First of all most of these people have already been the victims of spam at some point. Second of all I doubt many of them want the guy who sent the original message (who didn't seem to be aware that it was inappropriate) to be punished that severely. It was a only minor annoyance.
More than anything it demonstrates how careful you need to be in setting up large listservs, and things of the sort. A moderated listserv would do far more to solve their problem than an anti-spam bill.
Concerned Slashdotters for the use of Encryption by Children. We could teach young children how to use strong encryption and steganography to hide their interest in computers from their parents. As a side benefit we'd be brainwashing them into encouraging less export restrictions on crypto when they grow up!
The problem is it's difficult to do anything but brainwash a first grader. The 3 parts of persuasion are pathos, ethos, and logos. They're to young to have the necessary knowledge for logos to work. So you use pathos and ethos. Pathos - this stuff is scary and will get you in trouble. Ethos - I'm a big person and in a position of authority. That basically amounts to brainwashing. They need to recognize that they start a lot of this stuff too young. The average first grader's computer usage is limited to reader rabbit. By 6th grade a kid could concievably be interested in cracking, but even that seems young. It strikes me as something that's much more of a problem in high school, and possibly middle school. I would not be nearly as concerned if they started a progrm like this in middle school.
There's an awful lot of web 'literature' that glorifiys cracking. Some of it's trash, but the occasional essay is well written, and quite convincing. Particularly to a kid who feels like an outcast, and probably wants to a)prove he's better than the rest of the world, and b)make the rest of the world pay in some small way. For example, read Consience of a Hacker, and think how it would appeal to someone who felt that way.
It had to design a structure that could be built from one side of a gap to the other. In other words start building at one side, and eventually reach the other, without anchoring to anything but the top of the first side, and without any additional supports during construction.
I'm curious how good a design it came up with. How do you test the structural soundness of a lego bridge? What do you define as structuraly sound anyway? If it supports it's own weight? If I can stand on it?
The problem is that they don't seem to consider it any more a violation of the 5th amendmant than you having to let them search your house if the've got a warrant. It can incriminate you. And it requires action on your part. But it's not considered self-incrimination. Just gathering evidence. They try to pass off forcing people to decrypt data as being the same thing. At least that's the logic I've heard applied to this.
When they realize that the frightening thing is that they'd probably like to respond like Britian just did, and say that you have to decrypt anything they want you too. Never mind how illogical this is. Steganography may solve this problem once and for all however. If there's no way to prove that there's encrypted data, there's not much they can do about it. Not that they won't pass a law against it - it will just be even more unenforcable than current ones are.
I'm reminded of a quote by Socrates - "Do not command what you can not enforce."
From what I saw of it the first time around, it sounded like they didn't care about algorithms, only implementation. That makes it a hard arguement. The algothithms seem much more free speech related. In fact, based on what pgp did, it seems to be possible to get away with almoat anything if you put it in a book. That also makes it a harder arguement - if you want to publish it just stick it on paper, no one's stopping you. On the other hand I'm all in favor of anything that loosens our crypto export laws.
SCSL simply doesn't inspire community support. SCSL only gives Sun the marketing advantages of Linux, not the real advantages. While this _may_ encourage some businesses to stick with Sun, I suspect this can only slow the domination of linux, not keep it from happening. Linux will continue to grow as free software, and solaris won't. This is just a marketing ploy to capture companies that are interested in 'that open source thing'.
If anything I think girls are being encouraged too much to go into computers. An awful lot of the girls in Comp-Sci don't belong there. They seem to be unable to learn about computers on their own. They frequently sit down and memorize the commands they need, without any real understanding. It's sad when someone's majoring in CS and can't navigate a directory tree. Or doesn't know what ftp is. Far to many girls with no interest or talent in CS are being encouraged to go into it. I really don't consider that a good thing. The girls with real interest in CS are drawn to it on their own. They have independent interest in CS, and don't need encouragement.
