It's things like this that make my wife hesitant to even consider moving back to Oz. It's always depressing to sit and read about local governments and industry-run cens^H^H^H^H regulating groups (such as the MPAA ratings board) declaring this or that unfit, etc., here. To see it happening at a national level somewhere like Australia just seems so much worse. Anyone want to take bets on how long until it happens in the US, too?
Any Aussie care to comment? Offer any suggestions on where to look for more information on the OFLC? To what/whom does this group report? Since the article mentioned that sale of media not classified by them is a criminal offense, does that mean this group was legislated into existence, and their operation mandated by law? How long ago?
there is a balance between protecting people's rights as citizens and the bottom line of american corporations and their stock price.
Oh, B-freakin'-S. There is no balance - not in existence, and not governmentally guaranteed. Where in the Constitution or Bill of Rights is a "right to profitability," "right to shareholder confidence," "right to protection of business model," etc.?
I don't buy the "economy" excuse, either. During good times, people often justify lackluster voter turnout on a general contentedness/apathy of the public, since said public is happy with what's going on. During less-than-good-times, voter turnout still doesn't typically improve, despite the logic of economy justification that would indicate the public wants improvement. (And if the first held, and the economy had all that much to do with it, then neglecting oil prices, why is Dubya getting all that much consideration? By the logic of the first, we'd leave a Democrat in the office.)
We could actively sell ourselves to the State, like in.eu-land.
Didn't say we had it better or worse, just that I think it sucks. We're all getting screwed, just in different ways - no sense getting into a pissing contest on who's getting the raw-er deal.
Until you stop letting your Government using the Constitution as novelty toilet paper, your hysterical rantings about the "land of the free" are nothing more naive, foolish posturings.
At the risk of sounding like Katz...
It happens because America is a land of consumers, not citizens. Anything that doesn't specifically enable us to dole out more money for goods and services (to the benefit of corporate interests everywhere) is effectively deemed unnecessary, and anything (such as personal rights) that hinders market reach, share values, and profitability is a threat to be removed or otherwise addressed.
And it's not just that we're being forced into such a position - we're accepting it, settling into it nearly wholeheartedly. (A minority of eligible voters even bothered showing up to vote in the last presidential election, and it gets even worse during years when we're not voting on that office.)
Didn't mean to imply that it did - just that I found it slightly humorous that his works were held aloft by a previous poster as something other than "perverted" when a fairly prudish reader (not me, per se) would definitely find RAH's stuff falling into that category.
OT: Re:Robert A. Henlien was a great American
on
Grokking The Gimp
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· Score: 1
We need more upright, upstanding American's like Heinlein to counteract the perverted filth that's being written today.
Having just finished re-reading Stranger in a Strange Land this week, I found this more than a little funny. The sexism in that book was even more grossly overstated than many of his other works. Homophobia reared its head once or twice. (Granted, it was written ages ago, but still.) The really funny part about that previous post was calling what's "written today" something like "perverted filth," when the central focus of social interaction in the inner circle of Smith's church in Stranger is fairly well described as such.
Dammit - I even hit "preview" first, and thought I caught everything. Needless to say, that should read "who", but my right hand was shifted one key over.:)
Charities simply promote the survival and reproduction of those who are most unfit to engage in these activities.
<cynic>
Societal constructs threw Darwinism out the window a long time ago. Make up some bell curve plotting some positive human attribute (intelligence being just one, but the most obvious), and then plot it terrain-style over time, and see what happens. The whole thing has flattened and shifted toward the shallow end. Wait long enough, and the negative end will become vertically asymptotic.
</cynic>
That said, there are lotsa people who are capable of social survival-of-the-fittest wjp just get screwed (severely) by circumstance. Many of them don't need any kind of hand up, but quite a few still appreciate it, and give back in kind should things work out for them.
...the impression I get is that he's saying "censor yourself, or be censored."
