... it is powered by the sun. So fuck the damn creationists, doomsday get my gun" (to borrow a phrase from MC Hawking).
There is nothing mystical about the physical infrastructure of human intelligence. We derive our energy from the food we eat (in a very ineffecient manner), much of which in turn (at some point) derives its energy from photosynthesis, which in turn derives its energy from the sun, an energy source external to the earth (and one which will, some day, run out).
We are powered by the sun, in other words, not some mystical force violating Thermodynamic's second law. Our intelligence may have other implications, but a mystical violation of the basic laws of physics isn't one of them.
The Brownian Ratchet you describe won't work, because of the second law of thermodynamics.
Not really. Energy is taken from the motion of the atmosphere. It is free in economic, not physical, terms, and is therefor not a violation of the 2nd law.
In other words, it is not a closed system he is describing, but an open system where energy is introduced (from the molecular motion of the atmosphere, which in turn is powered by the sun).
Furthermore, heating issues can be handled in the way they are handled in any electrical or mechanical system (in this case decoupling the ratchet, using active cooling, or whatever). Besides, chances are something like this is being used to charge a more mundane battery (converting mechanical energy to electical, which involves loss of energy, then converting the stored energy back to electricity, which involves another loss, and so on).
All well within the laws of thermodynamics. Innovative, and "free" in the sense that atmospheric motion, powered by the cost-free energy of the sun, is free. Not at all free in terms of thermodynamics or entropy, as energy is being introduced from outside and then simply stored in some fashion, at a net loss in terms of total energy... something we do with batteries all the time.
... which will prevent any kind of "hard" impact from a spaceship like Galileo from ever happening.
Burn up, disintigrate in the upper atmoshphere, scattering radiological material so finely as to be unnoticable against the naturally occuring background radiation of the planet (i.e. causing no harm whatsoever)? Sure, if things went wrong during the gravitational boost flyby of the earth. Bounce off harmlessly into space? Possibly, if the orbital angle of incidence to the atmosphere is below a certain value. Actually make physical contact with the surface of the planet and create a localized, highly toxic accident site or any kind of accident that puts anyone at any significant risk. Not if we lined up a billion of the things back to back in a frenzy of self-destructive ferver and actively tried to do so. The physics of atmospheric drag, the velocity and relatively small size of the spacecraft (relative to the size needed for a body at that speed to survive reentry and touch the surface without being vaporized first) make that an impossibility.
As everyone knew, except apparently for the knee-jerk reaction certain parties feel required to perform whenever the word "nuclear" or "atomic" is used with respect to any technological item.
and the record companies --- they do pay for the promotion and all the associated crap
ahem. No, they don't. This is a commonly held myth, even by those (such as yourself) who are otherwise disgusted by and adamently opposed to the parasitical middlemen who stand between artist and consumer, ripping off both. Courtney Love did a great writeup on this, explaining in detail (almost like a line-by-line audit) how the finances of a successful band work, and how the recording industry makes millions on gold and platinum albums while the artists make a modest $40,000 or so.
In short, all of the expenses for promotion, CD pressing, etc. are charged to the band. The record company acts as the band's vendor, providing the service and charging for the service, often at a rate higher than the band would have gotten if they had shopped the service themselves. This can happen when the entity (Tthe recording company) representing someone (the band) is the same as the one being negotiated with (the recording company), and in any non-cartel industry would be considered a serious conflict of interest. Alas, this is but one of many caveats that commonly result in many of the most successful artists working for what amounts to slave wages (and slavish hours) only to die in poverty while the recording industry gets ever richer (even posthumously long after the artist is gone).
I'd pay $1 or even $2 per song to an artist I like gladly, but I will never pay for music again where such goes through the thieving hands of a recording company. If this means I get all my music from the radio, recorded myself for my own personal use, with no cover art and no shiny disc, then so be it. If someone comes along that really rocks my world I'll attend their concerts, buy their t-shirts, or send them a donation via fairtunes or something. I will not support a cartel industry that is not only stealing from the consumers and the artists, but actively trying to destroy the greatest potential of the internet and the computer industry as a whole, namely the free sharing of information, and I would encourage anyone who gives something more than a rat's ass about such issues to do likewise.
...we want to be sure it is native to Europa, not imported from earth by accident in a previous space mission. This is simply good science, nothing else, and is completely orthogonal to how well, or how poorly, we are acting as stewards of the Earth.
So get off your high horse and get over yourself, saving the whales and turning our backs on technology (I notice you are using a computer, including all kinds of hydrocarbon-generated electricity and toxic materials used, and dumped, in the creation of its components) to "save the earth" really has nothing whatsoever to do with Galileo's final trajectory past Io.
Many readers here can't. Creating a gene backup requires the assistance of a girlfriend/wife.
That's not a backup, thats a new and different creation which includes only 50% of your genes and 50% of your partners genes, mixed together somewhat randomly (or at least non-predictably by current technologies). Congress and our illustrious president, at the behest of vocal Luddites on both the extreme left and extreme right whose sole unifying characteristic is their complete lack of understanding of the technology, its underlying science, and its implications, are busy making the only known process of backing up one's genes illegal: that of cloning.
So, I'm guessing that this will be the end of PETA's objections to animal testing. Right? Yes?
That would require PETA to be rational, scientifically well informed, and intellectually honest, none of which are the case.
Lassaiz-Faire Capitalism as bad as Communism
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 2, Offtopic
In a free market system, monopolies NATURALLY result from good business practices
And in a free market system technological innovation, development and low prices NATURALLY result from competition. You seem to be arguing that the one offering the best services will eventually triumph over the competition and be the only one left on the market. This is sometimes true, but it does not mean that monopolies are always the best thing for a free market system.
This is why completely unfettered, unregulated capitalism (lassaiz-faire capatilism a la the 19th century) is as contradictory and self-destructive as communism: the inherent dichotomy of the free market system requiring competition to work properly but yielding monopolies comes to the fore, short circuiting and ultimately destroying the very market that spawned it.
Capitalism only works over the long term in a situation where its most destructive positive feedbacks (of which the "natural" formation of monopolies from previously free markets is but one example) are mitigated through regulation.
There was a time, up through about the 1940, when western capitalism, particularly in the United States, was on a routine boom-bust cycle punctuated not by recessions, but by multi-year depressions. Note the plural. We grow concerned when growth slows and joblessness rises to the point where we have to endure up to 16 months of recession (usually lasting much shorter than 16 months). Our great-grandparents in the 19th century routinely suffered through multiple depressions, an effective "rebooting" of the economy reminiscent of a Windows NT server. This was a natural consiquence of lassaiz-faire capitalism's inherent internal contradictions and resulting instability.
As much as we like to bitch about government regulation (and it is true that bad regulation can be as bad or worse than no regulation, and that regulation is not needed in many circumstances, but certainly required in many others), ever since the government (and the Federal Reserve) have been proactively regulating the market through both legislation and control of the money supply, our boom-bust cycles have diminished to minor fluxuations, where the worst we have to fear is a few months of slowdown.
Unfortunately, with the government's reluctance to enforce anti-trust regulation (while zealously enforcing mandated monopoly rights such as copyrights and patents) this balance is shifting, with all the potential for economic havoc that implies. This sort of thing happens when you have legalized bribery and a voice in politics defined by and limited to the depths of your pockets, of which a living human's will never be so deep as even a relatively impoverished corporation's, and as such regulations are ever more weakened in the persuit of next quarter's profits the long term stability of our economy, and our society, becomes ever more fragil, and ever more ignored in the rush of cheaply-purchased politicians to quid-pro-quo that last campaign contribution into another law designed to prop up an outdated business model, to deregulate another area of business in the name of short term profits at the expense of long term stability or, in some cases, consumer protection (which arguably amounts to the same thing), or even to simply bail out an entire industry for having chosen, years earlier, to ignore its customers safety and pocket the change saved by not implimenting the kind of security their fudiciary responsibilities to both their stockholders and their customers required.
