Actually, the HHGG Earth Edition is here, although I can't get on the site (or even ping it) at the moment. The site you linked up (likely a typo) appears to be in Japaneese.
Dude, I'm seriously _not_ willing to put something like Carnivore into the hands of people who are just a step above 5KR1P7 K1DD135.
Uh, dude, just what do you think Carnivore IS? It's basically a glorified packet sniffer. There are tools already out there that do everything it does and more that the kiddies play with on a daily basis. The sticky point is that the kiddies and crackers have to try to sneak access undetected while the government can force ISPs to install it on their systems. The review isn't about the technical side of how it works - it's about what controls and limits (or lack thereof) are built into it. How do we know that they're only looking at Joe Crack-dealer's email and not at Wally Politically-incorrect's email as well?
"Just because I give you the Cat scanner, it does not immediately give you the right to go into business against me with my own technology," Davis said. "We have an intended use for it."
What makes you think we need to be given the right to do something? Rights can't be given - they can only be infringed upon. And when you give me (your words) something, I damned well CAN do anything I want to do with it. I really don't care what your intentions were. I doubt that Hershey's syrup had the uses to which I put their product in mind when they manufactured it either.
"It was astonishing to us," he said. "We've created a hobbyist cult which we didn't anticipate."
Failure to anticipate is something that sinks a lot of start-up businesses. Yours will just be one in a long line if similar failures.
Indeed, Davis said the company has always planned to add extra functions, such as shopping or package tracking, once a significant number of CueCats have been distributed.
"There's a whole slew of things we're working on now," he said.
Keep working away. And by the time you get them written and distributed, someone else will be busy writing version three or four of their software which does the same thing with no connection to your databases.
The CueCats cost about $10 apiece, Davis said, and the company will spend a significant portion of its $190 million in private financing giving the devices away.
Did you bother to read the article? Here's Emmanuel Goldstein's take on that:
Now, we have a small but vocal group who insist on calling anyone they deem unacceptable in the hacker world a "cracker." This is an attempt to solve the problem of the misuse of the word "hacker" by simply misusing a new word. It's a very misguided, though well-intentioned, effort. The main problem is that when you make up such a word, no further definition is required. When you label someone with a word that says they're evil, you never really find out what the evil was to begin with. Murderer, that's easy. Burglar, embezzler, rapist, kidnapper, all pretty clear. Now along comes cracker and you don't even know what the crime was. It could be crashing every computer system in Botswana. Or it could be copying a single file. We need to avoid the labeling and start looking at what we're actually talking about. But at the same time, we have to remember that you don't become a hacker simply because you say you are.
The individual effort might be cheaper. But it seems to me that the sum of the costs all the individual efforts, including failed ones, will likelly be more than the cost of a single, concentrated effort. We taxpayers would be footing the bill for ALL of the efforts, not just the cheapest one.
The idea of competition seems to necessarily imply duplication of effort. If two agencies are in competition, it's highly doubtful that they'd share research results or technology. This is hardly what I'd call a wise use of my tax dollars.
You do read the news right? Even on places like/. we see the trends which are leading towards government oppression and the loss of all of our freedoms.
If information wants to be free, power wants to grow. Certainly, there are trends to increased government control. Some of this is driven by finances. UCITA, DMCA, etc. aren't so much concerned with power as they are with money. Some of it is driven by the best of intentions. Pat Bradey truly believes that banning guns would make the US a better place. Recognizing the creeping erosion of our rights is one thing. Creating a sinister conspiracy where every new law, no matter how innocent seeming, has an ulterior motive designed to advance the cause of government oppression is something else entirely. That IS paranoid.
The government exists to protect.. The way it is done leaves a great deal to be desired.. but thats the main idea.
No, the government exists to govern a political unit, usually a country. Protecting its assets is merely good sense for such a body and means no more than me defending my home against a burglar.
That depends upon your definition of exists. The US government was created by the US Constitution. It was created by the founding fathers with the purpose of protecting the rights of the new nation. Over time, it has drifted far from its original purpose. The checks and ballances have been only partially successful. We in the US still enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom compared. But that freedom IS threatened, and the powers of the government have been hugely expanded.
Making them illegal is unlikely. However, making them obsolete is quite possible. How many cassette drives have you seen lately? (For the kiddies here, Commodore, etc. used to use standard audio casettes to store data.)
And what exactly is that general principle? That governmental software is somehow more inviting to crackers? That it is somehow less interesting for coders who might donate their time?
The problem I have isn't with the example; it's with the specific principle the example was meant to illustrate. If the principle isn't valid for the specific case picked to illustrate it, it probably isn't valid for the general case either.
