The current US law makes sense if you look at it from the NSA's point of view. The NSA intercepts and scans a huge amount of unencrypted data. The small amount of encrypted traffic can be flagged for special treatment.
The NSA's worst nightmare would be widespread use of strong cryptography. Just think if Microsoft released a new version of Windows that automatically and transparently encrypted all TCP connections, without any action on the part of the user. Even if the NSA could crack the encryption algorithm, the effort would quickly overwhelm their resources. The NSA would lose a major source of intelligence.
If SWAN is integrated into popular Linux distributions, and Linux becomes very popular, the NSA has another problem. The NSA can call Bill Gates and ask Microsoft to cripple or exclude features that make the NSA's job more difficult. They can hint that life might become difficult for Microsoft if various federal agencies are told to be uncooperative with Microsoft. This has already happened with other companies. Who does the NSA call about Linux?
Star Trek, as an example of popular culture, paints a pretty picture of the future. The reality of Earth history is that primitive cultures rarely survive contact with advanced cultures.
The discovery of ET life would probably result in the creation of a large number of whacko cults and disrupt traditional religions.
First, they are talking about an investigation, which is standard procedure when a complaint has been filed.
Second, many American businesses try to scam their employees by abusing or ignoring the labor laws. A complaint to the DoL or state labor agency is often the only way to get justice.
Employers will misclassify workers as exempt to avoid paying overtime. They will call them contractors or volunteers to avoid compliance with wage/hour laws.
CatBert isn't just a comic strip character. His relatives work in many HR departments.
I don't understand why they gave it a "not acceptable" rating. A little acetone (nail polish remover) will dissolve the glue. The stuff is also handy for patching wounds.
You are assuming that there is a FM and that the user knows where to find it. The documentation is in/usr/src/foobar/fred.dvi, should be obvious to any idiot.
I've bought sets of Linux and BSD CDs that have no markings on the CDs to indicate what is on the CD, just Disk 1, 2, 3.
Back around 1978, a 9.6 kbps full duplex data line was considered "high speed". It required a conditioned phone line and a very expensive ($20K) modem. You could get 56 kbps satellite data links from Intelsat if you had the cash. Quite a few computers actually used 110 baud teletype circuits for data links. Today you can buy a 155 mbps data link.
There were beer vending machines in the barracks at Fort Gordon, Georgia when I was attending the U.S. Army Signal School mumble years ago. That was before the U.S. military became thoroughly anal-retentive about recreational chemistry. They were regular soda machines, just filled with beer instead of soda.
One of my AT&T UNIX books has a reprint of a software patent. Unfortunately it is packed away in a box. I believe it was for the user/group/other file permission scheme. The patent was put into the public domain.
The use of "code" as a synonym for program seems to be popular with hard core engineers and programmers. When people talk about "codes", they are often referring to programs that do heavy duty number crunching, such as hydrodynamics, finite element analysis, weather prediction. Often in association with fortran programs that run on Crays or other "real computers".
The only correct statement is that the computers are loaded from mag tape. The current computers don't use ferrite core memory. They may be slow by modern standards, but they are certainly much faster than any HP calculator. They don't blue screen or generate guru meditation errors (obligatory amiga content).
The Amiga just might make a comeback.
on
Amiga Comeback?
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· Score: 1
The Amiga is _not_ the computer of choice for NASA. Somebody at Hanger AE likes Amigas and uses them for local processing and displays, that's fine.
Most NASA desktop systems are IBM PC clones running some variety of Windows. There are some Macintoshs, though they seem to be slowly fading away. Some people have UNIX workstations.
For data acquisition, processing and display, many different types of systems are in use. But the trend in new systems seems to be towards IBM PC compatible systems, unless the requirements justify a more capable and expensive system. Many projects don't have the budget to buy expensive VME systems or UNIX workstations.
NASA's current approach is "faster, cheaper, better" with the emphasis on cheaper. COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) is the magic word.
Taka a look at http://www.sewp.nasa.gov if you are interested in what NASA is buying these days. Not a single mention of the Amiga.
In "The Space Merchants" by Frederic Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, food is harvested from a 15 yard diameter lump of chicken that was grown from a piece of chicken heart. The thing is called "Chicken Little", it is pumped full of nutrients and "chicken steaks" are shaved from its exterior.
The book is copyrighted 1952, so it predates genetic engineering by a few years.
I kept on thinking of Chicken McNuggets when I read the book.