I think that girls are often encouraged more that guys to use computers. The problem is that they tend to go in for chat rooms, and ICQ, and social stuff. They don't sit down at a computer, look at what it does, and say "I want to be able to control that." Truth be told I'd rather not see overwhelmingly more women in Comp-Sci. I'm afraid that it would change for the worse because of it. I suspect it would cause far more interest in computers as tools, and abstracting away the low level stuff I find fascinating.
I don't believe that it's taught, but I may be wrong. Just from their reactions to other things I get the impression that most girls do not have the personalities to be into computers. Also, I notice that girls who profess to be interested in computers rarely are in the same way that most linux users are.
That may be as weell, but I've also seen that in general people assume girls aren't good at this stuff, hence, if someones good they're probably a guy. Maybe I'm nuts though.
Most women see computers as tools. As means to an end. Not a toy. Not a world to be explored.
They learn better from other people. In general when girls learn a new program it's because a friend was using it. And they learn how to use it from their friend. They dislike RTFMing.
In Comp-Sci classes they're often determined to memorize how to use computers. Rather then learning what a directory tree is, they end up learning "If I type cd I will go to where I belong. If I type cd project1 it will take me to my projects."
They dislike the impersonality of computers. While most geeks enjoy entering a world where many social distictions are not important, and many social skills are un-needed they don't. Personally I like the cold logic of a computer. It makes sense. Most girls don't seem to like this though. They tend to find cold logic boring.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, but it's my pet peeve.
I believe the problem is not entirely lack of support. I think it has more to do with how most girls view computers. They seem them as a tool, and a means to an end. They're not interested in exploring them.
Slashdot Mirror
My point was that this isn't something to be helped by an anti-spam bill.
First of all most of these people have already been the victims of spam at some point. Second of all I doubt many of them want the guy who sent the original message (who didn't seem to be aware that it was inappropriate) to be punished that severely. It was a only minor annoyance.
More than anything it demonstrates how careful you need to be in setting up large listservs, and things of the sort.
A moderated listserv would do far more to solve their problem than an anti-spam bill.
Every bit of code that's GPL'd helps to advance OS a bit furthur. Even if it's somewhat outdated, it still is likely to contain useful ideas.
It's great to have a way to protect ourselves, but is this going to cause us to do stupid things, secure in the knowledge that we are invulnerable?
No details, scary story, Vague references to cutting edge science.
Concerned Slashdotters for the use of Encryption by Children.
We could teach young children how to use strong encryption and steganography to hide their interest in computers from their parents.
As a side benefit we'd be brainwashing them into encouraging less export restrictions on crypto when they grow up!
The problem is it's difficult to do anything but brainwash a first grader. The 3 parts of persuasion are pathos, ethos, and logos. They're to young to have the necessary knowledge for logos to work. So you use pathos and ethos. Pathos - this stuff is scary and will get you in trouble. Ethos - I'm a big person and in a position of authority. That basically amounts to brainwashing.
They need to recognize that they start a lot of this stuff too young. The average first grader's computer usage is limited to reader rabbit. By 6th grade a kid could concievably be interested in cracking, but even that seems young. It strikes me as something that's much more of a problem in high school, and possibly middle school.
I would not be nearly as concerned if they started a progrm like this in middle school.
There's an awful lot of web 'literature' that glorifiys cracking. Some of it's trash, but the occasional essay is well written, and quite convincing. Particularly to a kid who feels like an outcast, and probably wants to a)prove he's better than the rest of the world, and b)make the rest of the world pay in some small way.
For example, read Consience of a Hacker, and think how it would appeal to someone who felt that way.
It had to design a structure that could be built from one side of a gap to the other. In other words start building at one side, and eventually reach the other, without anchoring to anything but the top of the first side, and without any additional supports during construction.
I'm curious how good a design it came up with. How do you test the structural soundness of a lego bridge? What do you define as structuraly sound anyway? If it supports it's own weight? If I can stand on it?
What's realy needed is one tool that maintains it's own database and can install rpm's, deb's, and stuff you compile.
