Even if SCO allowed an "independent" party to hash their source with this tool, they could still present an "impure" source tree that has been deliberately peppered with code taken out of linux, specifically for the purposes of getting a match.
The bottom line is they need to front-up the code. End of story.
Buffer overruns are as old as the hills and not Windows specific per-se. But this just highlights how hard it is to get people (in this instance just about everyone in the SDLC) to do the right thing. These things are so prevalent because of various combinations of factors: - programmer ignorance - management blindness - marketing pressure - auditing failure
Even if only one of the above factors was strongly mitigated you would get a massive reduction in these slipping through.
At the very least, there must be some level of automated checking of code to check for the grossest and most repeated coding mistakes.
If HavenCo seeks to avoid litigation by claiming to be outside of any RIAA jurisdiction, then it follows that HavenCo has no legal recourse to defend itself against the RIAA.
In most people's minds, this is a crime in exactly the same sense as going 5 clicks over the speed limit. People just don't even think about it.
And when they do they just don't think its important. This is the reason that the more the RIAA ramp up the legislation and bully-boy tactics, the more they will get up the nose of Joe Average.
Everyone agrees that, in the abstract, speeding can kill people, just as in the abstract, people agree that musicians need to get rewarded. However, no-one thinks THEIR teensy, weensy breach will really hurt anyone.
You obviously haven't voted in a state or federal election. Why do you think they cross your name off a list when you enter to vote? Sure your actual vote is private and anonymous but they DO record who turned up or not. This then gets followed up.
HOWEVER, if you have never enrolled to vote, you won't be on the list.
As an aside, Australians are required to vote preferentially, listing a number from one onwards against all candidates. If I remember correctly, it is still legal to use the same number multiple times. ie if you want a valid primary preference but don't want to distribute preferences to other candidates, vote 1 against your candidate and 2 against ALL the others. The vote is (I believe) still legally valid, but the preferences can't be distributed and are ignored.
Most posters seem to be missing the point. SCO still have a chance at getting away with something here. To quote from the article:
"SCO-Caldera being able to prove that IBM-developed AIX code, JFS, NUMA software, RCU, and so forth are derived works under the Unix licenses is the critical and key issue to SCO proving that IBM breached the Unix license agreements. So proving they are derived works brings the IBM developed AIX code, JFS, NUMA software, RCU, and so forth under the umbrella of Unix Software Product as set forth in the Unix Licenses.
"That's because the Unix license prohibits IBM from disclosing Unix Software Product code, methods, secrets, and so forth to third parties. Simply put, if SCO-Caldera can prove that IBM-developed AIX code, JFS, NUMA software, RCU, and so forth are derivate works and therefore part of the Unix Software Product and that IBM disclosed the code, methods, secrets and for them to the Linux developers, then SCO wins its IBM lawsuit."
SCO doesn't need copyright, and they can happily state that IBM *did* develop those bits. But if a judge rules, that those bits are "derived works" and are a part of "Unix Software Product", then they have won their contractual battle.
This is why SCO claim that its "hundreds of files" not "lines" of code. They are including everything IBM developed as derived works and therefore part of "Unix Software Product".
Let's say the judge agrees and they get damages from IBM (for contract violation). The big question is where this leaves linux. They *did* afterall knowingly (ie after the it was pointed out to them) continue to distribute SCO linux under the GPL.
I'm guessing the code will end up being replaced, however this won't be trivial. Developers that have been "tainted" by seeing the code will probably be hesitant to contribute to new versions of those bits. And you can bet SCO will be looking through any new code with a fine-toothed comb.
WOW! Would anyone with mod points please mod the parent up as it is one of the most appropriate and concise analogies for the legality of P2P networks I have read/heard.
See SCO. See SCO lie. See stocks fly. Fly stocks, fly! See Gartner blow. SCO stocks grow! Grow stocks! Grow! See Novell. See Novell smack, Smack SCO! Smack! See IBM. See IBM laugh. SCO lawyers barf. SCO stocks cut in half. See SCO. See SCO whine. SCO says "It's mine!" See IBM. IBM puts foot down. SCO execs start to drown. Drown SCO, drown!
