I can only hope any deal involving an IBM buyout of SCO will include a claude mandating that SCO executives be anally violated with some ungodly large peice of IBM hardware as compensation for putting everyone through this bullshit.
My computers had MAc in I was in high school (circa 1991-1995). At the time, I did they, I don't think they had internet access, however, they did have a program to restrict acess.
Problem is, the restriction software worked via an extention file in the system directory. You get rid of the extension, the menu system doesn't load, you just get the finder. How to delete it?
Well, I was in a Programming class, where we learned some very basic Pascal. the development platform was Think! PAscal. Of course, being for class use, Think! Pascal was avaiable via the menu system.
The designers of Think! Pascal obviously never had such a security mechanism in mind. Under the file menu was the option to delete files, obviously something handy to have when you're working on software development, right?
Unfortunatly, that was just the backdoor I needed. And why did I go through all that effort?
What happens when other places like the mall starts doing it? And trust me, they will right after installing more payphones.
Not that I don't like your sentiment (I do like it), but what makes you think that shopping malls would do this? I can think of many reasons why they wouldn't.
Payphones take up space. Payphone have actually been coming *OUT* of malls because of the explosion of cell phone use. Usually, you'd have clusters of 4 or more phone in the center of the walkway at a mall. Now, those walkways are littered businesses in kiosks. I would think a mall would make more from rent than they would from pay phones.
Law Enforcement and Security use radios and cell phones Many malls have police patroling the mall as well as private security and off duty officers. I know that trunked digital radio systems use frequencies in the microwave range. I don't thinkg police would be too please with being unable to call for backup. The stores that pay rent wouldn't be very happy either. It could become difficult to stop shoplifters if a security guard can't be sent to detain someone.
Cell phone calls can lead to sales. Not sure exactly what item someone wants when doing your Christmas shopping? Need to call your buddy to figure out the right tool and right size of tool from the hardware department in Sears? Well, if you can't use your cell phone, and a pay phone isn't convenient, you're likely to just say screw it. Additionally, remember how I said there were a lot of businnes kiosks in the walkways? Well, lot of those are cell phone stores. They wouldn't be too pleased, I bet. Neither would Circut City, Radio Shack, or any other electronics store that deals with cell phones or radios.
You know, this may be the point at which intellictual property and trademark laws might come to be used (very creatively, of course) in our favor.
What do you call these discs that appear to be compact discs, but to not conform to the standards? Do the retailers know these discs are not technically CD's? Can they (record companies and retailers) even legally call them compact discs if they do not conform to the standard?
Now, I don't know who has the trademark and intellectual property rights to the cd audio standard, but I'm thinking they wouldn't even have to take legal action. There are several laws designed to protect consumers, and I believe at least some of these apply to imitations or faximilies. I would think that if a pseudo-CD causes significant problems, certain consumer protections laws could possibly be invoked, as the imitation format does not reasonably function like the origional format.
If the "copy protected" formats mearly cause people to have to restart their computer and perform a certain procedure to get the disc out, it may or may not be enough for legal action. However, if it causes more serious problems such as firmware damage, loss of data, etc, then I would bet it would definatly be lawsuit material.
Either way, I would hope the intellictual property holders would begin legal action against those members of the music industry that use this format. Certainly the I.T. holders could sue for dilution of trademark, making products that look enough like their format to confuse consumers, etc.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm just hope someone takes intellictual property laws and crams it right back down the throats of the RIAA.
er, guns do hurt people. That and hunting are indeed their primary purposes.
Unsurprisingly there are fewer gun deaths per capita in those democracies where gun use is restricted.
Tell that to people and the police in the UK. Gun crime have skyrocketed since the UK banned firearms. Just look that This Story [news.independent.co.uk].
When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have gun. You publically mandate unarmed victims.
What if everytime before someone watched a program which criticizes the government, they have to first go to the store, purchase a special Dissent Card from the convenience store, come back from the store, step through a series of 99 arcane menus on the television to activate the Dissent Mode, stick the Dissent Card in their television, and then wait for a 2 day cooling off period before being able to view said content. The material is still accessible, but this is clearly censorship.