The Singularity is NOT Doomsday
on
True Names
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· Score: 4, Insightful
the Singularity, the point in time when humans create a machine intelligence that is smarter than we are.
This is an inaccurate characterization of the singularity. The singularity refers more generally to that point in time where technological growth and change are happening so quickly (in other words, where the exponential curve steepens toward the vertical), that we don't know what happens.
It could be a superintelligent computer that wipes out or enslaves humankind. More likely, it will involve some sort of transformation of humanity into something else (presumably enhanced, perhaps godlike or simply so different as to be unrecognizable). Examples of such possibilities include the merger of human and machine intellect (e.g. wiring the cortex directly to a powerful computer, or perhaps the internet itself), the emergence of a group intelligence (we all become one mind as we wire ourselves together to the internet, perhaps like the borg, perhaps not), self-modification of our physical forms beyond our current recognition (or ability to imagine), ditto for our intellects, loading our minds onto machines directly and turning our back on the physical world in favor of an existence in some form of virtual reality, and so on.
"The Singularity" has many, many positive connotations as well as many negative connotations, the underlying factor is that what will happen is an unknown, what form it will take (or what forms, as it is quite possible, even probable, that we will diverge in many directions as the means and technologies to do so become available) is an unknown, and when exactly it will happen is an unknown. Assuming such stifling things as patents, Bill Joy-proposed types of restrictions on research, and other governmental or corporate restrictions on technological progress do not play a deciding role we can be certain of only one thing: the singularity will happen very rapidly, perhaps in a time period of days, hours, or even minutes.
It has everything to do with Monsanto's GM
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Monsanto and PCBs
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· Score: 2
OK don't get me wrong here, I think it is totally repugnant that they pump this shit into waterways wherever they can get away with it. In a local sense this is a tragedy of major proportions.
[...]
In and of itself, that has nothing to do with their genetic engineering division, does it?
Genetic engineering (of food and other things) holds great promise. It also holds tremendous dangers, and must be managed very carefully. This means excersizing a high level of caution, and probably a large degree of public oversight with a conservative criterium for licensing and production (i.e. you must prove the safety of your product, not we must prove the danger of your product).
The use of dangerous chemicals and disposal of hazardous waste is another area with almost identical criteria for the need to be careful and mindful of its dangers. Monsanto has demonstrated a criminal disregard for public safety and a complete lack of regard for the ethics and concerns involved in handling toxic chemicals and waste.
They are clearly unqualified in every respect to take on the risks and dangers of GM food, and should be prohibited by law (or court order) from ever doing so.
I am in favor of GM foods... I think the potential rewards are well worth persuing genetic modifications of foodstuffs in a controlled and responsible manner. I do not think Monsanto meets any of those criteria, and their actions in deliberately poisoning a town to enhance quarterly profits demonstrates, indeed proves absolutely, their unsuitability as even a potential GM manufacturer.
If they wish to begin doing something that doesn't entail danger to human life, like basket weaving, then I'm all in favor of allowing them to continue operations. Otherwise we should very seriously consider shutting them down perminently. In addition, everyone involved in this atrocity, whether or not they were "just following orders," should be doing hard time in a high-security, no-nonsense (and no club-fed) prison. "Just following orders" wasn't an exceptable excuse in Nuremburg, there is no reason it should be an exceptable excuse here.
Re:No, more like the Soviet Union
on
The Euro
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· Score: 3, Informative
ahem. The constitution explicitely states that any powers not explicitly granted to the federal government by the constitution in fact devolve to the state or local level, or to the people themselves.
The constitution does not grant the federal government the right to regulate or ban drug consumption, merely to regulate (or ban) its trade across state lines. If cannibis is grown in california and consumed in california, the federal government has no constitutional right to get involved. The matter is entirely subject to state law, which in California's case makes the medicinal use and consumption legal.
The constitution states that it is the supreme law of the land.
The constitution states that federal laws passwd in accordance to the constitution take precedence over state and local laws.
However, the constitution also states, as noted before, that laws only related to those powers explicitly granted the federal government may be passed. The drug laws, indeed the entire drug war, is unconstitutional. Unfortunately they are also popular. So, like the forced expulsion of the Mormons from Illinois for practicing an unpopular religion in the nineteenth century, and like the trail of tears (when the american indians were forced from their home by the executive branch and the president after winning their case before the supreme court) our government is simply doing what it often has in the face of widespread public complacency: ignoring the constitution completely.
The fact that the federal government routinely violates the constitution and tramples state and local rights should not be a surprise to anyone who has been watching the downward spiral of American politics over the last couple of decades. While the blatent contempt shown for the will of the people (the California law was passed as a public referendum) is perhaps surprising, it is IMHO but one of the more obvious signs that our government, particularly at the federal level, is of, by and for the special interests, primarilly those best funded, namely corporate interests, and that the will of the people plays little if any roll whatsoever. And how could it be otherwise, with widespread legalized bribery of congress and only two, equally corrupt, parties to choose from?
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.
[...]
Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law?
Perhaps it is time we started imprisoning CEOs and board members of companies that willfully break the law like this, counting on endless court battles and legal thuggary to allow them to gain the profits of their illegal actions before they can be compelled to adhere to the laws the rest of us are expected to abide by. As long as it is simply a numbers (financial) game one of the most important, and potent, deterrents against breaking the law will be rendered impotent, namely the consiquence of doing time for violating other people's rights. (Including the right to privacy... after all, we lock up individuals who do this sort of thing, usually applying the label "voyeur" or "peeping tom" so why should we be any less stringent with organized, by some definitions conspiratorial, violations of our privacy?)
Turn the damn thing off and leave it off
on
New Years Marathons
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Let's not forget that the greatest threat to Free Software, indeed to the entire computer industry as an open industry, is the entertainment industry, as represented by the RIAA, the MPAA, and others.
I don't watch much television anyway, but for New Years I'm making a point of leaving the damn thing off entirely. No movie rentals to put more money in the pockets of those who would like nothing more than to destroy my livlihood in order to protect their outdated cartel profit model. No TV period.
Indeed, the only DVD I've purchased since the DeCSS fiasco is Sporty's IFR course for (private) pilots, mainly because of its interactive test questionairs. At least that way my 3 year old, multi-regional player will get some use, and as I doubt very seriously Sporty's is a member of the MPAA I feel I can make the purchase in good conscience.
That having been said, I would encourage everyone to ignore slashdot's occasional promotion of Media Cartel Content (it still amazes me that the editors of slashdot either just don't get it, or just don't care), turn the TV off, go out, get drunk, maybe even meet a girl or two and wind up not sleeping alone. Remember, even if you're the quintissential nerd, she'll likely be too drunk to notice. Opportunity knocks.
Virus, Trojan, and Work authors (who disseminate their software into the open net) are criminals. The are not terrorists, as nothing they do comes anywhere close to instilling terror. They are vandals, perhaps even "mass vandals" if there is such a word, but terrorists they are only in Newspeak.
They should be punished for their crimes, and the punishment should fit the severity of the crime. For the record, no amount of monetary damage comes anywhere close to equalling the atrocity of a single act of violent rape or murder. Keep that in mind when pondering sentences.
If these worm authors really are doing billions and billions of dollars of damage here in the cosmic fugue, then perhaps the corporations so affected should put a few thousandths of a cent on the dollar where their mouths are, and put a bounty on the perps head. Say, oh, I dunno, $25,000,000 US?
Of course, the real damage done isn't anywhere close to the same order of magnitude as that which is claimed, which is probably one reason why a $25M bounty is seen as exhorbitantly expensive, rather than a bargain. Go figure.
If one more person equates terrorism with blatently non-terroristic acts, such as voicing a dissenting, perhaps unpopular opinion or committing acts of vandalism (electronic or otherwise) which clearly do not instill "terror" in their victims (except perhaps the terror of one incompetent system administrator about to loose their job and, I'm sorry, that doesn't count as widespread terror by any sane definition) I will personally bitchslap their ass to kingdom come.