Wow! Talk about covering all ends of the market. First they give you the shits, then you give them the shits!
Quite insidious actually: iLoo will be given away for free, but is only guaranteed not to back-up if you use MS' iPaper (which will definitely not be free).
Someone should start up a GNU/Loo project on sourceforge immediately, and we should get Andrew Tridgell to reverse engineer the iLoo spec so we can use open source wipes.
Maybe they mean "had dinner with", "had sex with", "watched a movie with".
Chances are that you have probably and unknowingly had dinner with someone carrying a traffickable amount of a prohibited substance. Wouldn't it just be a shame if that person happened to be implicated in a major felony soon after that dinner, perhaps involving another "associate".
Feel free to reflect on your ability to choose your associates while we hold you for 6 weeks without charge...
A tool to preserve the economic oligarchy
on
The Rights of GM Humans
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
History tells us that tech comes in two basic flavours:
1. Tech that can be propagated at low cost (either financial or knowledge cost), generally tends to have a beneficial effect on mankind. Sometimes, this kind of tech is perceived as a threat by the powers that be and they "try" to suppress it. Examples, the loom, printing press, penicilin, the internet.
2. Tech that involves a high cost often is exploited (or at least an attempt is made to exploit it) by those who can afford it, in order to maintain their positions in society relative to those that can't. Examples: fossil fuel tech, nuclear tech, and GM tech.
Sure, within 20 years, most people will have access to basic GM via whatever "universal healthcare" operates in your country. But this will only be for those GM mods like resistance to various diseases etc that are huge drains of money on everyone. The really interesting GM tech (brain mods etc) will be "boutique" mods that only the wealthy will be able to afford. Free market. Yay.
The real question is how will the non-GM'ed (eg, the poor, the third-world etc) folk be discriminated against.
"there is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that Edelman can assert that outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted material from an invasive and destructive trespass"
Yeah right. When institutions like colleges, employers etc begin using these tools to filter out people as well as content ("Tried to access a porn/competitor/undesirable site? You're out of here!") then you bet there will be a plausible interest.
I used to be totally dependent on printers until I purchased a Canon bottom-of-the-range inkjet and simultaneously installed Slackware 8.1.
For the life of me I couldn't get the printer to work - tried CUPS, lpd, lprng, read inumerable HOWTOs.
In the end I learned to live without and found that I didn't really NEED to print.
Now, when I'm commuting to work (or in that very small room) I read a book (you know, those things your parents read before they made the movie).
The only time I need to transcribe something onto paper is when I need to take an "online order" number to the cinema to collect my tickets, and that just goes on a sticky note in my wallet.
Would you be OK if John D. Academic, Professor of Law who happens to be researching novel defences exploiting ambiguous references in the constitution, was generously funded by the Kali cartel or the Russion mafia?
In a job where I was the "IT guy" (with a couple of sidekicks).
Boss sumamrily sacks a few "uppity" employees.
Staff don't like the lack of process and start to organize (ie unionize).
Boss responds in many ways, but one of these included bringing in his own IT guy to start snooping on trouble-makers' PCs (going through emails, files etc).
*DILEMMA* "Hey, this is wrong, and anyway I'm the IT guy here! What should I do?" (I was a direct report to the boss at that time)
Well, I joined the union (even though I was considered "management"), and went out on strike with the rest, but not before configuring all of the staff PCs to silently track all logon/file-access activity. I used this info to get "proof" that the boss was spying. Nothing was done with this proof, it was a "just in case" if things got *really* ugly.
Fortunately his IT goon was pretty weak and my own activities were not detected (to the best of my knowledge).
The story ends with all us trouble makers negotiating a new deal establishing some visible process. However we all made our own way out (finding other jobs and leaving) within months of this happening.
In retrospect, I am glad I joined the union and went out with the others. It was the strongest possible signal I could send to the boss that I disagreed with his management method. It also helped to maintain staff morale at a pretty bad time. They knew I didn't have to join them. I sometimes wonder how it would have turned out if I had taken a more "active/subertive" role eg snooping on HIS email...