I haven't seen or intuited any kind of ultimatum in any of his statements, interviews, etc. I may well be overlooking them (not intentionally, I can assure you), but I just haven't felt like any kind of active threat or remediation is there in his responses. He feels strongly about what he considers appropriate, and he feels that games that reward "death and dismemberment" and that teach a moral detachment are bad, but he doesn't seem to be proposing gov't action of any kind. He recounts examples of media industry self-regulation, hypothetical and real, effective and not so, and would like to see private companies and whole market shares play by such rules.
Granted, I'm not sure I know exactly what he thinks true "encouragement" of the industry would be, and even effective self-regulation would have an effect on what we, as adults, could buy. (After all, if you remove the bottom half of the age-based bell-curve of gamers, then maybe iD won't have a large enough market for the next Quake to be worth the millions sunk into such games. Marketing suits say "Time to make games that pay the bills - why don't we crank out another Commander Keen? There's family stuff that we can sell!")
It still comes down to some old guy in a suit feeding "for the children" lines to the public to try and get elected. This one is just trying to pander to those of us who value certain civil liberties. Which one is really important? Probably neither - it's campaign talk, and we all know what that is worth.
Last I checked console games mostly don't have keyboards and use game pads.
Isn't there a keyboard planned for the PSX2? There's already a keyboard for Dreamcast, and I have vague memories about one for the original PSX, but I might be mistaken.
I'd wonder more about acceptance - the Saturn had an online kit available, but got next to no use. Of course, that system isn't the best example to use for much of anything positive from a market aspect.:P
So it seems that because we'll always want music...then the megamedia corps will treat us anyway they want.
Facing a cartel is half the problem. Consumers are the other half. I tend to agree - if we want content in general (be it music, movies, etc.), we have few choices. We'd have more choices if consumers as a whole were a whole lot less like a flock and a whole lot more like an unruly mob. Someone here on./ a few days back tossed around the term "sheeple," which seems terribly apt here.
Does re-educating the consumer (sounds Orwellian, I know, but you know what I mean) even have a prayer? During bleaker moments, I think not - as a population, we're pretty damned lemming-like. I'd like to think better of people, I really would.
*sigh*
Anybody else wanna revolt against corporate interests? I just can't be stuffed today - this is reaching depressing extents.:P
Apologies in advance for the preponderance of overly-claused sentences in the following.
When, exactly, did the content industry (by which I mean, of course, the typical entertainment media conglomerates, as well as other businesses/artists/providers who are happy to receive money for what may or may not be quality stuff) start treating their consumers as "the other side," waging a continuous and pointless war? When did every consumer become a potential lawbreaker - to the point where those who respect copyright laws and artists' rights (definitely not the same thing) are subject to restrictions, limitations, and other such rot as to keep them from becoming the "pirates" the industry is convinced they will be (or have the potential to be)?
An equity feminist would already tell you just what kind of damage the more shrill and less-sensible element of said cause has done to gender relations when it was extolled that all men were rapists or potential rapists. The content industry doesn't seem to have learned by example what happens when you blanket all members of a group (in this case, movie-goers and music fans) with a negative label. The cynic in me can't decide why they'd miss this - is it ignorance, or dismissal? Do they just not realize, or do they think that people will just keep buying what they have and not say a word to the contrary? (Looking at the Top 40 charts makes me think the latter.)
Making media harder to use and appreciate doesn't deter the small criminal element among consumers - hell, the article in question demonstrates that, as security goes, this ain't gonna do it, and common sense alone says that if you can burn it to an audio CD, you can rip it - and it just pisses off the mainstream listener/viewer. Make it harder to use, and those with a clue (however few that might be) will either make it easier to use, or find an alternative. The only thing the industry can hope to achieve is to kill promising technology and markets. (Consumer-use DAT, of course, being the perfect example.)
Madison, SDMI, CSS, et al are just plain bad ideas - at best, they frustrate and add to the cost (and price) without adding value, and at worst they drive away consumers.
And by the way - why does he think that all web pages are made for profit and would disappear without it?
