>If you do not comply, per FCC rules, this is an illegal transmitter and I have the right to make it inoperative.
No, no you really don't. You can complain to the FCC who will take action (on a good day). Also, maybe you should call the TV station which is being interfered with. Lawyers are standing by! If you attempt to "make it inoperative" you are potentially escalating a conflict and may well wind up getting sued, arrested, or hurt.
Well, they really aren't interchangeable - "Channel 12" has a frequency associated with it. So does "FM88", and it isn't 88MHz. (In the US is might be 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7, or 88.9.) Also, I've never heard anyone say anything like "I tuned to frequency 12 to watch the news." And yeah, I'm American.
All that aside, to answer your question: the "open" channels will be the ones that are not broadcasting in the area the whitespace device is operating. I'm just over 50 miles from a major metro, and can barely get anything on TV over the air, before or after the transition. I imagine as you turn the dial between channels on your TV, you'll find one or more where there is no usable TV reception. This is where the whitespace device will camp out. When it moves to a new place (or a TV transmitter turns on, or its signal improves) the whitespace device will move OFF that frequency. They are built with sensitive receivers for the purpose of detecting this condition.
Well, if 10 and 11 are strong signals in your area, then whitespaces devices won't use the frequencies associated with those channels there. Instead, it'll pick some other nice frequency, that no one is using. If there *are* no vacant frequencies, it won't work - I hope they've got some sort of plan in place for those areas. (Maybe use part of the 698-806MHz range that I've heard the DTV transition is supposed to free up, if they cut a deal with the new owner of that chunk of spectrum. Dunno what the other primary users of parts of those frequencies think of this idea.)
So? Yes, it's probable that this money could be spent on more vital projects but the odds are it wouldn't be. This will attract science geek to put in their U$20 instead of buying lunch out, or whatever. We all know Sally Struthers is out there collecting money to fight hunger, and are already donating as much, or little, to that as we choose. I doubt strongly that this project is going to have any measurable impact on basic necessities projects.
It can, however, get cheap, decent scopes in the hands of people who will enjoy them & learn from them. Increasing pleasure and spreading knowledge are good things, so this project is a net positive.
Also, if you write a Sanscrit learning tool that actually works for U$20? You bet I'll buy/donate a couple.:)
While I disagree with your aggressively hostile attitude towards the Galileoscope project, an Internet-connected scope sounds like a really good idea. I took a quick Google & found a couple already, such as The Internet Telescope but what they seem to lack is real-time control. Sending off an email to request an image of something that a backyard astronomer cannot see is cool, but lacks the visceral thrill of twiddling the knobs.
I remember seeing a robot arm on the Internet in the early days - you could move it, stack blocks, etc. Maybe something like that would be interesting - mount a scope on a tripod with servos (a ham radio satellite tracking mount, maybe?) with a camera (what type?) mounted to the end.
I'm going to need a good think about this, and I sadly lack a place to *put* it. Thanks for the idea, though. I wish you'd signed a name to your post so I could credit you if I manage to go somewhere with this.
And Palm has since re-enabled support for syncing through iTunes.
Not that I ever use it, I mean why bother? I can have my canonical copy of my contacts on my computer at home, or I can have it on my mobile device, synced bi-directionally, automatically, with the cloud. I'm not a big 'the cloud will save us' fan, but for this one thing it works great.
Also, I really think they should do something about all those Photoshop crashes I've been getting, don't you?:)
For that matter, since there appears to be no authentication on the data, you don't even have to hack the Pre - just start sending them all manner of false data.
1) You can't synch an iPod Touch to anything other than iTunes w/o jailbreaking it.
2) You can't *get* music from ITMS w/o iTunes, so the ability to use music gotten elsewhere with something other than iTunes isn't exactly munificence on Apple's part.
3) There are at least two apps to get music on the Pre w/o iTunes, and you can just copy files while using the phone in USB storage mode. I don't know why Palm is taking this amateurish, if amusing, tack but I don't see the harm in them doing it. Except that Apple is being a bully, and intentionally breaking the interoperability.
So me what harm is done by my phone pretending to be an iPod to my software, and you will change my mind.
Check 'Skip Inbox' when you create or edit that Facebook filter. Labels look like folders to me, both in terms of having a thing I click to bring up stuff in that folder (or with that label) and looking like a folder to my IMAP client.