TO those free-software/libertarian types looking to find a way out of the trademark/patent morass I've got just the thing. A completely new language!
This language - called "Desperanto" - is of course issued under a variant of the GPL. Basically no characters, words or phrases either singly or in combination can be published in any form which restricts their usage by anyone else (ie no naughty trademarking).
We are still at version 0.01 of the language with plenty of work to do. (OK. I admit we only have one word at the moment. In english its rendered as "fa'arkOf" - its the sound made by someone upon hearing that yet another commonly used word has been trademarked). While we need lots of help coming up with new words, grammar and syntax, our most important task is converting from latin script to something else. Unfortunately we need to do this to avoid pending lawsuits from companies who are seeking to trademark every single character in the english alphabet.
There are two options for us here. The first is to develop a completely new script (never been seen before...however we face the not-inconsiderable risk of receiving a cease-and-desist letter in the future from a space-faring civilisation whose script closely resembles and predates ours).
The alternative is to use something like ancient Sumerian script (for which we are pretty sure the patent has expired).
Once we've got the script issues sorted, we will have to get Desperanto characters shoved into the Unicode character set. Then we can start pressuring ICANN to allow Desperanto based domain names.
I am in the process of registering the Desperanto project with Sourceforge. I'll let you all know when its up. To quote from the information I submitted with the registration:
"The purpose of this project is nothing less than the creation of an entirely new spoken and written language, unique, with its own script, for the purposes of communicating ideas through the use of characters, words and phrases which cannot, by virtue of the nature of the license to be used when employing the language, be trademarked, patented or restricted in circulation in any way. Since the language itself will be licensed under the GPL (or an appropriate variant thereof), all characters, words or phrases either singly or in combination derived from the language will be encumbered by the same license (and thus be un-trademarkable)."
Actually, attorney-general Daryl Williams has dismissed reports that sharing e-mails has been banned by law. According to an ABC news report, he says for distribution of a personal e-mail to be classed as a breach of the new law, a court would have to find the contents were an original literary work.
He says it would be difficult for most e-mails to be regarded as original enough to have a copyright placed on them.
So now we have two criteria to check our email against. Originality and literary quality. What I want to know is how does the following compare:
-- Dear Bill,
-- Hows the family? We're OK. The job's giving
-- me the sh**ts. My boss is a complete pr*ck.
-- Can't wait to stick it up him. Anyway patience
-- is a virtue. See you at Dave's on the weekend.
-- Cheers,
-- Mike.
Considering its originality, I'm sure there are a zillion other emails with similar wording. Some of the persons and facts might be different (your boss may be an a**hole). Regarding literary quality? Well, Shakespeare it ain't. Does this mean its non-copyrightable?
When someone actually boasts about exploiting the prohibitive cost of mounting a legal defence then its time to look at reforming the system. The law exists to protect the innocent as well as punish the guilty. This guy however has a "Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out." kind of attitude.
He claims to act when the "evidence" is decisive. But whose standard of evidence are we talking about here? He is not a judge, or even a lawyer but a person who admittedly gets off on coming down on his targets. To allow such a person to brazenly threaten people (comply or we will send you broke fighting it) amounts to sanctioned blackmail.
Yes, this MAY help bog down the Carnivore servers (a big if). It can also be used by security agencies to make this a non-viable communication channel for terrorists. All they have to do is post a message on alt.binaries.pictures.goatse.cx from osamadude@terror.org and about 3 milliseconds later good ol' Osama gets flooded with enough REAL spam that the effort in wading through all his new email rapidly outweighs his ability to use this method effectively.
As an NT geek I am into both HHGTTG and LotR. The first computer game I ever purchased was "The Hobbit" (Melbourne House) for the Commodore 64. It came on cassette and took half an hour to load.
Later on I was into Zork and at one point in the late eighties (1987 I think?) I discovered NetHack (back then on a Vax11/780 running VMS). I STILL play NetHack today. (Qt version of 3.3.0 running on W2K) It is just as addictive as those early games of the Hobbit.
