Obviously it's something that worries/.ers and given Microsoft's previous record on all things imaginable it ought to worry everybody else, but in the grand scheme of things is the average person going to even know how they will be affected by the adoption of OOXML as a standard? I have some hope that users of "productivity software" will be more attentive than the stoned slacker market, whose complaints about Vista have as much to do with playing video games as with doing work.
They never, ever admit that it happened because they wouldn't pay the price needed to secure their machines, they just blame somebody else for not keeping them safe even though they didn't have the tools to do the job. First, you admit that the price of keeping those machines secure exceeds the total value of the machines. As with any commodity, we blame the manufacturers of defective products for the damage done using those products for their advertised use. It's only Microsoft shirking their responsibility here, not Microsoft customers.
Your network is most likely infected with the Microsoft Windows virus.
Along the same lines, my general predisposition is to remove as much responsibility for security from users as is possible. That means scanning email for viruses before they reach the desktop, blocking users from downloading dangerous payloads (like executables) over the web, and so forth. Your diligence is commendable, by the way, but if the client machines on your network were running professional-grade operating systems, that would not be necessary. Limited User accounts really should only be able to run executable programs which are located on a protected partition, which in turn should only be writable to the Administrator.
Security should be a part of infrastructure, not something tacked on at the users' end. True. And if the operating system isn't computing infrastructure, then ffs, what is?
... I "don't want to go through the minimal (to us) effort of working with crypto," and except for my work (and hobbies) as programmer, I should not have to work with crypto. Microsoft should have made that a standard feature, with shortcut icon to Properties including others' public keys, of all user actions resulting in 1+ bits sent off the client. If an Internet browsing program can legitimately be described as integral enough to computing to be part of the operating system, then encryption damn well is too, and much more so. Ridiculous!
Law is not a science, but in the days that churches ruled instead of guided, study of nature included alchemy, the field of transforming other elements into gold. When religion runs the show, law doesn't follow reality-based methods of validation, and neither does (what's left of) science.
Well, maybe, but lets get all the facts.
I dunno really, I believe there is no God and Dawkins is his prophet. But it does seem to be very dangerous if people are losing their jobs for writing papers about "creation science" or "intelligent design" or whatever they call it. That might be very dangerous, or it might be nothing harsher than holding people to the standards of their professions. I'll see the papers in their entirety before I mouth off in defense of any religious nutjob insisting that his psychic experiences are "just as good as" objective facts, thank you very much.
My guess is that it was a South Korean shipping company. That's quite likely, since South Korea build the most ships in the world. Where the US media are concerned, any mention of "Korea" that does not specify "North" always means "South Korea," absolutely every time, and I doubt it's any different in Australian, European, and South African "news" publications.
If only somebody would produce some reliable collaboration software and some reliable conferencing software, Billionaire corporatists could benefit from global wage competition without any need for immigration. Based on the stated need for immigrants, their own software isn't good enough for production use.
I disagree that that is the only viable answer. I disagree that that is not the only viable answer. You propose to solve the problem by putting a lot of people out of office, and declaring "mission accomplished." That amounts to taking the good intentions of their replacements on faith, as we've been asked to take these jokers. Anybody can promise to respect my privacy. A published protocol forcing two-way surveillance in all cases of surveillance is the only solution. "Trust me" is not a phrase used by a Constitutional government that intends to respect any of your rights.
That's really contrary to what I've heard from Europeans, who say they've gotten used to occasional acts of "terrorism" and they recognize that the risk of being a victim of "terrorism" is infinitesimal. I guess I could believe that a handful of "swing" voters might be for a police state, but I don't believe it's a majority view. I don't believe it's "what electorates seem to want." At most, it's indicated by occasional polls asking leading questions based on false assumptions.
If you were a professional politician keen on staying in power, would you be more likely to try to point out the low risk to the electorate, or would you be inclined to explore ways where you do not significantly alter the risk at all, but do influence the weighting of that risk in the minds of the uncommitted voters? I am having great difficulty imagining what it might be like to be so stupid that I can only gain approval by lying.
retinal scanners. Yes, I know there are ways to do this with images. . . but a criminal or terrorist outfit is much more likely to use direct means to get a retinal pattern. Yes, that's the point, exactly, and the reason we need to ban biometric identification from all non-military uses, and possibly military uses as well, before our Reptilian Overlords or whatever have the chance to mandate biometric readers, which would only endanger the bodies of the client for a marginal, if not entirely fictitious, cost saving to the owners of the biometric devices, and of course of the data, for all practical purposes, our owners. It would certainly help a few hundred billionaires tighten their control over real people, though, so I guess it just depends on what your definition of "society" is.
