What ever happened to the Artemis Project? Their plan was to set up a commercial base on the moon. I first heard about it 4 or 5 years ago, but haven't heard anything within the past year.
They were working with volenteers all over the world. It was sort of a non-profit effort with profit gains in mind. (Like most non-profits make money, but just roll it back into the organization for future projects).
I'm sure they have a website, but I am in a rush and can't look it up now. Gregory Bennette (sp??), the science fiction author and a former NASA engineer, was highly involved in it.
If the media insists on calling them hackers, and the mainstream culture thinks of hackers as crackers, why not just make a new word to describe all smart computer geek types, and let them have hacker denote cracker?
I do have to admit, when I think of hacker, the first thing that comes to mind is the cracker/phreaker/skript kiddie type. THEN I think of all my friends, the ethical crackers, the linux geeks, etc. And I've been online as a computer geek for 8 years. It's a perception that is carved in stone.
Incidentally, there is some romanticism to the hacker idea. Hackers (as we call them crackers) are like pirates... and old west outlaws. And vampires. Pirates were bad people. They killed, raped, maimed, stole. But people like that image. They secretly wish they could have been a pirate. It was bad, evil, and romanticised as being exciting and fun. The hacker is the modern pirate, and I suspect 200 years from now, the hacker genre will be the same as the pirate or old west outlaw genre is today. The romanticised bad guy that people want to be but don't want to admit to wanting it.
Likewise, there isn't much in the pirate genre that's realistic or historically accurate. Do you think "Arrr, Matey! Walk the plank!" does any justice to who pirates really were? It's the same with the Hacker paradigm. It's unrealistic, but people want it that way. There's nothing to fantisize about when you know that most hackers do nothing but sit around staring at driver source codes to get their new USB mouse to work. There's nothing exciting about that. The public wants to think about kids with funny hair-dos and camo laptops bouncing signals off of satalites and breaking into the Pentagon.
I understand they were being sued over their mymp3 feature. (I do beleive I said in my email that I had used that service).
My only experience with My MP3.com is when I bought a few CDs online. Again, to me, there's no better proof to me than that. I bought them, cheap-cds.com had my credit card number, they were shipping me the CDs, and I got to listen to those CDs before they ever arrived at my house.
Granted, I never tried listening to My MP3.com with CDs I had previously purchased. I have a ripper, so why listen to them streamed when I can just rip them myself? But I would assume they use that, what is it called, CDDB or whatever. The one where you put in your CD and your computer goes and checks the site, and comes back with the artist name and song titles?
They may not have been using that, in which case, it would have been insecure (if I could just log in and say, "Yeah, I own it"). But if they are using that CDDB thing, that's fairly secure in my mind. It's as just as secure as keeping people from burning ripping songs and making tapes of other people's CDs. Because you HAVE TO HAVE THE CD (or a burned copy) in order for it to be verified. No CD, no verification. The only way for you to pirate would be if you borrowed a friends CD, put it in, let MYMP3 verify it, and return the CD to your friend. But why go to all that trouble when you can just rip the thing while you have it, and have the MP3s local? That's assuming you have to borrow your friend's CD to begin with, since the songs are all on Napster, and even if they weren't on Napster, they'd be on one of the half a dozen other file sharing services, or, barring that, they'd be on several of a million websites and FTP servers and IRC channels? They can't stop this without suing everyone in the world. And even then, they wouldn't stop this. Their best bet is to find a way to fit into the new way things are done. Otherwise, they will die.
Yep, yep. OSC is one of my favorite authors all the way around. I'd also recommend Song Master. Though, like others have said, Ender's Game really is a masterpiece. Saying his other works aren't worth reading just because they're not as good is like ignoring all of Leonardo DaVinci's other art because the Mona Lisa is so beautiful (well, I dunno... is it?)
At any rate, I haven't read as many OSC books as some of the rest of you. I also enjoyed Treason. I've heard his Seventh Son series is not to be missed, and I plan on hitting it someday.
One thing about OSC, is I hate the ending to almost all of his stuff. He's a story teller, and only a story teller. I'm always expecting some major profound punchline to the end of Sci-fi novels, and he just doesn't have those. He tends to put his punch-lines at the beginning (i.e. Speaker for the Dead we find out right off that Ender has "accidentally" committed xenocide. Boom. There's the profound surprise, and the rest of the book is merely telling the story of what happened. All of his books are like that.. Less of a point and more "This happened to someone, and it happened like this".
It makes me sick that they sued MP3.com who has done everything in their power to be legal all this time. The first time I visited MP3.com who knows how many years ago, they were distributing anything and everything, copyright or no. After threat of suit, they cooperated and went to what they are now.. only distributing music they were given artist permission to distribute. Personally, I rather thought they sold out.
They were cooperating, and they got sued anyhow.
I bought some CDs online about a month ago. When I bought them, this thing came up, "You can listen to your music instantly!" I thought it was kinda cool, though a bit annoying, because I couldn't seem to download the songs.. only listen to it streaming. (So I still had to rip the CDs).
I mean, I couldn't even distribute the music had I wanted to! All I could do was hit the button, wait for it to cache, and listen to it. If I wanted to hear it again, I had to do the same thing. They had sufficient proof I had purchased the CD (after all.. I had just bought it). I don't see what the RIAA's problem is.
The record companies have no interest in protecting the artist. The only interest they have is protecting themselves.
MP3's do only one thing that scares them: removes the middle man. THEY are the middle man. They're providing a tangible object.. A CD in a jewel case with a nice label. It is the artist who is providing the intellectual property. Without the need for the CD with the shiney wrapper, there is no more record company, and now it's just between the artist and the listener. That's what they're afraid of. They are loosing that control.
They've already proven their disinterest in the artists' benefits. Look at the suit against Chuck D, an artist. He puts his songs on his website for free download. Embracing the MP3 technology, knowing that the more people who can listen to his music, the more people will buy. Guess what? He's sued by his own label. They are out only for their own paychecks. The RIAA is full of crap when they claim to be protecting the artist.
Think about it: What thing does a signed or unsigned artist want more than anything else in the whole wide world? Airplay. There have been movies with plots where bands go to all lengths to get their music on the radio. They want the fame and they want the chance to sell their music. If it goes unhead, no one will buy it.
