In most countries that is considered deceptive. The word "unlimited" has disappeared from most advertising. What happens when someone makes a complaint about this in the US? Nothing? I guess the FTC / FCC just didn't care. Maybe your new administration will change that a bit. Always worth a try.
Are you sure there is a contract powerful enough to tell me I can't transfer my data from my mobile device to my computer, based on how that data got on my device?
Contracts are surprisingly powerful. They can create almost any limit with a few specific exceptions related to slavery consumer protection etc. You entered this contract of your free will. There are lots of other devices and lots of other data plans. What you should be doing is a) writing in protest and b) buying a different phone / plan set from a different operator which lets you do what you want even if it is more expensive. c) telling all your friends about why the other deal is better.
I suppose I should declare an interest in this; I work for the "cellular industry", but actually that makes me think these rules are even stupider than you do. Nothing is going to push our real competition (other forms of wireless) more than trying to make cellular difficult to use. USA cellular companies behave as if they had severe brain damage as children.
This is fine for a travelling journalist in China. They count on having little risk of being arrested and a big stink if it does happen. If you are using it as a dissident you need to be much more careful. Firstly, tor doesn't let anyone know what pages you are reading but it does let them clearly know you are using tor. That's normally enough for them to investigate you and people in Iran don't have protections against such investigations. Secondly, you have to be sure about the computer you are using. How do you know someone hasn't set it up to monitor you. I wouldn't trust myself to use such a thing. A computer illiterate friend could easily get into real trouble.
The US's response to such a thing is unquestioned: They will some randomly chosen unrelated country.
There; fixed that for you. How exactly do you plan to work out which container the nuclear bomb was in and which counry it came from? Fingertip search?
I am stunned. How are people suggesting that Iranians who have obviously not prepared themselves for resistance begin resisting either through violence or setting up amateur radio transmitters etc..?
In Poland; after the war; on of the tactics of the communists was to set up fake opposition groups. The aim was to get people to come out and show their hand. And then kill them, torture them or at least imprison them. This was one reason why the CIA operations, for a long time, were total disasters. In fact; your post here really really deserves to be modded up. This can be incredibly dangerous without planning. Even more; the person who lost here is a former prime minister. In other words; he belongs to the theological establishment. This is probably not the strong break which it is worth fighting and dying for in Iran.
If you are going to start looking at helping the Iranians technically then think about your solutions for a completely different world. My analysis of the internet routing changes in Iran are that they probably have filtering or monitoring units in one ISP and are forcing traffic through that particular place to be able to identify trouble makers. Any solution you provide should be safe for use in a much more hostile environment than you are used to building systems for.
You are right; sometimes some clear violence (or better; threat of violence) does work; but you have to pick your moment. Doing things badly is normally much worse than not doing them at all. Right now Iran is split 50/50 so it may not be the best moment. Any civil war could be really bloody and nasty. Unless the opposition is properly prepared, they are likely to lose. Normally there should be a long period of peaceful protest and visible repression to get people against the government. Then a demand. Then only any threat of violence when most of the active people and a large part of the army will stand with you. On the other hand, any later moment could be worse than now. Who knows. I just know I'm glad not to be Iranian tonight and I hope for a peaceful and fair solution.
Mugging is also inevitable. That does not mean that legalising it will help. Making it against policy puts companies that pay for it at risk and is good.
Somehow, I think it's true; more and more people understand that you can use Wikipedia at the same time as questioning it. Many people have learned how to question all media (the problems of Wikipedia are the same as those of traditional media, just more obvious). At the same time there's a whole load of anti-wikipedia people who just wanted to destroy. That doesn't seem to have happened.
1.) Slashdotters only rant against copyright because they're pro-piracy and don't want to lose the free ride. The hypocrisy is ridiculous, especially because Slashdot itself has sued other websites over copyright infringement.
I'm anti current copyright law and at the same time I never pirate. For me, breaking the law is something which can be done, but should only be done seriously and for a good reason. My lack of access to "bratz" material does not hurt me. I would only copy illegally on principle. I even buy material such as CDs as long as I know that I can actually copy it.
You attack yet another straw man. In fact you make the standard stupid mistake of assuming that the opinions expressed on a web site are the opinions of that web site. You probably think the letters column in your local newspaper expresses
2.) Copyright protects content creators so that they get paid for their work. Slashdotters don't want people to be paid for their work, because they want to pirate it. All your motives are self-serving, and it's so obvious.