I don't understand the legal distinction, but a state will apply a "sales tax" to intrastate commerce and a "use tax" to interstate commerce. The purchaser is supposed to pay a use tax to his home state if he buys something from another state. I've heard of some states going after residents who buy big-ticket items like cars and boats in neighboring states.
I remember hearing rumors that Microsoft was porting Visual Basic and Office to OS/2. Microsoft supposedly killed the projects when Bill decided to terminate OS/2.
One, it adds additional hardware to the command decoder, increasing its complexity and the probability that it will fail. Satellite engineers like to keep things as simple as possible.
Two, there may be diplomatic/political reasons that encryption can't be used if you use ground stations in other countries to uplink commands. Some countries will not allow encryption to be used for uplinked commands.
In all of the cases that I have heard of where a satellite was disabled by external commanding, it was due to mistakes made by the engineers and controllers in the satellite control center, not by "hackers".
There are a large number of non-military satellites that do not have encrypted command links.
Sending a command to a satellite requires an expensive transmitter and antenna, knowledge of the frequency, modulation and encoding used for the command uplink, and a list of the commands for that satellite.
Commands are usually sent in the form of binary numbers. For example, 1101000110101111 could mean "switch on transponder #2". Without a list of the command codes and their associated actions, it would be difficult to harm the satellite.
I would expect any military satellites to use encrypted commands. Their designers are paid to be paranoid about well-funded and technically sophisticated "bad guys" who may try to shutdown or destroy the satellite.
Someone once told me that a Cray was a multi-million dollar memory system with a CPU thrown in for free. The advantage of the Cray was that it could deal with very large datasets at high speed. It didn't have cache or virtual memory to slow things down.
Your typical PC or workstation runs like sludge when you are dealing with huge datasets that blow out the cache.
Take a look at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/standard/Bandwid th.html for some memory bandwidth benchmarks that illustrate the huge difference between a PC and a "real computer".
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The theater doesn't get to keep the $9. The distributor gets most of the money, leaving the theater with a few dollars.
The current US law makes sense if you look at it from the NSA's point of view. The NSA intercepts and scans a huge amount of unencrypted data. The small amount of encrypted traffic can be flagged for special treatment.
The NSA's worst nightmare would be widespread use of strong cryptography. Just think if Microsoft released a new version of Windows that automatically and transparently encrypted all TCP connections, without any action on the part of the user. Even if the NSA could crack the encryption algorithm, the effort would quickly overwhelm their resources. The NSA would lose a major source of intelligence.
If SWAN is integrated into popular Linux distributions, and Linux becomes very popular, the NSA has another problem. The NSA can call Bill Gates and ask Microsoft to cripple or exclude features that make the NSA's job more difficult. They can hint that life might become difficult for Microsoft if various federal agencies are told to be uncooperative with Microsoft. This has already happened with other companies. Who does the NSA call about Linux?
I'm not sure that it would be a good thing.
Star Trek, as an example of popular culture, paints a pretty picture of the future. The reality of Earth history is that primitive cultures rarely survive contact with advanced cultures.
The discovery of ET life would probably result in the creation of a large number of whacko cults and disrupt traditional religions.
First, they are talking about an investigation, which is standard procedure when a complaint has been filed.
Second, many American businesses try to scam their employees by abusing or ignoring the labor laws. A complaint to the DoL or state labor agency is often the only way to get justice.
Employers will misclassify workers as exempt to avoid paying overtime. They will call them contractors or volunteers to avoid compliance with wage/hour laws.
CatBert isn't just a comic strip character. His relatives work in many HR departments.
I don't understand why they gave it a "not acceptable" rating. A little acetone (nail polish remover) will dissolve the glue. The stuff is also handy for patching wounds.
You are assuming that there is a FM and that the user knows where to find it. The documentation is in /usr/src/foobar/fred.dvi, should be obvious to any idiot.
I've bought sets of Linux and BSD CDs that have no markings on the CDs to indicate what is on the CD, just Disk 1, 2, 3.
Back around 1978, a 9.6 kbps full duplex data line was considered "high speed". It required a conditioned phone line and a very expensive ($20K) modem. You could get 56 kbps satellite data links from Intelsat if you had the cash. Quite a few computers actually used 110 baud teletype circuits for data links. Today you can buy a 155 mbps data link.
There were beer vending machines in the barracks at Fort Gordon, Georgia when I was attending the U.S. Army Signal School mumble years ago. That was before the U.S. military became thoroughly anal-retentive about recreational chemistry. They were regular soda machines, just filled with beer instead of soda.