That's why you see an increase of music sales corresponding to the MP3 era. At the risk of incriminating myself, I have a vast collection of MP3s, and when I find an artist I really like, I go buy their CD. In some cases, I've bought all their CDs. My favorite artists I discovered online. Artists with labels, but that they rarely play on the radio (at least around here.) I've been happy with all the CDs I've bought based on MP3 listening, versus the large number of CDs I hate that I bought based off of listening to the radio. It helps, doesn't hurt, the industry, that I'm happy with the music I buy.
Of course, this doesn't help popular radio artists that really do suck, but it helps the bands that are really good, that the PEOPLE like...
As I've been saying for the past 3 years, music is currently in an unnatural position. Up until the 60's/70's, "the people's" music was ALWAYS free and unrestricted. (By the people's music, I mean music the common person listens to, the short-format popular music, which, 500 years ago were bar tunes and folk dances, in the 30's, jazz, now pop/country/rock, etc.) Humans who have usually had very little control over the rest of their lives had control over one thing: their music. Serfs, peasants, even slaves, had their music. It's something no one could take from them or dictate to them. They could choose what they liked and discard and mock what they did not like.
Now that people have all this freedom in their lives, music is not free. By free, I don't mean free from cost. I mean free to migrate, free to choose. The songs we hear are force-fed to us on the radio. We are told who is popular, and who is not. We can't so much as hum a tune without being sued by the label, and god-forbid we should actually use the lyrics in any way.
This is what's causing the revolution. We want our music back. It's always been ours, and now we want it back again. We're tired of Backstreet Boys and Britany Spears and we just want to hear honesty again. We want to be able to choose that honesty as we see fit, as individuals and as a society. For me it's not so much the fact that I don't have to pay for the music as it is that I can choose my own music -- as I want it, when I want it -- without getting ripped off.
And I'd much rather see a worthy artist get my $16.95 than to see the record co get $14 of it and the artist getting two bucks.
The "other" Kevin, Kevin Poulsen, I beleive was the first cracker to be banned from computers after his release from prison. First off, Poulsen was actually convicted. Second off, Kevin wasn't banned from using a television or cell phones. But then again, this was a few years ago, and you couldn't really access stocks through a cell phone.
At any rate, to my point. Poulsen made his living by writing articles for Ziff-Davis. Technical articles. Using a typewriter. A strange twist of irony, but no one prevented him from learning about the technology he wasn't allowed to use, and then writing about it. Now he's fairly famous as a writer, and I've seen his articles on ZDNet and in Wired.
I also know an ex-convict hacker in IRC. He is banned from using any computers unless it's at work, and also banned from associating himself with hackers of any kind. Like most hackers I've known, he's a nice guy, and will give good advice on computer security when asked.
The best person to get security advice from is someone who knows about it. Someone who can think around the system, think of ways to defeat it, will do better to secure that same system than someone who sits in an office reading the manual on how to secure a system.
Personally, I think they should let him give lectures all he wants, as long as he's not telling people HOW to crack, or encouraging such behaviour. If the state is so worried about it, then have his parolle officer or someone Kevin doesn't know sit in on his meetings. If he's being bad, THEN ban him from doing it.
It does sound to me like this judge is more interested in having Kevin earn less than she does, more than she's interested in keeping him from committing more crimes. This, in my mind, is stilted justice, especially when the guy spent 4+ years in prision without a trial or a bail hearing. Crime committed or no, that is no way to handle it.
Re:Don't know if anyone read the article ..
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No, no, no... Edith is the mod editor. It's the tool they use to create the guinea pigs and moose heads and slot machines. According to the article in Computer Gaming World on this, Edith needs some polish to make it easy for people to use (and even then, they said only the most advanced Sim-ers would be able to use it), and then they'll release it. It isn't the source code to anything, just a "map editor" if you will. Then they'll have a place on their website where people can download the creations of others.
However, I no one will be able to use Edith to create REAL computer virii or Trojan Horses, like this article was insinuating. They made it sound like Edith somehow put the mystical power of computer cracking and virus writing into the hands of the average citizen, and, oh no, what ever will we do then?!
Media Sensationalism and Reader Rabbit
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By then, however, gamers may have been forced to confront the same challenges that face e-mail users whose computers are frequently attacked by hostile programs.
"Right now it would be hard to convince a prosecutor to attempt to convict someone for such a program, but that may change," said Mark Rasch, a former assistant United States attorney who successfully prosecuted a Cornell graduate student for releasing the first Internet worm in 1989. "These things become more important as online gaming proliferates. With online gambling it will become even more problematic."
WTF??? I read about this Guinea Pig mod to this game two months ago in Computer Gaming World, and I thought, "No way! That is so cool!" All it did was prove to me that this thing really simulated real life, and was versitile enough that they could release such a hugely new feature into the game months after its release. It almost made me go out and buy it then and there.
It's a fscking game! The point of a game is for it to be difficult! If Sims players are so upset that they would, as this litigous Mark Rasch put it, attempt to CONVICT the programmer, then perhaps they should move to more easy to play games, like Reader Rabbit. That way, they'd always win.
To me, this is adding value to the product. For the same low price of $50 (or whatever it is), you get a game that is always changing, always becoming more challenging. Sounds to me like you're not likely to get bored of The Sims within the first two weeks of game play, like so many other games I've played. Again, if people want an easy game where they always win, then leave the computer alone and watch sitcoms.
I don't see where they get off saying "gamers may have been forced to confront the same challenges that face e-mail users whose computers are frequently attacked by hostile programs." What??? I don't see where anyone's hard drives have been deleted. I don't see where anyone's been forced. Sim players choose to download mods. Worm recipients don't choose to receive worms. And even then he's sensational about it. I'm an e-mail user, and I'm not frequently attacked by hostile programs. I've gotten maybe 3 infected emails in my entire life, and even then, was not stupid enough to open "prettypark.exe".
To me, this article didn't get bad in the middle, like a lot of you said. This article was doomsday from the very beginning. There was a lot of negative and dark language from the headline to the last sentance with only a few minor positive highlights.
Incidentally, the virus he refers to in Snowcrash only worked on hackers, so you'd think the media would like that... Get rid of the hackers, and all your problems will be solved.