I read a couple of years back (in some finance rag) that one of Microsoft's biggest problems was the fact that they had over $1 billion in CASH (yeah, that's right, CASH, not stock). The article made the point that at the rate they were accruing cash, they couldn't invest it fast enough (either through R&D or acquisitions) and that the return on this big heap of cash was crap (essentially short-term bank rates) and was pissing off the stock-holders.
Most companies couldn't even dream of having a problem like that. Any reports about Microsoft's imminent demise are absolutely laughable.
One thing that struck me as odd was the FBI's claim in their application for authorization that as "there will be no wire, oral or electronic communications captured," federal wiretap laws did not apply. Say what??? They mention in their application that they need to install "software, hardware and/or firmware". If this is the case, what kind of communication ARE they capturing? light beams? (fibre-optic tap?), thought waves?
The other thought that occurs is that this seems to be a case of the FBI doing what a lot of people who post to this forum claim as their "right". That is, to operate "beyond" (not necessarily "against") the law. ie since there is no specific law covering activity XYZ (notwithstanding specific laws covering similar activities), we can go ahead and do it. Any attempt to regulate or restrict activity XYZ is seen as an infringement of rights or an attempt at government/business/big-brother to restrict our freedoms.
It seems hypocritical to attack the FBI for taking advantage of a "hole" or "loop-hole" in the law (if that's what it is) when we all too often seek the same protection of the ability to take advantage of "loop-holes" in the law ourselves.
It is interesting to note that the break-in was committed using an "old" trojan (ie anti-virus products were detecting it since July). Why? If you were trying to hack into some pretty big IT firm you would have to assume that they have SOME sort of anti-virus/content vetting software. However, you might also assume that among the thousands of staff, there would have to be some that decide (for whatever reason) that they don't need to be running the company's mandated anti-virus product because of "XYZ" (insert completely lame excuse here, probably related to "This is meant for those DUMB users not ME").
Knowing this, it is just a matter of playing the numbers and eventually...BINGO! And of course if you spread out your attack over time, the failures would stay below the "Danger Will Robinson!" threshold. (Any sufficiently large and hated IT firm would have to expect a certain number of "incidents" over time - these wouldn't cause any undue alarm unless the density was high enough or there was a detectable pattern). Good ol' human engineering. You just can't protect against it. All you can hope to do is detect it quick enough and run your business such that you don't "have" too much info which if it got out would drive you under (can anyone say open source?)
What is REALLY interesting is the motive? Why would you do it? To improve WINE/SAMBA/XYZ??? I doubt it. These guys won't be touching any significant new changes with a ten foot pole for a while I bet. The competition? Why? What possible advantage could be worth the risk?
If its not just some dude who wanted to be the first to "plant the flag", then my money is on the mob. Why not? Just imagine how many buffer overflow bugs someone like Georgi Guninski (check out NTBugTraq) could discover with a good peek at the code. You could then use the knowledge when/where-ever. Alternatively, instead of using this knowledge themselves they may pass on the source to the "highest bidder" which would probably include the usual suspects (middle eastern "terrorists" etc).
Er...excuse me, but aren't they inciting people to commit a crime? (or at lease something they fervently wish was a crime?)
And...uh.. isn't incitement to commit a crime, a crime in itself?
OK. What happens if company X not only ignores GPL but goes further and convinces the US Patents office to issue a patent for a particular idea/software (which, going by recent patents granted, must be an INCREDIBLY easy thing to achieve). Now you've got to try and overturn the patent. What if Company X then started suing open-source distributors of the original (GPL'd) code? (or offering "cheap" licenses for it) I'm not saying this is likely, but I'm wondering what the response would be. ------ Edward G. Robinson, "Soooo...where's you're messiah now?"
Slashdot Mirror
Even if SCO allowed an "independent" party to hash their source with this tool, they could still present an "impure" source tree that has been deliberately peppered with code taken out of linux, specifically for the purposes of getting a match.