It's seen in lesser beings as well, required for survival. Look at yard critters hording and hiding food supplies for winter... house pets defecating in the corner behind the television (or in obscure places outside)... Whatever you and I might be hiding is irrelevant. While your examples of actions typically performed in private by mammals are rather trite and demeaning, they are the height of dignity in comparison to the trash that claim a right to interfere where they aren't invited, which is a crime against the people they are sworn to protect. I'm not plotting treason, terrorism, or any other type of violence, so there is simply no justification for any discussion of what I am or am not doing, nor to explain why I choose to invite some people and not others. It isn't privacy which requires an argument in its defense, but the violation of it. Intrusion on privacy requires a damn good reason. That's what it means to have a right.
I'm outraged by the (domestic) warrantless wiretapping and interception of internet traffic... this idea of putting a camera in my house is creepy! Me too. The disgusting, petty, busybody, collectivist losers in the NSA need to get a fucking hobby, that's all. Terrorism is a total red herring. More than enough information was gathered before the NSA's terrorist surveillance program, presumably all in accordance with every dot and tiddle of FISA, to apprehend all 19 of the 911 "hijackers" including the 5 or so of them who have been positively identified in their home countries since 911. The technical and legal ability to conduct surveillance are not the problem. The competence of the people conducting the surveillance was the weak link from at least February 2001 to September 10, 2001, and still is. Liberty and Safety are simply never at odds, and anybody who tries to tell us otherwise is a fiend pursuing absolute power.
Really? Got a decent poll of a representative sample of the general population that says "We are unhappy with warrantless wiretaps?" Has it been shown to be important enough to be included in, say, a major presidential candidate's talking points? I'll grant you a partial point, because they haven't been mentioned explicitly as much as they should. But Fourth Amendment concerns are part of the reason their opposition to the Iraq war and the Patriot Act help Barack Obama and Ron Paul against their warmonger opponent[s]. These pale as they should in comparison to the waste of lives in Iraq. And the number "Trillion," or the per-taxpayer share of the financial burden of the invasion of Iraq are a lot easier to understand than the plausibility of even the stupid former Attorney General Gonzales' evasions on the subject of wiretaps outside of FISA. The new nominee looks like cleverer trouble, less likely to rely on charisma he obviously doesn't have. It was slightly satisfying to see Gonzales "charming" grin at a Senator turn to a petulant, crestfallen look when his obviously implausible statements were not taken at face value. I still don't have my protection from undue search and seizure back, but at least that joker lost his job for it.
Did McCain or Clinton vote against retroactive immunity for the phone companies? Has the Democratic Congress appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the wiretaps?
A large portion of the population doesn't care. An even larger portion doesn't even know, but wouldn't care if they did. If anything, the general environment is apathetic... Really? Got a decent poll of a representative sample of the general population that says "We are unconcerned with warrantless wiretaps?" This is one of many evil and stupid things responsible for Bush's sub-terranean approval ratings, which are measured. Even if the average voter doesn't know how ridiculous Gonzales' testimony to Congress was, most of them know enough about the Bush administration now to not give them the benefit of any doubt on whatever they learn about it next. At a certain point, which I think most of us have now crossed, knowing more about the incumbent is just not necessary to cast a wise vote in the next election, and I think voters are wisely shifting their focus to that. I'd like to see Bush impeached, and I wish more of the voters had become less credulous faster, but I think the correct term is "shocked" not "apathetic."
I completely agree. That's why I agree also with taking individual rights away from corporations, including ownership, including of patents. No inventor will have much incentive to invent something but not produce it, except inventions that are novel and non-obvious but not very useful. On the contrary, as long as collective ownership is allowed, there is a great deal of incentive on the part of the largest corporations [their lawyers, really; as they're not really people, corporations have no self-interests] to transfer legal recognition of ownership of intellectual achievement to themselves, in order to stall truly substantive innovations, in favor of maintaining their monopoly, duopoly and oligopoly statuses. The motive, of course, is their own lack intellectual lack. Thus, we see the technology available to improve our lives fairly stagnant, while the number of patents skyrockets. By the way, I expect an enormous onslaught of frivolity on the behalf of the wealthiest ~500 persons on Earth, between today and November. The more powers are unearned, the more viciously they're defended, apparently.
