So here we have Rep Boucher, who from his answers seems pretty well clued in to what is going on in the online world and such. And he has not heard about the DeCSS case. Now imagine how much the less clued in legislator in Washington knows. Pretty frightening.
Here we have the Slashdot crowd yelling about first amendment rights the moment anybody mentions DeCSS, spending so much of their time daily worrying and posting about the case. And those who need to know about this don't have a clue.
I beg your pardon. NP-complete has nothing to do with digital computers. Only Turing machines. If you can prove that P=NP with any implementation of a Turing machine (soap bubbles and plastic rods/digital computer/whatever) it will hold for all Turing machines. That's the point of abstracting away computation to a Turing machine.
The company that I used to work for bought a certificate from them for their https site. (yep the one that costs some $500 a year). Unfortunately, the engineer who had done all the certificate generation and signing had left the company, and when it came time to deploy the server, we couldn't find the certificate, and the engineer was vacationing in the Amazon forests or something: unreachable except by snail mail. So I called Verisign customer service, told them that I was calling on behalf of this company, the engineer had left so could they send me a copy of the certificate? The customer service representative goes: "Oh sure, what's your email address?". I give her my email and she emailed it to me. That was it! No id checking. No passphrases. Nothing. And they sent it to me in plaintext email.
So all these days all we had to pay was a microsoft tax on every computer we bought. Now we need to pay a censorware tax on every computer? Consider that dell operates out of texas so they will be installing censorware on every computer they sell. And who's going to be paying for it? You and me! Don't you just love it when the government forces you to buy a product you have no use for?
Once you've read the article and come back to the slashdot page, try to remember what ads you saw on that page. Pretty impressive isn't it, how we've all learnt to ignore the noise and just read the article. So long as the advertisers don't get savvy to this...
On the contrary, just because other governments think that censorship is responsible behavior doesn't make it any less abhorrent. We have an obligation to raise a hue and cry about any behavior that deprives people of their basic human rights. The right to speech is most certainly one of these. So is the right to life. Just because some cultures see it as responsible behavior to put people of a particular faith in a gas chamber doesn't mean that we shut up about it in deference to their sensitivities.
Because taxpayer software should be kept open - we paid for it, we should be able to use it. Locking it up into companies is not the answer...
I think this is a misrepresentation of Microsoft's position. They are not claiming that tax funded software must not be made available to the public. Merely that people must be free to use that software as they choose and not be required to open source their software as the cost of using it. This is why they make mention of the BSD license.
This is not to say that I support Microsoft's argument, just that I wish to clarify it.
Umm. You've baited me, and I shall rise to the occasion. Sorry, left wing theory does not claim that life is a zero sum game. In fact, it claims that by taking from those who have and giving to those who need, we all benefit. Both parties benefit from this action. It does not say that the person who had to give lost. That's a bogus claim.
There are many posts here that try to argue that just because you have sysadmins whose job it is to keep backups of data and networks virus free, and because people spend some time of the day not working, there is really no cost to businesses from virus attacks. This is a ridiculous argument of course.
Just because your business doesn't mind your browsing slashdot when you're supposed to be working, doesn't mean that it is not costing the business anything because you're browsing the web instead of working. The same thing goes for the sysadmin who has to spend her time getting the company's computers and network back on track after a nasty virus attack. Just because that's her job doesn't make the cost unreal. It could be that there are other things she ought to be doing at the time.
writing tools with the assumption "ok everybody has a gui" is wrong. many machines are just servers mounted on a rack. they don't have guis, they probably don't even have x installed. and the only things that run on them are commands that can be invoked at the comand line. if all the tools assumedthe existence of a gui, we get what we all hate most: a certain os from the northeast:)
so long as the email calls back to the server (for a 1 pixel gif, for instance) this exploit will always exist. The trick is to turn off html altogether, and just read text email. Better still, use a "backward" email reader that can read only text.:-)
Not only does security through obscurity not work. Think of this. What if this were suggested by Microsoft. The reaction would have been completely different. Even Cmdr Taco would have been absolutely sure how he felt about this.
On the contrary, the two hemorrhaging companies combine to create a larger company that hemmorhages just as much money. Remember half of the new company is now redundant...
I don't know, but considering how much you seem to read the manuals, I'm guessing you have one more bug in your code: all your months must be off by 1:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Here we have the Slashdot crowd yelling about first amendment rights the moment anybody mentions DeCSS, spending so much of their time daily worrying and posting about the case. And those who need to know about this don't have a clue.
So what are we doing about it?
I beg your pardon. NP-complete has nothing to do with digital computers. Only Turing machines. If you can prove that P=NP with any implementation of a Turing machine (soap bubbles and plastic rods/digital computer/whatever) it will hold for all Turing machines. That's the point of abstracting away computation to a Turing machine.
And the bastards charge money for this service.
So all these days all we had to pay was a microsoft tax on every computer we bought. Now we need to pay a censorware tax on every computer? Consider that dell operates out of texas so they will be installing censorware on every computer they sell. And who's going to be paying for it? You and me! Don't you just love it when the government forces you to buy a product you have no use for?
On Sunday, the New York Times had a far less complimentary review here.
Once you've read the article and come back to the slashdot page, try to remember what ads you saw on that page. Pretty impressive isn't it, how we've all learnt to ignore the noise and just read the article. So long as the advertisers don't get savvy to this...
I think this is a misrepresentation of Microsoft's position. They are not claiming that tax funded software must not be made available to the public. Merely that people must be free to use that software as they choose and not be required to open source their software as the cost of using it. This is why they make mention of the BSD license.
This is not to say that I support Microsoft's argument, just that I wish to clarify it.
Umm. You've baited me, and I shall rise to the occasion. Sorry, left wing theory does not claim that life is a zero sum game. In fact, it claims that by taking from those who have and giving to those who need, we all benefit. Both parties benefit from this action. It does not say that the person who had to give lost. That's a bogus claim.
Washington Irving
writing tools with the assumption "ok everybody has a gui" is wrong. many machines are just servers mounted on a rack. they don't have guis, they probably don't even have x installed. and the only things that run on them are commands that can be invoked at the comand line. if all the tools assumedthe existence of a gui, we get what we all hate most: a certain os from the northeast :)
and thought this was a story on how computers are converting your brain cells into ram? i wonder if mine has ecc.
so long as the email calls back to the server (for a 1 pixel gif, for instance) this exploit will always exist. The trick is to turn off html altogether, and just read text email. Better still, use a "backward" email reader that can read only text. :-)
Not only does security through obscurity not work. Think of this. What if this were suggested by Microsoft. The reaction would have been completely different. Even Cmdr Taco would have been absolutely sure how he felt about this.
Obligatory Gandhi spelling correction.
On the contrary, the two hemorrhaging companies combine to create a larger company that hemmorhages just as much money. Remember half of the new company is now redundant...
The index has more than a long way to go. I just searched for "slashdot". The first page of 17 matches did not contain slashdot anywhere on it. bleah!
I don't know, but considering how much you seem to read the manuals, I'm guessing you have one more bug in your code: all your months must be off by 1 :-)