The bottom line is they need to front-up the code.
End of story.
Buffer overruns are as old as the hills and not Windows specific per-se. But this just highlights how hard it is to get people (in this instance just about everyone in the SDLC) to do the right thing. These things are so prevalent because of various combinations of factors:
- programmer ignorance
- management blindness
- marketing pressure
- auditing failure
Even if only one of the above factors was strongly mitigated you would get a massive reduction in these slipping through.
At the very least, there must be some level of automated checking of code to check for the grossest and most repeated coding mistakes.
Excellent point.
If HavenCo seeks to avoid litigation by claiming to be outside of any RIAA jurisdiction, then it follows that HavenCo has no legal recourse to defend itself against the RIAA.
...for most people.
In most people's minds, this is a crime in exactly the same sense as going 5 clicks over the speed limit. People just don't even think about it.
And when they do they just don't think its important. This is the reason that the more the RIAA ramp up the legislation and bully-boy tactics, the more they will get up the nose of Joe Average.
Everyone agrees that, in the abstract, speeding can kill people, just as in the abstract, people agree that musicians need to get rewarded. However, no-one thinks THEIR teensy, weensy breach will really hurt anyone.
You obviously haven't voted in a state or federal election. Why do you think they cross your name off a list when you enter to vote? Sure your actual vote is private and anonymous but they DO record who turned up or not. This then gets followed up.
HOWEVER, if you have never enrolled to vote, you won't be on the list.
As an aside, Australians are required to vote preferentially, listing a number from one onwards against all candidates. If I remember correctly, it is still legal to use the same number multiple times. ie if you want a valid primary preference but don't want to distribute preferences to other candidates, vote 1 against your candidate and 2 against ALL the others. The vote is (I believe) still legally valid, but the preferences can't be distributed and are ignored.
Most posters seem to be missing the point. SCO still have a chance at getting away with something here. To quote from the article:
"SCO-Caldera being able to prove that IBM-developed AIX code, JFS, NUMA software, RCU, and so forth are derived works under the Unix licenses is the critical and key issue to SCO proving that IBM breached the Unix license agreements. So proving they are derived works brings the IBM developed AIX code, JFS, NUMA software, RCU, and so forth under the umbrella of Unix Software Product as set forth in the Unix Licenses.
"That's because the Unix license prohibits IBM from disclosing Unix Software Product code, methods, secrets, and so forth to third parties. Simply put, if SCO-Caldera can prove that IBM-developed AIX code, JFS, NUMA software, RCU, and so forth are derivate works and therefore part of the Unix Software Product and that IBM disclosed the code, methods, secrets and for them to the Linux developers, then SCO wins its IBM lawsuit."
SCO doesn't need copyright, and they can happily state that IBM *did* develop those bits. But if a judge rules, that those bits are "derived works" and are a part of "Unix Software Product", then they have won their contractual battle.
This is why SCO claim that its "hundreds of files" not "lines" of code. They are including everything IBM developed as derived works and therefore part of "Unix Software Product".
Let's say the judge agrees and they get damages from IBM (for contract violation). The big question is where this leaves linux. They *did* afterall knowingly (ie after the it was pointed out to them) continue to distribute SCO linux under the GPL.
I'm guessing the code will end up being replaced, however this won't be trivial. Developers that have been "tainted" by seeing the code will probably be hesitant to contribute to new versions of those bits. And you can bet SCO will be looking through any new code with a fine-toothed comb.
WOW! Would anyone with mod points please mod the parent up as it is one of the most appropriate and concise analogies for the legality of P2P networks I have read/heard.
Way to go Cyclometh.
See SCO.
See SCO lie.
See stocks fly.
Fly stocks, fly!
See Gartner blow.
SCO stocks grow!
Grow stocks! Grow!
See Novell.
See Novell smack,
Smack SCO! Smack!
See IBM.
See IBM laugh.
SCO lawyers barf.
SCO stocks cut in half.
See SCO.
See SCO whine.
SCO says "It's mine!"