One of my AT&T UNIX books has a reprint of a software patent. Unfortunately it is packed away in a box. I believe it was for the user/group/other file permission scheme. The patent was put into the public domain.
The use of "code" as a synonym for program seems to be popular with hard core engineers and programmers. When people talk about "codes", they are often referring to programs that do heavy duty number crunching, such as hydrodynamics, finite element analysis, weather prediction. Often in association with fortran programs that run on Crays or other "real computers".
I've been wondering when IPV6 is going to show up.
I'd like a small block of static IP addresses for my home computer network. Without spending a huge amount of money.
What are they going to do when scarcity is no longer a valid reason to hoard IP address space?
The only correct statement is that the computers are loaded from mag tape. The current computers don't use ferrite core memory. They may be slow by modern standards, but they are certainly much faster than any HP calculator. They don't blue screen or generate guru meditation errors (obligatory amiga content).
The Amiga is _not_ the computer of choice for NASA. Somebody at Hanger AE likes Amigas and uses them for local processing and displays, that's fine.
Most NASA desktop systems are IBM PC clones running some variety of Windows. There are some Macintoshs, though they seem to be slowly fading away. Some people have UNIX workstations.
For data acquisition, processing and display, many different types of systems are in use. But the trend in new systems seems to be towards IBM PC compatible systems, unless the requirements justify a more capable and expensive system. Many projects don't have the budget to buy expensive VME systems or UNIX workstations.
NASA's current approach is "faster, cheaper, better" with the emphasis on cheaper. COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) is the magic word.
Taka a look at http://www.sewp.nasa.gov if you are interested in what NASA is buying these days. Not a single mention of the Amiga.
In "The Space Merchants" by Frederic Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, food is harvested from a 15 yard diameter lump of chicken that was grown from a piece of chicken heart. The thing is called "Chicken Little", it is pumped full of nutrients and "chicken steaks" are shaved from its exterior.
The book is copyrighted 1952, so it predates genetic engineering by a few years.
I kept on thinking of Chicken McNuggets when I read the book.
I could live with Internet sales being treated the same as mail or phone sales. I would oppose any taxes being targeted specifically at the Internet.
Scanning through some recent bills, I found a large number of taxes and "fees" on my cable TV and telephone bills.
Telephone:
911 Fee
Universal Service Fee
Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge
Federal Tax
Federal Subscriber Line Charge
CATV:
Franchise Fee
FCC Regulatory Fee
State PPV Tax
I especially like the federal "temporary" excise tax on telephone service that was supposed to help pay for the war in Vietnam. It is still there.
The federal, state and county governments all have their hand out and want a cut of the action.
I don't understand the legal distinction, but a state will apply a "sales tax" to intrastate commerce and a "use tax" to interstate commerce. The purchaser is supposed to pay a use tax to his home state if he buys something from another state. I've heard of some states going after residents who buy big-ticket items like cars and boats in neighboring states.
I remember hearing rumors that Microsoft was porting Visual Basic and Office to OS/2. Microsoft supposedly killed the projects when Bill decided to terminate OS/2.
There are two reasons for not using encryption.
One, it adds additional hardware to the command decoder, increasing its complexity and the probability that it will fail. Satellite engineers like to keep things as simple as possible.
Two, there may be diplomatic/political reasons that encryption can't be used if you use ground stations in other countries to uplink commands. Some countries will not allow encryption to be used for uplinked commands.
In all of the cases that I have heard of where a satellite was disabled by external commanding, it was due to mistakes made by the engineers and controllers in the satellite control center, not by "hackers".
There are a large number of non-military satellites that do not have encrypted command links.
Sending a command to a satellite requires an expensive transmitter and antenna, knowledge of the frequency, modulation and encoding used for the command uplink, and a list of the commands for that satellite.
Commands are usually sent in the form of binary numbers. For example, 1101000110101111 could mean "switch on transponder #2". Without a list of the command codes and their associated actions, it would be difficult to harm the satellite.
I would expect any military satellites to use encrypted commands. Their designers are paid to be paranoid about well-funded and technically sophisticated "bad guys" who may try to shutdown or destroy the satellite.
Someone once told me that a Cray was a multi-million dollar memory system with a CPU thrown in for free. The advantage of the Cray was that it could deal with very large datasets at high speed. It didn't have cache or virtual memory to slow things down.
d th.html for some memory bandwidth benchmarks that illustrate the huge difference between a PC and a "real computer".
Your typical PC or workstation runs like sludge when you are dealing with huge datasets that blow out the cache.
Take a look at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/standard/Bandwi