Exactly. There were plenty of sites on the web in the good ol' days [sic] before ad banners, and there are still plenty of helpful, entertaining, and informative sites out there without any business model or revenue stream. It's like assuming all artists just want to get paid first and foremost - there are plenty who do it because they love it, and many of them would do it even if they never saw a dime from it.
Right now, people are paying all of their money to use ISPs but the ISPs don't have to pay for the content.
Part of the reason I don't like that notion is because it starts a level of accountability that I wouldn't be comfortable seeing. Where would the tracking begin - or end, for that matter - so that the proper payment balance could be provided? Which ISP - the one the surfer is using to view the content, or the one hosting the content? I imagine he means the latter - and that bothersome. If an ISP can be held financially liable for content that a user provides - regardless of who the copyright holder/content owner is - then how long before said ISP decides to host only content that's marketable and profitable? Draw your own conclusions about where the picking and choosing would go from there.
Another reason I don't like it - not necessarily a valid one, but definitely a personal one - is that it commercializes the web that much further. There's already enough corporate-owned and profit-driven crap here. It's not like we need more like that.
Kahle mentions that something like ASCAP is needed, but he himself talks about the nasty history behind his example's development. He also throws out AOL as an example of a company in the "best position" to implement such a thing. Like we didn't have enough concerns about content ownership/control/marketing without an endorsement like that...
If I want to plot a kidnapping/assination/kiddie porn ring (NOTE: I don't...), should I have the unrestricted freedom to make all of my plans online?
You seem to have missed some key points in the community's general apprehension about the whole Carnivore mess:
It's a black box. Period. If we don't know how it works, how do we know it's doing what it purports to do, in a secure and safe manner? How do we know it's being properly used and/or is not easily exploited (not in the k1dd1e sense) or abused? A complete review, or use of an open-source alternative (such as the one discussed here), is the only way to be sure that's not the case.
My understanding of the implementation restrictions are that it would require a judicial order to put the system in place, but not to use - and that the long-term goal is to have these things everywhere, operating in effectual perpetuity. Seems a bit more lax than phone taps restrictions to me. (This is the point I'm the fuzziest on, so anyone with the specifics, smack me with the correct answer, please.)
When was the last time you trusted a government agency (particularly one involved in law enforcement) not to be corrupt in at least a few respects (if not many)? If recently, then I have some nice, prime real estate you might wanna look at - forget all that "location, location, location" bullshit...
And what's this about the last digital copy of Sgt. Pepper being erased? I still have the original album (and the record player to play it one) and it's over twenty years old. What makes him think all this is just going to evaporate?
And when the vinyl is cracked or scratched or otherwise unplayable, and no new copy is available in anything but digital format? When record players aren't made at all because they're not profitable, and old ones can't be fixed for lack of parts or people capable of working on them? Forget analog tape decks - degeneration of media, no new equipment, adoption of heavily-protected and proprietary digital formats for the media and subsequent storage, etc.
The symbolic dystopia everyone keeps throwing around is "1984", although Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" would be more apt for this particular reference. Books that weren't memorized were lost to the ages. Wait for the analog devices and self-storage options to disappear because of age/obsolescence/disrepair/replacement, and see what happens.
(That said, the article still seemed like a weak attempt, despite some of the good points made.)
regardless of the wrath the RIAA will bring down;)
MPAA, RIAA, different heads of the same damned hydra. And you took the words right out of my mouth - this is exactly the kinda thing the content conglomerates will point towards to demonstrate to some court of law or other that geek == movie/music pirate.
Anybody think we'll ever escape having any good digital media tool (compression, rippers, file formats etc.) not instantly be labeled as part of the pirates' arsenal?
My take on the rise of the first-person shooter is that it is a reflection of the increasingly violent society we are living in, where the media attempts to overload us with a constant barrage of sensory stimulus just to attract our jaded and cynical attentions.
I think you're confusing the image of society as marketed to you with the society that actually exists - not to mention a gross overgeneralization of "society" in general. Western? Eastern? European, North American, US-specific, what?