The whole notion of mebibytes is an ugly, illconsidered, and overly specific hack designed to fix a real, but by no means debilitating, problem. I made a similar post, anonymously, to debianplanet this morning, where I first saw this subject discussed, and only just now got around to checking out slashdot. I should warn you up front the the following is fairly opinionated rant, and probably represents a rather unpopular opinion to boot. You have been warned.:-)
The thing that really annoys me about the whole Megabyte/Mebibyte thing is that the entire standard nomenclature is an ill-considered, quick, dirty, and above all ugly hack addressing an admittedly legitimate problem (Mega meaning 1^06 or 2^20).
Their hack addresses only powers of 10 and powers of 2, which are a subset of a larger question: nomenclature for abitrary (integer) bases. Worse, it mixes the two together in a misguided effort to get one base's representation to approximate the others, despite the fact that the two bases are in fact quite different!
Why is this so stupid? Well, aside from the internal lack of logic (and, I have to say, profound lack of elegance), let's suppose, for example, that in ten years we begin finding more widespread use of balanced trinary systems , or some other hitherto unforseen base. Where's our nomencalture now? Of completely no use, and requiring us to invent a new wheel, yet again.
A far more reasonable approach would have been a subscript denoting the base, with the default being base ten if no subscript is present (i.e. defaulting to standard metric nomeclature). E.g. M(sub)2Byte would be 2^6 Bytes while M(sub)10Byte = MByte = 10^6 bytes. A M(sub)3trit would be 3^6 trits, and so on.
One will immediately notice that what we consider a (base-2) Megabyte is not 2^6, but rather 2^20 Bytes, or 64 vs 1048576 bytes. Well, they want us to learn a different nomenclature anyway, so why not at least make it logical. If Mega always means to the power of six, regardless of base, then we have a rational basis for our nomenclature. Yes, it would take some getting used to, but I would argue it would be far less painful getting used to something this logical than to adopt the use of "mebibyte" in our daily language. YMMV of course.
This ugly hybridization of base-10 nomenclature with base two numerology they are intending to replace (admittedly equally bad) common usage with is both illogical and unnecessarilly specific to one problem set. If we're going to be making up new (and apparently stupid) terms like mebibyte, then lets at least define mebi to represent a power of 20, or better yet 21 as it would then follow exa by an additional power of three, as every other prefix above kilo (and below milli) does. Or better yet, pick a name that doesn't start with the already (overused) 'M'.
Does anyone else see the advantage of this? We have just extended our available nonemclature for all measures, in any base, in a rational, extensible, and fairly scalable approach. Yes, to our base-10 minds we may feel uncomfortable with the small size a Megabyte really is, but I would submit that that is no greater a psychological barrior to overcome than the use of really stupid, childish, and annoying terms such as "mebi," and a heck of a lot more rational to boot.
Of course, this idea came from one person, spontaneously, on a Sunday morning, who (at the time) hadn't even had his coffee yet. Give a self-appointed committee time enough to dumb it down and who knows what hideous form it would then take...
By your reasoning virtually everything is "sound" since if it doesn't meet people's needs, it can be extended to do so.
Nonsense.
I merely stated that wishing to add additional functionality to an already sound system does not, in any way, imply that the aforementioned system is unsound. The discussion was about adding and extending functionality, which is not at all the same thing at all as fixing an inherent flaw in design or implimentation. Hint: fixes repair flaws which break things; extentions merely add functionality (and perhaps add new flaws as well, but creaping featurism is a subject for another day). Your comment clearly confuses the two.
UNIX security meets the fundamental need it is designed to address: keeping a multi-user system secure from the depradations of the malicious and/or the inept. It is fundamentally sound and has withstood the test of time very well, certainly better than its most well-known competitor.
If Unix security was so sound then why is it so easy for me to write a virus, put it in a.deb or an.rpm, and gain control over someone's computer?
That is, of course, more nonsense. In the case of RPMs you would need to compromise the maintainer's secret GPG/PGP key to have your trojanned RPM installed. Similarly you would need to gain trusted access to deb servers in order to get your trojan deb disseminated (though the maintainers have not, as of yet, begun using GPG signatures in ernest the way they should. Even so, good luck cracking an apt-get server... it is most likely running on a robust UNIX box, protected by a fundamentally sound security paradigm (remarkably identical to what is being discussed here)).
Both are non-trivial problems (cracking GPG signatures and breaking into RPM/DEB servers)... far easier to exploit one of the countless gaping holes in Microsoft's Operating Systems and Internet Server packages.
The only thing which makes Unix appear more secure is the relative lack of insecure applications such as MS Outlook, and the relative disinterest virus writers seem to have in writing Unix viruses.
There is a reason for the lack of insecure applications, and the lack of interest on the part of virus writers in writing UNIX viruses, worms, and the like. The fundamentally sound and well tested UNIX security paradigm makes it difficult to write viruses, or worms, which have any significant ability to spread or to cause any but the most localized of damage (localized to one user, unable even to damage the rest of the machine, much less do antying to remote machines). There are occasional bugs, and occasional exploits which result, but the underlying design and paradigm are sound and very well tested, and UNIX systems as a whole tend to be quite secure. A virus/worm/trojan author is going to find little fulfillment in writing attacks with such limited applicability and impact.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has extended what amounts to an open invitation to such people to attack its platform, with its shoddy security policies, flawed implimentations, and willingness to keep information on security flaws out of the hands of security professionals and network administrators for extended periods of time, even denying such flaws exist, while the system cracker underground freely exploits them. Why write a virus, worm, or trojan that has to talk the user into doing something they normally wouldn't, and when finally run can only harm that user's home directory and has little if any ability to spread beyond that machine or infect much of anything else? Far easier and more rewarding to those of malicious intent to throw together a quick VB script which accepts one of any number of Microsoft's invitations to mayhem, with often devistating results.
In response to one of the more level headed, articulate, and insightful discussions on the importance of our freedoms, what some of the root causes of their erosion are, and what we as individuals and technically savvy professionals can do about it, Hether writes:
Probably interesting, but entirely too long to read. Its the holidays - I'm not in the mood for pages and pages of stuff about law, I'm in the mood for candy canes...
and thereby demonstrates why it is profoundly unlikely that our children, much less our grandchildren, will enjoy anything even remotely resembling liberty or freedom in any form, much less the freedom to speak.
Candy canes indeed. Why don't you just go ahead and get your fiddle? Some dinner music might be nice while America^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Rome is burning.
If standard Unix security was truly a "fundamentally sound design" then surely it wouldn't require extensions to perform such a simple task?
Nonsense.
There are many fundamentally sound designs which do exactly what is intended, and required, and are then extended in some form because creative people have come up with a new problem domain in which they would like to use the aforementioned design.
UNIX security is fundamentally sound. However, some users want greater flexibility than the basic UNIX security implimentation allows, without losing the fundamentally sound security UNIX offers. Enter an extention (in this case ACLs) to an already fundamentally sound system.
In short, your logic is flawed. The desire to build upon and extend something does not in any way imply it is not sound in its own right, any more than the desire to build a fifty story building implies that the underground foundation and subbasements are somehow not "fundamentally sound."
I'll be the first to admit that Exchange Server and Outlook are one killer combination. However like I have stated several times over the years, I'll be god-damned if I'm going to lock up my company's data like that. The data store is proprietary. The access tools are proprietary. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety but I've been bit before (too many times in fact) to just let it go.
You are absolutely, 100% correct. This is our company's policy as well, both for development products and (most importantly) data: it cannot require a proprietary product that would, under any circumstances, leave us beholden to any vendor, no matter how benevolent. Let's face it, the nicest, most well meaning vendor in the world can, through no fault of their own, be run out of business. Indeed, likely by a much less benevolent vendor who would just love to keep your data hostage *cough*Microsoft*cough*.
On a personal level I was using Applix Word on GNU/Linux. A great, albeit proprietary, software suite for office applications and a wonderful word processor. Not as bloated as Microsoft Word, yet having many of the snazzier features that actually facilitate getting one's work done. I was using it extensively while working on a novel and screenplay I'm writing.
