In fear of US secret services, the German foreign ministry and the German army are planning to close security holes. Instead of American software, federal computers will run German software in the future. [German software? There is no German operating system that I know of. DPA has a competent staff of tech writers, but I doubt they got this right.]
Original article by Deutsche Presse Agentur [an independent, but huge commercial German press agency].
(Image caption: In danger of spies - the German army shoots against Microsoft.)
Computers that are used in security-sensitive areas shall not run Microsoft software anymore. According to German government security advisors, the American secret service NSA has full access to the complete source codes of the US company and is thus able to read even encrypted [Microsoft] files. Because of this, the German ministry of defense uses encryption technologies offered by the local companies Siemens and Telekom [the formerly state-owned, now largest telephone and internet provider].
Meanwhile, the ministry of foreign affairs has halted plans to use video conference technology to communicate with their embassadors and foreign offices. During a Telekom presentation in Berlin at the beginning of March, State Secretary Gunter Pleuger was informed that for technical reasons, every satellite transmission is routed to the American city Denver, Coloroda.
Pleuger thinks the detour to the USA is a security risk. "Then we could do our conferences in Langley right from the start" joked a staffer of the Pleuger office. Langley, Virgina, is the location of the US secret service CIA.
I have to go to your homepage to find your e-mail address
I didn't do that to avoid being spammed. I admit that I did that to advertise the presence of my homepage, in the hope that someone may find out what I do, get interested in it and maybe hire me for a project.
As an example, when posting on Usenet, I use my real email address. By the way, munging the email address is considered a major faux-pas in the German part of Usenet.
But having your own domain aren't you immune from much of this? Filter, filter, filter.
As pointed out by many others, filtering is no cure. The moment a message arrives at my mail server, it already created the additional traffic that I have to pay my ISP for. I could filter it so that I do not see it, but I'd still have to pay for it.
That's why I prefer not to filter, but instead to file a complaint against the spammer with his ISP.
It was a strange kind of honour when I found out that all of my public email addresses were listed in a "do not spam, will complain" list that some hacker found on a spammer's computer and posted on the net.
I don't sign up for stupid crop nor do I frequent porn sites.
However, I use usenet, have my own domain (with an whois entry), run several web pages. All these are the main sources for email address collectors.
Just look at your article. You have to munge your email address to avoid being spammed. You call that freedom? Let me guess, you are wearing Groucho Marx glasses when leaving your house.
But unlike the US, where it has been granted the status of a "religion" (and it is believed that this was done to get tax-exempt status), it is considered an unethical business here that is designed to leech money from its members.
If you ever read Scieno material, you will note that they will point out again and again that they have been granted this status of a religion in the US and try to use this as an external proof of trust into their practices.
It is true, though, that you will not be hired as a German government official if you are a member of Scientology. Since most German schools are funded by the state, this includes teachers.
The German view on Scientology has the organization running scared and spewing hatred towards the German government, often comparing today's treatment of Scientologists with the way Nazi Germany treated the jews. Internal documents reveal that this is done because they know that this is an easy button to press.
Strangely enough, the US government often just copies & pastes Scientologists' allegations against Germany in their yearly human rights report.
This is the major problem with ESR's own writings. He claims that open-sourcing an application is a guarantee for its survival. It isn't. It must be both crucial and interesting ("scratch an itch") and most of all, it must be possible to participate.
Apache, Samba, the Linux kernel and every other large open source I looked at have the advantage of being very clear, easy-to-read code, so that it's easy to find a particular part of an application and patch it.
If Open Mail is one huge clunk of spaghetti code, noone will even bother looking at it a second time. I'm sure that many folks don't participate in Mozilla and Open Office because they are so darn huge and complicated...
Sure. Trouble is, even with an application as crucial as this (groupware) where there is no current alternative in the open source area, open-sourcing it is no guarantee that other developers will join and help.
Look at Sun's/Stardivision's office suite and at Netscape's browser. Both application types are very important, yet both are mostly fostered by in-house developers.
Just so people would have to go through 15 or 20 links just to find the news content or whatever they are interested in, making them pay whatever outrageous fees they can scam for minimal content.
Funny thing is that this was my impression of American (paper) magazines when I first opened one. You have to browse pages and pages and pages of dual-page ads before you finally find the contents page - and there is no way to tell where that contents page is because the number of "pre-content" ads seems to change for every issue.