One of the only good points Jack Valenti has ever made is that if violent media were to blame for violence in society (particularly among the young), then we'd have dramatic increases in violent crime among, say, teens (to follow Valenti's example). After all, who's playing all those violent games and watching all that filth on TV? Are we creating a race of monster kids, an entire generation of lawless, bloodthirsty little ankle-biters? Statistics say no.
So the first-person shooter has come to reign supreme in the gaming world, a reflection of a society that has lost its hope and its faith.
Reflection my ass - shock value is always the attention-getter, and marketers know this. If they've got your attention, they're halfway to selling you their product, be it a game, movie, etc. This trend isn't because we're more violent - it's because violence in media is proven to be more effective at sucking the money out of your wallet.
For all of you who are siding with the employee concerned - don't bother. If you're ever called upon to sign an NDA, you can make that decision for yourself, just as he did. He decided to sign it; he decided to breach it. His fault.
Agreed. I think the majority of the/. audience here has at least a passing familiarity with NDAs and Ip contracts, and it's probably a safe bet to say that a vast portion of them have signed one with a current or previous job. How many of that last portion of people actually read the agreement? Kept the details in mind? Struck out portions you didn't agree with, or refused to sign altogether?
These agreements might make business sense for the employer, but for the employee, they can be downright draconian. Still, the instant you sign it unaltered and hand it over, you lose rights and absorb a great deal of liability. Mr. Gutierrez (sp?) has provided us with an excellent example of when to be careful.
(Please note that I don't agree with the actions Apple has taken, nor their stance on the whole mess. My opinion is that he shoulda seen the train comin' down the tunnel.)
Way back when, I picked up a copy of "Science Made Stupid" at the Adler Planetarium gift shop. Among other things, it included spoof plans for building your own backyard nuclear reactor, which advised that you "wear rubber gloves" [sic] when handling the uranium rods. Quite a giggle - might be time to pick that one up off the shelf and check some auctions.:)
WebSphere includes "Tivoli Ready Modules" - is Tivoli open source?
Anyone care to shed some light on what some of the more common Tivoli products are? We've recently begun seeing it here around our office, although the Tivoli site offers little information on what's what. (Been told we're migrating to this from SMS, because of stability and "added benefits," although no one has told me what those might be.)
Clearly telling the public how to make an exploit can only aggravate the problem, so why do people insist on doing it?
You pointed out in your post that despite the publicity regarding MS Outlook's vulnerabilities, the problem has not been fixed and the number of people exploiting said vulnerabilities is going up. (Anyone wanna take bets on exponential growth?) The problem I see with this outlook (pun not intended) is that there is a shared responsibility - MS bears the lion's share, since it's their product, but in this example, anyone still using Outlook after all this time and all these problems should know a bit better, and has a pretty strong impetus to use something else.
(Note that this does not exculpate MS for making crappy stuff like OE - this is merely my opinion. It'd be like seeing someone drive a Corvair after Nader's exposé.)
All that said, I agree with the notion of exploits' details being made public, albeit in a timely fashion with regards to notifying the responsible party first. After that, as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly okay to go pointing at the n00d emperor.:P
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It's things like this that make my wife hesitant to even consider moving back to Oz. It's always depressing to sit and read about local governments and industry-run cens^H^H^H^H regulating groups (such as the MPAA ratings board) declaring this or that unfit, etc., here. To see it happening at a national level somewhere like Australia just seems so much worse. Anyone want to take bets on how long until it happens in the US, too?
Any Aussie care to comment? Offer any suggestions on where to look for more information on the OFLC? To what/whom does this group report? Since the article mentioned that sale of media not classified by them is a criminal offense, does that mean this group was legislated into existence, and their operation mandated by law? How long ago?
Curiousity, killing cats, all that.:)
Oh, B-freakin'-S. There is no balance - not in existence, and not governmentally guaranteed. Where in the Constitution or Bill of Rights is a "right to profitability," "right to shareholder confidence," "right to protection of business model," etc.?