I dumped it.
Not because of any missing features, or price, or anythnig like that, but because, one day, it was reluctant to start. Turned out I'd clobbered a font it wanted when doing a dist-upgrade against debian-testing (the next apt-get fixed it, but th e whole event scared me). I had, for a few minutes, the horrifying feeling that weeks of work had just become as inaccessible to me as the surface of the moon.
Once I got Applix running again I converted everything to HTML, then spent several days cleaning up the crappy HTML Applix generates, into a more readable and maintainable format. Not the handiest format for word processing around, but adequate and, most importantly, very accessible. I will never fear loosing my hard work again. What is more, now that I've finally gotten around to learning some emacs (something I've been procrastinating for years) I find I can work with HTML files as quickly and conviniently as I was the Applix stuff, within the self-imposed limitations that HTML implies.
You are 100%, absolutely correct. Data is by far the most valuable asset on a computer (exceeding the value of the hardware and software combined in most cases), and storing it in anything other than an open, non-proprietary format is a recipe for disaster. It appears this is becoming aparent to industry already... I suspect with a few more jerks of the costomer's chain by Microsoft this fact will become even more apparent to many more people and companies down the road, when years of corporate records and correspondence are at stake because of soemthing as asinine as a file format change, rather than merely a few tens of documents that are suddenly inconvinient for the secretary to access.
We have a natural monopoly that works pretty well. You use this natural monopoly every time you leave your home, every time you get a package in the mail (or via UPS or FedEx).
Its called a road, and whether it is the driveway to your front door, your street, or the expressway over the hill, it can get you from virtually any single place in the country to another.
However, there is not an overregulated/underregulated/poorly regulated company or "industry" setting up toll gates every three miles, forcing you to run a guantlett every day to work, nor are there ten competing streets running up to your house.
Why? Because for all of its deficiencies things like roads work best when they are treated as public works rather than private feifdoms. It is true that government is imperfect, subject to political graft and other foibles (and themselves have stupidly set up tollgates on some major thoroughfares despite having tax money to cover the costs), but despite this the government is by far a better steward of our highways than any private company would be, if for no other reason than that it insures a free market, and equal access, to those whose business requires the use of said highways. Imagine how different it would be if Verizon owned the highway system. Think you'd still have a choice of using FedEx, UPS, or the US Mail? Maybe, if regulations required it, but what is the likelihood that the competing services would enjoy the same quality and cost of access to Verizon Highways and Streets that the Verzion owned mail service would?
Telefon wires and power lines are the same, and the only way to avoid Verizon-style monopolies and oligarchies is to nationalize the copper going to our homes and allow all competing services access to the wire under the same conditions. Anything else is inviting disaster, as we've already seen numerous times with the DSL and broadband collapses.
Democracy may be an imperfect check and balance on the government, but it does work a damn site better than a profit-driven monopoly dancing around and, in some cases, writing the very regulations that are supposed to restrain it and prevent it from doing precisely what Verizon and other telcos are doing: using their monopoly on infrastructure to destroy competing services.
And if we cut out all the extras* we spend money on we can feed a lot of people!!!
Donating to support these guys, and keep them working in the public interest benefits me immediately, as I use software that uses perl, or at the very least I use software that uses software that uses perl. They do good work for us as a software community, so turning around and supporting them has immediate, tangible benefits.
On the other hand, feeding the otherwise doomed throughout the world provides us with no real benefits and is indeed detrimental, as there are more people with whome we must then compete for oxygen, or at least listen to their bitching and moaning because we have something they don't, or don't worship their god, or do worship their god but not by the same name, or do worship their god by the same name but not in the same way, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Better that they just die and clear out the way for more sensible, or at least more civil, folks.
Besides, the Saudis have returned the favor of having the industrialized world make them incredibly wealthy by becoming a source of hatred and terrorism directed against the very cultures that made them rich. What makes you think helping some other disadvanted sop with free handouts is going to have any better effect down the road.
Yes, I just got done watching the Osama tape and it shows.:-/ Quoting a old film: "fuck the doomed"[1]
the idea that their[sic] above doing the same thing in this situation is nonsense.
Of course it is, and as many have said on other occasions Sun is a Micrisoft wannabe in many respects. No company is ever truly above anything, as its policies can change whenever management or corporate strategies change.
However, in the context of security, Sun (and IBM, who, lest we forget, was also an "evil empire" at one time) are generally both open and honest, and quite willing to be subjected to the open peer review process that is CERT and Bugtraq. Microsoft is not, and has used numerous unethical methods to silence technical review and criticism of the notoriously weak and vulnerable security of their operating systems, to the detriment of their customers, many industries (including the computer/software industry), and ultimately even themselves.
So, in the context of security Sun and IBM are, for the moment, not engaging in the unethical and harmful practice of silencing critics and whitewashing exploitable (and often laughable) security flaws in the way Microsoft is, nor are they likely to begin doing so anytime soon.
This does make them fundamentally different, and better, than Microsoft in the context of this discussion, and they will remain so until either Microsoft cleans up its act, or they themselves change in a negative manner down the road (possible but unlikely). In short, the criticisms (what Microsoft apologists call "bashing," despite their factual and verifiable basis) targeted at Microsoft WRT security don't even apply to Sun or IBM.
Indeed, the CERT advisory and resulting slashdot article are a very part of that open reporting process Micrisoft is trying to undermine and supressed. By reporting it, and owning up to it publicly, IBM and Sun are doing precisely the opposite of what Microsoft is doing, making the claim that they should be criticized in the same manner both ludicrious and indefensible.
Sun et al aren't demanding silence, M$ is
on
Solaris, AIX Login Hole
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· Score: 5, Flamebait
Sun et al aren't demanding silence from security professionals who discover bugs, security holes, and exploits.
Microsoft is.
What is more, Microsoft is trying to bribe security professionals and services into silence, requiring among other things that Microsoft be informed of problems before the securty firm's own paying customers are.
In short, Sun & Co. have done nothing improper or worthy of customer or professional outrage.
Microsoft has.
Biased or not, Slashdot and its readership are more than a little correct in bashing Microsoft's security policies, and in reporting security lapses of other firms as well, even though these other firms have behaved in a much more ethical and open manner.
Had it been otherwise, you doubtless would have been bashing slashdot and its readership for not reporting the vulnerabilities.
In short, Mr. Microsoft Flunky, get over yourself. If slashdot's pro-Free Software and pro-GNU/Linux bias upsets you so much, then go hang out in a pro-Microsoft forum where you can suck up as much Redmond marketing drivel as your heart desires, while leaving the rest of us in peace.
Let this be not only a lesson about Linux and the GPL, but about banks in America. This kind of behaviour is completely sanctioned by federal banking laws. Most people don't realize it, but federally insured banks are allowed to whatever they want, whenever, they want, with your money and you can't do a damn thing about it.
As someone who tries very scrupilously to obey the law, I ask this with no neferious intentions other than protecting my own solvency against misguided or perhaps even malicious government or banking beaurocrats:
Are there any countries one can recommend where a private person's finances are protected against this kind of unilateral action, where some kind of due legal process is required before one's accounts are frozen? Although I live in the United States, I bank online and use direct deposit, so I don't really need physical access to my bank all that often.
How do Canadian laws compare? German Laws? Swiss Laws?
After reading this nightmare scenerio I have more than half a mind to switch banks outside of this country in the very near future. Can anyone offer any pointers to hard information, comparisons, and guidance for individuals wishing to do their banking offshore to protect themselves against this sort of thing, what pitfalls there may be (legally as well as financially), and so on?
Look, just because you don't like a law doesn't mean you won't face the consequences if you break it. That's what civil disobedience is all about, taking absurd responsibility for an unjust law. What these idiots were doing was breaking the law hoping to never face the consequences.