The problem is that they don't seem to consider it any more a violation of the 5th amendmant than you having to let them search your house if the've got a warrant. It can incriminate you. And it requires action on your part. But it's not considered self-incrimination. Just gathering evidence. They try to pass off forcing people to decrypt data as being the same thing. At least that's the logic I've heard applied to this.
When they realize that the frightening thing is that they'd probably like to respond like Britian just did, and say that you have to decrypt anything they want you too. Never mind how illogical this is.
Steganography may solve this problem once and for all however. If there's no way to prove that there's encrypted data, there's not much they can do about it. Not that they won't pass a law against it - it will just be even more unenforcable than current ones are.
I'm reminded of a quote by Socrates - "Do not command what you can not enforce."
I hadn't thought of that. If that's true why didn't pgp do that?
From what I saw of it the first time around, it sounded like they didn't care about algorithms, only implementation. That makes it a hard arguement. The algothithms seem much more free speech related. In fact, based on what pgp did, it seems to be possible to get away with almoat anything if you put it in a book. That also makes it a harder arguement - if you want to publish it just stick it on paper, no one's stopping you.
On the other hand I'm all in favor of anything that loosens our crypto export laws.
SCSL simply doesn't inspire community support. SCSL only gives Sun the marketing advantages of Linux, not the real advantages. While this _may_ encourage some businesses to stick with Sun, I suspect this can only slow the domination of linux, not keep it from happening. Linux will continue to grow as free software, and solaris won't. This is just a marketing ploy to capture companies that are interested in 'that open source thing'.
There's MONEY to be made online, and greed knows no gender boundaries.
That's what I find scary. Actual interest seems to.
I see it much more frequently among the girls personally.
That's true. There isn't as much encouragement to go into programming early on. Although by college there is.
If anything I think girls are being encouraged too much to go into computers. An awful lot of the girls in Comp-Sci don't belong there. They seem to be unable to learn about computers on their own. They frequently sit down and memorize the commands they need, without any real understanding. It's sad when someone's majoring in CS and can't navigate a directory tree. Or doesn't know what ftp is.
Far to many girls with no interest or talent in CS are being encouraged to go into it. I really don't consider that a good thing.
The girls with real interest in CS are drawn to it on their own. They have independent interest in CS, and don't need encouragement.
I think that girls are often encouraged more that guys to use computers. The problem is that they tend to go in for chat rooms, and ICQ, and social stuff. They don't sit down at a computer, look at what it does, and say "I want to be able to control that."
Truth be told I'd rather not see overwhelmingly more women in Comp-Sci. I'm afraid that it would change for the worse because of it. I suspect it would cause far more interest in computers as tools, and abstracting away the low level stuff I find fascinating.
I don't believe that it's taught, but I may be wrong. Just from their reactions to other things I get the impression that most girls do not have the personalities to be into computers. Also, I notice that girls who profess to be interested in computers rarely are in the same way that most linux users are.
That may be as weell, but I've also seen that in general people assume girls aren't good at this stuff, hence, if someones good they're probably a guy. Maybe I'm nuts though.
4) Inherent differences between men and women.
Most women see computers as tools. As means to an end. Not a toy. Not a world to be explored.
They learn better from other people. In general when girls learn a new program it's because a friend was using it. And they learn how to use it from their friend. They dislike RTFMing.
In Comp-Sci classes they're often determined to memorize how to use computers. Rather then learning what a directory tree is, they end up learning "If I type cd I will go to where I belong. If I type cd project1 it will take me to my projects."
They dislike the impersonality of computers. While most geeks enjoy entering a world where many social distictions are not important, and many social skills are un-needed they don't. Personally I like the cold logic of a computer. It makes sense. Most girls don't seem to like this though. They tend to find cold logic boring.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, but it's my pet peeve.
I believe the problem is not entirely lack of support. I think it has more to do with how most girls view computers. They seem them as a tool, and a means to an end. They're not interested in exploring them.