I have to go to a library or a bookstore to get a book to read. Every book known to man isn't delivered to my doorstep. I guess that must be another form of censorship. (sarcasm off)
Seriously, if you want to read posts moderated to -1 all the time, all you have to do is change your preferences.
Really, the moderation system isn't censorship. It's more like deciding what books to read by looking at the New York Times best seller list, or deciding what movie to see by reading the reviews. In the case of slashdot, people have reviewed posts, and moderated them up or down. You can choose to read posts based on their moderation score, just as you can choose to read the bestseller list or the movie reviews, or you can choose to ignore them.
As for the "extra steps" you have to go through to change your reading preference, I can only hope you're really not that pathetically lazy.
I don't know if all the states gave in, but I'm sure most of them did. California sure did. I haven't smoked habitually since college, more than a decade ago. But this still ticks me off: both the underhanded way the feds foisted it on us, and in the way it takes a perfectly functioning citizen who likes an occasional toke and risks making them unemployed, homeless, or worse. It's the pinnacle of achievement by the narrow-minded, intolerant, party-line towing, drug-war-profiteering rectal sphincters that declare drugs (or anything else they don't like or understand) as "evil." This kind of "solution" renders self-fulfilling the anti-drug crusaders' (erroneous) characterization of pot smokers as nonfunctional.
Exactly. Government propaganda stated that if a person used any type of drug (even marijuana), they'd eventually lose their job, become homeless, be unable to function, etc. When people saw through the government lies, they decided to fulfill this prophecy themselves, by legally mandating these consequences if a person is caught.
And now the Driver's License will be the national ID card. So if you get caught taking a toke, you become a non person, unable to function in places without decent mass transit like LA, Seattle or Dallas, or any rural setting? Fscking brilliant social policy, if you're a fascist.
Or a corporatly controlled state. Don't forget the economics of prohibition. There are huge industries built up around the prohibition of drugs, from the industries that provide equipment to law enforcements (guns, bullet-resistant vests, police cars, light bars) to drug screening. These industries have a lot to lose if prohibition were to end. A lot of cops could potentially lose their jobs. So naturally, the organizations funded by these interests will push for a continued prohibition.
As for public transportation, it's all about conserving resources. It's about cheaper, reliable transit without the need to own a car or buy insurance for that car. It also mean you don't have to pay for gas, oil, maintance, plus you don't have to buy the car! Who would profit from public transportation? Certainly not the people who currently hold power^H^H^H^H^Hoffice.
It takes a lot of money to get into office, and stay in office. So when you go to vote for or against a bill, which bills are you going to vote for? The bills that benefit the common person, or the bills that benefit large corporations and the wealthy?
As for federal ID's, it's just another way to have all your information avaiable all the time. There is, of course, the huge potential for abuse by both government and corporations alike. Many of us know that Federal ID's are wrong, but unfortuanly, it also takes money to be right. Whether it's through a media campaign, a lobbying effort, or through court battles, it takes money to win. We're at a disadvantage. Corporations own the traditional mass media. Sure, there's the internet, but you either have to hear about websites or already question what the traditional mass-media tells you. Besides, ask most people where they get their news on the internet, and they'll reply with something like cnn.com. Corporations have better funded lobbying efforts all around. Somewhat well funded private organizations like the ACLU and the EFF have to pick and choose their battles because of the expense, and even then they get outspent. Corporations can bury you in lawyers, so just imagine what the federal government, funded by your tax dollars, can do in court. We could win if we had popular support, but people are sheep for the most part, and our corporatly owned media tends those flocks quite well.
This is the top of a very slippery slope. If we give away rights to privacy in our homes and with our legal counsel, we will never get these rights back.
We haven't been at the top of this slippery slope for long time. We began slipping down this slope sometime in the early 1900's. Right now we're dangling from a cliff, hanging on to some protruding root for dear life in an attempt to keep from falling further.
Does this mean it will now be illegal to use a secure system? Having any type of security/virus protection will be circumvention of law-enforcing software.