Patents as a business model -- the view that you take -- is a distortion of the patent system, and, as I mentioned before, the source of all of our troubles. It's not a distortion -- it's the other side of the exchange. Both are essential, no? No. Protecting the inventors' rights to exclusive control over our inventions is the "price" of retaining inventions for posterity, after the inventors' deaths. Without patents, all inventions would be protected as trade secrets, and posterity would have less benefit. But the "less benefit" is horribly exaggerated by corporate interests who prefer stifling innovation because, frankly, they aren't very competent. CxOs and board members of technology companies, who don't know stink about science or any type of engineering, nevertheless manage to affect the amount of benefit that scientists provide to society -- to decrease it -- via collectivism, which allows them to claim ownership over the intellectual work of scientists, directly contrary to the intent declared in the Constitution. Inventions are examples of "innovation," only if they are produced. If not, they are only detailed daydreams. The wealthy sponsors of collectivist systems such as corporatism are by and large wealthy by birth, not by merit, and never bothered to learn any craft but the exchange of favors, thus the ridiculous number of lawyers in the US covering their asses, while the scientifically and mathematically literate inventors are disproportionately foreign-born. Sitting on patents instead of producing the inventions described therein helps sustain the myth of an innovation shortage, which William Gates III loves to whine to Congress about instead of offering programming classes to US-born aspiring programmers [He wouldn't be competent to teach them, anyway, but he should at least make some effort before asking for international laws to be changed for his personal convenience! No, donations of crappy Windows-infested computers to grade schools does not count.].
The ratio of the largest incomes on Earth to the median income is much more a measure of the disparity of legal preferences to wealth than of any disparity in talent, knowledge, diligence, or creativity. I estimate this presently has more to do with purchased statutes than with bribing or blackmailing of judges and jurors, but any sustained progress would likely shift the focus of corrupt activities. To sum up, I agree with the/.er who disagrees with you; these problems are symptoms of corruption, specifically corporatism, and not inherent in patents as a concept.
why don't they want to be investigated? They're trying to sell a product, in exchange for our hard-earned money. Why are they not showing off their wonderful product? "It slices, it dices, it brings in your morning newspaper and it's a floor polish too!!" Like any other salesmen, they should be bragging about their source code & engineering, unless those are utter crap.
I haven't kept up-to-date on the requisite subjects, but a discussion of the feasibility of fraud-proof voting machines based on optical quantum encryption would be indescribably interesting to me, and hopefully to other/.ers. In the meantime, I strongly suspect that the technology Sequoia employs is... less than the best.
A corporation has legal rights to exclusive use of a good idea, but doesn't sell it to the market on Open Source terms, competing with other companies to provide the best implementation of that idea at the lowest cost. Alert the presses!
While your sentiment is correct, I have to wonder, which Sony Exec would do time? The US exec or the Japanese exec? I'm sure whoever had final authority... but that's the sticky part... these clowns are so far beyond national boundaries, we should simply deport them all to an island.;) I recommend Antarctica.
Well, rather than being actively malevolent, a lot of people just don't give a damn. I understand this to mean that the minds are too inactive to judge the hearts, so he assumes them innocent until proven guilty. Bruce?
In particular, I'm curious about #4, "Right to Choose Software." I just find it very hard to imagine anybody, even today's brats with their dumbed-down SATs and resulting inflated scores, answering "yes" to the question "Do you believe you have the right to use the software of your choice on your work computer, regardless of its source?" I suspect leading questions, dishonestly summarized for your reading enjoyment.
Although it's done nothing else of value, it has shown pretty convincingly that if you give typewriters to 10^6 monkeys, you don't magically get Shakespeare. All you get is a rough equivalent of "want bananas" * 10^6.
Then how do you explain the huge failure (failure from the public's perspective not the business perspective) of the mainstream media coverage on the invasion and occupation of Iraq (failures which persist to this day) and the continued narrowing of debate on health care, both of which are incredibly important issues of the day? I'm not the GP, but I guess the Greek jury he described cannot be effective on the Internet today because that model includes nothing that can compensate for the vast majority of wealth being held by 2% of the population. Under these conditions, even if half the population must be bribed, the difficulties for the owners (Murdoch) are negligible.
Also, I think get-rich-quick schemes like the dot-com boom are less popular in other first-world countries. Outside the US, Internet users don't seem to expect the same things of the Information Superhighway. Possibly, they trust our "leaders" even less than we trust them?
And now, they'd also have to be stupid or naive to believe their constituents will continue to complacently take them at face value when they say "but we were just taking Bush at his word." Why would you do that? You were in on it, then.