I was used to magazines where the content page is basically always on page 6: cover (1), ad (2), editorial (3), double-page ad (4,5), content listing (6 and following). This is somewhat a non-written standard over here and it seems to work well...
It's fascinating how differently people react to privacy issues in the digital world. Your normal purchasing information, credit card useage, juvenile criminal record...all these are tracked by companies in the real world. Who's protesting that?
Exactly - why aren't you Americans protesting?It's different over here in Europe, where we have much stricter privacy laws. I am constantly amazed by the way Americans give up all of their privacy to corporate interests.
Ok, let's take a breath and stop setting up conspiracy stories, ok, everyone?
According to this story on the ever useful German Heise News Ticker, Microsoft will loose a lot of money on this. They do this because this stock ownership is under scrutiny by the US Department of Justice.
Slashdot Mirror
Because the original article (not written by timothy) specifically mentions Microsoft products as a security risk. See my translation below.
------------------
[Everything in brackets is my comment. I am German.]
1 70,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,123
Enemy Software
German Army bans Microsoft Software
In fear of US secret services, the German foreign ministry and the German army are planning to close security holes. Instead of American software, federal computers will run German software in the future. [German software? There is no German operating system that I know of. DPA has a competent staff of tech writers, but I doubt they got this right.]
Original article by Deutsche Presse Agentur [an independent, but huge commercial German press agency].
(Image caption: In danger of spies - the German army shoots against Microsoft.)
Computers that are used in security-sensitive areas shall not run Microsoft software anymore. According to German government security advisors, the American secret service NSA has full access to the complete source codes of the US company and is thus able to read even encrypted [Microsoft] files. Because of this, the German ministry of defense uses encryption technologies offered by the local companies Siemens and Telekom [the formerly state-owned, now largest telephone and internet provider].
Meanwhile, the ministry of foreign affairs has halted plans to use video conference technology to communicate with their embassadors and foreign offices. During a Telekom presentation in Berlin at the beginning of March, State Secretary Gunter Pleuger was informed that for technical reasons, every satellite transmission is routed to the American city Denver, Coloroda.
Pleuger thinks the detour to the USA is a security risk. "Then we could do our conferences in Langley right from the start" joked a staffer of the Pleuger office. Langley, Virgina, is the location of the US secret service CIA.
------------------
...the US secret service has a documented history of using its snooping on its allies, mostly for the benefit of US businesses.
A former CIA director explained that this is done for moral reasons, but his article sounds awfully bigot to me...
It should be expected that Echelon and similar technology that the NSA has access to will be used in a similar manner.
------------------
I have to go to your homepage to find your e-mail address
I didn't do that to avoid being spammed. I admit that I did that to advertise the presence of my homepage, in the hope that someone may find out what I do, get interested in it and maybe hire me for a project.
As an example, when posting on Usenet, I use my real email address. By the way, munging the email address is considered a major faux-pas in the German part of Usenet.
But having your own domain aren't you immune from much of this? Filter, filter, filter.
As pointed out by many others, filtering is no cure. The moment a message arrives at my mail server, it already created the additional traffic that I have to pay my ISP for. I could filter it so that I do not see it, but I'd still have to pay for it.
That's why I prefer not to filter, but instead to file a complaint against the spammer with his ISP.
It was a strange kind of honour when I found out that all of my public email addresses were listed in a "do not spam, will complain" list that some hacker found on a spammer's computer and posted on the net.
------------------
http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/reporting.html
Should be interesting for you.
------------------
You are a troll right?
I don't sign up for stupid crop nor do I frequent porn sites.
However, I use usenet, have my own domain (with an whois entry), run several web pages. All these are the main sources for email address collectors.
Just look at your article. You have to munge your email address to avoid being spammed. You call that freedom? Let me guess, you are wearing Groucho Marx glasses when leaving your house.
------------------
90% of my spam comes from US spammers. It is true though that most of them hijack foreign mail servers ("relay rape").
------------------
but the Germans called this one right when they kicked the lying shits out of their country
How often does it need to be repeated: Scientology is not illegal in Germany.
------------------
Read alt.religion.scientology - that's just what they do.
------------------
Scientoloy is not "illegal" in Germany and being a member of the cult does not make you an underground dissident.
But unlike the US, where it has been granted the status of a "religion" (and it is believed that this was done to get tax-exempt status), it is considered an unethical business here that is designed to leech money from its members.