This is a ridiculous idea (especially charging $1 million). Who in this country has $1 million to blow on a patent? I'm sure IBM and General Mills and Microsoft has a million bucks to blow on a patent. Do *I* have a million bucks? If I invented a flying car tomorrow, and I had to pay a million bucks to patent it... HAHAHAHAHA! Never.
Plus you said this idea would stop it from being worthwhile to patent ideas that don't directly make money. Who ever would have thought the hoola-hoop would have made money? Whether something will make money or not is irrelative and subjective. It's a matter of opinion, and.. what if someone doesn't want the patent to make money? What if they have some noble cause, and this patent saves lives, but they want control so it can be done the "right" way. Not that this happens a lot, but motivation for wanting the patent should not be at question.
Perhaps the charging some fee yearly MIGHT be a good idea, but to me, this produces a lot of paperwork and hassel which, to a big company is no problem, but to the "little guy", is.
What I think it wrong is the story I heard about the guy who invented and patented the intermitant windshield-wiper. 30 years later or so, automakers started using intermitant windshield wipers. I don't know many details, if they knowingly "stole" his idea (in which case my opinion would change on this), or the more likely case, if they came up with the idea on their own and weren't aware of the patent.
In any case, this guy sued (after these devices had been in use for a good number of years) and got millions of dollars in back damages and now makes money by licensing to the automakers.
IMO, this kind of thing shouldn't happen, UNLESS they automakers STOLE his idea intentionally. Had he invented the thing, then 2 years later they started using them, then he sued, fine. If he had had the patent for 30 years, and they started using it and he sued right away, fine. But waiting so long after they started using it to sue. . . . ... .
Again, there are missing details in this story which could sway my opinion. My point is that there are good uses of patent and bad uses. On the face of it, this was a bad case. Placing a million dollar fee on getting a patent would only make things MUCH worse for everyone but the existing giants.
BTW, the cost of a patent itself is fairly small, about $500 I beleive. However, to properly prepare a patent takes a lawyer, which can cost several thousand dollars. No small thing.
IMO, Patents are even more necessary now that they ever have been. Granted, the patent process may need some revision. Patents exist so that the "weak" can create an invention and then have a grace period during which the "strong" can't touch them. This gives the little guy a chance to develop and market his product before the big guy comes in and stomps all over him, stealing his idea and developing it/marketing it with a larger financial backing. And I think patents should apply to software that does something new. Code is just a set of gears and pullies that, when put together, preforms a task. Just because that task isn't in the "real" world doesn't change the fact that it does something through innovation. Right now, me and 6 other people are starting an internet service for the construction industry. It is unique and useful. We started the patent process several months ago on the "way of conducting business" I beleive is the catagory. We aren't doing this because we're selfish and want to push aside the little guy. We ARE the little guy. We have nothing but the free labor of the seven of us in the evenings after our "day jobs", a little bit of investment money, and one guy who is using all of his credit cards. We know this idea will work, but we're so afraid that someone with more money, equipment, programmers, advertisers, etc. is going to see our idea, jump in, start their own site, blow $50 million on the thing, before we've even sold 100 people. The big guys have that power. Isn't that why we all hate Microsoft?? For doing this kind of thing? The sad part is, Patents won't stop this... They only slow it down. The truth is, if a Microsoft or AOL saw us, and wanted to blow us out of the water, they could drain us through legal fees, general stress, buying off members of the board one by one, etc. Or at least they could try. But this isn't a new problem (see Tucker (who failed) and Edison (who didn't)), it's only gotten worse in this age where everyone is a big-corporate monopoly. Patents (should?) help the little guy get going, to hold back the wolves so the little guy has a chance. If all little guys out there knew for a fact they didn't have a chance, they would never innovate... That's how patents promote innovation.
...gullible, as I'm sure you've heard. We are all also arrogant and rebelious blokes, and, seeing as how I live in Washington state, all I drink is fancy coffee.:)
BTW, isn't it also true that Holland (or parts of Holland) are below sea level? I seem to remember something about dikes in my Americanized Hollish folklore memory banks....
That's odd, just yesterday, I was thinking about all my lego sets and how I'd lost most of the plans to them, and wondering if there might be a website out there with them all amassed, thinking, "Naw, no one has done that yet for sure," and then wishing someone would do it. Wow!
At any rate my point was that the government doens't always know everything they think they know. I know it's safer for the kid to be in the back. It's also safer for me to leave the kid at home when I'm driving... don't even take him out, because then nothing bad could ever happen to him. While I'm at it, I should stay at home.. nothing bad could happen to me there at all. Unless there was a fire. Ok, so I'll stop using electricity since it's known to cause fires, and I'll cook everything outside. But what if there's an earthquake? What if I'm robbed! Anyone can be robbed! Thousands of people die in hurricanes! I KNOW! What if the government just builds a giant bunker someplace with white padded rooms for each of us and we'll live out a nice... safe... life.
Personally, I would want the choice to be able to do this. Again, as others have pointed out, a lot of people die from lung cancer. The government would not get away with outlawing tabacco (see American Prohibition, 1920's.) Please note that a lot of innocent people die from second hand smoke as well.
There is a point at which people sometimes become willing to give up freedom for security. I'm sure if we were willing to give up enough freedom, everyone could be guarenteed to live to 100 years with sufficient income. Personally, I'd rather have risk in my life and know that I'm the one in charge of my destiny, rather than place all my little details in the hands of the government.
I've often thought about why tech types hate Windows. Why people perfered the PC over the Mac. I think it's because we like to be in control over our computers. When my software starts to take that control out of my hands (ala Windows 95, or MACOS) I start complaining. Since I wasn't the one to painstakingly set things up by hand, when it crashes, I complain even more... It wasn't MY fault it went down, and had I more control over the system, it wouldn't have gone down.
I really hate this kind of thing with cars, which are bigger and more simple. I just bought a car that has daytime running lights. The lights are on all the time no matter what. When I asked the salesman if there was a way to shut them off, he looked at me in shock and said, "Why would you want to do that??"...
Lots of reasons. First of all, I want control over my own car. It's that feeling inside. I want to be able to shut them off whenever I want. My last car was old and had battery problems all the time. If anything was drawing power while I tried to start it, I couldn't start it at all... Someday the car I have now will be old and give similar headaches to someone.