I am really surprised I haven't noticed the lack of sorting before & that does seem like a stunning oversight. I know I use it in Thunderbird & Outlook all the time, the former with GMail-hosted email.
That is one additional thing you might find interesting: there is no reason you can't use Outlook with GMail. Then you have the option to do both.
But, Dave, your company is charging an awful lot of money for a tool that isn't all that innovative (I've been using a 770 as part of my wireless pentest suite for a while now) and has limited legitimate uses, all IMHO, of course.
I'll take all of that back if you can explain why LEOs need a *stealthy* wireless pentest capability and explain a few compelling scenarios where this is better than the vastly cheaper combination of a 770 running Kismet and a conventional laptop running conventional tools.
Untill you can do that, in my opinion, you are not doing Linux any favors.
Nope. It's enough that you have enough market share to be the overwhelmingly dominant power. Thus MS can be a monopoly while Suns, Macs, and Linux still exist.
And even if you had 100% market share in, say, operating systems, you can still abuse that to gain market share by leveraging that power to gain in another related area, like office automation, by excluding competitors. This exclusion can take different forms, such as direct technical exclusion by, for example, not allowing 3rd party developers access to API that your suite uses to perform better, or exclusion by unfair business practices, such as not allowing OEMs to add third-party software to a system's desktop if the OEM wants the more favorable prices on the OS.
If that's true, then there has been a cold snap in Vegas every year at DefCon time for the last 7 years. It got to 117 this year, that's much hotter than usual.
The technical content had suffered in the last couple of years. It enjoyed a sharp uptick this year, though. I though DC12 was much better in terms of organization and content than any of the earlier ones I've attended, back through 5.
Your post seems thoughtful, so I'd like to give you a point by point response.
Windows certainly has gotten faster and more stable, to the point where its just installed performance is no longer an issue. However, under use by normal users, it seems to pick up a variety of little applications, which eventually interact poorly. The registry is not your friend. The response is to lock down XP sufficiently so that users can't install anything, but I wonder what other problems this would incur. It certainly wouldn't work well in most home environments.
Linux is only fashionable in Linux friendly circles, like Slashdot. People who have choosen other OSes usually think you're weird for choosing something else. I also use XP Pro, not for my primary system, but so that I can gain familiarity with it, to better support my clients. I prefer Linux for several reasons, including:
*) Apps are easier to install (config && make && make install) and easier to obtain in that I can always download the app I need, for instant gratification.
*) Better logging when things go wrong. When Windows apps fail, I frequently get no error message, or a useless one. Not long ago I had problems with a sound card in Windows. It was in Device Manager, it was in the list of sound cards in the Multimedia config panel, but when I went to the pick list in the Multimedia panel to choose it as the device to output sound to, it didn't appear. Huh? In Linux, at the absolute worst, I can use sh -x and strace to find, at a very low level exactly what is going on. This shows me what I need to know to fix the issue suprisingly frequently, as I'm not a systems programmer.
*) Superior flexibility. There are many small tools that do one thing well. I can glue them together in spontaneous shell scripts to extract information from large numbers of files. Recently, I attempted to help a coleague to do a similar analysis on information contained in Word files. No similar solution was found. Lots of nuisance manipulation by hand. I prefer to make the computer do the mindless work.
*) Text file-centric configuration. A simple SSH session (from my T-Mobile Sidekick, a great sysadmin tool!) can configure nearly any app, and run most of them. Also, since I can grep/sed/awk I can mangle them with easily. If I'm really stuck for where a config option is, I can grep the entire file system. It's not a great option as it takes a long time, but when other options fail, it's there. I can't grep config dialogs in Windows.
*) Support. Suprised? Don't be. Does Microsoft even offer "free" support with a purchase? When I do call support, I get the annoying level 1 tech that is employed to keep the idiots away from the techs who know something. Depending on their training, I may or may not get passed to level 2 quickly. When I post to the mailing list for a given app, the developer and several people who have dealt with the same issue usually see it almost immediately, and give me the help I need, immediately.
*) Simplicity. I never have registry problems under Linux. Uninstalling an app is a simple matter of deleting the files. I don't have the sort of application interaction issues I see in Windows.
