afford to do that and remain unnoticed.
I think some people have watche Enemy of the State a few too many times. The US government is not that corrupt. If it was it would have been overthrown by now.
The law in question is Executive order 12333 or 12456(can't remember which) which states in essence that the CIA, NSA, NRO, military intelligence cannot perform intelligence gathering operations of any kind against US entities, unless evidence can be shown that there is a legitimate foreign intelligence interest, such as tips that XYZ country club is really a front for a foreign terrorist group or intelligence or special forces agency. If there is simply a drug operation going on at XYZ country club, according to the order the FBI, state, and local law enforcement has jurisdiction. If its really an insertion point for North Korean SOF troops, the CIA, DIA, NSA and intel components of the armed services take over. If Echelon is in fact all its supposed to be, and in fact scans all communications, it would be required to either filter out all US communications or pass them along to the FBI. If Echelon fails to do either of these things, it is illegal and I hope Bob Barr finds those responsible and has them executed for treason. The power of Echelon is great, and with great power comes great responsibility. I don't believe in an all or nothing view regarding security vs freedom, too much security and we have no freedom, too little and we have no freedom(because then ANYONE with bigger guns or more money can take it from us)
You have a point, but, without a new laser, the increased storage capacity would be irrelavant as nothing could access it. LArge advances in storage size occur with advances in read/write head design. This goes for all storage media.
The only difference between DVD drives and CD drives are the lasers used to read the data off the disk.
And of course the little side effect of drastically increased storage capacity means nothing.
Why is it that techie types seem to get obsessed about the technology behind the result and sometimes act like the technology behind something is everything, when the technology is nothing more than a means to an end, and the end is what is really important.
This is a great thing. Like the days before the CD-ROM became universal, there were wonderful things like "Insert disk #15". We are seeing software ship with multiple CDs, in some cases all of which are absolutely necesary to use the software. DVD can buy us at least a few years before that happens again. Linux distributions won't have to think twice about whether or not its worth putting that last program on the disc, or devoting the space to something else, after this catches on. Good move SUSE, this will improve Linux and get me to buy a DVD drive.
How do you propose to defend against corruption in that organization? How do you propose to defend against corruption in the current voting system? The same people would oversee the vote counting process. Corruption would be just as likely, no more no less than under the current system.
You make good points, but there are other issues... What about hadicapped people, or elderly who have are failing physically? Or those too sick to leave the house? Maybe your kid comes down with a bad flu or something right before election day. Not nearly enough time to get an absentee ballot, and if a parent will leave a sick child alone to vote, thats just wrong. If there are two parents, and one can be at home at all times, great, but that doesn't happen all the time. Single mothers and fathers should vote too, but if their children are sick on election day, they shouldn't leave them alone, and day care for a sick child isn't always available, especially if the child is too sick to go somewhere. Internet voting would be wonderful for them. No more judging between civic and parental duty, they can easily fulfill both. My idea I mentioned about Bill Gates or some other rich computer geek starting an internet based voting service could help voter knowledge. Imagine a free online service devoted to nothing but information on candidates and voting on them. Log on, links to the candidates campaign materials, as well as news articles about them from independent sources. You can log on, quickly learn about the various candidates and their views, and make an informed vote without the hours upon hours of watching commercials, reading the paper, going to rallys, etc... that properly researching a candidate requires now. And all it would require is a computer and a modem. Make it HTML based rather than a full program like AOL so that you can use any web browser to access it, any links to the net as a whole through some CGI program to prevent the free service from being abused, and you have a great way to get people informed and voting with convenience.
No, you still don't get it.
I don't think you do.
If it's closed source, and only a few people ever see it, then there will be many bugs. With that kind of power directed at trying to break the system, those bugs will be found. Then we're screwed.
The bugs will be found. NSA would be responsible for finding them on our side. They would find them much faster than the enemy would, they would be able to have access to the source, binaries, be able to test it in varying systems both on the client and server end, they would be found.