Well, not to defend the warez dudez, for they were (and probably still are) idiots, but you should be very careful what you wish for. There are so many laws on the books these days at so many levels of government restricting and legislating virtually every aspect of our lives that each of us, just about every day we get out of bed, is breaking a number of laws just by living out our daily lives. Without ever meaning to, and certainly without malice.
What allows us to live out our daily lives? The fact that these laws are (almost) never enforced, at least until some local police officer or official develops a personal vindetta against you... at which point you may well find yourself serving hard time for living in the same apartment as your lover (this happened in Texas a few years ago, brought to you compliments of a local DA of the religiously right persuasion and a century old state law no one remembered remaining on the books), or doing some other innocuous thing (like singing a copyrighted song in public, say in a bar with your drunken friends) which common sense would tell you would never be illegal, but our lawmakers and/or their corporate paymasters say otherwise.
So the argument that enforcing unjust and absurd laws, which many of us feel copyright in the digital age to be, is a screwed up priority in light of current, more pressing events, isn't so misguided, particularly given that our very ability to conduct our normal, everyday lives depends in no small part on the selective enforcement of a plethora of existing laws anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
... it is powered by the sun. So fuck the damn creationists, doomsday get my gun" (to borrow a phrase from MC Hawking).
There is nothing mystical about the physical infrastructure of human intelligence. We derive our energy from the food we eat (in a very ineffecient manner), much of which in turn (at some point) derives its energy from photosynthesis, which in turn derives its energy from the sun, an energy source external to the earth (and one which will, some day, run out).
We are powered by the sun, in other words, not some mystical force violating Thermodynamic's second law. Our intelligence may have other implications, but a mystical violation of the basic laws of physics isn't one of them.
The Brownian Ratchet you describe won't work, because of the second law of thermodynamics.
... something we do with batteries all the time.
Not really. Energy is taken from the motion of the atmosphere. It is free in economic, not physical, terms, and is therefor not a violation of the 2nd law.
In other words, it is not a closed system he is describing, but an open system where energy is introduced (from the molecular motion of the atmosphere, which in turn is powered by the sun).
Furthermore, heating issues can be handled in the way they are handled in any electrical or mechanical system (in this case decoupling the ratchet, using active cooling, or whatever). Besides, chances are something like this is being used to charge a more mundane battery (converting mechanical energy to electical, which involves loss of energy, then converting the stored energy back to electricity, which involves another loss, and so on).
All well within the laws of thermodynamics. Innovative, and "free" in the sense that atmospheric motion, powered by the cost-free energy of the sun, is free. Not at all free in terms of thermodynamics or entropy, as energy is being introduced from outside and then simply stored in some fashion, at a net loss in terms of total energy
... which will prevent any kind of "hard" impact from a spaceship like Galileo from ever happening.
Burn up, disintigrate in the upper atmoshphere, scattering radiological material so finely as to be unnoticable against the naturally occuring background radiation of the planet (i.e. causing no harm whatsoever)? Sure, if things went wrong during the gravitational boost flyby of the earth. Bounce off harmlessly into space? Possibly, if the orbital angle of incidence to the atmosphere is below a certain value. Actually make physical contact with the surface of the planet and create a localized, highly toxic accident site or any kind of accident that puts anyone at any significant risk. Not if we lined up a billion of the things back to back in a frenzy of self-destructive ferver and actively tried to do so. The physics of atmospheric drag, the velocity and relatively small size of the spacecraft (relative to the size needed for a body at that speed to survive reentry and touch the surface without being vaporized first) make that an impossibility.
As everyone knew, except apparently for the knee-jerk reaction certain parties feel required to perform whenever the word "nuclear" or "atomic" is used with respect to any technological item.
and the record companies --- they do pay for the promotion and all the associated crap
ahem. No, they don't. This is a commonly held myth, even by those (such as yourself) who are otherwise disgusted by and adamently opposed to the parasitical middlemen who stand between artist and consumer, ripping off both. Courtney Love did a great writeup on this, explaining in detail (almost like a line-by-line audit) how the finances of a successful band work, and how the recording industry makes millions on gold and platinum albums while the artists make a modest $40,000 or so.
In short, all of the expenses for promotion, CD pressing, etc. are charged to the band. The record company acts as the band's vendor, providing the service and charging for the service, often at a rate higher than the band would have gotten if they had shopped the service themselves. This can happen when the entity (Tthe recording company) representing someone (the band) is the same as the one being negotiated with (the recording company), and in any non-cartel industry would be considered a serious conflict of interest. Alas, this is but one of many caveats that commonly result in many of the most successful artists working for what amounts to slave wages (and slavish hours) only to die in poverty while the recording industry gets ever richer (even posthumously long after the artist is gone).
I'd pay $1 or even $2 per song to an artist I like gladly, but I will never pay for music again where such goes through the thieving hands of a recording company. If this means I get all my music from the radio, recorded myself for my own personal use, with no cover art and no shiny disc, then so be it. If someone comes along that really rocks my world I'll attend their concerts, buy their t-shirts, or send them a donation via fairtunes or something. I will not support a cartel industry that is not only stealing from the consumers and the artists, but actively trying to destroy the greatest potential of the internet and the computer industry as a whole, namely the free sharing of information, and I would encourage anyone who gives something more than a rat's ass about such issues to do likewise.
...we want to be sure it is native to Europa, not imported from earth by accident in a previous space mission. This is simply good science, nothing else, and is completely orthogonal to how well, or how poorly, we are acting as stewards of the Earth.
So get off your high horse and get over yourself, saving the whales and turning our backs on technology (I notice you are using a computer, including all kinds of hydrocarbon-generated electricity and toxic materials used, and dumped, in the creation of its components) to "save the earth" really has nothing whatsoever to do with Galileo's final trajectory past Io.
Many readers here can't. Creating a gene backup requires the assistance of a girlfriend/wife.
That's not a backup, thats a new and different creation which includes only 50% of your genes and 50% of your partners genes, mixed together somewhat randomly (or at least non-predictably by current technologies). Congress and our illustrious president, at the behest of vocal Luddites on both the extreme left and extreme right whose sole unifying characteristic is their complete lack of understanding of the technology, its underlying science, and its implications, are busy making the only known process of backing up one's genes illegal: that of cloning.
So, I'm guessing that this will be the end of PETA's objections to animal testing. Right? Yes?
That would require PETA to be rational, scientifically well informed, and intellectually honest, none of which are the case.
This is why completely unfettered, unregulated capitalism (lassaiz-faire capatilism a la the 19th century) is as contradictory and self-destructive as communism: the inherent dichotomy of the free market system requiring competition to work properly but yielding monopolies comes to the fore, short circuiting and ultimately destroying the very market that spawned it.
Capitalism only works over the long term in a situation where its most destructive positive feedbacks (of which the "natural" formation of monopolies from previously free markets is but one example) are mitigated through regulation.
There was a time, up through about the 1940, when western capitalism, particularly in the United States, was on a routine boom-bust cycle punctuated not by recessions, but by multi-year depressions. Note the plural. We grow concerned when growth slows and joblessness rises to the point where we have to endure up to 16 months of recession (usually lasting much shorter than 16 months). Our great-grandparents in the 19th century routinely suffered through multiple depressions, an effective "rebooting" of the economy reminiscent of a Windows NT server. This was a natural consiquence of lassaiz-faire capitalism's inherent internal contradictions and resulting instability.
As much as we like to bitch about government regulation (and it is true that bad regulation can be as bad or worse than no regulation, and that regulation is not needed in many circumstances, but certainly required in many others), ever since the government (and the Federal Reserve) have been proactively regulating the market through both legislation and control of the money supply, our boom-bust cycles have diminished to minor fluxuations, where the worst we have to fear is a few months of slowdown.