There are many other ways to get paid for work. Firstly, you can charge lots for the access to the first copy. Most of us have nothing against privacy laws and the right not to give out your own stuff. Secondly you could work in an academic institution and be paid for doing the creative work. Thirdly you could look for patrons and sponsors.
Doing work is not sufficient to guarantee work. If you want to sit all day working hard bashing rocks don't come round to me and demand to be paid unless I told you you should do it. There is nothing special about "content creators" that they deserve to get paid for things other people didn't agree to pay for. Any copyright system has to be justified and accepted by both sides.
3.) The GPL is a copyright license. If you disagree with copyright law, then I'm free to do whatever I want with your GPL code.
the thing about law is, that it applies whether you agree with it or not. Your statement is as stupid as the statement "I don't agree with copyright law so I can't go to jail for copying".
I know I'll get modded down for voicing this opinion, because I've posted anti-piracy, pro-copyright opinions in the past and gotten trashed by roving gangs of moderators. Ah, well.
You get modded down because your post contains so many logical flaws and mistakes of logic that most people think it's just a troll. I see value in it as an expression of the stuipdity and ignorance of a certain group of people, however, you can't expect to get modded up till you learn to think straight.
Dear pirates--if copyright law is wrong, then the GPL has no legal standing.
An inability to separate moral wrong and right from legal and illegal is going to get you into big trouble if you go to China or, for example, North Korea. Just because something is wrong doesn't mean it isn't a law. In this case the GPL is legal because it is (see the case law; reasons are irrelevant). It's justifiable in the same way as someone shooting you could be completely justifiable. As a form of self defence if you attack them.
If you read the article, you would have noticed that it wasn't an operating nuclear plant and the fuel wasn't in the reactors, they were being decommissioned in a cooling pond.
So; the fact that the material from the reactor remains dangerous and at risk of a "supercharged radioactive fire" even when it's not actually in use any more is supposed to be a good thing????
The answer you get depends on the numbers you put in. Please tell us exactly what values you used for
the cost of the campaign to persuade people
the cost of having people guard the waste for a million years
the cost of the defence force for the thing
the cost of the nuclear accident
I think that there are a new generation of nuclear plants that may turn out to be reasonably safe. However, past experience says that everything the nuclear industry says is lies so maybe lets just calm down and see some evidence before we commit to it.
Hint; if your calculation was on a course on nuclear power; the people helping you do it were not without their own bias.
The parent post is a bit silly, but it's making a standard and interesting point. It's not a total troll; should be modded up (at least to +1; not -1) and it should be answered.
But taking my work and copying it and giving it away at your whim is not free speech.
As a reasonably literate and eloquent person (though you might find that if you SHOUTED less and didn't call your debating partner "asshole" you would be listened to a bit more; you probably lost many people at your first sentence) you are able to explain your point clearly and on your own. There are many people, however, who aren't. If they agree with you but can't explain it clearly (perhaps because English isn't their first language; perhaps because they are almost illiterate, used to a non standard dialect, new to an issue or just plain stupid) then passing on the words you wrote literally may be their best way of saying what they have to say.
There is a huge history of this and control of printing presses and duplication of political works has always been crucial to oppression and fighting opression. Have a look at the history of illegal pamphlets during the war or at the history of Solidarity in communist Poland.
The right to copy Britney Spears may not seem worth much (though I'm sure there are some freaks^W people who feel she 'expresses their feelings'). Definitely there are some publications so worthless that my argument shouldn't apply to them, but there has been a decision in many countries that it is too difficult for a judge to decide which speech is worthless and which is worthwhile. The easiest way to permit free speech is to permit almost all speech. This should include most of the right to personal copying.
In a democracy (and I'm not saying you live in one, but even the USA has some of the characteristics of a democracy), mandatory surrender of rights enforced by the government is a long term voluntary surrender of rights. Some decisions just don't work at the individual level.