If it's open source and the code is made available well before the election, you'll have millions of geeks, the ACLU, political parties, etc., all looking for bugs and trying to figure out how to fix them
Good in theory, but a recent article either here or at geeknews.net talked about how very few OSS developers contribute to much of anything. Not many geeks will be out there trying to fix something they won't use. And I don't want any private group writing the server software for this system. Especially not those with political aims like the ACLU or any political party. They may insert something subtle, to help their side. This may slip through. Unlikely, but no special interest group should have even the chance to try. Bugs slip through even on open source with thousands or millions reviewing the code. And what if Kim Chong-il or Saddam Hussein gets ahold of the code? Every effort will be made to get special code into the final release to give them a backdoor. If one attempt is caught, they will try again. With closed source, even though you may not have as many people trying to fix it, you don't have to worry about backdoors being slipped in by anti american interests. If it is done as an NSA project, the first beta will probably be sufficiently secure. By final release after heavy testing, maybe a few mock nationwide elections, any exploitable bug should be found. Trust me, after 3 or 4 years of testing, the NSA will be able to make this the most secure software available. It will be easier to hack the system through the servers BIOS chip than the software. And make it a non flash BIOS and the only hole would be the operating system.
Open source is great for some things, like operating systems and consumer software, but purely internal applications it does nothing, because noone except the user has any real interest in it. Open sourcing this properly would require that you return all code mods to the government, report anything you can't fix, and that you devote a huge amount of time just to this project. Some of the problems there are the same reasons the OSS community dislikes the Sun OSS license. Plus, how many OSS developers would devote their time, time that can be spent improving linux, emacs, atc... and their time advocating open source. Probably not nearly enough.
So here is how it should be done. NSA along with the voting people designs server software to process internet votes. It is made client independent so that the widest variety of voters can access it. NSA and the voting people put it through 3-4 years of heavy duty testing, at least one mock election a week internally, at least one per quarter nationwide. Have hacker/cracker groups invited to crack the system and report methods tried, successes, failures. Give them immunity to prosecution for all previous cracking activity, at least on the criminal side of the law. Pass the code to all programmers who are cleared for TS/SCI for code review and comment. Then after 3 or 4 years of this constant testing and review(during which the code and binaries will be classified Top Secret) the binaries can be unclassified and put on servers for a real election. Or, if there are still problems, kept classified and worked on for a few more months or years until it is as close to uncrackable as software can possibly be.
Ok heres some water before you burst into flames. Ok think about this, ignore everything you've heard about open source vs. closed source for a moment and consider this situation on its own merits. Open source is secure due to a large number of people reviewing the code and finding holes and fixing them. For the most part, OSS developers code for software they use. Noone but governments will be using the voting server software, which will drastically decrease the number of developers looking at the code to try to improve its security. Due to the great significance of a voting server, there will however be a huge amount of resources spent by terrorist groups, rogue states like Iraq and North Korea, potential superpowers like the PRC, militia groups, maybe even some fanatics in more mainstream special interest groups. Or if one of the political parties is expecting a losing election... Simply put if just the US, or even one of the states, implements an open source voting system the resources devoted to finding and fixing security wholes will be dwarfed by the resources devoted to finding and exploiting security holes. With a closed source program, the government will have control over who sees the code, so that any security holes will require binaries to run through trial and error which will take a much longer time to find and exploit bugs than in open source. With proper security on the servers and strong physical security at server sites, it will take a huge investment of resources to even get binaries to test in isolation, away from IP traces, connection drops, etc... By the time the bad guys get the binaries, the good guys will have a head start finding and fixing the obscure bugs that inevitably will slip though. Maybe when the software is widely deployed, throughout the fifty states, through hundereds of municipalities, and in a few (trusted) foreign countries, the resources that Open Source can bring to bear on finding and fixing security flaws will be greater than that expended on cracking the system. Until then, anything that might give enemies of US national security an edge, like the source code, must be kept extremely tightly controlled. Classified Top Secret/US Only, and binaries For Official Use Only-Releasable to Britain, Canada, maybe Austrailia. This is something that if deployed, and compromised, could cause the hammer and sickle to rise over Washington. While I would accept that if it was the will of the people, as I hope you would, I also hope you would be horrified if it was because the wrong people got ahold of the software and cracked it. Closed source is the only way to go, at least in the beginning.
