I myself fail to see what the point of attacking Yahoo is.
Answer: High-profile target.
My first thought after this attack became apparent (it didn't take long to surmise what was happening since my home page is a "MyYahoo" page) regarded my company's corporate site. "Don't make enemies" and, more importantly "don't become too exposed."
Of course, most people are trying to make theirs the most popular destinations on the web, so the latter of those two maxims will appear ridiculous to most. But the web is not only a place of gathering (i.e. a portal) but a place of distributing (coin: verticals).
We're working on small points of presence that target specific needs of select people. I can't say too much, but our intention is to use the web for something other than publishing and portals. Something in-line with Application Service Providing, but not like Desktop.com or MS Office On-line.
Hopefully, in tandem with properly managed servers our low profile will help us avoid these braggadaccio attacks.
It's a misunderstanding to think downloading (uploading?) a brain to something else equals transferring intelligence. Let's assume it's possible to store 1-to-1 all the data gathered and pathways connected (and disconnected) from one brain to something else. Two equal systems.
Now, add something to both.
Anyone who's ever copied a data file knows that without the program (I/O and processing) the data file is static. Without the program the data file doesn't evolve.
Having storage for every datum in the brain is a far cry from replicating the intelligence of the brain
(although, I'm sure that any Alzheimer sufferer would love to save the state of their brain before chunks end up in lost+found in hopes that it could be tar xvf'ed at some point in the future).
% tar xvf brain20000126.tar childhood/goodmemories.dat childhood/lessons.dat teenage/dates/embellishments.mod ...
I concur about the importance of RADAR (in all of its forms) for WWII. I'm reading Churchill's The Second World War series (as my Bio indicates I'm on Vol. 4) where Churchill gives less-than-technical explanation of the importance of radar to the war effort. He calls the Battle of Brittain the Wizard War due to the important contribution of science.
In Volume 2 he details the German's use of radio signals to provide a "beam" (using triangulation) directing German bombers to their targets. The English found ways to modify the beam (by putting repeaters and amplifiers of the detected signal in various locations; Churchill called this "bending the beam") and were able to throw off the bombers (who relied on the beam technology to the extent that they were not trained how to navigate by astronomical phenonmena!). Churchill says that some bombers were confused enough to land at UK airports, thinking they were in Germany! Other bombs meant for civilian populations (evil Nazism) were directed to open fields where thousands of pounds of bombs claimed the lives of 2 chickens (this was actually recorded). The worst side effect may have been the German bombing of Dublin which may have occured because the beam was bented too long away from London (Germany did not have a grievance with Ireland, who remained nuetral through, at least, 1941--I'm still reading!).
Most of our neat toys and tools for wealth were originally used to preserve our freedom (or try to take same away).
Please forgive me for not reading each post to see if this information is already given, but I'm tired tonight and my wife has had a sick baby all day (and it's my turn...see? I'm rambling).
Here's the DoubleClick answer: Opt Out. Follow this link and get an untraceable cookie.
At least, that's what they say... They assign you a cookie with the unique id "OPT_OUT" and they leave you alone.
Of course, my conspiratorial side says that this will only draw their attention to you for closer surveillance....
When we examined the Samba file system code, we found that it too honors the write-through flag. The Samba code then finds an optimum time during the read/write sequence to write to disk.
This jumped out at me because it so obviously points to a (if not the) significant benefit of Open Source (or, of at least having the source code, open or otherwise): not guessing and inferring about a black box. Microsoft 2000 "appeared" to be the only system "honoring" the performance-hitting flag of the benchmark suite. That was the argument MS gave for why Win2K's write performance was 10% of read. But the testers could infer Netware honored the flag by running the suite without it and noticing the performance increase. Nice to know. Great to be able to change inputs, observe outputs and infer process.
But with RedHat (Samba, specifically) no guessing was needed. Just look at the code! There it is. No mystery.
This suggests to me that the real SPAM threat has nothing to do with email. It has to do with closed-source systems: mystery meat. Usually nasty things are contained in mystery meat (no offense to Hormel...I'm sure Spam is fine and I remember my bachelor-days of fried Spam with Mustard on Toast fondly).
Fight spam: insist on the source! Can you imagine eating something that didn't come with an ingredient list? Why use an OS that isn't OS?
Sorry... got carried away, but the point is clear: those who care about their systems will demand access to the source.
Aside: [Boy, I didn't realize how severely hurt was my brian until I re-read my post (I swear I previewed it first) and noticed I couldn't spell 'USPS' or 'advertising'.]
