If you read the article you'll see that the proposed law only requires ISPs to provide a way for customers to opt-in to a filtering scheme. It does not require them to filter every packet. I don't think the bill is worth the time, but let's at least evaluate it for its real faults and merits, not some sensationalized bunch of baloney.
In the end, I doubt this law would do much. ISPs are being asked by their customers to provide content filtering. $$$ is a much more effective motivator than laws. And those who don't want to spend the money to implement it, don't have to but also will lose customers to those who do. Sounds fair to me.
So - please explain to me what is so insecure about NAT.
It's not that NAT is insecure compared to a firewall. What wetlettuce missed is that NAT boxes are firewalls and hence you get that protection. Firewalls, be they NAT or otherwise, are not the end-all of security and should not be treated as such.
But aside from conserving address space, NAT doesn't offer you anything that a properly configured firewall doesn't. It's a hack that has bought us some more time, but I'll dance a jig when I can dump it in favor of IPv6.
Just for another reference, we get about 200,000 valid emails a day for around 17,000 users. We get another 700,000 or 800,000 spams a day too, but those are run through Postini so thankfully I never see them. I'm sure that the cost of subscribing to Spamhaus would be far less than that of acquiring 4 times our bandwidth and storage facilities plus all the time I would have to mess with that trash.
I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but here's what I deduced when I investigated using it for our company.
Any purchases of software aren't changed by Software Assurance. If your new computer comes with an OS, you still have the right to use that, SA or not. But if you upgrade that using SA, the upgrades are only leased. You would have to back out any changes. If Office is under SA, you can't use it after your contract runs out. And if you get your machines from a vendor under SA then it doesn't come with a purchased OS, only the one under SA. That means you can't use it at all.
Something else curious about Software Assurance is that the cost is calculated based on the total number of computers you own. That includes Macs, Linux, and everything whether they will use the MS software or not.
Under SmartNet, do you have to back out all the upgrades you've applied or do they just cut you off from further upgrades?
One major difference is that when your Software Assurance runs out, you're left with nothing. You've been leasing your software this whole time, not buying it. At least with Cisco, I presume they don't take away your routers.
Seems to me the only thing that's "assured" is Microsoft's cash flow.
SCO can have the GPL or BSD licenses declared invalid all they want--the code is still copyrighted.
Yes, sane people understand that but SCO is arguing that because the GPL is invalid the code somehow magically became part of the public domain which would therefore make it legal for them to incorporate sans copyright notices. It's ludicrus, but so is their whole case.
"Any operating system can be made stable if you know what you're doing."
Alright, I'll bite - WINDOWS ME!:P
The solution for Windows Me is a little less intuitive. It involves a large hammer and a lot of smashing. After that, not only will your computer will never crash again but you'll feel a lot better too.
Check out ntop. It watches traffic passively and generates quite a few pretty graphs. It has breakdowns by protocol, machine, time of day. All sorts of stuff. Extremely useful for troubleshooting the "my internet is broken" problems.
And yes, people from Valve have confirmed the base was Quake1, not (as some people continue to claim, and I really wish I knew where the rumor started) Quake2.
I read a article I think on Gamespot about that. Valve got the Quake2 source from id and considered moving to that to get all those extras, but it would have taken longer to move away from the Quake codebase and they were already behind schedule (who isn't?). But they did integrate pieces of Quake 2 into HL, and that along with HL releasing after Quake 2 probably led to the incorrect assumption.
If you don't like the BitKeeper license, then don't use BitKeeper.
You've got a good point and I don't agree with it, so I don't use it. But there is a subtle difference between that and the GPL. The BKL is a license to use where the GPL is a license to copy. See paragraph 0 of the GPL: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License... the act of running the Program is not restricted."
Use licenses have always irritated me. They claim to founded on copyright law, but where is the copying when I use it? Do I need a license to look at a painting I bought? To read a book? Ludicrous.
True. Netware 6 and 5 (don't know about before) offer native CIFS (that's SMB) and NFS services. It works all right but you have the draw backs of those services, which is that they suck. So does NCP, though. I haven't found a really good network fs yet.
I think Linuxers may have a hard time with Netware since just about all of Novell's software is designed for a Microsoft environment. ConsoleOne, iPrint, iFolder, GroupWise. None of them work great from Linux. Not that they couldn't, but they just haven't focused on it. Novell does have some really neat technology, but that company has serious issues. I've given up all hope.
