At first, maybe. I can't imagine a portable that doesn't close up when not in use (protecting the screen) lasting more than the 18 months or so you get out of a cell phone. You think netbook reliability is bad, let's see how this thing goes. No matter how durable this thing is, I doubt it will last long without a carrying case. And once you have a case, you haven't really saved any space or convenience over a keyboard. Now you've got this case to keep track of whenever you take it out of your bag.
But really, if you can't set up a credit card purchasing system, you shouldn't be doing business. The only difference between the Internet and brick and mortar shops is that on the Internet you don't buy from the sketchy place that only takes cash.
They probably have a number of redundant measures. Most of the nodes communicate with each other directly, and only accept commands signed by the owner. So if the owner can get new orders out to a head node, the rest of them can easily be updated.
This will at the least result in a momentary lull though.
Giving a large untrusted 3rd party developer pool access to people's business transactions is just plain stupid. I thought that PayPal was as insecure as possible. It turns out we've only scratched the surface. Now they're inviting identity thieves to build automated skimmers on PayPal's own infrastructure.
They aren't programmed to get you where you're going quickly. They're programmed to slow you down so you don't run into someone (and no one runs into you.)
A lot of people are missing the point. Obviously your hosting provider has access to your machine, and if they detect suspicious traffic, it's quite natural for them to log in and change things.
What is not okay is asking for passwords. They own the fucking VPS, if they want access they have it. Leaving sensitive passwords where anyone can reach them is a serious security breach. GoDaddy, if they need access to the VPS, should have a special administrative account for that purpose. They should not have a database where their employees can read everyone's passwords (no matter how well they secure it.) Passwords should always be salted and hashed.
The Internet would still very much exist. It just wouldn't look anything like it ever has. A cyber war isn't going to kill the Internet, it's just going to significantly change its nature.
Why do you assume it hasn't happened? Nodes in botnets are run by people who do not know they are bots. Don't worry about the intrusions you detect. It's the ones you don't detect you need to be wary of.
Actually, I would say 10 is low. Every bug at the kernel level will be responsible for several orders of magnitude more bugs in userspace. It's not just a question of implementing to spec, it's a question of implementing to spec in a manner that is clear and consistent to every developer using the system.
In a real cyber war, the international network chokepoints would be cut (probably brought down by the DDOS load) and the Internet as we know it would cease to be. You can't even guess what that would look like.
Most of that development time is not initial implementation. It's debugging and interoperability. Initial implementation is trivial, yes, but initial implementations do not a platform make.
Re:OS going away, or just "contractual support"?
on
The Future of OpenSolaris
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Proprietary software is only cheaper if you are incompetent.
China surpassed the rest of the world a long time ago. Just because their people are impoverished doesn't make them weak. They have an excellent propaganda machine, and their people have enough prosperity that they can plausibly present to their people a world where China reigns supreme.
The bottle metaphor is actually a really good one. When you buy royalty-encumbered software, it's like buying a bottle of coke. If you want to keep drinking Coke, you have to keep buying new bottles.
Now with something FOSS like water or orange juice, the container is irrelevant. You pay for the stuff and it will work just fine in any container you want - and you're free to choose the best container for the task. Coke, yeah, you can pour that can into another container, but it's going to go flat really quickly, and you have to buy it in Coke's official container, unless they deign to let you fill a bottle with their stuff.
Well, the real issue is that funny and informative are right next to each other. I'm not going to undo it if I mix up those, but the system still suffers.
Saying "thanks" does not require 100 years of indentured, deep-bowing servitude.
They're not asking you to do any such thing. They're just asking for you to give something of equal worth to the community, bearing in mind that when you build an empire standing on the shoulders of giants as Google has, it's quite a bit of hubris to claim exclusive rights to your creations.
Bigger problem is the inability to change your vote, and locating positive and negative mods in close proximity to each other so it's easy to accidentally mod someone up/down with no recourse.
Say what you like about the "average" GPL zealot, but most sysadmins owe RMS and the FSF a lot. I probably wouldn't be a sysadmin if I didn't have the GNU tools, including Emacs, to use. They make it not so much tedious as interesting, as I change flags and run macros, and the text swims and takes on the form I want in front of my eyes. And I didn't have to implement it. They did it for me. Entitlement and quid pro quo are two very different things.
What do you mean? If my employer is handling the withholding step, that's time I don't have to spend dealing with the IRS.
As Stack's sad case makes clear, it's when you are solely responsible for putting your taxes together that you end up wasting a ton of time.
Furthermore, it saves a ton of time in an audit if you have been overpaying your taxes. So it's a net time saver. Apparently I value my time a lot more than you, which maybe is what you meant to say.