See IBM.
IBM puts foot down.
SCO execs start to drown.
Drown SCO, drown!
Wow! Talk about covering all ends of the market. First they give you the shits, then you give them the shits!
Quite insidious actually: iLoo will be given away for free, but is only guaranteed not to back-up if you use MS' iPaper (which will definitely not be free).
Someone should start up a GNU/Loo project on sourceforge immediately, and we should get Andrew Tridgell to reverse engineer the iLoo spec so we can use open source wipes.
"associated with"?
Maybe they mean "had dinner with", "had sex with", "watched a movie with".
Chances are that you have probably and unknowingly had dinner with someone carrying a traffickable amount of a prohibited substance. Wouldn't it just be a shame if that person happened to be implicated in a major felony soon after that dinner, perhaps involving another "associate".
Feel free to reflect on your ability to choose your associates while we hold you for 6 weeks without charge...
History tells us that tech comes in two basic flavours:
1. Tech that can be propagated at low cost (either financial or knowledge cost), generally tends to have a beneficial effect on mankind. Sometimes, this kind of tech is perceived as a threat by the powers that be and they "try" to suppress it. Examples, the loom, printing press, penicilin, the internet.
2. Tech that involves a high cost often is exploited (or at least an attempt is made to exploit it) by those who can afford it, in order to maintain their positions in society relative to those that can't. Examples: fossil fuel tech, nuclear tech, and GM tech.
Sure, within 20 years, most people will have access to basic GM via whatever "universal healthcare" operates in your country. But this will only be for those GM mods like resistance to various diseases etc that are huge drains of money on everyone. The really interesting GM tech (brain mods etc) will be "boutique" mods that only the wealthy will be able to afford. Free market. Yay.
The real question is how will the non-GM'ed (eg, the poor, the third-world etc) folk be discriminated against.
Answer: same as they are now.
"there is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that Edelman can assert that outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted material from an invasive and destructive trespass"
Yeah right. When institutions like colleges, employers etc begin using these tools to filter out people as well as content ("Tried to access a porn/competitor/undesirable site? You're out of here!") then you bet there will be a plausible interest.
Let the fascist circus roll-on!
I used to be totally dependent on printers until I purchased a Canon bottom-of-the-range inkjet and simultaneously installed Slackware 8.1.
For the life of me I couldn't get the printer to work - tried CUPS, lpd, lprng, read inumerable HOWTOs.
In the end I learned to live without and found that I didn't really NEED to print.
Now, when I'm commuting to work (or in that very small room) I read a book (you know, those things your parents read before they made the movie).
The only time I need to transcribe something onto paper is when I need to take an "online order" number to the cinema to collect my tickets, and that just goes on a sticky note in my wallet.
Anyone wanna buy a Canon 1000SP - as new!
Would you be OK if John D. Academic, Professor of Law who happens to be researching novel defences exploiting ambiguous references in the constitution, was generously funded by the Kali cartel or the Russion mafia?
Here's one for ya.
In a job where I was the "IT guy" (with a couple of sidekicks).
Boss sumamrily sacks a few "uppity" employees.
Staff don't like the lack of process and start to organize (ie unionize).
Boss responds in many ways, but one of these included bringing in his own IT guy to start snooping on trouble-makers' PCs (going through emails, files etc).
*DILEMMA*
"Hey, this is wrong, and anyway I'm the IT guy here! What should I do?" (I was a direct report to the boss at that time)
Well, I joined the union (even though I was considered "management"), and went out on strike with the rest, but not before configuring all of the staff PCs to silently track all logon/file-access activity. I used this info to get "proof" that the boss was spying. Nothing was done with this proof, it was a "just in case" if things got *really* ugly.
Fortunately his IT goon was pretty weak and my own activities were not detected (to the best of my knowledge).
The story ends with all us trouble makers negotiating a new deal establishing some visible process. However we all made our own way out (finding other jobs and leaving) within months of this happening.