Let's just say it's becoming much clearer why the DoJ is letting Microsoft off so easy on the anti-trust lawsuit. Basically, M$ has implemented the Telescreen for Big Brother.
As I've been watching TV, reading the newspapers, browsing my favorate web sites, I've noticed the increasily draconian and authoritarian measure being proposed and passed.
From increased wiretapping power (including broader wiretaps and warrentless wiretaps), the creation of a whole new cabinet level office (The Office of Homeland Security, which in itself sounds like something from Nazi Germany), to National ID's, it seems that either our government is making a power play or we're getting what the majority of people want. Even the old issue of flag burning has been rehashed. The President's press secretary even said that we need to watch what we say. Even in it's full context, that statement gives me chills.
I've talked to many people who are *FOR* these measures. Their given rational is frightening: If you have nothing to hide, then why worry? This, folks, is close to being the manta about every authoritarian state that has ever existed on Earth.
People are so ready to give up their freedoms, their rights, and last shreds of privacy they have left in the name of saftey and security. Most of all, their even asking for it. Our government is more than ready to deliver, too.
A wise man who goes by the name Jello Biafra said it best in a song called "Full Metal Jackoff," from the album "Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors", done with D.O.A.: "Finally gotcha psyched for a police state."
Yes they do, Mr. Biafra. Yes they do.
As many of us who realize what these measure will do to this country, there are many more that just don't get it. Not only do we need to write and calls our representatives and senators, we also need to educate and inform those around us. Give them examples of previous increases in government power, and the resulting abuses.
May God save this country from not only the terrorists, but from ourselves as well.
VI is 6 in Roman Numerals.
on
VIM 6.0 is Out
·
· Score: 0, Troll
I can already see the Marty McFly's of the world, walking around pulling up the sleeves of their one-size-fits-all coats because they don't know to hit the patch that fits the coat to their body.
But I can already see the controversy over people downloading graphics for their nanotech t-shirts on the internet. Today, we're downloading Metallica mp3's. Tomorrow we'll be downloading Metallica t-shirts. Oh well, we'll just hack James's t-shirt to read "I Sold Out" during the press conference to announce he and and [whatever equivelent of the RIAA for nanotech t-shirt designs will be] are filing a lawsuit against Textilester.
The IOC is indeed corrupt as hell. I wouldn't be suprised if in return for giving the 2008 games to Bejing, that IOC members were promised organ transplants when their hearts/lungs/kidneys/etc start failing.
Of course, since they'll be cracking down on pro-democracy groups and the Falung Gong, they'll have plenty of prisoner's organs to harvest.
As the lower court originally decided, this patent appears to apply primarily to kiosk systems. In that context it might be valid. However, the higher court ordered the lower court to "reconsider the scope" of the patent, stating that it should apply to all downloads. This may be a smart move on the court's part, since there was lots of prior art in 1985 regarding information downloads. I was downloading from BITNET then, and the FIDOnet and UUCP networks were alive and well. If the scope is determined to apply to all such downloads the patent can probably be overthrown completely.
There is prior art up and down the Yin Yang on this. this document places the innovation of Kermit in 1981, while RFC 765, describing the FTP protocol, dates back to June 1980.
You also mentioned Unix to Unix Copy Protocol. According to this history of the internet, AT&T labs developed the UUCP suite in 1976.
Or then, the higher court may just be smoking something...
Sometimes, I think the only reason that drugs are illegal is to prevent us from understanding the system.:)
The parents are gone. But anytime someone proposes a law/plan dealing with something like this, it is slapped down as 'crushing our free rights'.
Then maybe our representatives should write laws to address activities that victimize people and their property, without bundling in laws that restrict free speech, free thought, reverse engineering, etc.
I doubt many people here would
Welcome to reality. You can have a stable society with no rights, or you can have an anarchistic society where everyone carries a gun.
Of you can have a fairly society where individual rights, privacy, civil liberties, and self determination are balanced with the need for law, order, justice, and the ability to enforce laws, without trying to tell us we must love Big Brother.
The parents are gone, it's up to society to run the show now.