Slashdot Mirror
At first, maybe. I can't imagine a portable that doesn't close up when not in use (protecting the screen) lasting more than the 18 months or so you get out of a cell phone. You think netbook reliability is bad, let's see how this thing goes. No matter how durable this thing is, I doubt it will last long without a carrying case. And once you have a case, you haven't really saved any space or convenience over a keyboard. Now you've got this case to keep track of whenever you take it out of your bag.
Google.
But really, if you can't set up a credit card purchasing system, you shouldn't be doing business. The only difference between the Internet and brick and mortar shops is that on the Internet you don't buy from the sketchy place that only takes cash.
They probably have a number of redundant measures. Most of the nodes communicate with each other directly, and only accept commands signed by the owner. So if the owner can get new orders out to a head node, the rest of them can easily be updated.
This will at the least result in a momentary lull though.
Giving a large untrusted 3rd party developer pool access to people's business transactions is just plain stupid. I thought that PayPal was as insecure as possible. It turns out we've only scratched the surface. Now they're inviting identity thieves to build automated skimmers on PayPal's own infrastructure.
They aren't programmed to get you where you're going quickly. They're programmed to slow you down so you don't run into someone (and no one runs into you.)
A lot of people are missing the point. Obviously your hosting provider has access to your machine, and if they detect suspicious traffic, it's quite natural for them to log in and change things.
What is not okay is asking for passwords. They own the fucking VPS, if they want access they have it. Leaving sensitive passwords where anyone can reach them is a serious security breach. GoDaddy, if they need access to the VPS, should have a special administrative account for that purpose. They should not have a database where their employees can read everyone's passwords (no matter how well they secure it.) Passwords should always be salted and hashed.
And then it collapses under the weight of unfettered spending.
The Internet would still very much exist. It just wouldn't look anything like it ever has. A cyber war isn't going to kill the Internet, it's just going to significantly change its nature.
Why do you assume it hasn't happened? Nodes in botnets are run by people who do not know they are bots. Don't worry about the intrusions you detect. It's the ones you don't detect you need to be wary of.
Actually, I would say 10 is low. Every bug at the kernel level will be responsible for several orders of magnitude more bugs in userspace. It's not just a question of implementing to spec, it's a question of implementing to spec in a manner that is clear and consistent to every developer using the system.
In a real cyber war, the international network chokepoints would be cut (probably brought down by the DDOS load) and the Internet as we know it would cease to be. You can't even guess what that would look like.
Most of that development time is not initial implementation. It's debugging and interoperability. Initial implementation is trivial, yes, but initial implementations do not a platform make.
And then only if your vendor is competent.
Why are they posting good publicity under the old name?
China surpassed the rest of the world a long time ago. Just because their people are impoverished doesn't make them weak. They have an excellent propaganda machine, and their people have enough prosperity that they can plausibly present to their people a world where China reigns supreme.
And let's be honest, it does.
The bottle metaphor is actually a really good one. When you buy royalty-encumbered software, it's like buying a bottle of coke. If you want to keep drinking Coke, you have to keep buying new bottles.
Now with something FOSS like water or orange juice, the container is irrelevant. You pay for the stuff and it will work just fine in any container you want - and you're free to choose the best container for the task. Coke, yeah, you can pour that can into another container, but it's going to go flat really quickly, and you have to buy it in Coke's official container, unless they deign to let you fill a bottle with their stuff.
Well, the real issue is that funny and informative are right next to each other. I'm not going to undo it if I mix up those, but the system still suffers.
Wow. Slashdot is ridiculous. They re-run a month old story instead of running the actual story, which was a retraction.
Link? I was surprised to see this show up on Slashdot so long after the fact, but I don't see any retraction on Schneier's blog.
They're not asking you to do any such thing. They're just asking for you to give something of equal worth to the community, bearing in mind that when you build an empire standing on the shoulders of giants as Google has, it's quite a bit of hubris to claim exclusive rights to your creations.
I thought Chuck Norris was speaking out against the use of socialist software.
Bigger problem is the inability to change your vote, and locating positive and negative mods in close proximity to each other so it's easy to accidentally mod someone up/down with no recourse.
Say what you like about the "average" GPL zealot, but most sysadmins owe RMS and the FSF a lot. I probably wouldn't be a sysadmin if I didn't have the GNU tools, including Emacs, to use. They make it not so much tedious as interesting, as I change flags and run macros, and the text swims and takes on the form I want in front of my eyes. And I didn't have to implement it. They did it for me. Entitlement and quid pro quo are two very different things.
Meh. The government made $8,000 worth of interest-free loans to me for the four years I was in college, I figure it's the least I can do.
What do you mean? If my employer is handling the withholding step, that's time I don't have to spend dealing with the IRS.
As Stack's sad case makes clear, it's when you are solely responsible for putting your taxes together that you end up wasting a ton of time.
Furthermore, it saves a ton of time in an audit if you have been overpaying your taxes. So it's a net time saver. Apparently I value my time a lot more than you, which maybe is what you meant to say.