For another, there are circumstances beyond the all-wise and knowing government/automakers. Like the time my mom and I were being chased by a drunk driver, and we pulled into a driveway and turned off the lights and we lost him.
Or like air bags, which for a while were seen as the greatest thing since squeezable mayo. Yet now I can't put my 5 year old in the front seat because they've found that airbags kill kids.
It would bother me greatly to be seen more as a number to my government than an individual. When you start saying, "Well, more lives would be saved by forcing people to go 55 that would be saved giving the freedom for contengencies," I get scared. Sure, THEIR lives might be saved, but what about mine? My life is what matters to me, and the life of my family. If my kid was bleeding from the neck, like hell if I wouldn't want to get him to the hospital at faster than 35 miles per hour.
When will online news people finally wise up that the web is not TV nor is it a newspaper?
MSNBC's article about DotComGuy goes on and on about all the websites that are sponsoring DotComGuy, about all the live web-cams in his house, etc, etc. But no where, once, in the entire article is there so much as a link to any of these places. Not even the URL to www.dotcomguy.com. I had to guess at the address (which in this case happened to be an easy guess).
This is not an isolated incident. Slashdot is fairly good about providing nice little links off to various related places, but 99% of the other places I read news are about as interactive as river rock. At least a river rock will roll down a steep hill.
When I'm reading an article about a website I expect there to be a link to that website. This seems fairly obvious, but few reporters will do this. I get the feeling that all of these articles were transplanted from out of the newspaper, which they probably were. Or written by print journalists who couldn't get a decent job doing the "real thing".
There is so much possibility for the web. With it, we are documenting the future history of the world. We have the opportunity to create news like the world has never seen - an as-you-want-it feed of information. I want to be able to click on an article, read a bit, dig deeper if I want, and if the interest is there, I would like to learn all known information on the topic, just by clicking embeded links out to other sites that already have that info amassed. The technology is here. Most websites take advantage of it. News sites DON'T.
Anyhow, for those who are curious, DotComGuy can be found at www.dotcomguy.com... Since MSNBC didn't have the courtesy to provide a link.
He had everything to do with the invention of the atomic bomb! You can't have BigBoom without E=MC^2.
Aside from that, I was reading about him on Time magazine's site the other day, and while he was a pacifist, he did become an American citizen in the last couple of years of the war, and helped us build the bomb... Along with other great atomic era scientits, such as Fermi and Feynman (and some others I'm not remembering now).
Einstien decided to help the Allies build their bomb shortly after it was discovered that Germany had successfully split an atom. Then he knew it was either us or them.
Just wondering but how does MS-DOS not qualify as an OS? I know how Winblowz 3.x & 9x don't count as OSes, since they are merely GUIs which actually use DOS as their actual OS. If DOS isn't actually an OS then what operating system is running a DOS-based computer??
I knew I secretly had Unix installed on my machine years ago!!
The CEO of one of our subsidiaries suggested I pull the plug on our internet connection over the weekend. This suggestion followed an e-mail I sent out asking people to please not open any strange attachments over the holidays.
As far as I know, we're all y2k bug-free, so this isn't a concern. As for virii in email, those will still be waiting for us on our hosted email servers on Monday -- whether we pull the DSL line or not.
The only thing left to be scared of is DoS and cracking attempts, and I figure we're so small, who would try to make a statement by hacking us??
I figured thet panic caused by any stray weekend or early-monday-morning workers not getting internet access would be worse than the risk caused by DoS and cracking attempts.
I have to do everything I can to ease the panic, not help it spread.
I think it's important to always remember where you came from and to give from your strengths remembering you've got weaknesses too.
I always feel guilty when I ask a question that I know is stupid, but I've not found the answer anywhere else. I always brace for the RTFM!!!s and the flaming that follows. Moments when I actually get a helpful answer are serendipitious and put a smile on my face.
And I always try my best to give back. I know a bit about NT and TCP/IP and troubleshooting, and if someone asks a question, I try to help them solve their problem. I see no reason why I should become as rude as the rest of the people who know something about a specific technology.
There was a time when all of us didn't even know what a computer was. We all needed to learn it, and I would bet that everyone has asked at least one stupid question. To the person who doesn't know the answer, it's NOT a stupid question.
And I'm not perfect either. I've done my share of answering a question with "press alt-F4!"... Back in the BBS days it was alt-H... But I still try to generally be nice:) Knowing Linux or networking or hacking doesn't make you better than everyone else. It only makes you more knowledgable.
As for documentation, it's boring. That's why no one takes the time to do it.
RTFM, for a Linux newbie (however proficient with computers they are) is extreemly frustrating.
Linux does take a little getting used to. I finally took the plunge on my home computer two months ago, and it was a scary experience for me. It is a vastly different paradigm than DOS/Windoze. It's scary to be partitioning a secondary drive, not wanting to accidently partition your primary drive (which still has Win95 on it, along with years of beloved data), especially when the partitions have names like, "hda1" and "hdb6" instead of "C" and "E".
I'm very fortunate that some people on IRC were willing to give me a few begruding answers. RTFM doesn't help much when you're not even sure where to start looking. Even linux.org doesn't help much when you don't know an XFree86 from a \dev\...
Now that I've used it a bit and understand some of the basics, finding help in the manuals is much easier, though it can still be tiresome and frustrating.
I wouldn't mind seeing some better documentation out there. It seems to me that the HOWTO's are a bit disorganized, and in some cases didn't cover topics I needed to read about. I figured with all this open-sourceness and late-night-labor-of-love coding that there would be plenty great docs overlapping every possible known linux configuration. Yet I had a heck of a time trying to find out what an error message meant when I kept trying to use X.
I like Linux, and I'd love to see it one everyone's workstation in every business and home and send Gates back to his mommy. Most people are afraid of it, though, and good support and docs is just the thing to help abate that. Anything to help alieviate the confusion would contribute to its success.
(As a funny side-note... The guy who convinced me to install linux promptly disappeared from IRC for a month and a half, until about the time I got it running... So much for his help!:) )
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What ever happened to the Artemis Project? Their plan was to set up a commercial base on the moon. I first heard about it 4 or 5 years ago, but haven't heard anything within the past year.