If you ever read Scieno material, you will note that they will point out again and again that they have been granted this status of a religion in the US and try to use this as an external proof of trust into their practices.
It is true, though, that you will not be hired as a German government official if you are a member of Scientology. Since most German schools are funded by the state, this includes teachers.
The German view on Scientology has the organization running scared and spewing hatred towards the German government, often comparing today's treatment of Scientologists with the way Nazi Germany treated the jews. Internal documents reveal that this is done because they know that this is an easy button to press.
Strangely enough, the US government often just copies & pastes Scientologists' allegations against Germany in their yearly human rights report.
Look at some official reactions about these allegations.
The Scientology in Germany FAQ is an interesting read, too, as it covers many of the standard allegations used by the cult.
------------------
Try this and this, both offer a brief introduction into the Scientologists' mindset from an outsider's perspective.
------------------
a friend of mine sent me this link of a 1U Halfwidth rack-mount server
Now that the server is slashdotted, is he still your friend?
------------------
Seriously, I'm looking forward to having Emacs on my palmtop device.
(Now how did I have to scribble that control-shift-5* combination again?)
(* German keyboard: Search & replace in Emacs)
------------------
...I just rented Patlabor 1 yesterday...
------------------
I am not kidding.
Opening OpenMail is a CAN'T LOSE proposition.
No, it isn't, don't kid yourself.
This is the major problem with ESR's own writings. He claims that open-sourcing an application is a guarantee for its survival. It isn't. It must be both crucial and interesting ("scratch an itch") and most of all, it must be possible to participate.
Apache, Samba, the Linux kernel and every other large open source I looked at have the advantage of being very clear, easy-to-read code, so that it's easy to find a particular part of an application and patch it.
If Open Mail is one huge clunk of spaghetti code, noone will even bother looking at it a second time. I'm sure that many folks don't participate in Mozilla and Open Office because they are so darn huge and complicated...
------------------
You do have reference for that story, don't you?
------------------
Sound like a good deal?
Sure. Trouble is, even with an application as crucial as this (groupware) where there is no current alternative in the open source area, open-sourcing it is no guarantee that other developers will join and help.
Look at Sun's/Stardivision's office suite and at Netscape's browser. Both application types are very important, yet both are mostly fostered by in-house developers.
------------------
...yes, I met your daughter while I was looking for digital porn movies.
------------------
Tim Berners-Lee created the web, and wrote the first browser/editor on his NeXT at CERN [...] This was in the period of 1989 and 1990
I stand corrected. Thanks.
I suspect that non-free online services like Compuserve had similar advertising earlier.
Yip, but the original poster talked about the ads in internet sites. I think that concept is different enough to good old Compuserve etc.
------------------
Just so people would have to go through 15 or 20 links just to find the news content or whatever they are interested in, making them pay whatever outrageous fees they can scam for minimal content.
Funny thing is that this was my impression of American (paper) magazines when I first opened one. You have to browse pages and pages and pages of dual-page ads before you finally find the contents page - and there is no way to tell where that contents page is because the number of "pre-content" ads seems to change for every issue.
I was used to magazines where the content page is basically always on page 6: cover (1), ad (2), editorial (3), double-page ad (4,5), content listing (6 and following). This is somewhat a non-written standard over here and it seems to work well...
------------------
it's been what, almost a decade now since banners in their current form came into use.
The web didn't even exist a decade ago.
According to http://www.pbs.org/internet/timeline/, the first graphical browser Mosaic was available in 93.
And http://www.zeffgroup.com/followup/zeff/sld004.htm claims that the first banner ad appeared in 94.
------------------
And Keith Knight and Carol Lay (Yay!)
------------------
It's fascinating how differently people react to privacy issues in the digital world. Your normal purchasing information, credit card useage, juvenile criminal record...all these are tracked by companies in the real world. Who's protesting that?
Exactly - why aren't you Americans protesting?It's different over here in Europe, where we have much stricter privacy laws. I am constantly amazed by the way Americans give up all of their privacy to corporate interests.
------------------
*loose money*? you mean *lose* money.
Ah, a spelling flame. Sorry, I'm German. English is only my second language.
------------------
Ok, let's take a breath and stop setting up conspiracy stories, ok, everyone?
According to this story on the ever useful German Heise News Ticker, Microsoft will loose a lot of money on this. They do this because this stock ownership is under scrutiny by the US Department of Justice.
------------------