I don't buy the "economy" excuse, either. During good times, people often justify lackluster voter turnout on a general contentedness/apathy of the public, since said public is happy with what's going on. During less-than-good-times, voter turnout still doesn't typically improve, despite the logic of economy justification that would indicate the public wants improvement. (And if the first held, and the economy had all that much to do with it, then neglecting oil prices, why is Dubya getting all that much consideration? By the logic of the first, we'd leave a Democrat in the office.)
Didn't say we had it better or worse, just that I think it sucks. We're all getting screwed, just in different ways - no sense getting into a pissing contest on who's getting the raw-er deal.
At the risk of sounding like Katz...
It happens because America is a land of consumers, not citizens. Anything that doesn't specifically enable us to dole out more money for goods and services (to the benefit of corporate interests everywhere) is effectively deemed unnecessary, and anything (such as personal rights) that hinders market reach, share values, and profitability is a threat to be removed or otherwise addressed.
And it's not just that we're being forced into such a position - we're accepting it, settling into it nearly wholeheartedly. (A minority of eligible voters even bothered showing up to vote in the last presidential election, and it gets even worse during years when we're not voting on that office.)
Point and jeer all you want - we earned it.
Didn't mean to imply that it did - just that I found it slightly humorous that his works were held aloft by a previous poster as something other than "perverted" when a fairly prudish reader (not me, per se) would definitely find RAH's stuff falling into that category.
Having just finished re-reading Stranger in a Strange Land this week, I found this more than a little funny. The sexism in that book was even more grossly overstated than many of his other works. Homophobia reared its head once or twice. (Granted, it was written ages ago, but still.) The really funny part about that previous post was calling what's "written today" something like "perverted filth," when the central focus of social interaction in the inner circle of Smith's church in Stranger is fairly well described as such.
My small-fraction-of-two-bits.:P
Dammit - I even hit "preview" first, and thought I caught everything. Needless to say, that should read "who", but my right hand was shifted one key over.:)
<cynic>
Societal constructs threw Darwinism out the window a long time ago. Make up some bell curve plotting some positive human attribute (intelligence being just one, but the most obvious), and then plot it terrain-style over time, and see what happens. The whole thing has flattened and shifted toward the shallow end. Wait long enough, and the negative end will become vertically asymptotic.
</cynic>
That said, there are lotsa people who are capable of social survival-of-the-fittest wjp just get screwed (severely) by circumstance. Many of them don't need any kind of hand up, but quite a few still appreciate it, and give back in kind should things work out for them.
I haven't seen or intuited any kind of ultimatum in any of his statements, interviews, etc. I may well be overlooking them (not intentionally, I can assure you), but I just haven't felt like any kind of active threat or remediation is there in his responses. He feels strongly about what he considers appropriate, and he feels that games that reward "death and dismemberment" and that teach a moral detachment are bad, but he doesn't seem to be proposing gov't action of any kind. He recounts examples of media industry self-regulation, hypothetical and real, effective and not so, and would like to see private companies and whole market shares play by such rules.
Granted, I'm not sure I know exactly what he thinks true "encouragement" of the industry would be, and even effective self-regulation would have an effect on what we, as adults, could buy. (After all, if you remove the bottom half of the age-based bell-curve of gamers, then maybe iD won't have a large enough market for the next Quake to be worth the millions sunk into such games. Marketing suits say "Time to make games that pay the bills - why don't we crank out another Commander Keen? There's family stuff that we can sell!")
It still comes down to some old guy in a suit feeding "for the children" lines to the public to try and get elected. This one is just trying to pander to those of us who value certain civil liberties. Which one is really important? Probably neither - it's campaign talk, and we all know what that is worth.
Isn't there a keyboard planned for the PSX2? There's already a keyboard for Dreamcast, and I have vague memories about one for the original PSX, but I might be mistaken.