Unfortunately, with the government's reluctance to enforce anti-trust regulation (while zealously enforcing mandated monopoly rights such as copyrights and patents) this balance is shifting, with all the potential for economic havoc that implies. This sort of thing happens when you have legalized bribery and a voice in politics defined by and limited to the depths of your pockets, of which a living human's will never be so deep as even a relatively impoverished corporation's, and as such regulations are ever more weakened in the persuit of next quarter's profits the long term stability of our economy, and our society, becomes ever more fragil, and ever more ignored in the rush of cheaply-purchased politicians to quid-pro-quo that last campaign contribution into another law designed to prop up an outdated business model, to deregulate another area of business in the name of short term profits at the expense of long term stability or, in some cases, consumer protection (which arguably amounts to the same thing), or even to simply bail out an entire industry for having chosen, years earlier, to ignore its customers safety and pocket the change saved by not implimenting the kind of security their fudiciary responsibilities to both their stockholders and their customers required.
the Singularity, the point in time when humans create a machine intelligence that is smarter than we are.
This is an inaccurate characterization of the singularity. The singularity refers more generally to that point in time where technological growth and change are happening so quickly (in other words, where the exponential curve steepens toward the vertical), that we don't know what happens.
It could be a superintelligent computer that wipes out or enslaves humankind. More likely, it will involve some sort of transformation of humanity into something else (presumably enhanced, perhaps godlike or simply so different as to be unrecognizable). Examples of such possibilities include the merger of human and machine intellect (e.g. wiring the cortex directly to a powerful computer, or perhaps the internet itself), the emergence of a group intelligence (we all become one mind as we wire ourselves together to the internet, perhaps like the borg, perhaps not), self-modification of our physical forms beyond our current recognition (or ability to imagine), ditto for our intellects, loading our minds onto machines directly and turning our back on the physical world in favor of an existence in some form of virtual reality, and so on.
"The Singularity" has many, many positive connotations as well as many negative connotations, the underlying factor is that what will happen is an unknown, what form it will take (or what forms, as it is quite possible, even probable, that we will diverge in many directions as the means and technologies to do so become available) is an unknown, and when exactly it will happen is an unknown. Assuming such stifling things as patents, Bill Joy-proposed types of restrictions on research, and other governmental or corporate restrictions on technological progress do not play a deciding role we can be certain of only one thing: the singularity will happen very rapidly, perhaps in a time period of days, hours, or even minutes.
OK don't get me wrong here, I think it is totally repugnant that they pump this shit into waterways wherever they can get away with it. In a local sense this is a tragedy of major proportions.
... I think the potential rewards are well worth persuing genetic modifications of foodstuffs in a controlled and responsible manner. I do not think Monsanto meets any of those criteria, and their actions in deliberately poisoning a town to enhance quarterly profits demonstrates, indeed proves absolutely, their unsuitability as even a potential GM manufacturer.
[...]
In and of itself, that has nothing to do with their genetic engineering division, does it?
Genetic engineering (of food and other things) holds great promise. It also holds tremendous dangers, and must be managed very carefully. This means excersizing a high level of caution, and probably a large degree of public oversight with a conservative criterium for licensing and production (i.e. you must prove the safety of your product, not we must prove the danger of your product).
The use of dangerous chemicals and disposal of hazardous waste is another area with almost identical criteria for the need to be careful and mindful of its dangers. Monsanto has demonstrated a criminal disregard for public safety and a complete lack of regard for the ethics and concerns involved in handling toxic chemicals and waste.
They are clearly unqualified in every respect to take on the risks and dangers of GM food, and should be prohibited by law (or court order) from ever doing so.
I am in favor of GM foods
If they wish to begin doing something that doesn't entail danger to human life, like basket weaving, then I'm all in favor of allowing them to continue operations. Otherwise we should very seriously consider shutting them down perminently. In addition, everyone involved in this atrocity, whether or not they were "just following orders," should be doing hard time in a high-security, no-nonsense (and no club-fed) prison. "Just following orders" wasn't an exceptable excuse in Nuremburg, there is no reason it should be an exceptable excuse here.
ahem. The constitution explicitely states that any powers not explicitly granted to the federal government by the constitution in fact devolve to the state or local level, or to the people themselves.
The constitution does not grant the federal government the right to regulate or ban drug consumption, merely to regulate (or ban) its trade across state lines. If cannibis is grown in california and consumed in california, the federal government has no constitutional right to get involved. The matter is entirely subject to state law, which in California's case makes the medicinal use and consumption legal.
The constitution states that it is the supreme law of the land.
The constitution states that federal laws passwd in accordance to the constitution take precedence over state and local laws.
However, the constitution also states, as noted before, that laws only related to those powers explicitly granted the federal government may be passed. The drug laws, indeed the entire drug war, is unconstitutional. Unfortunately they are also popular. So, like the forced expulsion of the Mormons from Illinois for practicing an unpopular religion in the nineteenth century, and like the trail of tears (when the american indians were forced from their home by the executive branch and the president after winning their case before the supreme court) our government is simply doing what it often has in the face of widespread public complacency: ignoring the constitution completely.
The fact that the federal government routinely violates the constitution and tramples state and local rights should not be a surprise to anyone who has been watching the downward spiral of American politics over the last couple of decades. While the blatent contempt shown for the will of the people (the California law was passed as a public referendum) is perhaps surprising, it is IMHO but one of the more obvious signs that our government, particularly at the federal level, is of, by and for the special interests, primarilly those best funded, namely corporate interests, and that the will of the people plays little if any roll whatsoever. And how could it be otherwise, with widespread legalized bribery of congress and only two, equally corrupt, parties to choose from?
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.
... after all, we lock up individuals who do this sort of thing, usually applying the label "voyeur" or "peeping tom" so why should we be any less stringent with organized, by some definitions conspiratorial, violations of our privacy?)
[...]
Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law?
Perhaps it is time we started imprisoning CEOs and board members of companies that willfully break the law like this, counting on endless court battles and legal thuggary to allow them to gain the profits of their illegal actions before they can be compelled to adhere to the laws the rest of us are expected to abide by. As long as it is simply a numbers (financial) game one of the most important, and potent, deterrents against breaking the law will be rendered impotent, namely the consiquence of doing time for violating other people's rights. (Including the right to privacy
Let's not forget that the greatest threat to Free Software, indeed to the entire computer industry as an open industry, is the entertainment industry, as represented by the RIAA, the MPAA, and others.
I don't watch much television anyway, but for New Years I'm making a point of leaving the damn thing off entirely. No movie rentals to put more money in the pockets of those who would like nothing more than to destroy my livlihood in order to protect their outdated cartel profit model. No TV period.
Indeed, the only DVD I've purchased since the DeCSS fiasco is Sporty's IFR course for (private) pilots, mainly because of its interactive test questionairs. At least that way my 3 year old, multi-regional player will get some use, and as I doubt very seriously Sporty's is a member of the MPAA I feel I can make the purchase in good conscience.
That having been said, I would encourage everyone to ignore slashdot's occasional promotion of Media Cartel Content (it still amazes me that the editors of slashdot either just don't get it, or just don't care), turn the TV off, go out, get drunk, maybe even meet a girl or two and wind up not sleeping alone. Remember, even if you're the quintissential nerd, she'll likely be too drunk to notice. Opportunity knocks.
The whole notion of mebibytes is an ugly, illconsidered, and overly specific hack designed to fix a real, but by no means debilitating, problem. I made a similar post, anonymously, to debianplanet this morning, where I first saw this subject discussed, and only just now got around to checking out slashdot. I should warn you up front the the following is fairly opinionated rant, and probably represents a rather unpopular opinion to boot. You have been warned. :-)
The thing that really annoys me about the whole Megabyte/Mebibyte thing is that the entire standard nomenclature is an ill-considered, quick, dirty, and above all ugly hack addressing an admittedly legitimate problem (Mega meaning 1^06 or 2^20).
Their hack addresses only powers of 10 and powers of 2, which are a subset of a larger question: nomenclature for abitrary (integer) bases. Worse, it mixes the two together in a misguided effort to get one base's representation to approximate the others, despite the fact that the two bases are in fact quite different!