The point that the grandparent is making here is that a fundamental right; free speech; has been impinged on by a convenience: copyright rules which encourage the production of more material. This was done on an extremely limited basis in a deal in which the beneficiaries of that deal (the copyright holders) should provide very large benefit to society in return for something which would normally be an extreme human rights violation (limitation of other people's right to free speech). A large group of the copyright holders have fundamentally gone outside this deal and are not only not providing benefit, but actually doing harm. If one side fails to deliver it's part of a bargain, then the correct thing to do is withdraw the bargain. Copyright laws should be repealed or extremely restricted until such time as copyright holders show that they can behave acceptably. The only question is, are there any copyright holding groups which have tried to hold up their side of the bargain? If so then ways to maintain their copyrights should be found when other copyrights are cancelled.
I think key characteristics for people who should be allowed to keep their copyrights might be
people who have never threatened fair use
people who have always ensured that their copyright material is available freely in libraries
people who have kept their work private
people who have not been involved in organisations such as the RIAA or possibly MPAA
people who have not been involved in organisations attempting to limit
people who have never attempted to mislead others about their rights over copyright material
Apart from those people who have kept their deal; other copyright holders have been reducing free speech without any justification. They are effectively serious criminals, taking away a right many have died for. Cancellation of their copyrights is a pretty minimal and very just solution.
Why would an agency dedicated to SPYING on other countries want the PUBLIC to use technologies such as IPSEC? They obviously understand the importance of computing security for our countries' future more than you will ever be able to comprehend.
To answer the ACs first point, because they are also responsible for defense through their Informations Assurance Directorate; If the internet becomes part of the critical infrastructure of the USA (which it probably already has) then defences like IPSEC have to be widespread standards.
The second point from AC mirrors yours. If the NSA has been doing so much for defence; if they understand it so well; where do the botnets come from?
If not pretty means "used too many stars on a line but was otherwise pretty good" then I would definitely not fire, but I would go ahead and give a warning or at least a discussion. On the other hand "not pretty" is normally a euphamism for "unreadable pile of shit that looks like you may have been trying to do something good with so I can't actually bring myself to tell you exactly what a totally pointless coder you are; it's so terrible that I don't really know where to begin with telling you how bad it is". If that's so, and that thought is more or less accurate, then I'd actually give the guy a pat on the back for his community spirit.
Could someone post a code review for the patch in question so we can discuss this in a bit less of a vacuum.
You do know that the browser which runs your HTML app itself falls under the category of "Every other option..." right?
Absolutely... in theory. In real life the browser is, through various historical reasons, always there already.
The browser itself which you take as implicit is just another application. Browsers have trojan/virus/compatibility problems. Browsers have pop-up blocking and other firewall software issues. Browsers are susceptible to bugs like the cross-site scripting ones we've seen and others that are worse. Browsers can act differently on different platforms.
Somehow, you are right and yet, whilst I can easily point to several corporate desktops where the JVM is essentially disabled (my own included) I know no single one where there isn't a browser. In a "they're all turing complete" sense, I don't disagree with the great grandparent. However, if you are deciding which platform to deploy on; HTML is the one which will most easily just work. Platform to platform differences for basic old HTML 2 are trivial. Stick with the old and there will be no problem.
The benefits don't exist, they're just abstracted in your mind because you ignore what's under the layer of abstraction.
I ignore it because I can ignore it. The theoretical benefits do not exist. The practical ones are plain for all to see.
Do it the other way round. Your outside computer is the transparent proxying router. Your computer inside gets the same address as the outside one (or more likely is NATed onto it). Remember to do TTL regularisation and packet normalisation so all connections look like Windows (OpenBSD helps here). You may have a decent chance even against a minor BOFH...
a) Use the same thing; if it works a bit it might be worth it.
b) allow access also for any system which sends a simple text file like "I follow the AUP/I updated virus today/I updated OS 3 days ago/I have a firewall or equivalent" to port 80 on a local web server to have access.
Use an IDS to block access to any noticed bot or illegal P2P traffic.
This means that there's no specific proprietary protocol needed and students who don't trust the client can implement their own for any OS. At the same time, you can make running an insecure OS a disciplinary matter. Anyone who can overcome this obstacle knows enough to not be in the category of "college students who don't know the first thing about maintaining and protecting their PCs".
Finally, remember that if such a system becomes standard, then botnets will start faking it too. You need to start protecting the network in other ways.