I'd wonder more about acceptance - the Saturn had an online kit available, but got next to no use. Of course, that system isn't the best example to use for much of anything positive from a market aspect.:P
Facing a cartel is half the problem. Consumers are the other half. I tend to agree - if we want content in general (be it music, movies, etc.), we have few choices. We'd have more choices if consumers as a whole were a whole lot less like a flock and a whole lot more like an unruly mob. Someone here on ./ a few days back tossed around the term "sheeple," which seems terribly apt here.
Does re-educating the consumer (sounds Orwellian, I know, but you know what I mean) even have a prayer? During bleaker moments, I think not - as a population, we're pretty damned lemming-like. I'd like to think better of people, I really would.
*sigh*
Anybody else wanna revolt against corporate interests? I just can't be stuffed today - this is reaching depressing extents.:P
For anyone who felt like pointing it out - yes, I'm aware I'm preaching to the choir. Just felt like bitchin'.:)
Apologies in advance for the preponderance of overly-claused sentences in the following.
When, exactly, did the content industry (by which I mean, of course, the typical entertainment media conglomerates, as well as other businesses/artists/providers who are happy to receive money for what may or may not be quality stuff) start treating their consumers as "the other side," waging a continuous and pointless war? When did every consumer become a potential lawbreaker - to the point where those who respect copyright laws and artists' rights (definitely not the same thing) are subject to restrictions, limitations, and other such rot as to keep them from becoming the "pirates" the industry is convinced they will be (or have the potential to be)?
An equity feminist would already tell you just what kind of damage the more shrill and less-sensible element of said cause has done to gender relations when it was extolled that all men were rapists or potential rapists. The content industry doesn't seem to have learned by example what happens when you blanket all members of a group (in this case, movie-goers and music fans) with a negative label. The cynic in me can't decide why they'd miss this - is it ignorance, or dismissal? Do they just not realize, or do they think that people will just keep buying what they have and not say a word to the contrary? (Looking at the Top 40 charts makes me think the latter.)
Making media harder to use and appreciate doesn't deter the small criminal element among consumers - hell, the article in question demonstrates that, as security goes, this ain't gonna do it, and common sense alone says that if you can burn it to an audio CD, you can rip it - and it just pisses off the mainstream listener/viewer. Make it harder to use, and those with a clue (however few that might be) will either make it easier to use, or find an alternative. The only thing the industry can hope to achieve is to kill promising technology and markets. (Consumer-use DAT, of course, being the perfect example.)
Madison, SDMI, CSS, et al are just plain bad ideas - at best, they frustrate and add to the cost (and price) without adding value, and at worst they drive away consumers.
Exactly. There were plenty of sites on the web in the good ol' days [sic] before ad banners, and there are still plenty of helpful, entertaining, and informative sites out there without any business model or revenue stream. It's like assuming all artists just want to get paid first and foremost - there are plenty who do it because they love it, and many of them would do it even if they never saw a dime from it.
Here:
And here:
Part of the reason I don't like that notion is because it starts a level of accountability that I wouldn't be comfortable seeing. Where would the tracking begin - or end, for that matter - so that the proper payment balance could be provided? Which ISP - the one the surfer is using to view the content, or the one hosting the content? I imagine he means the latter - and that bothersome. If an ISP can be held financially liable for content that a user provides - regardless of who the copyright holder/content owner is - then how long before said ISP decides to host only content that's marketable and profitable? Draw your own conclusions about where the picking and choosing would go from there.
Another reason I don't like it - not necessarily a valid one, but definitely a personal one - is that it commercializes the web that much further. There's already enough corporate-owned and profit-driven crap here. It's not like we need more like that.
Kahle mentions that something like ASCAP is needed, but he himself talks about the nasty history behind his example's development. He also throws out AOL as an example of a company in the "best position" to implement such a thing. Like we didn't have enough concerns about content ownership/control/marketing without an endorsement like that...
You seem to have missed some key points in the community's general apprehension about the whole Carnivore mess:
And when the vinyl is cracked or scratched or otherwise unplayable, and no new copy is available in anything but digital format? When record players aren't made at all because they're not profitable, and old ones can't be fixed for lack of parts or people capable of working on them? Forget analog tape decks - degeneration of media, no new equipment, adoption of heavily-protected and proprietary digital formats for the media and subsequent storage, etc.