They were working with volenteers all over the world. It was sort of a non-profit effort with profit gains in mind. (Like most non-profits make money, but just roll it back into the organization for future projects).
I'm sure they have a website, but I am in a rush and can't look it up now. Gregory Bennette (sp??), the science fiction author and a former NASA engineer, was highly involved in it.
If the media insists on calling them hackers, and the mainstream culture thinks of hackers as crackers, why not just make a new word to describe all smart computer geek types, and let them have hacker denote cracker?
I do have to admit, when I think of hacker, the first thing that comes to mind is the cracker/phreaker/skript kiddie type. THEN I think of all my friends, the ethical crackers, the linux geeks, etc. And I've been online as a computer geek for 8 years. It's a perception that is carved in stone.
Incidentally, there is some romanticism to the hacker idea. Hackers (as we call them crackers) are like pirates... and old west outlaws. And vampires. Pirates were bad people. They killed, raped, maimed, stole. But people like that image. They secretly wish they could have been a pirate. It was bad, evil, and romanticised as being exciting and fun. The hacker is the modern pirate, and I suspect 200 years from now, the hacker genre will be the same as the pirate or old west outlaw genre is today. The romanticised bad guy that people want to be but don't want to admit to wanting it.
Likewise, there isn't much in the pirate genre that's realistic or historically accurate. Do you think "Arrr, Matey! Walk the plank!" does any justice to who pirates really were? It's the same with the Hacker paradigm. It's unrealistic, but people want it that way. There's nothing to fantisize about when you know that most hackers do nothing but sit around staring at driver source codes to get their new USB mouse to work. There's nothing exciting about that. The public wants to think about kids with funny hair-dos and camo laptops bouncing signals off of satalites and breaking into the Pentagon.
I understand they were being sued over their mymp3 feature. (I do beleive I said in my email that I had used that service).
My only experience with My MP3.com is when I bought a few CDs online. Again, to me, there's no better proof to me than that. I bought them, cheap-cds.com had my credit card number, they were shipping me the CDs, and I got to listen to those CDs before they ever arrived at my house.
Granted, I never tried listening to My MP3.com with CDs I had previously purchased. I have a ripper, so why listen to them streamed when I can just rip them myself? But I would assume they use that, what is it called, CDDB or whatever. The one where you put in your CD and your computer goes and checks the site, and comes back with the artist name and song titles?
They may not have been using that, in which case, it would have been insecure (if I could just log in and say, "Yeah, I own it"). But if they are using that CDDB thing, that's fairly secure in my mind. It's as just as secure as keeping people from burning ripping songs and making tapes of other people's CDs. Because you HAVE TO HAVE THE CD (or a burned copy) in order for it to be verified. No CD, no verification. The only way for you to pirate would be if you borrowed a friends CD, put it in, let MYMP3 verify it, and return the CD to your friend. But why go to all that trouble when you can just rip the thing while you have it, and have the MP3s local? That's assuming you have to borrow your friend's CD to begin with, since the songs are all on Napster, and even if they weren't on Napster, they'd be on one of the half a dozen other file sharing services, or, barring that, they'd be on several of a million websites and FTP servers and IRC channels? They can't stop this without suing everyone in the world. And even then, they wouldn't stop this. Their best bet is to find a way to fit into the new way things are done. Otherwise, they will die.
Yep, yep. OSC is one of my favorite authors all the way around. I'd also recommend Song Master. Though, like others have said, Ender's Game really is a masterpiece. Saying his other works aren't worth reading just because they're not as good is like ignoring all of Leonardo DaVinci's other art because the Mona Lisa is so beautiful (well, I dunno... is it?)
At any rate, I haven't read as many OSC books as some of the rest of you. I also enjoyed Treason. I've heard his Seventh Son series is not to be missed, and I plan on hitting it someday.
One thing about OSC, is I hate the ending to almost all of his stuff. He's a story teller, and only a story teller. I'm always expecting some major profound punchline to the end of Sci-fi novels, and he just doesn't have those. He tends to put his punch-lines at the beginning (i.e. Speaker for the Dead we find out right off that Ender has "accidentally" committed xenocide. Boom. There's the profound surprise, and the rest of the book is merely telling the story of what happened. All of his books are like that.. Less of a point and more "This happened to someone, and it happened like this".
And he does a great job of it.
It makes me sick that they sued MP3.com who has done everything in their power to be legal all this time. The first time I visited MP3.com who knows how many years ago, they were distributing anything and everything, copyright or no. After threat of suit, they cooperated and went to what they are now.. only distributing music they were given artist permission to distribute. Personally, I rather thought they sold out.
They were cooperating, and they got sued anyhow.
I bought some CDs online about a month ago. When I bought them, this thing came up, "You can listen to your music instantly!" I thought it was kinda cool, though a bit annoying, because I couldn't seem to download the songs.. only listen to it streaming. (So I still had to rip the CDs).
I mean, I couldn't even distribute the music had I wanted to! All I could do was hit the button, wait for it to cache, and listen to it. If I wanted to hear it again, I had to do the same thing. They had sufficient proof I had purchased the CD (after all.. I had just bought it). I don't see what the RIAA's problem is.
Ok, I'm done now.
The record companies have no interest in protecting the artist. The only interest they have is protecting themselves.
MP3's do only one thing that scares them: removes the middle man. THEY are the middle man. They're providing a tangible object.. A CD in a jewel case with a nice label. It is the artist who is providing the intellectual property. Without the need for the CD with the shiney wrapper, there is no more record company, and now it's just between the artist and the listener. That's what they're afraid of. They are loosing that control.
They've already proven their disinterest in the artists' benefits. Look at the suit against Chuck D, an artist. He puts his songs on his website for free download. Embracing the MP3 technology, knowing that the more people who can listen to his music, the more people will buy. Guess what? He's sued by his own label. They are out only for their own paychecks. The RIAA is full of crap when they claim to be protecting the artist.
Think about it: What thing does a signed or unsigned artist want more than anything else in the whole wide world? Airplay. There have been movies with plots where bands go to all lengths to get their music on the radio. They want the fame and they want the chance to sell their music. If it goes unhead, no one will buy it.
