Interestingly, the message of WTO protesters is that _less_ freedom is good. The WTO is designed to take world trade out of the control of governments and into the hands of the individual, by removing its ability to interfere with international trade.
Let us take the example of tuna caught with dolphin friendly nets. There are overseas companies that do not use such nets, as required by US law. If I, as an indvidual don't really care about dolphins, but like cheap tuna, might prefer the overseas tuna. My government is removing my right to make that decision.
This is a simplification, of course. But so is the message of the protestors.
Their concern is that the government regulations that have protected the environment and labour practices are going to be dismantled. However, this isn't really going to happen, because everyone in politics knows that if it does, no one will vote for them, and the WTO will be quickly dismantled.
Look at thee tuna example. Foreign companies are going to keep using dolphin killing nets wheter or not they trade with the United States. It would be far better if no one used these nets. If the cause is worthy, then something will be done about it with internation treaties. Without the WTO, no one will bother, and the problem really isn't solved.
So in this case, and by extension many other cases, the WTO can improving things on a global scale. This is not to say that things can't get worse too, but so far I've heard very little rational discussion on how to balance the two sides. The WTO has the potential to improve the world economy, allowing for more money to be spent on better working conditions and the environment (neither of which are doing very well on a global scale right now, and are only going to get worse under the current system). Unbridled capitalism has a chance of ruining both, but only if everyone (including voters) looks the other way.
I've always seen slashdot as a news and rumour site, so I'm never surprised when something turns out to be inaccurate or misleading. I'm surprised at how many people believe everything they read on slashdot.
I think that posting a retraction as a story is unecessary and clutters things up. Writing an update on a story is the best thing to do in this situation. Adding a section for retractions would also be a good idea.
Someone wants to quickly set up a DNS server, so they grab a rusty PC and install Linux, instead of buying a pricy UNIX machine or buying a copy of Windows NT.
This seems lets people get aquainted to Linux and consider it for larger applications.
>That's the reason why modern digital chips are> >powered by ever decreasing voltage.
I doubt many CMOS transistors are anywhere near their breakdown regime. Reduced power consumption and heat disapation is the primary reason for reducing volatge.
> And then the complete transistors only occupy a > small area of the chips, the most of it is used > for wiring.
Wiring is done in the oxide layer above the substrate. AFAIK, most of the substrate is populated with transistors. Otherwise, you increase your line length uncessisarily, which is a disaster for gate delays.
>It will be fast, but the number of transistors on >a chip will not increase as a result.
I would disagree with this. Since the size of the active region can be smaller than your photolithography line width, the transistor can be made quite a bit smaller, since you can use your smallest photolith line width on a relatively larger feature.
This isn't quite true. For the most part, smaller transistors are always faster.
Resisitance goes up for smaller lines. R~L/WH but capcitance goes down C~LW/D since the wires are shorter(L) and thinner(W), although they are closer together(D).
The real problem is that in order to get an increase in performance, the industry has relied on making bigger chips *AND* smaller transistors.
If you make your lines longer and smaller, then you run into trouble. R goes up and C goes up and your in trouble.
Back in the day, Brown students used VM/ESA for email. Some of the people who knew a bit about the OS figured out that you could load a different "OS" by typing IPL "OS name" OF course, the only one you could load was ESA (or CMS).
IPL Linux was jokingly mentioned.
Maybe I'll be able to dust off my account and give it a try someday.
I think in order to understand the security concerns best, it is important to consider how online banking/medical information compares with their traditional counterparts.
The trouble with online information is essentially scalibility. If informationis easy to obtain by bypassing bad security, then an attacker can get an awful lot of it. Usually, one person's medical records are not useful, unless you can get one specific person's records at will.
Since it is hard to imagine someone compromising the https system( assuming you are using 128 bit keys) the only way to "brute force" the system is to log in multiple times. This is easy to spot. The only foolproof way to bypass the security is to somehow attack the users machine.
This is easier than one would like to admit, but it scales terribly. In essence, it's no less difficult to get medical information this way than by more conventional means (social engineering, burglary, etc.)
This is not to say that this is an acceptable situation. However, if online medical information is a good idea, then there is no point in not doing it simply because the security is no better than it was in the old regime.
Thinking ahead to improve security when the time comes is a good idea. As systems and attackers become more sophisticated, this will be important, and improving security is a good idea.