IIRC, Quake's biggest problem was that the server sent back more information than the client needed in an effort to speed up the connection. Clients could then do prediction and such, but once that got found out bots were created that predicted when people would come around the corner and blast them immediately.
So, to repeat a sentiment I've seen in many comments, it's probably more possible than we think to accomplish this with a lot of planning. Just nobody has ever tried.
You're totally right. I would *love* to have one of those FSAA boards and I'm very jealous of you. I meant that the difference between the Voodoo and Geforce algorithms were so small that only when an image was zoomed way in could you tell that 3dfx's was slightly better. So why waste the extra $50 for an overpriced Voodoo5?
This reminds me of some super blown up shots of a scene rendered with Full Screen Anti-Aliasing on both a Voodoo5 and a Geforce2. That was the only way you could see any difference between the two because at 1000 pixels wide, there wasn't much. Seems to me that sound especially has gotten to the point where you can't tell the difference between a really expensive sound card and an SB Live for $40. Why waste all this cash if you're not looking at the tiny details because a Cyber Demon is hot on your tail?
>Seriously, if people don't buy for-linux games, they are going to dissapear. I myself have been guilty of this, and I am going to rectify this.
I too made that decision and that works fine for me cuz I know what I want and where I can get it, but as for getting a present, that's another matter. Before the sad news that Tribes 2 was delayed until next year I was hyping everyone I knew to get it for me. I'm probably more lucky that I'll have to buy it for myself. My wife would never go online to Loki's site and get it, and I don't know if she'd realize there's a difference from the Windows version anyway.
Then just yesterday I got a gift certificate to Media Play and thought I'd pick of SOF or something (can't get CDs or movies thanks to the MPAA and RIAA), but they don't stock Loki games either. Even though the installed base of Linux on the desktop is higher than Mac (or so I heard on/.), they did carry a number of Mac titles. I think the difference there is that Mac users are used to spending money on software and the graphics support is a lot easier to configure. Hey, I played Quake on my Voodoo card and know the pain in the butt that was. I think X 4.0 will go a long way to help that.
And looking through the list, I see a lot of games that could really make for some fun. I see Linux games really being a major playing in 1-2 years.
Re:Drunk on the WINE of human happiness
on
Wine In New Skins
·
· Score: 1
> My reasoning is that by emulating windows succesfully, the linux community will no longer concentrate with the
> same focus on developing applications for linux natively. When the average user is running Word, there is not the
> same need for a solution, and so the solutions that we do get will be lacklustre. After all, necessity is the mother of
> invention, and the simple fact is that the astounding success of wine means that much of that necessity has been removed.
You have a valid point, but I think there are good reasons for wine to exist:
1) In my case, for example, I use Linux 97% of the time and it gets the job done. The only time I have to reboot to Windows is to use one single database access program, for which I haven't yet been able to write a clone (silly drivers). If I could eliminate that one step using Wine to launch the dumb thing, I doubt I would ever reboot. Too bad it doesn't completely work yet.
2) Projects like WordPerfect 2000 use winelib to port their applications quickly. These are native binaries and they do work well. Telling my wife she can use WordPerfect for Linux makes her happy, and a quick port makes Corel happy. Get a big enough user base and they might go for broke. Don't we always complain that biggest problem is a lack of applications?
Seems to me certain operating systems will have to clean up their act to work with this stuff. If your OS and applications never get unloaded, you could easily get stuck in a useless state. I suppose they'll have to figure out a way to flush the whole thing, short of dropping a magnet into your case. Putting it in the BIOS menus would be a pain in the butt to do. Maybe another button next to reset?
And while I'm thinking, pretend this technology is scalable enough to get up in the gigabyte range. Would it be possible to replace your hard drive with MRAM and push the latency waaaay down?
It just doesn't make sense for any distribution to not play well with others. Lets say my favorite distro creates the WizBang(tm) filesystem. Sure, if I'm MicroSoft now everyone has no choice (NTFS). But if I'm a Linux distro, I most likely have to release my source (depends on how you implement it, but probably). Plus, if I don't play well with others, why will anyone convert? WizBang(tm) will die a good horrible death and we'll move on to ReiserFS, etc. It's in my interest to create a distribution that works with all sorts of things, including other distributions.
Slashdot Mirror
If you read the article you'll see that the proposed law only requires ISPs to provide a way for customers to opt-in to a filtering scheme. It does not require them to filter every packet. I don't think the bill is worth the time, but let's at least evaluate it for its real faults and merits, not some sensationalized bunch of baloney.