That's why you see an increase of music sales corresponding to the MP3 era. At the risk of incriminating myself, I have a vast collection of MP3s, and when I find an artist I really like, I go buy their CD. In some cases, I've bought all their CDs. My favorite artists I discovered online. Artists with labels, but that they rarely play on the radio (at least around here.) I've been happy with all the CDs I've bought based on MP3 listening, versus the large number of CDs I hate that I bought based off of listening to the radio. It helps, doesn't hurt, the industry, that I'm happy with the music I buy.
Of course, this doesn't help popular radio artists that really do suck, but it helps the bands that are really good, that the PEOPLE like...
As I've been saying for the past 3 years, music is currently in an unnatural position. Up until the 60's/70's, "the people's" music was ALWAYS free and unrestricted. (By the people's music, I mean music the common person listens to, the short-format popular music, which, 500 years ago were bar tunes and folk dances, in the 30's, jazz, now pop/country/rock, etc.) Humans who have usually had very little control over the rest of their lives had control over one thing: their music. Serfs, peasants, even slaves, had their music. It's something no one could take from them or dictate to them. They could choose what they liked and discard and mock what they did not like.
Now that people have all this freedom in their lives, music is not free. By free, I don't mean free from cost. I mean free to migrate, free to choose. The songs we hear are force-fed to us on the radio. We are told who is popular, and who is not. We can't so much as hum a tune without being sued by the label, and god-forbid we should actually use the lyrics in any way.
This is what's causing the revolution. We want our music back. It's always been ours, and now we want it back again. We're tired of Backstreet Boys and Britany Spears and we just want to hear honesty again. We want to be able to choose that honesty as we see fit, as individuals and as a society. For me it's not so much the fact that I don't have to pay for the music as it is that I can choose my own music -- as I want it, when I want it -- without getting ripped off.
And I'd much rather see a worthy artist get my $16.95 than to see the record co get $14 of it and the artist getting two bucks.
The "other" Kevin, Kevin Poulsen, I beleive was the first cracker to be banned from computers after his release from prison. First off, Poulsen was actually convicted. Second off, Kevin wasn't banned from using a television or cell phones. But then again, this was a few years ago, and you couldn't really access stocks through a cell phone.
At any rate, to my point. Poulsen made his living by writing articles for Ziff-Davis. Technical articles. Using a typewriter. A strange twist of irony, but no one prevented him from learning about the technology he wasn't allowed to use, and then writing about it. Now he's fairly famous as a writer, and I've seen his articles on ZDNet and in Wired.
I also know an ex-convict hacker in IRC. He is banned from using any computers unless it's at work, and also banned from associating himself with hackers of any kind. Like most hackers I've known, he's a nice guy, and will give good advice on computer security when asked.
The best person to get security advice from is someone who knows about it. Someone who can think around the system, think of ways to defeat it, will do better to secure that same system than someone who sits in an office reading the manual on how to secure a system.
Personally, I think they should let him give lectures all he wants, as long as he's not telling people HOW to crack, or encouraging such behaviour. If the state is so worried about it, then have his parolle officer or someone Kevin doesn't know sit in on his meetings. If he's being bad, THEN ban him from doing it.
It does sound to me like this judge is more interested in having Kevin earn less than she does, more than she's interested in keeping him from committing more crimes. This, in my mind, is stilted justice, especially when the guy spent 4+ years in prision without a trial or a bail hearing. Crime committed or no, that is no way to handle it.
No, no, no... Edith is the mod editor. It's the tool they use to create the guinea pigs and moose heads and slot machines. According to the article in Computer Gaming World on this, Edith needs some polish to make it easy for people to use (and even then, they said only the most advanced Sim-ers would be able to use it), and then they'll release it. It isn't the source code to anything, just a "map editor" if you will. Then they'll have a place on their website where people can download the creations of others.
However, I no one will be able to use Edith to create REAL computer virii or Trojan Horses, like this article was insinuating. They made it sound like Edith somehow put the mystical power of computer cracking and virus writing into the hands of the average citizen, and, oh no, what ever will we do then?!
By then, however, gamers may have been forced to confront the same challenges that face e-mail users whose computers are frequently attacked by hostile programs.
"Right now it would be hard to convince a prosecutor to attempt to convict someone for such a program, but that may change," said Mark Rasch, a former assistant United States attorney who successfully prosecuted a Cornell graduate student for releasing the first Internet worm in 1989. "These things become more important as online gaming proliferates. With online gambling it will become even more problematic."
WTF??? I read about this Guinea Pig mod to this game two months ago in Computer Gaming World, and I thought, "No way! That is so cool!" All it did was prove to me that this thing really simulated real life, and was versitile enough that they could release such a hugely new feature into the game months after its release. It almost made me go out and buy it then and there.
It's a fscking game! The point of a game is for it to be difficult! If Sims players are so upset that they would, as this litigous Mark Rasch put it, attempt to CONVICT the programmer, then perhaps they should move to more easy to play games, like Reader Rabbit. That way, they'd always win.
To me, this is adding value to the product. For the same low price of $50 (or whatever it is), you get a game that is always changing, always becoming more challenging. Sounds to me like you're not likely to get bored of The Sims within the first two weeks of game play, like so many other games I've played. Again, if people want an easy game where they always win, then leave the computer alone and watch sitcoms.
I don't see where they get off saying "gamers may have been forced to confront the same challenges that face e-mail users whose computers are frequently attacked by hostile programs." What??? I don't see where anyone's hard drives have been deleted. I don't see where anyone's been forced. Sim players choose to download mods. Worm recipients don't choose to receive worms. And even then he's sensational about it. I'm an e-mail user, and I'm not frequently attacked by hostile programs. I've gotten maybe 3 infected emails in my entire life, and even then, was not stupid enough to open "prettypark.exe".
To me, this article didn't get bad in the middle, like a lot of you said. This article was doomsday from the very beginning. There was a lot of negative and dark language from the headline to the last sentance with only a few minor positive highlights.
Incidentally, the virus he refers to in Snowcrash only worked on hackers, so you'd think the media would like that... Get rid of the hackers, and all your problems will be solved.