You say using twofactor auth will delay things by a couple of years. Really, your answer is right there. Two years is an eternity in this business, and if you don't keep moving, you'll get run over.
The Slashdot Headline has very little to do with "why media attention could be bad for Linux development." This issue is brought up in the first paragraph, but is stated in order to bring the real point of the story in a silly by-the-way manner. Did either the submittor or the moderator _read_ the article?
The article itself doesn't say anything except, "Gee, I wonder if this study will get Slashdotted." There isn't a single hard fact in the whole thing, except that there's going to be an acedemic study about Linux GUIs, and that the name of the study is a bad pun of a song by the Kingsmen.
Bad Slashdot. No biscuit. Bad Salon (or whoever wrote this silly thing) No biscuit.
I don't exist, or I'm the center of the universe
on
Time Doesn't Exist
·
· Score: 1
This is all very interesting, and in some sense it makes sense. Time is a rather awkward idea. The idea that time might not exist is rather convenient, since you don't have to explain how it exists.
However, in the end, the arguments are not really physical, and even if the universe exists in one state, causality and the perception of time still exist. If the universe clumps together in a causal way, without time then there is some force driving that behavior, which one might call time. So you are just calling time another thing.
There are other problems, as I see it. The universe must exist only at the latest point in time. We have to assume that the universe exists only in its latest point, and history is apparent. From our observations of the universe, it's going to last whole lot longer. Any idea that the universe exists only now at this particular, random time is awkward, it is like the assumption that the earth is the cener of the universe.
If what's happening now doesn't exist, but only exists in the context of the future universe, then we either have to accept that the universe is static at this particlar random moment, or that it exists at some much later time.
Our role in this universe is quite small and insignificant, and every trace of our existnce is likely to be erased by entropy at this much later time. Therefore we can't exist at all, since our role is meaningless and undecerable from the universe. But we do exist and continue to exist.
The other result of this is that as we look back in time (as historians) we see fewer and fewer things, as a result of entropy erasing information. However, this theory indicates that not only do things appear to not have existed, but they never existed in the first place. Perhaps this is reasonable; it sounds a lot like Schrodinger's cat, but it seems as if it should be an effect that would be hard to miss.
All in all, it's a nice idea, but until it predicts anything, it really isn't that useful, since it is so counterintuitive, and requires a rather egocentric view of the universe. Besides, I'd hate to think that my only existance is while I'm writing an article to slashdot.
I wonder if you could get AOL's software to set up the ppp connection, and then cause UNIX to hijack it by grabbing the serial port, killing off the windows client. This hinges on getting pppd to grab onto an aready started connection, and that AOL's pp prtocol isn't weird.
Why didn't the BIND folks use Diffie-Hellman instead? Couldn't this section of BIND be rewritten to use Diffie-Hellman?
How is it that you are allowed to export the source code for RSA as long as you intend to use it for authentication? Can I export a cruise missle to Libya as long as it's intended to be used as a lawn ornament?
I can't imagine how the source code could be written so that the RSA sections couldn't just be ripped out and used for encryption.
I learned a lot from his book, UNIX Network Programming. I still have it on my desk and pick it up from time to time. Since I probably won't be going to his service, this is my only chance to say goodbye to him. So thanks for everyting Mr. Stevens.
We want everyone to use our code. We don't care whether they sell it and claim their version is better. BSD code is free code. Making it any less free would be stupid.
But honestly, doesn't it bother you just a bit that FreeBSD will never be regarded as the _best_ BSD? I'm not refering to any kind of jealousy of people making money off of your code. This is inevitable ( and in some ways desireable).
Not only does BSDI get a free ride from you, ( just as Redhat gets a free ride from Linux) they can claim that their OS is better. If you really don't care, I can certainly respect that, but I think you have to admit that there's a class of developers that who won't like it.
However, one might forcast that a "GBSD" might pop up. In theory, people who would normally contribute to FreeBSD, but don't like giving code away to BSDI might be more willing to work on a GBSD.
Personally I think they should, since with the BSD license, they have no hope of ever being the best BSD, as long as a company can just take their code, patch it up to make it better ( or even just claim that it's better). However, the BSD crew seems pretty convinced of what their doing, and I respect that.
But it would be ideal for an introduction to programming course.