In retrospect, I am glad I joined the union and went out with the others. It was the strongest possible signal I could send to the boss that I disagreed with his management method. It also helped to maintain staff morale at a pretty bad time. They knew I didn't have to join them. I sometimes wonder how it would have turned out if I had taken a more "active/subertive" role eg snooping on HIS email...
Cest le vie.
TO those free-software/libertarian types looking to find a way out of the trademark/patent morass I've got just the thing. A completely new language!
This language - called "Desperanto" - is of course issued under a variant of the GPL. Basically no characters, words or phrases either singly or in combination can be published in any form which restricts their usage by anyone else (ie no naughty trademarking).
We are still at version 0.01 of the language with plenty of work to do. (OK. I admit we only have one word at the moment. In english its rendered as "fa'arkOf" - its the sound made by someone upon hearing that yet another commonly used word has been trademarked). While we need lots of help coming up with new words, grammar and syntax, our most important task is converting from latin script to something else. Unfortunately we need to do this to avoid pending lawsuits from companies who are seeking to trademark every single character in the english alphabet.
There are two options for us here. The first is to develop a completely new script (never been seen before...however we face the not-inconsiderable risk of receiving a cease-and-desist letter in the future from a space-faring civilisation whose script closely resembles and predates ours).
The alternative is to use something like ancient Sumerian script (for which we are pretty sure the patent has expired).
Once we've got the script issues sorted, we will have to get Desperanto characters shoved into the Unicode character set. Then we can start pressuring ICANN to allow Desperanto based domain names.
I am in the process of registering the Desperanto project with Sourceforge. I'll let you all know when its up. To quote from the information I submitted with the registration:
"The purpose of this project is nothing less than the creation of an entirely new spoken and written language, unique, with its own script, for the purposes of communicating ideas through the use of characters, words and phrases which cannot, by virtue of the nature of the license to be used when employing the language, be trademarked, patented or restricted in circulation in any way. Since the language itself will be licensed under the GPL (or an appropriate variant thereof), all characters, words or phrases either singly or in combination derived from the language will be encumbered by the same license (and thus be un-trademarkable)."
Actually, attorney-general Daryl Williams has dismissed reports that sharing e-mails has been banned by law. According to an ABC news report, he says for distribution of a personal e-mail to be classed as a breach of the new law, a court would have to find the contents were an original literary work.
He says it would be difficult for most e-mails to be regarded as original enough to have a copyright placed on them.
So now we have two criteria to check our email against. Originality and literary quality. What I want to know is how does the following compare:
-- Dear Bill,
-- Hows the family? We're OK. The job's giving
-- me the sh**ts. My boss is a complete pr*ck.
-- Can't wait to stick it up him. Anyway patience
-- is a virtue. See you at Dave's on the weekend.
-- Cheers,
-- Mike.
Considering its originality, I'm sure there are a zillion other emails with similar wording. Some of the persons and facts might be different (your boss may be an a**hole). Regarding literary quality? Well, Shakespeare it ain't. Does this mean its non-copyrightable?
...its now.
When someone actually boasts about exploiting the prohibitive cost of mounting a legal defence then its time to look at reforming the system. The law exists to protect the innocent as well as punish the guilty. This guy however has a "Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out." kind of attitude.
He claims to act when the "evidence" is decisive. But whose standard of evidence are we talking about here? He is not a judge, or even a lawyer but a person who admittedly gets off on coming down on his targets. To allow such a person to brazenly threaten people (comply or we will send you broke fighting it) amounts to sanctioned blackmail.
Yes, this MAY help bog down the Carnivore servers (a big if). It can also be used by security agencies to make this a non-viable communication channel for terrorists. All they have to do is post a message on alt.binaries.pictures.goatse.cx from osamadude@terror.org and about 3 milliseconds later good ol' Osama gets flooded with enough REAL spam that the effort in wading through all his new email rapidly outweighs his ability to use this method effectively.
As an NT geek I am into both HHGTTG and LotR. The first computer game I ever purchased was "The Hobbit" (Melbourne House) for the Commodore 64. It came on cassette and took half an hour to load.