Socitey is willing to deal with abuses like this, though not at the cost of human rights and civil liberties. Stopping DoS attacks doesn't mean we have to lose our rights and liberties in the process. It just that certain people (those who are supposed to represent us) like to throw in think we think would be detremental in what amounts to an all-or-nothing deal.
Really, it's an attitude of "Well, either you eat the poisoned food, or you'll starve." It's called attrition. They figure if they don't give us something uncontaminated, we'll eventually be hungry enough to swallow poison just for the sake of food.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, that was another episode of Deep Space Nine. :)
So the system CPU(s) would then be free to work on finding Sarah Connor?
I'm laughing till it Megahertz!
That's probably a secret as well.
"Phone-Home" technology? I think prior art, in this case, would be E.T.
/Chris Rock
I think George Lucas gonna be suin' somebody!
I can only hope any deal involving an IBM buyout of SCO will include a claude mandating that SCO executives be anally violated with some ungodly large peice of IBM hardware as compensation for putting everyone through this bullshit.
My computers had MAc in I was in high school (circa 1991-1995). At the time, I did they, I don't think they had internet access, however, they did have a program to restrict acess.
:)
Problem is, the restriction software worked via an extention file in the system directory. You get rid of the extension, the menu system doesn't load, you just get the finder. How to delete it?
Well, I was in a Programming class, where we learned some very basic Pascal. the development platform was Think! PAscal. Of course, being for class use, Think! Pascal was avaiable via the menu system.
The designers of Think! Pascal obviously never had such a security mechanism in mind. Under the file menu was the option to delete files, obviously something handy to have when you're working on software development, right?
Unfortunatly, that was just the backdoor I needed. And why did I go through all that effort?
I was crazy about the "meep" sound.
"Damn, you wait a minute to rob my house, and rape/kill my family? I gotta reboot my handgun. Windows CE for Firearms crashed again."
"Wadda ya mean 'Handgun Error: Hangun out of ammo? I just put in a full clip and chambered it!"
"Weapons Jam? Shit, this is the 5th time this week!"
Or possibly some hacker comes up with a way to preserve "perishable" CD/DVD's with epoxy.
Don't laugh, last time it was a Sharpie [sanfordcorp.com].
Looks like I many not have the chance, now.
So anyone reading remember "Call the Vanguard BBS"?
Shhhh!!! Don't give those priests ideas!
Not that I don't like your sentiment (I do like it), but what makes you think that shopping malls would do this? I can think of many reasons why they wouldn't.
Just my 2 cents worth, and some food for thought.
You know, this may be the point at which intellictual property and trademark laws might come to be used (very creatively, of course) in our favor.
What do you call these discs that appear to be compact discs, but to not conform to the standards? Do the retailers know these discs are not technically CD's? Can they (record companies and retailers) even legally call them compact discs if they do not conform to the standard?
Now, I don't know who has the trademark and intellectual property rights to the cd audio standard, but I'm thinking they wouldn't even have to take legal action. There are several laws designed to protect consumers, and I believe at least some of these apply to imitations or faximilies. I would think that if a pseudo-CD causes significant problems, certain consumer protections laws could possibly be invoked, as the imitation format does not reasonably function like the origional format.
If the "copy protected" formats mearly cause people to have to restart their computer and perform a certain procedure to get the disc out, it may or may not be enough for legal action. However, if it causes more serious problems such as firmware damage, loss of data, etc, then I would bet it would definatly be lawsuit material.
Either way, I would hope the intellictual property holders would begin legal action against those members of the music industry that use this format. Certainly the I.T. holders could sue for dilution of trademark, making products that look enough like their format to confuse consumers, etc.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm just hope someone takes intellictual property laws and crams it right back down the throats of the RIAA.
er, guns do hurt people. That and hunting are indeed their primary purposes.
Unsurprisingly there are fewer gun deaths per capita in those democracies where gun use is restricted.
Tell that to people and the police in the UK. Gun crime have skyrocketed since the UK banned firearms. Just look that This Story [news.independent.co.uk].
When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have gun. You publically mandate unarmed victims.