Re:read the article before you get your flamethrow
on
Linus Puts Shields Up
·
· Score: 2
Well, personally I don't have much sympathy for anyone who starts out with bombastic statements like "the linux revolution is over" and then slowly take it back over the rest of the article.
Though I'd like to be Linux enthusiasts are for the most part rational, it doesn't surprise me that at least some of them would read the first few lines and skip to the bottom to send off a flame.
I'm not sure what the author is trying to acheive. Perhaps he wants only to generate controversy, or maybe he's affecting a faux cynical style, where he pretends that he's critical of Linux, but in the end won't stick his nick out and make any kind of real statement.
For the last few months we've seen the whole tech community devided on whether Linux is worthwhile or not. Some authors even waffle back and forth on this. This one can't even make up his mind within the scope of one article.
Even if amazon didn't do this, the information would be accible by certain (if not all) amazon employees, who could conduct the corperate espionage by themselves. Having the information is "easy to get" isn't really any worse than the situation of it being "not really so hard to get."
All I have to do is find someone who has access to the information and make it worth their while to give it to me. Given a few thousand dollars of effort/money , it would be pretty straightfoward.
To anyone who has worked themselves up into a hissy fit about it, get over or it. Or else start demanding protocols (purcasing and otherwise) that make privacy inherent in everything you do.
Privacy can't be acheived by assuming everyone is going to be nice. You have to protect yourself.
I was thinking about this, and I wonder if any of the following might be true:
a) It's volitle b) It has to be kept at 4 kelvin c) It's volitle and has to be kept at 4 kelvin
I always thought it might be funny to have a computer that ran on cryogens. Imagine coming in the morining and doing a liquid helium transfer before getting to work.
Or perhaps a 5000 Watt dishwasher sized helium compressor sitting next to your credit card sized hard drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course we all do.
Interestingly, the message of WTO protesters is that _less_ freedom is good. The WTO is designed to take world trade out of the control of governments and into the hands of the individual, by removing its ability to interfere with international trade.
Let us take the example of tuna caught with dolphin friendly nets. There are overseas companies that do not use such nets, as required by US law. If I, as an indvidual don't really care about dolphins, but like cheap tuna, might prefer the overseas tuna. My government is removing my right to make that decision.
This is a simplification, of course. But so is the message of the protestors.
Their concern is that the government regulations that have protected the environment and labour practices are going to be dismantled. However, this isn't really going to happen, because everyone in politics knows that if it does, no one will vote for them, and the WTO will be quickly dismantled.
Look at thee tuna example. Foreign companies are going to keep using dolphin killing nets wheter or not they trade with the United States. It would be far better if no one used these nets. If the cause is worthy, then something will be done about it with internation treaties. Without the WTO, no one will bother, and the problem really isn't solved.
So in this case, and by extension many other cases, the WTO can improving things on a global scale. This is not to say that things can't get worse too, but so far I've heard very little rational discussion on how to balance the two sides. The WTO has the potential to improve the world economy, allowing for more money to be spent on better working conditions and the environment (neither of which are doing very well on a global scale right now, and are only going to get worse under the current system). Unbridled capitalism has a chance of ruining both, but only if everyone (including voters) looks the other way.
I've always seen slashdot as a news and rumour site, so I'm never surprised when something turns out to be inaccurate or misleading. I'm surprised at how many people believe everything they read on slashdot.
I think that posting a retraction as a story is unecessary and clutters things up. Writing an update on a story is the best thing to do in this situation. Adding a section for retractions would also be a good idea.
Interesting how this works.
Someone wants to quickly set up a DNS server, so they grab a rusty PC and install Linux, instead of buying a pricy UNIX machine or buying a copy of Windows NT.
This seems lets people get aquainted to Linux and consider it for larger applications.
I've seen this happens elsewhere too.
>That's the reason why modern digital chips are> >powered by ever decreasing voltage.
I doubt many CMOS transistors are anywhere near their breakdown regime. Reduced power consumption and heat disapation is the primary reason for reducing volatge.
> And then the complete transistors only occupy a > small area of the chips, the most of it is used > for wiring.
Wiring is done in the oxide layer above the substrate. AFAIK, most of the substrate is populated with transistors. Otherwise, you increase your line length uncessisarily, which is a disaster for gate delays.