The symbolic dystopia everyone keeps throwing around is "1984", although Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" would be more apt for this particular reference. Books that weren't memorized were lost to the ages. Wait for the analog devices and self-storage options to disappear because of age/obsolescence/disrepair/replacement, and see what happens.
(That said, the article still seemed like a weak attempt, despite some of the good points made.)
MPAA, RIAA, different heads of the same damned hydra. And you took the words right out of my mouth - this is exactly the kinda thing the content conglomerates will point towards to demonstrate to some court of law or other that geek == movie/music pirate.
Anybody think we'll ever escape having any good digital media tool (compression, rippers, file formats etc.) not instantly be labeled as part of the pirates' arsenal?
I think you're confusing the image of society as marketed to you with the society that actually exists - not to mention a gross overgeneralization of "society" in general. Western? Eastern? European, North American, US-specific, what?
One of the only good points Jack Valenti has ever made is that if violent media were to blame for violence in society (particularly among the young), then we'd have dramatic increases in violent crime among, say, teens (to follow Valenti's example). After all, who's playing all those violent games and watching all that filth on TV? Are we creating a race of monster kids, an entire generation of lawless, bloodthirsty little ankle-biters? Statistics say no.
Reflection my ass - shock value is always the attention-getter, and marketers know this. If they've got your attention, they're halfway to selling you their product, be it a game, movie, etc. This trend isn't because we're more violent - it's because violence in media is proven to be more effective at sucking the money out of your wallet.
...people are wary of Carnivore, and don't believe the FBI's assurances of security and propriety. Any system that can be abused will be abused.
Perfect examples of why inefficiency/inadequacy are a definite risk.
Well, then, here's my bit of karma-whoring for the day; I yanked my copy out of cache and dumped it here.:)
Agreed. I think the majority of the /. audience here has at least a passing familiarity with NDAs and Ip contracts, and it's probably a safe bet to say that a vast portion of them have signed one with a current or previous job. How many of that last portion of people actually read the agreement? Kept the details in mind? Struck out portions you didn't agree with, or refused to sign altogether?
These agreements might make business sense for the employer, but for the employee, they can be downright draconian. Still, the instant you sign it unaltered and hand it over, you lose rights and absorb a great deal of liability. Mr. Gutierrez (sp?) has provided us with an excellent example of when to be careful.
(Please note that I don't agree with the actions Apple has taken, nor their stance on the whole mess. My opinion is that he shoulda seen the train comin' down the tunnel.)
Way back when, I picked up a copy of "Science Made Stupid" at the Adler Planetarium gift shop. Among other things, it included spoof plans for building your own backyard nuclear reactor, which advised that you "wear rubber gloves" [sic] when handling the uranium rods. Quite a giggle - might be time to pick that one up off the shelf and check some auctions.:)
Anyone care to shed some light on what some of the more common Tivoli products are? We've recently begun seeing it here around our office, although the Tivoli site offers little information on what's what. (Been told we're migrating to this from SMS, because of stability and "added benefits," although no one has told me what those might be.)
Enquiring minds want to know, and all that...:)
You pointed out in your post that despite the publicity regarding MS Outlook's vulnerabilities, the problem has not been fixed and the number of people exploiting said vulnerabilities is going up. (Anyone wanna take bets on exponential growth?) The problem I see with this outlook (pun not intended) is that there is a shared responsibility - MS bears the lion's share, since it's their product, but in this example, anyone still using Outlook after all this time and all these problems should know a bit better, and has a pretty strong impetus to use something else.
(Note that this does not exculpate MS for making crappy stuff like OE - this is merely my opinion. It'd be like seeing someone drive a Corvair after Nader's exposé.)
All that said, I agree with the notion of exploits' details being made public, albeit in a timely fashion with regards to notifying the responsible party first. After that, as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly okay to go pointing at the n00d emperor.:P