You'll just have to hope they didn't put alcohol in your blood surrogate.
What if everytime before someone watched a program which criticizes the government, they have to first go to the store, purchase a special Dissent Card from the convenience store, come back from the store, step through a series of 99 arcane menus on the television to activate the Dissent Mode, stick the Dissent Card in their television, and then wait for a 2 day cooling off period before being able to view said content. The material is still accessible, but this is clearly censorship. I have to go to a library or a bookstore to get a book to read. Every book known to man isn't delivered to my doorstep. I guess that must be another form of censorship. (sarcasm off) Seriously, if you want to read posts moderated to -1 all the time, all you have to do is change your preferences. Really, the moderation system isn't censorship. It's more like deciding what books to read by looking at the New York Times best seller list, or deciding what movie to see by reading the reviews. In the case of slashdot, people have reviewed posts, and moderated them up or down. You can choose to read posts based on their moderation score, just as you can choose to read the bestseller list or the movie reviews, or you can choose to ignore them. As for the "extra steps" you have to go through to change your reading preference, I can only hope you're really not that pathetically lazy.
I don't know if all the states gave in, but I'm sure most of them did. California sure did. I haven't smoked habitually since college, more than a decade ago. But this still ticks me off: both the underhanded way the feds foisted it on us, and in the way it takes a perfectly functioning citizen who likes an occasional toke and risks making them unemployed, homeless, or worse. It's the pinnacle of achievement by the narrow-minded, intolerant, party-line towing, drug-war-profiteering rectal sphincters that declare drugs (or anything else they don't like or understand) as "evil." This kind of "solution" renders self-fulfilling the anti-drug crusaders' (erroneous) characterization of pot smokers as nonfunctional.
Exactly. Government propaganda stated that if a person used any type of drug (even marijuana), they'd eventually lose their job, become homeless, be unable to function, etc. When people saw through the government lies, they decided to fulfill this prophecy themselves, by legally mandating these consequences if a person is caught.
And now the Driver's License will be the national ID card. So if you get caught taking a toke, you become a non person, unable to function in places without decent mass transit like LA, Seattle or Dallas, or any rural setting? Fscking brilliant social policy, if you're a fascist.
Or a corporatly controlled state. Don't forget the economics of prohibition. There are huge industries built up around the prohibition of drugs, from the industries that provide equipment to law enforcements (guns, bullet-resistant vests, police cars, light bars) to drug screening. These industries have a lot to lose if prohibition were to end. A lot of cops could potentially lose their jobs. So naturally, the organizations funded by these interests will push for a continued prohibition.
As for public transportation, it's all about conserving resources. It's about cheaper, reliable transit without the need to own a car or buy insurance for that car. It also mean you don't have to pay for gas, oil, maintance, plus you don't have to buy the car! Who would profit from public transportation? Certainly not the people who currently hold power^H^H^H^H^Hoffice.
It takes a lot of money to get into office, and stay in office. So when you go to vote for or against a bill, which bills are you going to vote for? The bills that benefit the common person, or the bills that benefit large corporations and the wealthy?
As for federal ID's, it's just another way to have all your information avaiable all the time. There is, of course, the huge potential for abuse by both government and corporations alike. Many of us know that Federal ID's are wrong, but unfortuanly, it also takes money to be right. Whether it's through a media campaign, a lobbying effort, or through court battles, it takes money to win. We're at a disadvantage. Corporations own the traditional mass media. Sure, there's the internet, but you either have to hear about websites or already question what the traditional mass-media tells you. Besides, ask most people where they get their news on the internet, and they'll reply with something like cnn.com. Corporations have better funded lobbying efforts all around. Somewhat well funded private organizations like the ACLU and the EFF have to pick and choose their battles because of the expense, and even then they get outspent. Corporations can bury you in lawyers, so just imagine what the federal government, funded by your tax dollars, can do in court. We could win if we had popular support, but people are sheep for the most part, and our corporatly owned media tends those flocks quite well.
This is the top of a very slippery slope. If we give away rights to privacy in our homes and with our legal counsel, we will never get these rights back.