>It will be fast, but the number of transistors on >a chip will not increase as a result.
I would disagree with this. Since the size of the active region can be smaller than your photolithography line width, the transistor can be made quite a bit smaller, since you can use your smallest photolith line width on a relatively larger feature.
This isn't quite true. For the most part, smaller transistors are always faster.
Resisitance goes up for smaller lines.
R~L/WH
but capcitance goes down
C~LW/D
since the wires are shorter(L) and thinner(W), although they are closer together(D).
The real problem is that in order to get an increase in performance, the industry has relied on making bigger chips *AND* smaller transistors.
If you make your lines longer and smaller, then you run into trouble. R goes up and C goes up and your in trouble.
Back in the day, Brown students used VM/ESA for
email. Some of the people who knew a bit about the OS figured out that you could load a different "OS" by typing IPL "OS name" OF course, the only one you could load was ESA (or CMS).
IPL Linux was jokingly mentioned.
Maybe I'll be able to dust off my account and give it a try someday.
Reminds me of the Kurt Vonnegut "Wear Sunscreen" nonsense.
I think in order to understand the security concerns best, it is important to consider how online banking/medical information compares with their traditional counterparts.
The trouble with online information is essentially scalibility. If informationis easy to obtain by bypassing bad security, then an attacker can get an awful lot of it. Usually, one person's medical records are not useful, unless you can get one specific person's records at will.
Since it is hard to imagine someone compromising the https system( assuming you are using 128 bit keys) the only way to "brute force" the system is to log in multiple times. This is easy to spot. The only foolproof way to bypass the security is to somehow attack the users machine.
This is easier than one would like to admit, but it scales terribly. In essence, it's no less difficult to get medical information this way than by more conventional means (social engineering, burglary, etc.)
This is not to say that this is an acceptable situation. However, if online medical information is a good idea, then there is no point in not doing it simply because the security is no better than it was in the old regime.
Thinking ahead to improve security when the time comes is a good idea. As systems and attackers become more sophisticated, this will be important, and improving security is a good idea.
You say using twofactor auth will delay things by a couple of years. Really, your answer is right there. Two years is an eternity in this business, and if you don't keep moving, you'll get run over.
The Slashdot Headline has very little to do with "why media attention could be bad for Linux development." This issue is brought up in the first paragraph, but is stated in order to bring the real point of the story in a silly by-the-way manner. Did either the submittor or the moderator _read_ the article?
The article itself doesn't say anything except, "Gee, I wonder if this study will get Slashdotted." There isn't a single hard fact in the whole thing, except that there's going to be an acedemic study about Linux GUIs, and that the name of the study is a bad pun of a song by the Kingsmen.
Bad Slashdot. No biscuit.
Bad Salon (or whoever wrote this silly thing) No biscuit.
This is all very interesting, and in some sense it makes sense. Time is a rather awkward idea. The idea that time might not exist is rather convenient, since you don't have to explain how it exists.
However, in the end, the arguments are not really physical, and even if the universe exists in one state, causality and the perception of time still exist. If the universe clumps together in a causal way, without time then there is some force driving that behavior, which one might call time. So you are just calling time another thing.
There are other problems, as I see it. The universe must exist only at the latest point in time. We have to assume that the universe exists only in its latest point, and history is apparent. From our observations of the universe, it's going to last whole lot longer. Any idea that the universe exists only now at this particular, random time is awkward, it is like the assumption that the earth is the cener of the universe.
If what's happening now doesn't exist, but only exists in the context of the future universe, then we either have to accept that the universe is static at this particlar random moment, or that it exists at some much later time.
Our role in this universe is quite small and insignificant, and every trace of our existnce is likely to be erased by entropy at this much later time. Therefore we can't exist at all, since our role is meaningless and undecerable from the universe. But we do exist and continue to exist.
The other result of this is that as we look back in time (as historians) we see fewer and fewer things, as a result of entropy erasing information. However, this theory indicates that not only do things appear to not have existed, but they never existed in the first place. Perhaps this is reasonable; it sounds a lot like Schrodinger's cat, but it seems as if it should be an effect that would be hard to miss.
All in all, it's a nice idea, but until it predicts anything, it really isn't that useful, since it is so counterintuitive, and requires a rather egocentric view of the universe. Besides, I'd hate to think that my only existance is while I'm writing an article to slashdot.
