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  1. Re:Psion didn't "invent" .... on Motorola To Buy PDA-Inventor Psion For $200 Million · · Score: 1

    It's very naive for people to say I "haven't been harmed" and "nothing was taken from me" ... then I am directly harmed and losing something -- money in my pocket, and food on my family's table.

    You may be harmed by this action, though there's no clear evidence of that. It's a bit of a stretch to imagine that potential buyers of your book will locate this chapter located in some recess of the Internet and decide not to buy.

    Regardless of that, nothing was taken from you. You did not have money in your pocket or food on your family's table with which someone made off. If you have lost anything, it is opportunity, and only that. You haven't been deprived of anything that you previously had. How much opportunity have you lost? I strain to imagine that it's measurable.

  2. Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer? on Evaluating the Harmful Effects of Closed Source Software · · Score: 1

    A better term to describe in English what they stand for is 'Liberated Software'

    A better term is probably 'Liberating Software'. The software has no liberty of its own. Software should provide liberty to its users.

  3. Re:on the other side of the coin on Evaluating the Harmful Effects of Closed Source Software · · Score: 1

    So, your suggestion would be to spend MORE than a MacBook Pro on an SUCCESSION of sucky laptops, rather than just spending just slightly more (debatably) on an Apple laptop?

    Wow. Do you suffer brain damage as a child?

    For someone launching accusations of brain damage, your reading comprehension is fairly limited.

    AC suggested that outside of Apple, users have *choice*. If you find the options from one vendor unacceptable, there are other vendors from whom you can buy hardware. If you desire OS X, you buy what Apple offers, and you pay what Apple charges.

  4. Re:Nice specs...but.... on Apple News From WWDC and iPhone 5 Rumors · · Score: 1

    That hasn't been true since the move away from PowerPC. Have you tried to actually sell an Apple computer lately?

    If anything, Apple computers are harder to sell, since most of their target market is hooked on "the latest thing."

    Apple products used to hold their value because of their relatively short supply. There's more than enough used equipment to go around, these days.

  5. Re:So.... on Venezuela Bans the Commercial Sale of Firearms and Ammunition · · Score: 1

    How many accidental pool injuries/drownings are there in houses that own a pool?

    Now compare that to houses that don't own a pool.

    Now consider that a swimming pool is hundreds of times more dangerous to children than guns in the home. Shall we ban swimming pools?

    (http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvacci.html)

  6. Re:rpm, yumm & package managers on Fedora 17 Released · · Score: 1

    $ find /lib/firmware/ -type f | wc -l
    709

  7. Re:rpm, yumm & package managers on Fedora 17 Released · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure if you're trolling, but apt-get has never been more advanced than yum (at least, not since yum was included in Fedora). Notable features of yum that apt-get lacks include the ability to install a package from a local file, resolving and installing its dependencies from repositories, and the ability to resolve and install a package given a path or the name of a feature it "Provides". Yum's a little slower than apt-get, but it's definitely the more capable of the two.

    As for dependency hell: that term refered to the pain caused by downloading a package, attempting installation, learning that there are unmet dependencies, manually locating those packages, and potentially repeating the process. That hasn't been a concern on Red Hat or Fedora systems for literally about ten years.

    Compared to other rpm based distributions, Fedora tends to have new software first, and demonstrates a superior commitment to the Free aspects of Free Software. GNU still doesn't recommend it because they include binary blobs in their kernels. That aside, it's easily the best distribution for Free Software users.

  8. "corrupt" is often subjective on Ask Slashdot: What's a Good Tool To Detect Corrupted Files? · · Score: 1

    Files can be corrupted by rare spontaneous bit flipping, by mis-writing a block that was intended for another file or corrupting the block list to include data from another file (cross-linked files), by including blocks that don't exist, or by including blocks that have no data or arbitrary data.

    Headers or meta data in some file formats can be verified by applications that support that file format, but it's possible for some of those problems to change the file's data such that the data is still valid, but wrong. If you have a large collection of media files or image files, filesystem corruption could potentially cross-link valid data from another file of the same type.

    All of that is to say that the only way you can reliably detect corrupt files is to compare them to files that are known good. To anyone with backups in your position, I would simply say that the best option would be to wipe the system and restore a backup that you trust. If you had rsnapshot backups, you might be able to:
    rsync -avcn /backup/ /filesystem/

    rsync would then tell you which files differed from backup.

    According to comment 39919031, Paragon HFS may have serious bugs. It's possible that the problem didn't actually come from the power loss, but from a bad filesystem driver. I'd recommend using something better supported by all systems for your shared space, or using hardware assited virtualization for all but one of the operating systems. On my own hardware, I run Linux with other systems in KVM guests, which works well. The host OS can export shared space over the network (NFS or CIFS) to the guests, which is probably the most stable filesystem configuration possible.

  9. GPL on the rise on Is GPL Licensing In Decline? · · Score: 1

    From an earlier Slashdot post:
    http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/03/03/142229/gpl-copyleft-on-the-rise

    "Is Copyleft Being Framed?"

    As we've seen something like 5 Slashdot posts based one 1 study, I would say that there is substantial evidence that the answer is "yes".

  10. Re:Developer for the world? on Tim Cook Prefers Settling To Suing and Has a Huge Quarter · · Score: 1
  11. Re: [Apple is] totally establishing new markets th on Woz Fears Stifling of Startups Due to Patent Wars · · Score: 1

    The LG Prada was the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen.

  12. Screen cover on Changing the Texture of Plastics On Demand · · Score: 1

    How about a display cover that can be either glossy or matte depending on the user's needs?

  13. Re:Self signed certs. on Google Researchers Propose Plan To Fix CA System · · Score: 2

    DNSSEC is signed by CAs. If an attacker can compromise a CA, they can compromise DNSSEC.