Interesting comment. But open source gives people full knowledge of the inner workings of a program, including security issues. While this is normally offset by the much faster response to fixing the holes than in the closed source community, it does give greater oppotunity to find, and even create holes. Imagine the resources a terrorist group would throw at finding every possible hole in our "holy" open source voting system. They could singlehandedly choose our president and congress. If it is closed, maybe even classified source, it will be much more difficult for them to find and exploit flaws. Besides, the server software would only be used by one organization. If its done right special client software wouldn't be needed. The only special software needed would be by the voting beracracy. This software would have to be kept secure. I'm sorry, but the risks of open source outweigh the benefits considering the resources that will be thrown into cracking it. Keep it simple, and closed. At least until it has a large installed base, at national, state, and local level and possibly even international customers. Then, maybe the number of users(thus potential developers) could be high enough for the open source speed of bug fixes to be high enough to counteract all the resources thrown into cracking it.
I think this is great. Some people have extremely busy lives and getting to vote can be difficult or even out of the question occasionally. Internet voting could allow these people a chance to vote quickly and easily, without requiring them to skip out on work or family. The potential problems are security and the fact that most net users are white. The first is relatively simple. Simply require people, when they register to vote, to specify if they want an internet vote ID number. This ID number would be a random string of characters unique to the individual. The system will check to see if that ID had been marked off as voting traditionally, and one or both ballots would be cancelled and referred to whoever handles voter fraud. Since the numbers would be random, the odds of someone guessing another ID in attempting to stack the vote would have a hard time at the least. If you let someone get your ID, and they vote in your place, you get issued a new ID. I'm not sure if your votes should be cancelled... some people might want to change it for silly reasons like embarrasment. Once it passes the check for duplicate voting, the vote passes on, stripped of the ID number, to be tallied with the rest, and the ID number is logged, stripped of the actual votes cast, so that future voting attempts for that election can be checked.
The possibility of whites stacking the election is more complex. First off, perhaps a law that all companies that have an internet terminal let their employees use it to vote? With some exceptions of course, in cases like a 200 person company with one internet terminal. Perhaps a non-binding resolution encouraging businesses to let employees use the net to vote? That should allow a wider audience to use net voting. Maybe some regular, non internet businesses with net access can advertise "Free internet vote with purchase". Internet Cafes can give a free cup of coffee and free net access for the purposes of voting. Bill Gates could use some of his billions to set up a free online service that gives all candidates equal access to speak their views, and gives access to internet voting. Internet voting should of course be platform independent, accessible through email(including web based like hotmail), the web, telnet, maybe someone can even set up an IRC bot or java applet. The white dominance of the net is a much more complex and expensive problem to solve, but solvable, and well worth the effort for the benefits it will provide.
This is great. A modern look back at the genesis of the first person shooters. I've noticed most people seem to refer to Doom as starting off the trend. But it started before Doom. Wolfenstein 3d, Corridor 7, and a handful of other pioneers, while they didn't look as pretty on my SLT 286 as Quake 2 does on my K6-2 box, had all the vital elements. You, guns, a maze, and things to kill.
That is a problem. But newbies often misunderstand the distribution thing. I always make a point to refer to "RedHat Linux 5.2" or "McMillan Deluxe Linux 6.5" and if refering to linux version independent of distro, use the kernel version. Perhaps a page in the manuals shipped with the distros could explain proper usage?
Heres my take-
1. Open Linux the only one that has partition magic. This article implies that that applies across the board. McMillans package of Linux Mandrake includes it too.
2. Interface Choices, documentation. Again, why did they not even mention McMillans distro? At least in passing they could have mentioned "However, both of our distributions are beaten in these categories by McMillan Delux Linux 6.5, which contains thousands of pages of books on CD-Rom, and its default installation allows you to choose between KDE and Gnome on bootup, you can change which one you want to use whenever you want without installing anything extra. "