Slashdot Mirror
... I "don't want to go through the minimal (to us) effort of working with crypto," and except for my work (and hobbies) as programmer, I should not have to work with crypto. Microsoft should have made that a standard feature, with shortcut icon to Properties including others' public keys, of all user actions resulting in 1+ bits sent off the client. If an Internet browsing program can legitimately be described as integral enough to computing to be part of the operating system, then encryption damn well is too, and much more so. Ridiculous!
Law is not a science, but in the days that churches ruled instead of guided, study of nature included alchemy, the field of transforming other elements into gold. When religion runs the show, law doesn't follow reality-based methods of validation, and neither does (what's left of) science.
If only somebody would produce some reliable collaboration software and some reliable conferencing software, Billionaire corporatists could benefit from global wage competition without any need for immigration. Based on the stated need for immigrants, their own software isn't good enough for production use.
A large portion of the population doesn't care. An even larger portion doesn't even know, but wouldn't care if they did. If anything, the general environment is apathetic... Really? Got a decent poll of a representative sample of the general population that says "We are unconcerned with warrantless wiretaps?" This is one of many evil and stupid things responsible for Bush's sub-terranean approval ratings, which are measured. Even if the average voter doesn't know how ridiculous Gonzales' testimony to Congress was, most of them know enough about the Bush administration now to not give them the benefit of any doubt on whatever they learn about it next. At a certain point, which I think most of us have now crossed, knowing more about the incumbent is just not necessary to cast a wise vote in the next election, and I think voters are wisely shifting their focus to that. I'd like to see Bush impeached, and I wish more of the voters had become less credulous faster, but I think the correct term is "shocked" not "apathetic."
I completely agree. That's why I agree also with taking individual rights away from corporations, including ownership, including of patents. No inventor will have much incentive to invent something but not produce it, except inventions that are novel and non-obvious but not very useful. On the contrary, as long as collective ownership is allowed, there is a great deal of incentive on the part of the largest corporations [their lawyers, really; as they're not really people, corporations have no self-interests] to transfer legal recognition of ownership of intellectual achievement to themselves, in order to stall truly substantive innovations, in favor of maintaining their monopoly, duopoly and oligopoly statuses. The motive, of course, is their own lack intellectual lack. Thus, we see the technology available to improve our lives fairly stagnant, while the number of patents skyrockets. By the way, I expect an enormous onslaught of frivolity on the behalf of the wealthiest ~500 persons on Earth, between today and November. The more powers are unearned, the more viciously they're defended, apparently.
The ratio of the largest incomes on Earth to the median income is much more a measure of the disparity of legal preferences to wealth than of any disparity in talent, knowledge, diligence, or creativity. I estimate this presently has more to do with purchased statutes than with bribing or blackmailing of judges and jurors, but any sustained progress would likely shift the focus of corrupt activities. To sum up, I agree with the
why don't they want to be investigated? They're trying to sell a product, in exchange for our hard-earned money. Why are they not showing off their wonderful product? "It slices, it dices, it brings in your morning newspaper and it's a floor polish too!!" Like any other salesmen, they should be bragging about their source code & engineering, unless those are utter crap.
/.ers. In the meantime, I strongly suspect that the technology Sequoia employs is ... less than the best.
I haven't kept up-to-date on the requisite subjects, but a discussion of the feasibility of fraud-proof voting machines based on optical quantum encryption would be indescribably interesting to me, and hopefully to other
A corporation has legal rights to exclusive use of a good idea, but doesn't sell it to the market on Open Source terms, competing with other companies to provide the best implementation of that idea at the lowest cost. Alert the presses!
In particular, I'm curious about #4, "Right to Choose Software." I just find it very hard to imagine anybody, even today's brats with their dumbed-down SATs and resulting inflated scores, answering "yes" to the question "Do you believe you have the right to use the software of your choice on your work computer, regardless of its source?" I suspect leading questions, dishonestly summarized for your reading enjoyment.
Although it's done nothing else of value, it has shown pretty convincingly that if you give typewriters to 10^6 monkeys, you don't magically get Shakespeare. All you get is a rough equivalent of "want bananas" * 10^6.
Also, I think get-rich-quick schemes like the dot-com boom are less popular in other first-world countries. Outside the US, Internet users don't seem to expect the same things of the Information Superhighway. Possibly, they trust our "leaders" even less than we trust them?
And now, they'd also have to be stupid or naive to believe their constituents will continue to complacently take them at face value when they say "but we were just taking Bush at his word." Why would you do that? You were in on it, then.
Are you really sure that digital copies result in fewer sales of the same original work? If so, how do you know it?
satire