I rethought this issue and realized it would be beneficial if the USPS offered a free 'e-mail box' to every US address. By 'e-mail box' I mean the ability to get and send e-mail: a computer wired to the Internet. The domain would indicate USPS but the username would be discretionary (just like any other ISP). This way every address would be tied to email and email would be as ubiquitous as electricity and phone service.
Requirements: simple email appliance with low-bandwidth Internet connection. (Minimum; resident may supply own equipment, but must support it himself [that's not sexist, just correct English]).
Options:
USPS provided upgrades at reasonable cost (they need profit, too).
User choice for permanent username (first come, first serve).
Opt Out (because Opt In would be to wonderful) of targeted marketing.
Benefits:
Universal access to email.
Demographically-rich database for target marketing (benefits business and the USPS).
Permanent email address for life for non-professional students (you know, the never-grads who claim, "I've had the same email address for 25 years!").
Everyone needs access to the new medium of intellectual and commercial exchange.
with a number of new proposals including assigning an e-mail address to every physical address in the United States.
This sentence hurt my brain so early in the morning. Email transcends one's physical location (especially with POP3 accounts) and allows me to move around the country without changing anything. Making my email address based on my physical address would be analogous to attaching a RJ11 to a cell phone.
In the past year and a half I have moved 4 times, twice across the country. (Please send condolences to my poor wife). My US Mail is hopelessly confused and mis-redirected. Moreover at each new residence I received 3 generations of previous occupants' mail. Ugh! Imagine receiving the email meant for previous occupants from people or companies about whom those now-departed (but not dearly...) didn't care enough to update their whereabouts...
Worse, it seems to me the only advantage in a physically-tied email address is demographic clustering for targeted advertising, or, can you say "SPAM ME ALL DAY LONG"?
How many of you would give up the personalization (and anonymity) of a true "e"-mail address for a re-packaged target-market adverstising box (UPSP Mail Box)?
That's the old way of thinking. Crusoe sleeps drawing less than 20 milliwatts. Who turns this thing off? It runs Linux. Who needs to turn this thing off?
It runs Windows... well, that's a different matter.
I realize that I wasn't thorough in my points. I did not confuse the fact that Transmeta's Crusoe runs the x86 instruction set and, ergo, every application (OS and otherwise) that runs on x86 instructions (including FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, BeOS[?]). So let me clarify, because I think it will help the discussion.
First, regarding the Webpad unit that is optimized with Mobile Linux on ROM, how will Transmeta insure Internet Compatibility when currently there is not a shipping broswer that adheres to the W3C standards on the Linux OS? Will Transmeta work with Mozilla or Opera to advance their browsers? Or will they be exposed on this front if Mozilla collapses? (Remember, Transmeta targets Internet Compatibility on the client side!).
Their Webpad unit, to be truly portable, cannot use a regular modem or ethernet cable: it must use some kind of wireless. Will Transmeta, not just a chip company, assist this or will it depend on others? Either way would be valid, but which will they choose?
Crusoe has software instruction set. But what motivation would they have to spend another X years to support another microcode instruction set? Afterall, any application, including the MAC OS, can be ported to x86 instruction set. Staying with x86 will maximize their software development investment.
I look forward to a truly wireless Internet compatible machine I can take anywhere and work/surf. I also look forward to providing a new level of hand-held computer for my customers working in the field.
My impression yesterday was that mobile computing will never be the same: no more OS/App compromises, abysmal battery life, and, perhaps most important, introduciton of a new standard: Internet compatibility (transcending OS compatibilty).
I agree with your excitement. I've wanted a truly portable Internet-capable device for a long time. the characteristics of this technology are not fully realized (which means there is much potential for growth). I have much hope for this technology (and company).
My concerns are this:
since it is maintaining compatability with x86 instruction sets, it will always follow Intel's lead (and require Intel to continue leading) mainstream chip technology.
It will never run as fast as a native x86 chip would (because it must execute extra instructions). Of course, being smaller and independent to the hardware, these chips may be made significantly faster (clock-wise) than mainstream CISC/RISC chips and comparatively match performance. But not yet.
No mention was made regarding the connection to the Internet...that was just assumed to be there. But I have yet to hear about any affordable and sufficiently fast connection via mobile unit... How will they address this, or will they just leave it up to other companies to solve this general problem?
Transmeta touts Internet Compatibility, but the low end Internet appliances are specifically designed to work with Linux. However, Linux does not have a standards-conforming browser (i.e. IE) available until Mozilla is complete. Will Transmeta help push Mozilla to completion? The specific mantra was, "You have to run the cool site of the day" but many sites are becoming dependent on HTML 4, CSS2, DOM2, ECMAScript 2, etc., which, sorry, only are supported to any extent by IE5. How will Transmeta maintian "Internet Compatibility" with Linux-running machines?