We haven't been at the top of this slippery slope for long time. We began slipping down this slope sometime in the early 1900's. Right now we're dangling from a cliff, hanging on to some protruding root for dear life in an attempt to keep from falling further.
Does this mean it will now be illegal to use a secure system? Having any type of security/virus protection will be circumvention of law-enforcing software.
Let's just say it's becoming much clearer why the DoJ is letting Microsoft off so easy on the anti-trust lawsuit. Basically, M$ has implemented the Telescreen for Big Brother.
As I've been watching TV, reading the newspapers, browsing my favorate web sites, I've noticed the increasily draconian and authoritarian measure being proposed and passed.
From increased wiretapping power (including broader wiretaps and warrentless wiretaps), the creation of a whole new cabinet level office (The Office of Homeland Security, which in itself sounds like something from Nazi Germany), to National ID's, it seems that either our government is making a power play or we're getting what the majority of people want. Even the old issue of flag burning has been rehashed. The President's press secretary even said that we need to watch what we say. Even in it's full context, that statement gives me chills.
I've talked to many people who are *FOR* these measures. Their given rational is frightening: If you have nothing to hide, then why worry? This, folks, is close to being the manta about every authoritarian state that has ever existed on Earth.
People are so ready to give up their freedoms, their rights, and last shreds of privacy they have left in the name of saftey and security. Most of all, their even asking for it. Our government is more than ready to deliver, too.
A wise man who goes by the name Jello Biafra said it best in a song called "Full Metal Jackoff," from the album "Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors", done with D.O.A.: "Finally gotcha psyched for a police state."
Yes they do, Mr. Biafra. Yes they do.
As many of us who realize what these measure will do to this country, there are many more that just don't get it. Not only do we need to write and calls our representatives and senators, we also need to educate and inform those around us. Give them examples of previous increases in government power, and the resulting abuses.
May God save this country from not only the terrorists, but from ourselves as well.
VI VI VI: The Editor of The Beast!
I can already see the Marty McFly's of the world, walking around pulling up the sleeves of their one-size-fits-all coats because they don't know to hit the patch that fits the coat to their body.
But I can already see the controversy over people downloading graphics for their nanotech t-shirts on the internet. Today, we're downloading Metallica mp3's. Tomorrow we'll be downloading Metallica t-shirts. Oh well, we'll just hack James's t-shirt to read "I Sold Out" during the press conference to announce he and and [whatever equivelent of the RIAA for nanotech t-shirt designs will be] are filing a lawsuit against Textilester.
Of course, since they'll be cracking down on pro-democracy groups and the Falung Gong, they'll have plenty of prisoner's organs to harvest.
--
There is prior art up and down the Yin Yang on this. this document places the innovation of Kermit in 1981, while RFC 765, describing the FTP protocol, dates back to June 1980.
You also mentioned Unix to Unix Copy Protocol. According to this history of the internet, AT&T labs developed the UUCP suite in 1976.
Or then, the higher court may just be smoking something...
Sometimes, I think the only reason that drugs are illegal is to prevent us from understanding the system. :)
--
Then maybe our representatives should write laws to address activities that victimize people and their property, without bundling in laws that restrict free speech, free thought, reverse engineering, etc.
I doubt many people here would Welcome to reality. You can have a stable society with no rights, or you can have an anarchistic society where everyone carries a gun.
Of you can have a fairly society where individual rights, privacy, civil liberties, and self determination are balanced with the need for law, order, justice, and the ability to enforce laws, without trying to tell us we must love Big Brother.
The parents are gone, it's up to society to run the show now.
Socitey is willing to deal with abuses like this, though not at the cost of human rights and civil liberties. Stopping DoS attacks doesn't mean we have to lose our rights and liberties in the process. It just that certain people (those who are supposed to represent us) like to throw in think we think would be detremental in what amounts to an all-or-nothing deal.
Really, it's an attitude of "Well, either you eat the poisoned food, or you'll starve." It's called attrition. They figure if they don't give us something uncontaminated, we'll eventually be hungry enough to swallow poison just for the sake of food.
--