This is a ridiculous idea (especially charging $1 million). Who in this country has $1 million to blow on a patent? I'm sure IBM and General Mills and Microsoft has a million bucks to blow on a patent. Do *I* have a million bucks? If I invented a flying car tomorrow, and I had to pay a million bucks to patent it... HAHAHAHAHA! Never.
.. .
Plus you said this idea would stop it from being worthwhile to patent ideas that don't directly make money. Who ever would have thought the hoola-hoop would have made money? Whether something will make money or not is irrelative and subjective. It's a matter of opinion, and.. what if someone doesn't want the patent to make money? What if they have some noble cause, and this patent saves lives, but they want control so it can be done the "right" way. Not that this happens a lot, but motivation for wanting the patent should not be at question.
Perhaps the charging some fee yearly MIGHT be a good idea, but to me, this produces a lot of paperwork and hassel which, to a big company is no problem, but to the "little guy", is.
What I think it wrong is the story I heard about the guy who invented and patented the intermitant windshield-wiper. 30 years later or so, automakers started using intermitant windshield wipers. I don't know many details, if they knowingly "stole" his idea (in which case my opinion would change on this), or the more likely case, if they came up with the idea on their own and weren't aware of the patent.
In any case, this guy sued (after these devices had been in use for a good number of years) and got millions of dollars in back damages and now makes money by licensing to the automakers.
IMO, this kind of thing shouldn't happen, UNLESS they automakers STOLE his idea intentionally. Had he invented the thing, then 2 years later they started using them, then he sued, fine. If he had had the patent for 30 years, and they started using it and he sued right away, fine. But waiting so long after they started using it to sue. . . . .
Again, there are missing details in this story which could sway my opinion. My point is that there are good uses of patent and bad uses. On the face of it, this was a bad case. Placing a million dollar fee on getting a patent would only make things MUCH worse for everyone but the existing giants.
BTW, the cost of a patent itself is fairly small, about $500 I beleive. However, to properly prepare a patent takes a lawyer, which can cost several thousand dollars. No small thing.
Crap, I know I put line breaks's in there!! I even previewed it!! Argh, what a mess!!
IMO, Patents are even more necessary now that they ever have been. Granted, the patent process may need some revision. Patents exist so that the "weak" can create an invention and then have a grace period during which the "strong" can't touch them. This gives the little guy a chance to develop and market his product before the big guy comes in and stomps all over him, stealing his idea and developing it/marketing it with a larger financial backing. And I think patents should apply to software that does something new. Code is just a set of gears and pullies that, when put together, preforms a task. Just because that task isn't in the "real" world doesn't change the fact that it does something through innovation. Right now, me and 6 other people are starting an internet service for the construction industry. It is unique and useful. We started the patent process several months ago on the "way of conducting business" I beleive is the catagory. We aren't doing this because we're selfish and want to push aside the little guy. We ARE the little guy. We have nothing but the free labor of the seven of us in the evenings after our "day jobs", a little bit of investment money, and one guy who is using all of his credit cards. We know this idea will work, but we're so afraid that someone with more money, equipment, programmers, advertisers, etc. is going to see our idea, jump in, start their own site, blow $50 million on the thing, before we've even sold 100 people. The big guys have that power. Isn't that why we all hate Microsoft?? For doing this kind of thing? The sad part is, Patents won't stop this... They only slow it down. The truth is, if a Microsoft or AOL saw us, and wanted to blow us out of the water, they could drain us through legal fees, general stress, buying off members of the board one by one, etc. Or at least they could try. But this isn't a new problem (see Tucker (who failed) and Edison (who didn't)), it's only gotten worse in this age where everyone is a big-corporate monopoly. Patents (should?) help the little guy get going, to hold back the wolves so the little guy has a chance. If all little guys out there knew for a fact they didn't have a chance, they would never innovate... That's how patents promote innovation.
...gullible, as I'm sure you've heard. We are all also arrogant and rebelious blokes, and, seeing as how I live in Washington state, all I drink is fancy coffee. :)
BTW, isn't it also true that Holland (or parts of Holland) are below sea level? I seem to remember something about dikes in my Americanized Hollish folklore memory banks....
That's odd, just yesterday, I was thinking about all my lego sets and how I'd lost most of the plans to them, and wondering if there might be a website out there with them all amassed, thinking, "Naw, no one has done that yet for sure," and then wishing someone would do it. Wow!
I knew you had them, but you eat them too?
At any rate my point was that the government doens't always know everything they think they know. I know it's safer for the kid to be in the back. It's also safer for me to leave the kid at home when I'm driving... don't even take him out, because then nothing bad could ever happen to him. While I'm at it, I should stay at home.. nothing bad could happen to me there at all. Unless there was a fire. Ok, so I'll stop using electricity since it's known to cause fires, and I'll cook everything outside. But what if there's an earthquake? What if I'm robbed! Anyone can be robbed! Thousands of people die in hurricanes! I KNOW! What if the government just builds a giant bunker someplace with white padded rooms for each of us and we'll live out a nice... safe... life.
Sure, I'd love this. But also give me the ability to drive it myself when I want to.
Personally, I would want the choice to be able to do this. Again, as others have pointed out, a lot of people die from lung cancer. The government would not get away with outlawing tabacco (see American Prohibition, 1920's.) Please note that a lot of innocent people die from second hand smoke as well.
There is a point at which people sometimes become willing to give up freedom for security. I'm sure if we were willing to give up enough freedom, everyone could be guarenteed to live to 100 years with sufficient income. Personally, I'd rather have risk in my life and know that I'm the one in charge of my destiny, rather than place all my little details in the hands of the government.
I've often thought about why tech types hate Windows. Why people perfered the PC over the Mac. I think it's because we like to be in control over our computers. When my software starts to take that control out of my hands (ala Windows 95, or MACOS) I start complaining. Since I wasn't the one to painstakingly set things up by hand, when it crashes, I complain even more... It wasn't MY fault it went down, and had I more control over the system, it wouldn't have gone down.
I really hate this kind of thing with cars, which are bigger and more simple. I just bought a car that has daytime running lights. The lights are on all the time no matter what. When I asked the salesman if there was a way to shut them off, he looked at me in shock and said, "Why would you want to do that??"...