In the end, I doubt this law would do much. ISPs are being asked by their customers to provide content filtering. $$$ is a much more effective motivator than laws. And those who don't want to spend the money to implement it, don't have to but also will lose customers to those who do. Sounds fair to me.
So - please explain to me what is so insecure about NAT.
It's not that NAT is insecure compared to a firewall. What wetlettuce missed is that NAT boxes are firewalls and hence you get that protection. Firewalls, be they NAT or otherwise, are not the end-all of security and should not be treated as such.
But aside from conserving address space, NAT doesn't offer you anything that a properly configured firewall doesn't. It's a hack that has bought us some more time, but I'll dance a jig when I can dump it in favor of IPv6.
"always avoid even numbered service packs"
You know, the 2K in Win2K is a pretty big even number...
And the X in WinXP is letter number 24...
Just for another reference, we get about 200,000 valid emails a day for around 17,000 users. We get another 700,000 or 800,000 spams a day too, but those are run through Postini so thankfully I never see them. I'm sure that the cost of subscribing to Spamhaus would be far less than that of acquiring 4 times our bandwidth and storage facilities plus all the time I would have to mess with that trash.
Nobody wants to steal a baby-blue or pink cute little bag full of shit.
Maybe it's just me, but I always throw away the dirty diapers.
I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but here's what I deduced when I investigated using it for our company.
Any purchases of software aren't changed by Software Assurance. If your new computer comes with an OS, you still have the right to use that, SA or not. But if you upgrade that using SA, the upgrades are only leased. You would have to back out any changes. If Office is under SA, you can't use it after your contract runs out. And if you get your machines from a vendor under SA then it doesn't come with a purchased OS, only the one under SA. That means you can't use it at all.
Something else curious about Software Assurance is that the cost is calculated based on the total number of computers you own. That includes Macs, Linux, and everything whether they will use the MS software or not.
Under SmartNet, do you have to back out all the upgrades you've applied or do they just cut you off from further upgrades?
One major difference is that when your Software Assurance runs out, you're left with nothing. You've been leasing your software this whole time, not buying it. At least with Cisco, I presume they don't take away your routers.
Seems to me the only thing that's "assured" is Microsoft's cash flow.
Sure, cut off a major portion of your income out of spite and watch otherwise profitable movies become money losers. I'm sure the MPAA will do that.
These are the same geniouses that tried to kill the VCR. I don't think we can trust them not to do something entirely stupid.
SCO can have the GPL or BSD licenses declared invalid all they want--the code is still copyrighted.
Yes, sane people understand that but SCO is arguing that because the GPL is invalid the code somehow magically became part of the public domain which would therefore make it legal for them to incorporate sans copyright notices. It's ludicrus, but so is their whole case.
"Any operating system can be made stable if you know what you're doing."
:P
Alright, I'll bite - WINDOWS ME!
The solution for Windows Me is a little less intuitive. It involves a large hammer and a lot of smashing. After that, not only will your computer will never crash again but you'll feel a lot better too.
Check out ntop. It watches traffic passively and generates quite a few pretty graphs. It has breakdowns by protocol, machine, time of day. All sorts of stuff. Extremely useful for troubleshooting the "my internet is broken" problems.
nobody would hire an MSCE to do it either
Ain't that the truth.
And yes, people from Valve have confirmed the base was Quake1, not (as some people continue to claim, and I really wish I knew where the rumor started) Quake2.
I read a article I think on Gamespot about that. Valve got the Quake2 source from id and considered moving to that to get all those extras, but it would have taken longer to move away from the Quake codebase and they were already behind schedule (who isn't?). But they did integrate pieces of Quake 2 into HL, and that along with HL releasing after Quake 2 probably led to the incorrect assumption.
If you don't like the BitKeeper license, then don't use BitKeeper.
... the act of running the Program is not restricted."
You've got a good point and I don't agree with it, so I don't use it. But there is a subtle difference between that and the GPL. The BKL is a license to use where the GPL is a license to copy. See paragraph 0 of the GPL: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License
Use licenses have always irritated me. They claim to founded on copyright law, but where is the copying when I use it? Do I need a license to look at a painting I bought? To read a book? Ludicrous.
True. Netware 6 and 5 (don't know about before) offer native CIFS (that's SMB) and NFS services. It works all right but you have the draw backs of those services, which is that they suck. So does NCP, though. I haven't found a really good network fs yet.