*) Security. Yes, it really is more secure. There have been viruses for UNIX, but they have not propigated well. There are technical reasons for this, and at least a couple of papers written about it. Google is your friend. Patches come out more quickly. Common client apps tend to have fewer issues, and do fewer things on behalf of the user without consulting them.
*) Freedom. Can't underestimate this one. It's just nice to really own my system.
To your numbered points:
1) Yes. No BSoD so far, but I've seen XP lock cold and less dramatic failures. Yes. Yes. Yes.
2) It is really more secure, see above. It is more secure considering only the core system, not to include apps. It is also more secure considering apps. Considering system secur
And then you will go to jail, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this vicious killer gunned down the victim (otherwise known as mugger) with a totally unnecessary 6 rounds of 'cop killer'* hollowpoint bullets. Then, then! I can hardly believe the murderous intent! He stopped, paused, had time to reflect as he reloaded his weapon and again, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG! emptied it into the helpless victim!" OK, so maybe the judge won't allow such histronics, but an enhanced lethality round won't help you in court, and if the guy isn't still a threat after you reload, maybe you should go to jail.
And if he is still a threat after 6? Maybe you should reconsider your load & train until your shot placement is reasonable.
Of course, better tried by 12 than carried by 6, but there is no reason to not attempt to avoid both!
* yes, I know 'cop-killer' bullets are supposed to be armor piercing, but facts rarely play into this.
Several Nextel phones provide GPS location information to the user, either onscreen as lat/long or via the serial cable, in NMEA format (standard format, readable by many/most mapping programs).
The Hiptop as deployed by T-Mobile is a single band, US only device. See, we have GSM here, just not on the same frequencies as the rest of the world. Sigh.
Yeah, but we make fun of our politicians(any newspaper editorial page), our famous rich (the Anna Nicole Smith show, and our legal system. You did know the OJ trial was a staged farce, right?
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>If you do not comply, per FCC rules, this is an illegal transmitter and I have the right to make it inoperative.
No, no you really don't. You can complain to the FCC who will take action (on a good day). Also, maybe you should call the TV station which is being interfered with. Lawyers are standing by! If you attempt to "make it inoperative" you are potentially escalating a conflict and may well wind up getting sued, arrested, or hurt.
Well, they really aren't interchangeable - "Channel 12" has a frequency associated with it. So does "FM88", and it isn't 88MHz. (In the US is might be 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7, or 88.9.) Also, I've never heard anyone say anything like "I tuned to frequency 12 to watch the news." And yeah, I'm American.
All that aside, to answer your question: the "open" channels will be the ones that are not broadcasting in the area the whitespace device is operating. I'm just over 50 miles from a major metro, and can barely get anything on TV over the air, before or after the transition. I imagine as you turn the dial between channels on your TV, you'll find one or more where there is no usable TV reception. This is where the whitespace device will camp out. When it moves to a new place (or a TV transmitter turns on, or its signal improves) the whitespace device will move OFF that frequency. They are built with sensitive receivers for the purpose of detecting this condition.
Well, if 10 and 11 are strong signals in your area, then whitespaces devices won't use the frequencies associated with those channels there. Instead, it'll pick some other nice frequency, that no one is using. If there *are* no vacant frequencies, it won't work - I hope they've got some sort of plan in place for those areas. (Maybe use part of the 698-806MHz range that I've heard the DTV transition is supposed to free up, if they cut a deal with the new owner of that chunk of spectrum. Dunno what the other primary users of parts of those frequencies think of this idea.)
Which no one made a copy of?
Wait, what? You do know this phone is running Android, Google's mobile Linux-based OS for phones, right? How is it supporting Microsoft?
So? Yes, it's probable that this money could be spent on more vital projects but the odds are it wouldn't be. This will attract science geek to put in their U$20 instead of buying lunch out, or whatever. We all know Sally Struthers is out there collecting money to fight hunger, and are already donating as much, or little, to that as we choose. I doubt strongly that this project is going to have any measurable impact on basic necessities projects.
It can, however, get cheap, decent scopes in the hands of people who will enjoy them & learn from them. Increasing pleasure and spreading knowledge are good things, so this project is a net positive.