If there were an exploitable bug in some piece of IRS code, for example, does anyone really think there'd be lots of people offering them a fix? Hell no, everyone would be exploiting it.
Only a tiny fraction of software would fall in this category. What IRS application and what type of bug would offer a chance for the average person to take advantage of it? The public interface for IRS software should consist primarily of an alternative to paper forms for data entry. Other than a bug where you enter the correct data but the program somehow submits it incorrectly, thus allowing you to claim innocence in the case of an audit, I have difficulty seeing how a bug could help you. Most IRS software, like most government contracted software, is used internally. I have a hard time imagining that very many people would take advantage of a bug that allowed them to crack into the IRS systems and change their data.
Even if people take the generated code and staticly enter it into the kernel (people, not SUN) then SUN hasn't screwed up, the people using their kit have.
My understanding is that even those people haven't screwed up if they only use the resulting binaries themselves. It's only a violation if they distribute the binaries and not the full source.
And of course there's the fact that there often isn't a "correct page." The user may have only a vague idea of what he's looking for; the information needed may be quite expansive and not covered on a single page or even a single site; the user may want to see multiple viewpoints on the same subject, etc. Even an actual person would have to return a list of possibilities in most places. The person would just be better at removing the obvious dross; they'd still likely return a number of false hits for most queries.
No, I'm not. You're assuming that the only system which can be used to make money from music is the current pay-for-distribution system. This system actually serves to enrich the middlemen, not the artist. With our current system, artists make very little money from record sales. There seems to be no scarcity of people making music now. Why then do you assume that switching to a different system where artists make very little money from record sales will result in a shortage of people making music?
You really need to study up on both economics and logic. The market determines the value of an object. That determination is greatly affected by the scarcity of an object. Diamonds are more valuable than quartz primarily because diamonds are rare and quartz isn't. There is no scarcity of a copy of digital information. Therefore, it has no real, intrinsic value. Thus, the system tries to create an artificial scarcity by restricting distribution. This artificial scarcity creates an artificial value. IOW, info is valuable because it is restricted. You can't then argue that it's distribution should be restricted because it's valuable. That's circular reasoning - begging the question. It's logically invalid.
Your second fallacy is the assumption that information can be "owned." Only one entity (either an individual or a group acting as a unit) can own a piece of physical property. If I take that property from you, you're deprived of it's possesion and use. That's exactly why there is a legitimate basis for ownership of physical goods. There is no similar reasoning for digital information. The "right of ownership" is as artifically created as it's value. And you can't use the fact that ownership of intellectual property does (legally) exist to justify its continued existence.
They're running some really lame commercials where Lars comes into a students dorm room while he's using Napster. The student claims he's just "sharing," so Lars starts slapping Napster stickers on everything and taking them, claiming he's just "sharing" too.
If the average consumer goes out and purchases a new stereo for their car, who installs it? A professional. If it needs a tune-up, who does it? A professional. The success of Jiffy Lube and similar shows that most people don't even want to change their own oil. If it needs attention or maintenance, they call in a pro.
(Certainly, there are a lot of shade tree mechanics out there who do a lot of auto maintenance for themselves. Most of us here at Slashdot would fall into that category. But that isn't the "typical" driver.)
Let an ignorant driver get under the hood and start poking around on a daily basis and see how well the car runs. If you want the computer to function like a car, fine. But that also means letting professionals (or knowledgable amateurs) maintain them like a car, including doing such routine tasks as installing new programs. Certainly, the average user can learn to install a program and defrag a hard disk, just like the average driver can learn to change the oil and do a break job. But it's a skill that has to be learned.
Is it your contention that the GUI which lets you get at the guts is as easy to use as the first GUI? Do you claim that one can write a GUI which is both a newbie interface and a power users interface? If so, care to cite an example? If one doesn't exist, why is it that no one has written one. And if it isn't possible to write one that is both easy to use and powerful, then my point stands. (CLI is really just short hand for a power users interface. It doesn't literally have to use a command line.)
Apples and oranges. If you drink and drive, you know that you significantly increase your chances of having an accident. It isn't at all clear that Firestone and Ford knew they were endangering lives, or even that they were actually endangering lives in the first place. Prove that they were, and send them to jail. But prove it first.
Yet another reason not to move to Australia. If you want to live in that type of environment, go right ahead. I'm all for punishing people who are guilty of malice or gross negligence that harms or kills others. But I'm even more for rational, common-sense laws and the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
Did they? I'm not saying that they didn't. But from what I've seen of the congressional hearings and read in various publications, the evidence and the question of exactly what they knew when is far from conclusive. There's a real aura of mob mentality around the whole thing. I'd rather a few guilty people go free than innocent people be punished.