Why is this so stupid? Well, aside from the internal lack of logic (and, I have to say, profound lack of elegance), let's suppose, for example, that in ten years we begin finding more widespread use of balanced trinary systems , or some other hitherto unforseen base. Where's our nomencalture now? Of completely no use, and requiring us to invent a new wheel, yet again.
A far more reasonable approach would have been a subscript denoting the base, with the default being base ten if no subscript is present (i.e. defaulting to standard metric nomeclature). E.g. M(sub)2Byte would be 2^6 Bytes while M(sub)10Byte = MByte = 10^6 bytes. A M(sub)3trit would be 3^6 trits, and so on.
One will immediately notice that what we consider a (base-2) Megabyte is not 2^6, but rather 2^20 Bytes, or 64 vs 1048576 bytes. Well, they want us to learn a different nomenclature anyway, so why not at least make it logical. If Mega always means to the power of six, regardless of base, then we have a rational basis for our nomenclature. Yes, it would take some getting used to, but I would argue it would be far less painful getting used to something this logical than to adopt the use of "mebibyte" in our daily language. YMMV of course.
This ugly hybridization of base-10 nomenclature with base two numerology they are intending to replace (admittedly equally bad) common usage with is both illogical and unnecessarilly specific to one problem set. If we're going to be making up new (and apparently stupid) terms like mebibyte, then lets at least define mebi to represent a power of 20, or better yet 21 as it would then follow exa by an additional power of three, as every other prefix above kilo (and below milli) does. Or better yet, pick a name that doesn't start with the already (overused) 'M'.
Does anyone else see the advantage of this? We have just extended our available nonemclature for all measures, in any base, in a rational, extensible, and fairly scalable approach. Yes, to our base-10 minds we may feel uncomfortable with the small size a Megabyte really is, but I would submit that that is no greater a psychological barrior to overcome than the use of really stupid, childish, and annoying terms such as "mebi," and a heck of a lot more rational to boot.
Of course, this idea came from one person, spontaneously, on a Sunday morning, who (at the time) hadn't even had his coffee yet. Give a self-appointed committee time enough to dumb it down and who knows what hideous form it would then take...
By your reasoning virtually everything is "sound" since if it doesn't meet people's needs, it can be extended to do so.
.deb or an .rpm, and gain control over someone's computer?
... it is most likely running on a robust UNIX box, protected by a fundamentally sound security paradigm (remarkably identical to what is being discussed here)).
... far easier to exploit one of the countless gaping holes in Microsoft's Operating Systems and Internet Server packages.
Nonsense.
I merely stated that wishing to add additional functionality to an already sound system does not, in any way, imply that the aforementioned system is unsound. The discussion was about adding and extending functionality, which is not at all the same thing at all as fixing an inherent flaw in design or implimentation. Hint: fixes repair flaws which break things; extentions merely add functionality (and perhaps add new flaws as well, but creaping featurism is a subject for another day). Your comment clearly confuses the two.
UNIX security meets the fundamental need it is designed to address: keeping a multi-user system secure from the depradations of the malicious and/or the inept. It is fundamentally sound and has withstood the test of time very well, certainly better than its most well-known competitor.
If Unix security was so sound then why is it so easy for me to write a virus, put it in a
That is, of course, more nonsense. In the case of RPMs you would need to compromise the maintainer's secret GPG/PGP key to have your trojanned RPM installed. Similarly you would need to gain trusted access to deb servers in order to get your trojan deb disseminated (though the maintainers have not, as of yet, begun using GPG signatures in ernest the way they should. Even so, good luck cracking an apt-get server
Both are non-trivial problems (cracking GPG signatures and breaking into RPM/DEB servers)
The only thing which makes Unix appear more secure is the relative lack of insecure applications such as MS Outlook, and the relative disinterest virus writers seem to have in writing Unix viruses.
There is a reason for the lack of insecure applications, and the lack of interest on the part of virus writers in writing UNIX viruses, worms, and the like. The fundamentally sound and well tested UNIX security paradigm makes it difficult to write viruses, or worms, which have any significant ability to spread or to cause any but the most localized of damage (localized to one user, unable even to damage the rest of the machine, much less do antying to remote machines). There are occasional bugs, and occasional exploits which result, but the underlying design and paradigm are sound and very well tested, and UNIX systems as a whole tend to be quite secure. A virus/worm/trojan author is going to find little fulfillment in writing attacks with such limited applicability and impact.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has extended what amounts to an open invitation to such people to attack its platform, with its shoddy security policies, flawed implimentations, and willingness to keep information on security flaws out of the hands of security professionals and network administrators for extended periods of time, even denying such flaws exist, while the system cracker underground freely exploits them. Why write a virus, worm, or trojan that has to talk the user into doing something they normally wouldn't, and when finally run can only harm that user's home directory and has little if any ability to spread beyond that machine or infect much of anything else? Far easier and more rewarding to those of malicious intent to throw together a quick VB script which accepts one of any number of Microsoft's invitations to mayhem, with often devistating results.
In response to one of the more level headed, articulate, and insightful discussions on the importance of our freedoms, what some of the root causes of their erosion are, and what we as individuals and technically savvy professionals can do about it, Hether writes:
Probably interesting, but entirely too long to read. Its the holidays - I'm not in the mood for pages and pages of stuff about law, I'm in the mood for candy canes...
and thereby demonstrates why it is profoundly unlikely that our children, much less our grandchildren, will enjoy anything even remotely resembling liberty or freedom in any form, much less the freedom to speak.
Candy canes indeed. Why don't you just go ahead and get your fiddle? Some dinner music might be nice while America^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Rome is burning.
If standard Unix security was truly a "fundamentally sound design" then surely it wouldn't require extensions to perform such a simple task?
Nonsense.
There are many fundamentally sound designs which do exactly what is intended, and required, and are then extended in some form because creative people have come up with a new problem domain in which they would like to use the aforementioned design.
UNIX security is fundamentally sound. However, some users want greater flexibility than the basic UNIX security implimentation allows, without losing the fundamentally sound security UNIX offers. Enter an extention (in this case ACLs) to an already fundamentally sound system.
In short, your logic is flawed. The desire to build upon and extend something does not in any way imply it is not sound in its own right, any more than the desire to build a fifty story building implies that the underground foundation and subbasements are somehow not "fundamentally sound."
I'll be the first to admit that Exchange Server and Outlook are one killer combination. However like I have stated several times over the years, I'll be god-damned if I'm going to lock up my company's data like that. The data store is proprietary. The access tools are proprietary. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety but I've been bit before (too many times in fact) to just let it go.
... I suspect with a few more jerks of the costomer's chain by Microsoft this fact will become even more apparent to many more people and companies down the road, when years of corporate records and correspondence are at stake because of soemthing as asinine as a file format change, rather than merely a few tens of documents that are suddenly inconvinient for the secretary to access.
You are absolutely, 100% correct. This is our company's policy as well, both for development products and (most importantly) data: it cannot require a proprietary product that would, under any circumstances, leave us beholden to any vendor, no matter how benevolent. Let's face it, the nicest, most well meaning vendor in the world can, through no fault of their own, be run out of business. Indeed, likely by a much less benevolent vendor who would just love to keep your data hostage *cough*Microsoft*cough*.
On a personal level I was using Applix Word on GNU/Linux. A great, albeit proprietary, software suite for office applications and a wonderful word processor. Not as bloated as Microsoft Word, yet having many of the snazzier features that actually facilitate getting one's work done. I was using it extensively while working on a novel and screenplay I'm writing.
I dumped it.
Not because of any missing features, or price, or anythnig like that, but because, one day, it was reluctant to start. Turned out I'd clobbered a font it wanted when doing a dist-upgrade against debian-testing (the next apt-get fixed it, but th e whole event scared me). I had, for a few minutes, the horrifying feeling that weeks of work had just become as inaccessible to me as the surface of the moon.