Also, if you write a Sanscrit learning tool that actually works for U$20? You bet I'll buy/donate a couple. :)
While I disagree with your aggressively hostile attitude towards the Galileoscope project, an Internet-connected scope sounds like a really good idea. I took a quick Google & found a couple already, such as The Internet Telescope but what they seem to lack is real-time control. Sending off an email to request an image of something that a backyard astronomer cannot see is cool, but lacks the visceral thrill of twiddling the knobs.
I remember seeing a robot arm on the Internet in the early days - you could move it, stack blocks, etc. Maybe something like that would be interesting - mount a scope on a tripod with servos (a ham radio satellite tracking mount, maybe?) with a camera (what type?) mounted to the end.
I'm going to need a good think about this, and I sadly lack a place to *put* it. Thanks for the idea, though. I wish you'd signed a name to your post so I could credit you if I manage to go somewhere with this.
And Palm has since re-enabled support for syncing through iTunes.
Not that I ever use it, I mean why bother? I can have my canonical copy of my contacts on my computer at home, or I can have it on my mobile device, synced bi-directionally, automatically, with the cloud. I'm not a big 'the cloud will save us' fan, but for this one thing it works great.
Mostly because even with paying some attention to the phone, I'm pretty sure I'd notice a crash around me.
Also, I really think they should do something about all those Photoshop crashes I've been getting, don't you? :)
For that matter, since there appears to be no authentication on the data, you don't even have to hack the Pre - just start sending them all manner of false data.
Your comment is super behind the times. The Pre is a slick little device, and easily stands with other moderm smartphones.
Including in the "violate user's privacy" space, it seems.
Actually:
1) You can't synch an iPod Touch to anything other than iTunes w/o jailbreaking it.
2) You can't *get* music from ITMS w/o iTunes, so the ability to use music gotten elsewhere with something other than iTunes isn't exactly munificence on Apple's part.
3) There are at least two apps to get music on the Pre w/o iTunes, and you can just copy files while using the phone in USB storage mode. I don't know why Palm is taking this amateurish, if amusing, tack but I don't see the harm in them doing it. Except that Apple is being a bully, and intentionally breaking the interoperability.
So me what harm is done by my phone pretending to be an iPod to my software, and you will change my mind.
Check 'Skip Inbox' when you create or edit that Facebook filter. Labels look like folders to me, both in terms of having a thing I click to bring up stuff in that folder (or with that label) and looking like a folder to my IMAP client.
I am really surprised I haven't noticed the lack of sorting before & that does seem like a stunning oversight. I know I use it in Thunderbird & Outlook all the time, the former with GMail-hosted email.
That is one additional thing you might find interesting: there is no reason you can't use Outlook with GMail. Then you have the option to do both.
But, Dave, your company is charging an awful lot of money for a tool that isn't all that innovative (I've been using a 770 as part of my wireless pentest suite for a while now) and has limited legitimate uses, all IMHO, of course.
I'll take all of that back if you can explain why LEOs need a *stealthy* wireless pentest capability and explain a few compelling scenarios where this is better than the vastly cheaper combination of a 770 running Kismet and a conventional laptop running conventional tools.
Untill you can do that, in my opinion, you are not doing Linux any favors.
Here, have some Kool-Aid. Sorry, must've missed you when we passed it out before. ;)
Nope. It's enough that you have enough market share to be the overwhelmingly dominant power. Thus MS can be a monopoly while Suns, Macs, and Linux still exist.
And even if you had 100% market share in, say, operating systems, you can still abuse that to gain market share by leveraging that power to gain in another related area, like office automation, by excluding competitors. This exclusion can take different forms, such as direct technical exclusion by, for example, not allowing 3rd party developers access to API that your suite uses to perform better, or exclusion by unfair business practices, such as not allowing OEMs to add third-party software to a system's desktop if the OEM wants the more favorable prices on the OS.
If that's true, then there has been a cold snap in Vegas every year at DefCon time for the last 7 years. It got to 117 this year, that's much hotter than usual.
The technical content had suffered in the last couple of years. It enjoyed a sharp uptick this year, though. I though DC12 was much better in terms of organization and content than any of the earlier ones I've attended, back through 5.
Buy this book, you'll need it to, er, tweak you're employment history.
Your post seems thoughtful, so I'd like to give you a point by point response.