Were you watching Minnesota in the last congressional election?
which is the entire point. You could watch it because physical ballot papers had to be found. If you are right that it was fraudulent, and I have no idea, then the fraudsters put themselves at a much greater risk. The ballot papers they added could have their genetic material or chemical contamination or many other signs of tampering. With an e-voting system there will be nothing to tell you that there was fraud and they won't have to wait until afterwards to know whether they need to "just add a few more fraudulent ballots". They'll add just enough to be safe (e.g. avoid a recount; avoid a suspicious miscount etc.).
Try not to think about what you could do to make a safe voting system. Instead think "how could I manipulate an e-voting system". When you think about it, you'll find lots of ways to do it for fun and profit. I recommend that everybody in the USA with the opportunity starts trying to fix ballots to go to third parties (even if you support the Republicrats or Democans). That will get e-voting off the agenda quicker than you can possibly imagine.
Technically, you are certainly right. The NSA are brilliant in practical cryptography etc.. However, the current security disaster we call the internet is directly linked to the NSA. If they hadn't been so determined to block strong crypto for so many years; if they had actually understood the importance of computing security to the future of their nation; if they had done their job right, many things could be better. Some sensible mechanism like IPSEC could easily be standard everywhere. A civilian standard for basic secure systems could be widely recognised. Many consumer standard systems could have much better security. Having them decide cyber security policy has been a disaster which has left the commercial infrastructure of the USA and the rest of the world needlessly insecure. Having people from the outside who actually see this has to be better.
Right; most taxes are based on transfers of capital. There's no fundamental difference between a tax on a corporation / income tax or sales tax. The money has moved from control of one (legal) person to another. Also the grandparent is assuming that companies charge for their products according to their costs which is garbage. They charge according to what they can charge. If MS starts paying fair taxes and increases product costs to cover it, that would give linux distribution builders who have to pay full income tax a more fair chance in the market.
Well; actually; no. The cop does it to the black man because he knows he can. He knows he can because he knows that the judicial system in the US is stacked against the black man. The judicial system is stacked against the black man because it's set up to only work for the rich and big corporates and the black man, especially in the areas where the cops hang out, is mostly often neither of these (look at the outrage when it turned out that OJ got off because he was rich). The RIAA can go around suing computer illiterate, disabled, grandmothers because they're a big corporate. The RIAA and their lawyers are the original topic of discussion.
It's all pretty close to on topic and has even has a legitimate chain of posting back to the original summary.
Slashdot Mirror
How about hibernate to disk? If you have lots of good SSD that should be very fast shouldn't it?
In most countries that is considered deceptive. The word "unlimited" has disappeared from most advertising. What happens when someone makes a complaint about this in the US? Nothing? I guess the FTC / FCC just didn't care. Maybe your new administration will change that a bit. Always worth a try.
Are you sure there is a contract powerful enough to tell me I can't transfer my data from my mobile device to my computer, based on how that data got on my device?
Contracts are surprisingly powerful. They can create almost any limit with a few specific exceptions related to slavery consumer protection etc. You entered this contract of your free will. There are lots of other devices and lots of other data plans. What you should be doing is a) writing in protest and b) buying a different phone / plan set from a different operator which lets you do what you want even if it is more expensive. c) telling all your friends about why the other deal is better.
I suppose I should declare an interest in this; I work for the "cellular industry", but actually that makes me think these rules are even stupider than you do. Nothing is going to push our real competition (other forms of wireless) more than trying to make cellular difficult to use. USA cellular companies behave as if they had severe brain damage as children.
This is fine for a travelling journalist in China. They count on having little risk of being arrested and a big stink if it does happen. If you are using it as a dissident you need to be much more careful. Firstly, tor doesn't let anyone know what pages you are reading but it does let them clearly know you are using tor. That's normally enough for them to investigate you and people in Iran don't have protections against such investigations. Secondly, you have to be sure about the computer you are using. How do you know someone hasn't set it up to monitor you. I wouldn't trust myself to use such a thing. A computer illiterate friend could easily get into real trouble.
The US's response to such a thing is unquestioned: They will annihilate some randomly chosen unrelated country.
There; fixed that for me. Damn.
The US's response to such a thing is unquestioned: They will some randomly chosen unrelated country.
There; fixed that for you. How exactly do you plan to work out which container the nuclear bomb was in and which counry it came from? Fingertip search?
I am stunned. How are people suggesting that Iranians who have obviously not prepared themselves for resistance begin resisting either through violence or setting up amateur radio transmitters etc..?