Uh, nothing personal, but perhaps you need to restudy that economics book. Supply and demand is driven by the desire to maximize profit. If supply is limited, producers can charge more because people will pay more. Why charge more? Why, to maximize profit, of course.
Exactly how much demand is their for a Linux DVD player? Probably not enough to pay the company to produce, package and support it.
Who should go to jail? The ones who are guilty, of course
Well, that's the whole point. Guilty of what? All too often, no one is guilty of any malicious act. It's accidental. Firestone didn't intend to sell faulty tires. There's even a legitimate question as to just how dangerous the tires actually are. By all accounts, well over %99 of them function perfectly normal throughout their lifetime. Like most situations, it just ain't that simple.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the HHGG Earth Edition is here, although I can't get on the site (or even ping it) at the moment. The site you linked up (likely a typo) appears to be in Japaneese.
Uh, dude, just what do you think Carnivore IS? It's basically a glorified packet sniffer. There are tools already out there that do everything it does and more that the kiddies play with on a daily basis. The sticky point is that the kiddies and crackers have to try to sneak access undetected while the government can force ISPs to install it on their systems. The review isn't about the technical side of how it works - it's about what controls and limits (or lack thereof) are built into it. How do we know that they're only looking at Joe Crack-dealer's email and not at Wally Politically-incorrect's email as well?
What makes you think we need to be given the right to do something? Rights can't be given - they can only be infringed upon. And when you give me (your words) something, I damned well CAN do anything I want to do with it. I really don't care what your intentions were. I doubt that Hershey's syrup had the uses to which I put their product in mind when they manufactured it either.
"It was astonishing to us," he said. "We've created a hobbyist cult which we didn't anticipate."
Failure to anticipate is something that sinks a lot of start-up businesses. Yours will just be one in a long line if similar failures.
Indeed, Davis said the company has always planned to add extra functions, such as shopping or package tracking, once a significant number of CueCats have been distributed. "There's a whole slew of things we're working on now," he said.
Keep working away. And by the time you get them written and distributed, someone else will be busy writing version three or four of their software which does the same thing with no connection to your databases.
The CueCats cost about $10 apiece, Davis said, and the company will spend a significant portion of its $190 million in private financing giving the devices away.
Ever think of cutting your loses while you can?
The Good: ISP's can't be regulated by the FCC. No regulation of content, etc.
The Bad: ISP's ARE responsible for their content. A common carrier is like the phone system - I can't sue AT&T if you cuss me out over the phone.
No argument over the ugly, however.
Now, we have a small but vocal group who insist on calling anyone they deem unacceptable in the hacker world a "cracker." This is an attempt to solve the problem of the misuse of the word "hacker" by simply misusing a new word. It's a very misguided, though well-intentioned, effort. The main problem is that when you make up such a word, no further definition is required. When you label someone with a word that says they're evil, you never really find out what the evil was to begin with. Murderer, that's easy. Burglar, embezzler, rapist, kidnapper, all pretty clear. Now along comes cracker and you don't even know what the crime was. It could be crashing every computer system in Botswana. Or it could be copying a single file. We need to avoid the labeling and start looking at what we're actually talking about. But at the same time, we have to remember that you don't become a hacker simply because you say you are.
The individual effort might be cheaper. But it seems to me that the sum of the costs all the individual efforts, including failed ones, will likelly be more than the cost of a single, concentrated effort. We taxpayers would be footing the bill for ALL of the efforts, not just the cheapest one.
The idea of competition seems to necessarily imply duplication of effort. If two agencies are in competition, it's highly doubtful that they'd share research results or technology. This is hardly what I'd call a wise use of my tax dollars.
You do read the news right? Even on places like /. we see the trends which are leading towards government oppression and the loss of all of our freedoms.
If information wants to be free, power wants to grow. Certainly, there are trends to increased government control. Some of this is driven by finances. UCITA, DMCA, etc. aren't so much concerned with power as they are with money. Some of it is driven by the best of intentions. Pat Bradey truly believes that banning guns would make the US a better place. Recognizing the creeping erosion of our rights is one thing. Creating a sinister conspiracy where every new law, no matter how innocent seeming, has an ulterior motive designed to advance the cause of government oppression is something else entirely. That IS paranoid.
The government exists to protect.. The way it is done leaves a great deal to be desired.. but thats the main idea.
No, the government exists to govern a political unit, usually a country. Protecting its assets is merely good sense for such a body and means no more than me defending my home against a burglar.
That depends upon your definition of exists. The US government was created by the US Constitution. It was created by the founding fathers with the purpose of protecting the rights of the new nation. Over time, it has drifted far from its original purpose. The checks and ballances have been only partially successful. We in the US still enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom compared. But that freedom IS threatened, and the powers of the government have been hugely expanded.