Windows certainly has gotten faster and more stable, to the point where its just installed performance is no longer an issue. However, under use by normal users, it seems to pick up a variety of little applications, which eventually interact poorly. The registry is not your friend. The response is to lock down XP sufficiently so that users can't install anything, but I wonder what other problems this would incur. It certainly wouldn't work well in most home environments.
Linux is only fashionable in Linux friendly circles, like Slashdot. People who have choosen other OSes usually think you're weird for choosing something else. I also use XP Pro, not for my primary system, but so that I can gain familiarity with it, to better support my clients. I prefer Linux for several reasons, including:
*) Apps are easier to install (config && make && make install) and easier to obtain in that I can always download the app I need, for instant gratification.
*) Better logging when things go wrong. When Windows apps fail, I frequently get no error message, or a useless one. Not long ago I had problems with a sound card in Windows. It was in Device Manager, it was in the list of sound cards in the Multimedia config panel, but when I went to the pick list in the Multimedia panel to choose it as the device to output sound to, it didn't appear. Huh? In Linux, at the absolute worst, I can use sh -x and strace to find, at a very low level exactly what is going on. This shows me what I need to know to fix the issue suprisingly frequently, as I'm not a systems programmer.
*) Superior flexibility. There are many small tools that do one thing well. I can glue them together in spontaneous shell scripts to extract information from large numbers of files. Recently, I attempted to help a coleague to do a similar analysis on information contained in Word files. No similar solution was found. Lots of nuisance manipulation by hand. I prefer to make the computer do the mindless work.
*) Text file-centric configuration. A simple SSH session (from my T-Mobile Sidekick, a great sysadmin tool!) can configure nearly any app, and run most of them. Also, since I can grep/sed/awk I can mangle them with easily. If I'm really stuck for where a config option is, I can grep the entire file system. It's not a great option as it takes a long time, but when other options fail, it's there. I can't grep config dialogs in Windows.
*) Support. Suprised? Don't be. Does Microsoft even offer "free" support with a purchase? When I do call support, I get the annoying level 1 tech that is employed to keep the idiots away from the techs who know something. Depending on their training, I may or may not get passed to level 2 quickly. When I post to the mailing list for a given app, the developer and several people who have dealt with the same issue usually see it almost immediately, and give me the help I need, immediately.
*) Simplicity. I never have registry problems under Linux. Uninstalling an app is a simple matter of deleting the files. I don't have the sort of application interaction issues I see in Windows.
*) Security. Yes, it really is more secure. There have been viruses for UNIX, but they have not propigated well. There are technical reasons for this, and at least a couple of papers written about it. Google is your friend. Patches come out more quickly. Common client apps tend to have fewer issues, and do fewer things on behalf of the user without consulting them.
*) Freedom. Can't underestimate this one. It's just nice to really own my system.
To your numbered points:
1) Yes. No BSoD so far, but I've seen XP lock cold and less dramatic failures. Yes. Yes. Yes.
2) It is really more secure, see above. It is more secure considering only the core system, not to include apps. It is also more secure considering apps. Considering system secur
And then you will go to jail, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this vicious killer gunned down the victim (otherwise known as mugger) with a totally unnecessary 6 rounds of 'cop killer'* hollowpoint bullets. Then, then! I can hardly believe the murderous intent! He stopped, paused, had time to reflect as he reloaded his weapon and again, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG! emptied it into the helpless victim!" OK, so maybe the judge won't allow such histronics, but an enhanced lethality round won't help you in court, and if the guy isn't still a threat after you reload, maybe you should go to jail.
And if he is still a threat after 6? Maybe you should reconsider your load & train until your shot placement is reasonable.
Of course, better tried by 12 than carried by 6, but there is no reason to not attempt to avoid both!
* yes, I know 'cop-killer' bullets are supposed to be armor piercing, but facts rarely play into this.
Several Nextel phones provide GPS location information to the user, either onscreen as lat/long or via the serial cable, in NMEA format (standard format, readable by many/most mapping programs).
The Hiptop as deployed by T-Mobile is a single band, US only device. See, we have GSM here, just not on the same frequencies as the rest of the world. Sigh.
Yeah, but we make fun of our politicians(any newspaper editorial page), our famous rich (the Anna Nicole Smith show, and our legal system. You did know the OJ trial was a staged farce, right?
Here's two.