When I think of free software I think free speech not free beer.
When I think of Easy software should I think of easy women or easy money?
Two ideas.
I wonder if you could get AOL's software to set up the ppp connection, and then cause UNIX to hijack it by grabbing the serial port, killing off the windows client. This hinges on getting pppd to grab onto an aready started connection, and that AOL's pp prtocol isn't weird.
The amount of energy that you would need to produce enough neutrinos to detect your signal with normal matter makes this impossible.
You'd probably be better off firing x-rays through the earth and trying to detect them that way.
>Nothing to worry about.. move along now... ;)
Nothing to worry about, in that a section of BIND that improves it's security in a much needed way can't be included in any free BIND?
Now it's not as serious as it might be, but it's still pretty bad.
Why didn't the BIND folks use Diffie-Hellman instead?
Couldn't this section of BIND be rewritten to use Diffie-Hellman?
How is it that you are allowed to export the source code for RSA as long as you intend to use it for authentication? Can I export a cruise missle to Libya as long as it's intended to be used as a lawn ornament?
I can't imagine how the source code could be written so that the RSA sections couldn't just be ripped out and used for encryption.
This moderation stuff is getting pretty elaborate. So much for moderation in moderation.
I learned a lot from his book, UNIX Network Programming. I still have it on my desk and pick it up from time to time. Since I probably won't be going to his service, this is my only chance to say goodbye to him. So thanks for everyting Mr. Stevens.
But honestly, doesn't it bother you just a bit that FreeBSD will never be regarded as the _best_ BSD? I'm not refering to any kind of jealousy of people making money off of your code. This is inevitable ( and in some ways desireable).
Not only does BSDI get a free ride from you, ( just as Redhat gets a free ride from Linux) they can claim that their OS is better. If you really don't care, I can certainly respect that, but I think you have to admit that there's a class of developers that who won't like it.
If it attracted more developers which made a better BSD, I can't see why it would be staggeringly stupid.
If it prevented companies from selling your code and claiming that theirs is better, I don't see why it would be staggeringly stupid.
I believe they could, but I belive they won't.
However, one might forcast that a "GBSD" might pop up. In theory, people who would normally contribute to FreeBSD, but don't like giving code away to BSDI might be more willing to work on a GBSD.
Personally I think they should, since with the BSD license, they have no hope of ever being the best BSD, as long as a company can just take their code, patch it up to make it better ( or even just claim that it's better). However, the BSD crew seems pretty convinced of what their doing, and I respect that.
Now I can get a jab at Amazon and sell the same information for lots of money!
But it would be ideal for an introduction to programming course.
Well, personally I don't have much sympathy for anyone who starts out with bombastic statements like "the linux revolution is over" and then slowly take it back over the rest of the article.
Though I'd like to be Linux enthusiasts are for the most part rational, it doesn't surprise me that at least some of them would read the first few lines and skip to the bottom to send off a flame.
I'm not sure what the author is trying to acheive.
Perhaps he wants only to generate controversy, or maybe he's affecting a faux cynical style, where he pretends that he's critical of Linux, but in the end won't stick his nick out and make any kind of real statement.
For the last few months we've seen the whole tech community devided on whether Linux is worthwhile or not. Some authors even waffle back and forth on this. This one can't even make up his mind within the scope of one article.
Even if amazon didn't do this, the information would be accible by certain (if not all) amazon employees, who could conduct the corperate espionage by themselves. Having the information is "easy to get" isn't really any worse than the situation of it being "not really so hard to get."
All I have to do is find someone who has access to the information and make it worth their while to give it to me. Given a few thousand dollars of effort/money , it would be pretty straightfoward.
To anyone who has worked themselves up into a hissy fit about it, get over or it. Or else start demanding protocols (purcasing and otherwise) that make privacy inherent in everything you do.
Privacy can't be acheived by assuming everyone is going to be nice. You have to protect yourself.
I was thinking about this, and I wonder if any of the following might be true:
a) It's volitle
b) It has to be kept at 4 kelvin
c) It's volitle and has to be kept at 4 kelvin
I always thought it might be funny to have a computer that ran on cryogens. Imagine coming in the morining and doing a liquid helium transfer before getting to work.
Or perhaps a 5000 Watt dishwasher sized helium compressor sitting next to your credit card sized hard drive.