Making them illegal is unlikely. However, making them obsolete is quite possible. How many cassette drives have you seen lately? (For the kiddies here, Commodore, etc. used to use standard audio casettes to store data.)
The problem I have isn't with the example; it's with the specific principle the example was meant to illustrate. If the principle isn't valid for the specific case picked to illustrate it, it probably isn't valid for the general case either.
Only a tiny fraction of software would fall in this category. What IRS application and what type of bug would offer a chance for the average person to take advantage of it? The public interface for IRS software should consist primarily of an alternative to paper forms for data entry. Other than a bug where you enter the correct data but the program somehow submits it incorrectly, thus allowing you to claim innocence in the case of an audit, I have difficulty seeing how a bug could help you. Most IRS software, like most government contracted software, is used internally. I have a hard time imagining that very many people would take advantage of a bug that allowed them to crack into the IRS systems and change their data.
Even if people take the generated code and staticly enter it into the kernel (people, not SUN) then SUN hasn't screwed up, the people using their kit have. My understanding is that even those people haven't screwed up if they only use the resulting binaries themselves. It's only a violation if they distribute the binaries and not the full source.
And of course there's the fact that there often isn't a "correct page." The user may have only a vague idea of what he's looking for; the information needed may be quite expansive and not covered on a single page or even a single site; the user may want to see multiple viewpoints on the same subject, etc. Even an actual person would have to return a list of possibilities in most places. The person would just be better at removing the obvious dross; they'd still likely return a number of false hits for most queries.
No, I'm not. You're assuming that the only system which can be used to make money from music is the current pay-for-distribution system. This system actually serves to enrich the middlemen, not the artist. With our current system, artists make very little money from record sales. There seems to be no scarcity of people making music now. Why then do you assume that switching to a different system where artists make very little money from record sales will result in a shortage of people making music?
Your second fallacy is the assumption that information can be "owned." Only one entity (either an individual or a group acting as a unit) can own a piece of physical property. If I take that property from you, you're deprived of it's possesion and use. That's exactly why there is a legitimate basis for ownership of physical goods. There is no similar reasoning for digital information. The "right of ownership" is as artifically created as it's value. And you can't use the fact that ownership of intellectual property does (legally) exist to justify its continued existence.
I'd wager that both Firestone and Ford would argue about "bad publicity" too.
I didn't realize that it was the same bit, but evidently they're now running it as a sort of "community service" spot. I saw it in between videos.
They're running some really lame commercials where Lars comes into a students dorm room while he's using Napster. The student claims he's just "sharing," so Lars starts slapping Napster stickers on everything and taking them, claiming he's just "sharing" too.
(Certainly, there are a lot of shade tree mechanics out there who do a lot of auto maintenance for themselves. Most of us here at Slashdot would fall into that category. But that isn't the "typical" driver.)
Let an ignorant driver get under the hood and start poking around on a daily basis and see how well the car runs. If you want the computer to function like a car, fine. But that also means letting professionals (or knowledgable amateurs) maintain them like a car, including doing such routine tasks as installing new programs. Certainly, the average user can learn to install a program and defrag a hard disk, just like the average driver can learn to change the oil and do a break job. But it's a skill that has to be learned.
Is it your contention that the GUI which lets you get at the guts is as easy to use as the first GUI? Do you claim that one can write a GUI which is both a newbie interface and a power users interface? If so, care to cite an example? If one doesn't exist, why is it that no one has written one. And if it isn't possible to write one that is both easy to use and powerful, then my point stands. (CLI is really just short hand for a power users interface. It doesn't literally have to use a command line.)
Apples and oranges. If you drink and drive, you know that you significantly increase your chances of having an accident. It isn't at all clear that Firestone and Ford knew they were endangering lives, or even that they were actually endangering lives in the first place. Prove that they were, and send them to jail. But prove it first.
Yet another reason not to move to Australia. If you want to live in that type of environment, go right ahead. I'm all for punishing people who are guilty of malice or gross negligence that harms or kills others. But I'm even more for rational, common-sense laws and the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
Did they? I'm not saying that they didn't. But from what I've seen of the congressional hearings and read in various publications, the evidence and the question of exactly what they knew when is far from conclusive. There's a real aura of mob mentality around the whole thing. I'd rather a few guilty people go free than innocent people be punished.
Exactly how much demand is their for a Linux DVD player? Probably not enough to pay the company to produce, package and support it.
Well, that's the whole point. Guilty of what? All too often, no one is guilty of any malicious act. It's accidental. Firestone didn't intend to sell faulty tires. There's even a legitimate question as to just how dangerous the tires actually are. By all accounts, well over %99 of them function perfectly normal throughout their lifetime. Like most situations, it just ain't that simple.