Once I got Applix running again I converted everything to HTML, then spent several days cleaning up the crappy HTML Applix generates, into a more readable and maintainable format. Not the handiest format for word processing around, but adequate and, most importantly, very accessible. I will never fear loosing my hard work again. What is more, now that I've finally gotten around to learning some emacs (something I've been procrastinating for years) I find I can work with HTML files as quickly and conviniently as I was the Applix stuff, within the self-imposed limitations that HTML implies.
You are 100%, absolutely correct. Data is by far the most valuable asset on a computer (exceeding the value of the hardware and software combined in most cases), and storing it in anything other than an open, non-proprietary format is a recipe for disaster. It appears this is becoming aparent to industry already
We have a natural monopoly that works pretty well. You use this natural monopoly every time you leave your home, every time you get a package in the mail (or via UPS or FedEx).
Its called a road, and whether it is the driveway to your front door, your street, or the expressway over the hill, it can get you from virtually any single place in the country to another.
However, there is not an overregulated/underregulated/poorly regulated company or "industry" setting up toll gates every three miles, forcing you to run a guantlett every day to work, nor are there ten competing streets running up to your house.
Why? Because for all of its deficiencies things like roads work best when they are treated as public works rather than private feifdoms. It is true that government is imperfect, subject to political graft and other foibles (and themselves have stupidly set up tollgates on some major thoroughfares despite having tax money to cover the costs), but despite this the government is by far a better steward of our highways than any private company would be, if for no other reason than that it insures a free market, and equal access, to those whose business requires the use of said highways. Imagine how different it would be if Verizon owned the highway system. Think you'd still have a choice of using FedEx, UPS, or the US Mail? Maybe, if regulations required it, but what is the likelihood that the competing services would enjoy the same quality and cost of access to Verizon Highways and Streets that the Verzion owned mail service would?
Telefon wires and power lines are the same, and the only way to avoid Verizon-style monopolies and oligarchies is to nationalize the copper going to our homes and allow all competing services access to the wire under the same conditions. Anything else is inviting disaster, as we've already seen numerous times with the DSL and broadband collapses.
Democracy may be an imperfect check and balance on the government, but it does work a damn site better than a profit-driven monopoly dancing around and, in some cases, writing the very regulations that are supposed to restrain it and prevent it from doing precisely what Verizon and other telcos are doing: using their monopoly on infrastructure to destroy competing services.
And if we cut out all the extras* we spend money on we can feed a lot of people!!!
:-/ Quoting a old film: "fuck the doomed"[1]
Donating to support these guys, and keep them working in the public interest benefits me immediately, as I use software that uses perl, or at the very least I use software that uses software that uses perl. They do good work for us as a software community, so turning around and supporting them has immediate, tangible benefits.
On the other hand, feeding the otherwise doomed throughout the world provides us with no real benefits and is indeed detrimental, as there are more people with whome we must then compete for oxygen, or at least listen to their bitching and moaning because we have something they don't, or don't worship their god, or do worship their god but not by the same name, or do worship their god by the same name but not in the same way, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Better that they just die and clear out the way for more sensible, or at least more civil, folks.
Besides, the Saudis have returned the favor of having the industrialized world make them incredibly wealthy by becoming a source of hatred and terrorism directed against the very cultures that made them rich. What makes you think helping some other disadvanted sop with free handouts is going to have any better effect down the road.
Yes, I just got done watching the Osama tape and it shows.
[1]Where the Buffalo Roam
the idea that their[sic] above doing the same thing in this situation is nonsense.
Of course it is, and as many have said on other occasions Sun is a Micrisoft wannabe in many respects. No company is ever truly above anything, as its policies can change whenever management or corporate strategies change.
However, in the context of security, Sun (and IBM, who, lest we forget, was also an "evil empire" at one time) are generally both open and honest, and quite willing to be subjected to the open peer review process that is CERT and Bugtraq. Microsoft is not, and has used numerous unethical methods to silence technical review and criticism of the notoriously weak and vulnerable security of their operating systems, to the detriment of their customers, many industries (including the computer/software industry), and ultimately even themselves.
So, in the context of security Sun and IBM are, for the moment, not engaging in the unethical and harmful practice of silencing critics and whitewashing exploitable (and often laughable) security flaws in the way Microsoft is, nor are they likely to begin doing so anytime soon.
This does make them fundamentally different, and better, than Microsoft in the context of this discussion, and they will remain so until either Microsoft cleans up its act, or they themselves change in a negative manner down the road (possible but unlikely). In short, the criticisms (what Microsoft apologists call "bashing," despite their factual and verifiable basis) targeted at Microsoft WRT security don't even apply to Sun or IBM.
Indeed, the CERT advisory and resulting slashdot article are a very part of that open reporting process Micrisoft is trying to undermine and supressed. By reporting it, and owning up to it publicly, IBM and Sun are doing precisely the opposite of what Microsoft is doing, making the claim that they should be criticized in the same manner both ludicrious and indefensible.
Sun et al aren't demanding silence from security professionals who discover bugs, security holes, and exploits.
Microsoft is.
What is more, Microsoft is trying to bribe security professionals and services into silence, requiring among other things that Microsoft be informed of problems before the securty firm's own paying customers are.
In short, Sun & Co. have done nothing improper or worthy of customer or professional outrage.
Microsoft has.
Biased or not, Slashdot and its readership are more than a little correct in bashing Microsoft's security policies, and in reporting security lapses of other firms as well, even though these other firms have behaved in a much more ethical and open manner.
Had it been otherwise, you doubtless would have been bashing slashdot and its readership for not reporting the vulnerabilities.
In short, Mr. Microsoft Flunky, get over yourself. If slashdot's pro-Free Software and pro-GNU/Linux bias upsets you so much, then go hang out in a pro-Microsoft forum where you can suck up as much Redmond marketing drivel as your heart desires, while leaving the rest of us in peace.
Let this be not only a lesson about Linux and the GPL, but about banks in America. This kind of behaviour is completely sanctioned by federal banking laws. Most people don't realize it, but federally insured banks are allowed to whatever they want, whenever, they want, with your money and you can't do a damn thing about it.
As someone who tries very scrupilously to obey the law, I ask this with no neferious intentions other than protecting my own solvency against misguided or perhaps even malicious government or banking beaurocrats:
Are there any countries one can recommend where a private person's finances are protected against this kind of unilateral action, where some kind of due legal process is required before one's accounts are frozen? Although I live in the United States, I bank online and use direct deposit, so I don't really need physical access to my bank all that often.
How do Canadian laws compare? German Laws? Swiss Laws?
After reading this nightmare scenerio I have more than half a mind to switch banks outside of this country in the very near future. Can anyone offer any pointers to hard information, comparisons, and guidance for individuals wishing to do their banking offshore to protect themselves against this sort of thing, what pitfalls there may be (legally as well as financially), and so on?
Look, just because you don't like a law doesn't mean you won't face the consequences if you break it. That's what civil disobedience is all about, taking absurd responsibility for an unjust law. What these idiots were doing was breaking the law hoping to never face the consequences.
... at which point you may well find yourself serving hard time for living in the same apartment as your lover (this happened in Texas a few years ago, brought to you compliments of a local DA of the religiously right persuasion and a century old state law no one remembered remaining on the books), or doing some other innocuous thing (like singing a copyrighted song in public, say in a bar with your drunken friends) which common sense would tell you would never be illegal, but our lawmakers and/or their corporate paymasters say otherwise.
Well, not to defend the warez dudez, for they were (and probably still are) idiots, but you should be very careful what you wish for. There are so many laws on the books these days at so many levels of government restricting and legislating virtually every aspect of our lives that each of us, just about every day we get out of bed, is breaking a number of laws just by living out our daily lives. Without ever meaning to, and certainly without malice.
What allows us to live out our daily lives? The fact that these laws are (almost) never enforced, at least until some local police officer or official develops a personal vindetta against you
So the argument that enforcing unjust and absurd laws, which many of us feel copyright in the digital age to be, is a screwed up priority in light of current, more pressing events, isn't so misguided, particularly given that our very ability to conduct our normal, everyday lives depends in no small part on the selective enforcement of a plethora of existing laws anyway.