One correction to Hemos, however, Transmeta specifically said they are not targeting cell phones and Palm Pilot-type machines, but rather full-blown Internet compatible multimedia machines (which may be small, but no compromise on feature set).
Sorry, the flight, like 99.999% of aviation (this excludes John Denver-type flyers) are on UTC time. Every critical service runs on UTC (military, etc.) and so far as I've heard there have been no problems (UTC 00:00 was 1.38 hours ago).
So the plane only experienced rollover once. (Facts mess up fun...)
Slashdot Mirror
Answer: High-profile target.
My first thought after this attack became apparent (it didn't take long to surmise what was happening since my home page is a "MyYahoo" page) regarded my company's corporate site. "Don't make enemies" and, more importantly "don't become too exposed."
Of course, most people are trying to make theirs the most popular destinations on the web, so the latter of those two maxims will appear ridiculous to most. But the web is not only a place of gathering (i.e. a portal) but a place of distributing (coin: verticals).
We're working on small points of presence that target specific needs of select people. I can't say too much, but our intention is to use the web for something other than publishing and portals. Something in-line with Application Service Providing, but not like Desktop.com or MS Office On-line.
Hopefully, in tandem with properly managed servers our low profile will help us avoid these braggadaccio attacks.
Now, add something to both.
Anyone who's ever copied a data file knows that without the program (I/O and processing) the data file is static. Without the program the data file doesn't evolve.
Having storage for every datum in the brain is a far cry from replicating the intelligence of the brain
(although, I'm sure that any Alzheimer sufferer would love to save the state of their brain before chunks end up in lost+found in hopes that it could be tar xvf'ed at some point in the future).
% tar xvf brain20000126.tar
...
childhood/goodmemories.dat
childhood/lessons.dat
teenage/dates/embellishments.mod
In Volume 2 he details the German's use of radio signals to provide a "beam" (using triangulation) directing German bombers to their targets. The English found ways to modify the beam (by putting repeaters and amplifiers of the detected signal in various locations; Churchill called this "bending the beam") and were able to throw off the bombers (who relied on the beam technology to the extent that they were not trained how to navigate by astronomical phenonmena!). Churchill says that some bombers were confused enough to land at UK airports, thinking they were in Germany! Other bombs meant for civilian populations (evil Nazism) were directed to open fields where thousands of pounds of bombs claimed the lives of 2 chickens (this was actually recorded). The worst side effect may have been the German bombing of Dublin which may have occured because the beam was bented too long away from London (Germany did not have a grievance with Ireland, who remained nuetral through, at least, 1941--I'm still reading!).
Most of our neat toys and tools for wealth were originally used to preserve our freedom (or try to take same away).
Here's the DoubleClick answer: Opt Out. Follow this link and get an untraceable cookie.
At least, that's what they say... They assign you a cookie with the unique id "OPT_OUT" and they leave you alone.
Of course, my conspiratorial side says that this will only draw their attention to you for closer surveillance....
This jumped out at me because it so obviously points to a (if not the) significant benefit of Open Source (or, of at least having the source code, open or otherwise): not guessing and inferring about a black box. Microsoft 2000 "appeared" to be the only system "honoring" the performance-hitting flag of the benchmark suite. That was the argument MS gave for why Win2K's write performance was 10% of read. But the testers could infer Netware honored the flag by running the suite without it and noticing the performance increase. Nice to know. Great to be able to change inputs, observe outputs and infer process.
But with RedHat (Samba, specifically) no guessing was needed. Just look at the code! There it is. No mystery.
This suggests to me that the real SPAM threat has nothing to do with email. It has to do with closed-source systems: mystery meat. Usually nasty things are contained in mystery meat (no offense to Hormel...I'm sure Spam is fine and I remember my bachelor-days of fried Spam with Mustard on Toast fondly).
Fight spam: insist on the source! Can you imagine eating something that didn't come with an ingredient list? Why use an OS that isn't OS?
Sorry... got carried away, but the point is clear: those who care about their systems will demand access to the source.
I rethought this issue and realized it would be beneficial if the USPS offered a free 'e-mail box' to every US address. By 'e-mail box' I mean the ability to get and send e-mail: a computer wired to the Internet. The domain would indicate USPS but the username would be discretionary (just like any other ISP). This way every address would be tied to email and email would be as ubiquitous as electricity and phone service.