  14. Re:Performance gets eaten by old software on In Favor of FreeBSD On the Desktop · · Score: 1

    Sure, it works well for chumps like Facebook and the the NY Stock Exchange, but no one is using it for serious . . . um, wait . . . nevermind.

    I don't know about Facebook, but NYSE is using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, not Gentoo. Actually, I'm not aware of anyone who is using Gentoo for anything serious.

  15. Re:Why use a reputation system? on SSL Certificate Authorities vs. Convergence, Perspectives · · Score: 1

    Why not go with something simpler?
    1. Use the DNS CERT record and ensure that we use dnssec with all zones up to the root signed (or another DNS security scheme).

    ...because that's the same as the system we have now. If the CA that signs DNSSEC is compromised, then the whole system is broken.

    If a notary is compromised, we can replace that notary and be done. If a CA is compromised, we have to replace the CA and every active cert in the world that they've signed.

  16. Re:Users want a binary answer on SSL Certificate Authorities vs. Convergence, Perspectives · · Score: 1

    The short answer is, users want a binary answer. Can this site be trusted, true/false.

    And in the Convergence system, they get that. A site is trusted if all of your notaries agree that the certificate you see is the same certificate they see. If it differs from the certificate that they see, then something is amiss and the certificate is not trusted.

  17. Re:Won't work on SSL Certificate Authorities vs. Convergence, Perspectives · · Score: 1

    Sure, you can say "I only trust this Notary", but how do you know that Notary is even who you think it is?

    The same way that you know CAs, now: you keep their certificate in a local store for validation.

    again, same problem you have now.

    No, you don't. You have one of the two problems that we have now. Right now, the two significant problems are 1) that we rely on organizations that could be compromised and 2) if one of the larger organizations is compromised the cost of dropping our trust in them is impossibly high.

    In the Convergence system, it's still possible that a notary could be compromised. However, notaries are all equal. We can drop any notary without the same costs as dropping a CA in the system we're using now.

    Since most people simply won't switch, even if Convergence was 100% effective it wouldn't matter. Most SSL attacks would still take place just fine.

    You're even wrong here. I can switch to Convergence right now, and without anyone else switching, I've improved my security. This isn't a system that requires that everyone change to be effective. It's immediately effective for anyone who changes.

  18. Re:So why do I trust the notaries? on SSL Certificate Authorities vs. Convergence, Perspectives · · Score: 1

    A lot of people suggest DNSSEC as a component of replacing CAs, but overlook that DNSSEC requires CAs to function. If the problem is that you can't trust anys given CA, then a replacement has to be independent of CAs.

    DNSSEC can't be a component of a system that doesn't trust CAs, which is exactly what Convergence aims to be.

  19. Re:So why do I trust the notaries? on SSL Certificate Authorities vs. Convergence, Perspectives · · Score: 3, Informative

    Notaries are no more trustworthy than CAs; the advantage is what Moxie Marlinspike calls "trust agility". See, if a CA is compromised, users cannot easily stop trusting the CA. The big CAs simply have too much influence. Drop a major CA, and a significant percentage of the internet's certs are no longer valid. The economic costs of replacing a CA are tremendous.

    If a notary is compromised, no big deal. Notaries can be dropped and replaced without any noticeable consequence. Notaries can be just as effective as CAs, with the advantage that they can be easily replaced.

  20. RIP on Steve Jobs Dead At 56 · · Score: 1

    there's no denying his contributions to popular culture

    I wish the man a peaceful rest, but let us not speak falsely. Apple, under Jobs, has not contributed to culture so much as they have shackled it.

    Culture is not a product.

    Culture is what is shared by society. Culture is our values and our knowledge.

    Apple created phones that forbid the distribution of Free Software, and that prohibited users from installing software of their own choosing. Users who wanted Freedom had to "jailbreak" their phone. Apple resists using open standards in their software, and have contributed back to the community far less than they have taken, despite profiting tremendously from the work of volunteers. They have worked toward distribution channels that funnel a portion of all purchases to the corporation.

    Apple is a profoundly anti-social organization that sells very pretty baubles that lock culture away to wither and die. They do not contribute to culture.

  21. Re:War /= civil process. on Drone Kills Top Al Qaeda Figure · · Score: 1

    And Awlaki has been in the middle of conducting murder for some time now, and promising to conduct more, at every single opportunity.

    Awlaki did not literally have a gun to anyone's head. You don't seem to be able to see the difference between your hypothetical situation and actual facts. Evidently, you are no longer meaningfully connected to reality.

  22. Re:5th Amendment on Drone Kills Top Al Qaeda Figure · · Score: 1

    Would you still demand some kind of "due process" for the individual(s) involved, or would you agree that the United States should send a bombing mission to silence these high profile Nazi sympathizers?

    As assassination is against the law, due process is appropriate unless they are actually combatants.

  23. Re:5th Amendment on Drone Kills Top Al Qaeda Figure · · Score: 1

    He hasn't been charged with any crime. To whom would he turn himself in?

  24. Re:5th Amendment on Drone Kills Top Al Qaeda Figure · · Score: 1

    Of course, someone who is fighting the US "far from any battlefield" is, since he is fighting, actually on the battlefield.

    If the exercise of free speech is "fighting the US", then who is the US not at liberty to kill, if anyone?

  25. Re:5th Amendment on Drone Kills Top Al Qaeda Figure · · Score: 1

    except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger

    I highlighted the relevant part.

    If an unarmed person is "in actual service" in the Militia, then who is not? If no one is, then does this provision actually place any limits on the power of the government? If it doesn't actually limit the power of the government, did it need to be written?