Lots of reasons. First of all, I want control over my own car. It's that feeling inside. I want to be able to shut them off whenever I want. My last car was old and had battery problems all the time. If anything was drawing power while I tried to start it, I couldn't start it at all... Someday the car I have now will be old and give similar headaches to someone.
For another, there are circumstances beyond the all-wise and knowing government/automakers. Like the time my mom and I were being chased by a drunk driver, and we pulled into a driveway and turned off the lights and we lost him.
Or like air bags, which for a while were seen as the greatest thing since squeezable mayo. Yet now I can't put my 5 year old in the front seat because they've found that airbags kill kids.
It would bother me greatly to be seen more as a number to my government than an individual. When you start saying, "Well, more lives would be saved by forcing people to go 55 that would be saved giving the freedom for contengencies," I get scared. Sure, THEIR lives might be saved, but what about mine? My life is what matters to me, and the life of my family. If my kid was bleeding from the neck, like hell if I wouldn't want to get him to the hospital at faster than 35 miles per hour.
When will online news people finally wise up that the web is not TV nor is it a newspaper?
MSNBC's article about DotComGuy goes on and on about all the websites that are sponsoring DotComGuy, about all the live web-cams in his house, etc, etc. But no where, once, in the entire article is there so much as a link to any of these places. Not even the URL to www.dotcomguy.com. I had to guess at the address (which in this case happened to be an easy guess).
This is not an isolated incident. Slashdot is fairly good about providing nice little links off to various related places, but 99% of the other places I read news are about as interactive as river rock. At least a river rock will roll down a steep hill.
When I'm reading an article about a website I expect there to be a link to that website. This seems fairly obvious, but few reporters will do this. I get the feeling that all of these articles were transplanted from out of the newspaper, which they probably were. Or written by print journalists who couldn't get a decent job doing the "real thing".
There is so much possibility for the web. With it, we are documenting the future history of the world. We have the opportunity to create news like the world has never seen - an as-you-want-it feed of information. I want to be able to click on an article, read a bit, dig deeper if I want, and if the interest is there, I would like to learn all known information on the topic, just by clicking embeded links out to other sites that already have that info amassed. The technology is here. Most websites take advantage of it. News sites DON'T.
Anyhow, for those who are curious, DotComGuy can be found at www.dotcomguy.com... Since MSNBC didn't have the courtesy to provide a link.
He had everything to do with the invention of the atomic bomb! You can't have BigBoom without E=MC^2.
Aside from that, I was reading about him on Time magazine's site the other day, and while he was a pacifist, he did become an American citizen in the last couple of years of the war, and helped us build the bomb... Along with other great atomic era scientits, such as Fermi and Feynman (and some others I'm not remembering now).
Einstien decided to help the Allies build their bomb shortly after it was discovered that Germany had successfully split an atom. Then he knew it was either us or them.
You can still get to 2600 through:
www.2600.com/mindex.html
Just wondering but how does MS-DOS not qualify as an OS? I know how Winblowz 3.x & 9x don't count as OSes, since they are merely GUIs which actually use DOS as their actual OS. If DOS isn't actually an OS then what operating system is running a DOS-based computer??
I knew I secretly had Unix installed on my machine years ago!!
The CEO of one of our subsidiaries suggested I pull the plug on our internet connection over the weekend. This suggestion followed an e-mail I sent out asking people to please not open any strange attachments over the holidays.
As far as I know, we're all y2k bug-free, so this isn't a concern. As for virii in email, those will still be waiting for us on our hosted email servers on Monday -- whether we pull the DSL line or not.
The only thing left to be scared of is DoS and cracking attempts, and I figure we're so small, who would try to make a statement by hacking us??
I figured thet panic caused by any stray weekend or early-monday-morning workers not getting internet access would be worse than the risk caused by DoS and cracking attempts.
I have to do everything I can to ease the panic, not help it spread.
I think it's important to always remember where you came from and to give from your strengths remembering you've got weaknesses too.
:) Knowing Linux or networking or hacking doesn't make you better than everyone else. It only makes you more knowledgable.
I always feel guilty when I ask a question that I know is stupid, but I've not found the answer anywhere else. I always brace for the RTFM!!!s and the flaming that follows. Moments when I actually get a helpful answer are serendipitious and put a smile on my face.
And I always try my best to give back. I know a bit about NT and TCP/IP and troubleshooting, and if someone asks a question, I try to help them solve their problem. I see no reason why I should become as rude as the rest of the people who know something about a specific technology.
There was a time when all of us didn't even know what a computer was. We all needed to learn it, and I would bet that everyone has asked at least one stupid question. To the person who doesn't know the answer, it's NOT a stupid question.
And I'm not perfect either. I've done my share of answering a question with "press alt-F4!"... Back in the BBS days it was alt-H... But I still try to generally be nice
As for documentation, it's boring. That's why no one takes the time to do it.
RTFM, for a Linux newbie (however proficient with computers they are) is extreemly frustrating.
:) )
Linux does take a little getting used to. I finally took the plunge on my home computer two months ago, and it was a scary experience for me. It is a vastly different paradigm than DOS/Windoze. It's scary to be partitioning a secondary drive, not wanting to accidently partition your primary drive (which still has Win95 on it, along with years of beloved data), especially when the partitions have names like, "hda1" and "hdb6" instead of "C" and "E".
I'm very fortunate that some people on IRC were willing to give me a few begruding answers. RTFM doesn't help much when you're not even sure where to start looking. Even linux.org doesn't help much when you don't know an XFree86 from a \dev\...
Now that I've used it a bit and understand some of the basics, finding help in the manuals is much easier, though it can still be tiresome and frustrating.
I wouldn't mind seeing some better documentation out there. It seems to me that the HOWTO's are a bit disorganized, and in some cases didn't cover topics I needed to read about. I figured with all this open-sourceness and late-night-labor-of-love coding that there would be plenty great docs overlapping every possible known linux configuration. Yet I had a heck of a time trying to find out what an error message meant when I kept trying to use X.
I like Linux, and I'd love to see it one everyone's workstation in every business and home and send Gates back to his mommy. Most people are afraid of it, though, and good support and docs is just the thing to help abate that. Anything to help alieviate the confusion would contribute to its success.
(As a funny side-note... The guy who convinced me to install linux promptly disappeared from IRC for a month and a half, until about the time I got it running... So much for his help!