Requirements: simple email appliance with low-bandwidth Internet connection. (Minimum; resident may supply own equipment, but must support it himself [that's not sexist, just correct English]).
Options:
USPS provided upgrades at reasonable cost (they need profit, too).
User choice for permanent username (first come, first serve).
Opt Out (because Opt In would be to wonderful) of targeted marketing.
Benefits:
Universal access to email.
Demographically-rich database for target marketing (benefits business and the USPS).
Permanent email address for life for non-professional students (you know, the never-grads who claim, "I've had the same email address for 25 years!").
Everyone needs access to the new medium of intellectual and commercial exchange.
This sentence hurt my brain so early in the morning. Email transcends one's physical location (especially with POP3 accounts) and allows me to move around the country without changing anything. Making my email address based on my physical address would be analogous to attaching a RJ11 to a cell phone.
In the past year and a half I have moved 4 times, twice across the country. (Please send condolences to my poor wife). My US Mail is hopelessly confused and mis-redirected. Moreover at each new residence I received 3 generations of previous occupants' mail. Ugh! Imagine receiving the email meant for previous occupants from people or companies about whom those now-departed (but not dearly...) didn't care enough to update their whereabouts...
Worse, it seems to me the only advantage in a physically-tied email address is demographic clustering for targeted advertising, or, can you say "SPAM ME ALL DAY LONG"?
How many of you would give up the personalization (and anonymity) of a true "e"-mail address for a re-packaged target-market adverstising box (UPSP Mail Box)?
That's the old way of thinking. Crusoe sleeps drawing less than 20 milliwatts. Who turns this thing off?
It runs Linux. Who needs to turn this thing off?
It runs Windows... well, that's a different matter.
Transmeta: the processor rethought.
First, regarding the Webpad unit that is optimized with Mobile Linux on ROM, how will Transmeta insure Internet Compatibility when currently there is not a shipping broswer that adheres to the W3C standards on the Linux OS? Will Transmeta work with Mozilla or Opera to advance their browsers? Or will they be exposed on this front if Mozilla collapses? (Remember, Transmeta targets Internet Compatibility on the client side!).
Their Webpad unit, to be truly portable, cannot use a regular modem or ethernet cable: it must use some kind of wireless. Will Transmeta, not just a chip company, assist this or will it depend on others? Either way would be valid, but which will they choose?
Crusoe has software instruction set. But what motivation would they have to spend another X years to support another microcode instruction set? Afterall, any application, including the MAC OS, can be ported to x86 instruction set. Staying with x86 will maximize their software development investment.
I look forward to a truly wireless Internet compatible machine I can take anywhere and work/surf. I also look forward to providing a new level of hand-held computer for my customers working in the field.
My impression yesterday was that mobile computing will never be the same: no more OS/App compromises, abysmal battery life, and, perhaps most important, introduciton of a new standard: Internet compatibility (transcending OS compatibilty).
Of course, the Windows unit is shown running the most popular Windows program (sol.exe).
And Linux is shown running Netscape with Slashdot.
Gotta love it!
My concerns are this:
since it is maintaining compatability with x86 instruction sets, it will always follow Intel's lead (and require Intel to continue leading) mainstream chip technology.
It will never run as fast as a native x86 chip would (because it must execute extra instructions). Of course, being smaller and independent to the hardware, these chips may be made significantly faster (clock-wise) than mainstream CISC/RISC chips and comparatively match performance. But not yet.
No mention was made regarding the connection to the Internet...that was just assumed to be there. But I have yet to hear about any affordable and sufficiently fast connection via mobile unit... How will they address this, or will they just leave it up to other companies to solve this general problem?
Transmeta touts Internet Compatibility, but the low end Internet appliances are specifically designed to work with Linux. However, Linux does not have a standards-conforming browser (i.e. IE) available until Mozilla is complete. Will Transmeta help push Mozilla to completion? The specific mantra was, "You have to run the cool site of the day" but many sites are becoming dependent on HTML 4, CSS2, DOM2, ECMAScript 2, etc., which, sorry, only are supported to any extent by IE5. How will Transmeta maintian "Internet Compatibility" with Linux-running machines?
One correction to Hemos, however, Transmeta specifically said they are not targeting cell phones and Palm Pilot-type machines, but rather full-blown Internet compatible multimedia machines (which may be small, but no compromise on feature set).
And it's Mainstream News now...
Not funny -- insightful.
w ay _y2k_bug_1.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010101/tc/nor
So the plane only experienced rollover once. (Facts mess up fun...)