I think Linuxers may have a hard time with Netware since just about all of Novell's software is designed for a Microsoft environment. ConsoleOne, iPrint, iFolder, GroupWise. None of them work great from Linux. Not that they couldn't, but they just haven't focused on it. Novell does have some really neat technology, but that company has serious issues. I've given up all hope.
Look at what happened to Quake, for example.
IIRC, Quake's biggest problem was that the server sent back more information than the client needed in an effort to speed up the connection. Clients could then do prediction and such, but once that got found out bots were created that predicted when people would come around the corner and blast them immediately.
So, to repeat a sentiment I've seen in many comments, it's probably more possible than we think to accomplish this with a lot of planning. Just nobody has ever tried.
(Score: -1, Troll)
It would have been a bit funnier to post it to the kernel-devel mailing list, though.
You're totally right. I would *love* to have one of those FSAA boards and I'm very jealous of you. I meant that the difference between the Voodoo and Geforce algorithms were so small that only when an image was zoomed way in could you tell that 3dfx's was slightly better. So why waste the extra $50 for an overpriced Voodoo5?
This reminds me of some super blown up shots of a scene rendered with Full Screen Anti-Aliasing on both a Voodoo5 and a Geforce2. That was the only way you could see any difference between the two because at 1000 pixels wide, there wasn't much. Seems to me that sound especially has gotten to the point where you can't tell the difference between a really expensive sound card and an SB Live for $40. Why waste all this cash if you're not looking at the tiny details because a Cyber Demon is hot on your tail?
>Seriously, if people don't buy for-linux games, they are going to dissapear. I myself have been guilty of this, and I am going to rectify this.
/.), they did carry a number of Mac titles. I think the difference there is that Mac users are used to spending money on software and the graphics support is a lot easier to configure. Hey, I played Quake on my Voodoo card and know the pain in the butt that was. I think X 4.0 will go a long way to help that.
I too made that decision and that works fine for me cuz I know what I want and where I can get it, but as for getting a present, that's another matter. Before the sad news that Tribes 2 was delayed until next year I was hyping everyone I knew to get it for me. I'm probably more lucky that I'll have to buy it for myself. My wife would never go online to Loki's site and get it, and I don't know if she'd realize there's a difference from the Windows version anyway.
Then just yesterday I got a gift certificate to Media Play and thought I'd pick of SOF or something (can't get CDs or movies thanks to the MPAA and RIAA), but they don't stock Loki games either. Even though the installed base of Linux on the desktop is higher than Mac (or so I heard on
And looking through the list, I see a lot of games that could really make for some fun. I see Linux games really being a major playing in 1-2 years.
> My reasoning is that by emulating windows succesfully, the linux community will no longer concentrate with the
> same focus on developing applications for linux natively. When the average user is running Word, there is not the
> same need for a solution, and so the solutions that we do get will be lacklustre. After all, necessity is the mother of
> invention, and the simple fact is that the astounding success of wine means that much of that necessity has been removed.
You have a valid point, but I think there are good reasons for wine to exist:
1) In my case, for example, I use Linux 97% of the time and it gets the job done. The only time I have to reboot to Windows is to use one single database access program, for which I haven't yet been able to write a clone (silly drivers). If I could eliminate that one step using Wine to launch the dumb thing, I doubt I would ever reboot. Too bad it doesn't completely work yet.
2) Projects like WordPerfect 2000 use winelib to port their applications quickly. These are native binaries and they do work well. Telling my wife she can use WordPerfect for Linux makes her happy, and a quick port makes Corel happy. Get a big enough user base and they might go for broke. Don't we always complain that biggest problem is a lack of applications?
Seems to me certain operating systems will have to clean up their act to work with this stuff. If your OS and applications never get unloaded, you could easily get stuck in a useless state. I suppose they'll have to figure out a way to flush the whole thing, short of dropping a magnet into your case. Putting it in the BIOS menus would be a pain in the butt to do. Maybe another button next to reset?
And while I'm thinking, pretend this technology is scalable enough to get up in the gigabyte range. Would it be possible to replace your hard drive with MRAM and push the latency waaaay down?
It just doesn't make sense for any distribution to not play well with others. Lets say my favorite distro creates the WizBang(tm) filesystem. Sure, if I'm MicroSoft now everyone has no choice (NTFS). But if I'm a Linux distro, I most likely have to release my source (depends on how you implement it, but probably). Plus, if I don't play well with others, why will anyone convert? WizBang(tm) will die a good horrible death and we'll move on to ReiserFS, etc. It's in my interest to create a distribution that works with all sorts of things, including other distributions.
I just don't see it.