Later on I was into Zork and at one point in the late eighties (1987 I think?) I discovered NetHack (back then on a Vax11/780 running VMS). I STILL play NetHack today. (Qt version of 3.3.0 running on W2K) It is just as addictive as those early games of the Hobbit.
Thanks for reminding me of those times!
I read a couple of years back (in some finance rag) that one of Microsoft's biggest problems was the fact that they had over $1 billion in CASH (yeah, that's right, CASH, not stock). The article made the point that at the rate they were accruing cash, they couldn't invest it fast enough (either through R&D or acquisitions) and that the return on this big heap of cash was crap (essentially short-term bank rates) and was pissing off the stock-holders. Most companies couldn't even dream of having a problem like that. Any reports about Microsoft's imminent demise are absolutely laughable.
One thing that struck me as odd was the FBI's claim in their application for authorization that as "there will be no wire, oral or electronic communications captured," federal wiretap laws did not apply. Say what??? They mention in their application that they need to install "software, hardware and/or firmware". If this is the case, what kind of communication ARE they capturing? light beams? (fibre-optic tap?), thought waves?
The other thought that occurs is that this seems to be a case of the FBI doing what a lot of people who post to this forum claim as their "right". That is, to operate "beyond" (not necessarily "against") the law. ie since there is no specific law covering activity XYZ (notwithstanding specific laws covering similar activities), we can go ahead and do it. Any attempt to regulate or restrict activity XYZ is seen as an infringement of rights or an attempt at government/business/big-brother to restrict our freedoms.
It seems hypocritical to attack the FBI for taking advantage of a "hole" or "loop-hole" in the law (if that's what it is) when we all too often seek the same protection of the ability to take advantage of "loop-holes" in the law ourselves.
Just a thought.
It is interesting to note that the break-in was committed using an "old" trojan (ie anti-virus products were detecting it since July). Why? If you were trying to hack into some pretty big IT firm you would have to assume that they have SOME sort of anti-virus/content vetting software. However, you might also assume that among the thousands of staff, there would have to be some that decide (for whatever reason) that they don't need to be running the company's mandated anti-virus product because of "XYZ" (insert completely lame excuse here, probably related to "This is meant for those DUMB users not ME").
Knowing this, it is just a matter of playing the numbers and eventually...BINGO! And of course if you spread out your attack over time, the failures would stay below the "Danger Will Robinson!" threshold. (Any sufficiently large and hated IT firm would have to expect a certain number of "incidents" over time - these wouldn't cause any undue alarm unless the density was high enough or there was a detectable pattern). Good ol' human engineering. You just can't protect against it. All you can hope to do is detect it quick enough and run your business such that you don't "have" too much info which if it got out would drive you under (can anyone say open source?)
What is REALLY interesting is the motive? Why would you do it? To improve WINE/SAMBA/XYZ??? I doubt it. These guys won't be touching any significant new changes with a ten foot pole for a while I bet. The competition? Why? What possible advantage could be worth the risk?
If its not just some dude who wanted to be the first to "plant the flag", then my money is on the mob. Why not? Just imagine how many buffer overflow bugs someone like Georgi Guninski (check out NTBugTraq) could discover with a good peek at the code. You could then use the knowledge when/where-ever. Alternatively, instead of using this knowledge themselves they may pass on the source to the "highest bidder" which would probably include the usual suspects (middle eastern "terrorists" etc).
Just my 5 rubles.
Er...excuse me, but aren't they inciting people to commit a crime? (or at lease something they fervently wish was a crime?) And...uh.. isn't incitement to commit a crime, a crime in itself?
OK. What happens if company X not only ignores GPL but goes further and convinces the US Patents office to issue a patent for a particular idea/software (which, going by recent patents granted, must be an INCREDIBLY easy thing to achieve). Now you've got to try and overturn the patent. What if Company X then started suing open-source distributors of the original (GPL'd) code? (or offering "cheap" licenses for it) I'm not saying this is likely, but I'm wondering what the response would be. ------ Edward G. Robinson, "Soooo...where's you're messiah now?"