In Poland; after the war; on of the tactics of the communists was to set up fake opposition groups. The aim was to get people to come out and show their hand. And then kill them, torture them or at least imprison them. This was one reason why the CIA operations, for a long time, were total disasters. In fact; your post here really really deserves to be modded up. This can be incredibly dangerous without planning. Even more; the person who lost here is a former prime minister. In other words; he belongs to the theological establishment. This is probably not the strong break which it is worth fighting and dying for in Iran.
If you are going to start looking at helping the Iranians technically then think about your solutions for a completely different world. My analysis of the internet routing changes in Iran are that they probably have filtering or monitoring units in one ISP and are forcing traffic through that particular place to be able to identify trouble makers. Any solution you provide should be safe for use in a much more hostile environment than you are used to building systems for.
You are right; sometimes some clear violence (or better; threat of violence) does work; but you have to pick your moment. Doing things badly is normally much worse than not doing them at all. Right now Iran is split 50/50 so it may not be the best moment. Any civil war could be really bloody and nasty. Unless the opposition is properly prepared, they are likely to lose. Normally there should be a long period of peaceful protest and visible repression to get people against the government. Then a demand. Then only any threat of violence when most of the active people and a large part of the army will stand with you. On the other hand, any later moment could be worse than now. Who knows. I just know I'm glad not to be Iranian tonight and I hope for a peaceful and fair solution.
Mugging is also inevitable. That does not mean that legalising it will help. Making it against policy puts companies that pay for it at risk and is good.
Interestingly, Wikitruth is now frozen, claiming to have won.
Somehow, I think it's true; more and more people understand that you can use Wikipedia at the same time as questioning it. Many people have learned how to question all media (the problems of Wikipedia are the same as those of traditional media, just more obvious). At the same time there's a whole load of anti-wikipedia people who just wanted to destroy. That doesn't seem to have happened.
1.) Slashdotters only rant against copyright because they're pro-piracy and don't want to lose the free ride. The hypocrisy is ridiculous, especially because Slashdot itself has sued other websites over copyright infringement.
I'm anti current copyright law and at the same time I never pirate. For me, breaking the law is something which can be done, but should only be done seriously and for a good reason. My lack of access to "bratz" material does not hurt me. I would only copy illegally on principle. I even buy material such as CDs as long as I know that I can actually copy it.
You attack yet another straw man. In fact you make the standard stupid mistake of assuming that the opinions expressed on a web site are the opinions of that web site. You probably think the letters column in your local newspaper expresses
2.) Copyright protects content creators so that they get paid for their work. Slashdotters don't want people to be paid for their work, because they want to pirate it. All your motives are self-serving, and it's so obvious.
There are many other ways to get paid for work. Firstly, you can charge lots for the access to the first copy. Most of us have nothing against privacy laws and the right not to give out your own stuff. Secondly you could work in an academic institution and be paid for doing the creative work. Thirdly you could look for patrons and sponsors.
Doing work is not sufficient to guarantee work. If you want to sit all day working hard bashing rocks don't come round to me and demand to be paid unless I told you you should do it. There is nothing special about "content creators" that they deserve to get paid for things other people didn't agree to pay for. Any copyright system has to be justified and accepted by both sides.
3.) The GPL is a copyright license. If you disagree with copyright law, then I'm free to do whatever I want with your GPL code.
the thing about law is, that it applies whether you agree with it or not. Your statement is as stupid as the statement "I don't agree with copyright law so I can't go to jail for copying".
I know I'll get modded down for voicing this opinion, because I've posted anti-piracy, pro-copyright opinions in the past and gotten trashed by roving gangs of moderators. Ah, well.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!
You get modded down because your post contains so many logical flaws and mistakes of logic that most people think it's just a troll. I see value in it as an expression of the stuipdity and ignorance of a certain group of people, however, you can't expect to get modded up till you learn to think straight.
Dear pirates--if copyright law is wrong, then the GPL has no legal standing.
An inability to separate moral wrong and right from legal and illegal is going to get you into big trouble if you go to China or, for example, North Korea. Just because something is wrong doesn't mean it isn't a law. In this case the GPL is legal because it is (see the case law; reasons are irrelevant). It's justifiable in the same way as someone shooting you could be completely justifiable. As a form of self defence if you attack them.
If you read the article, you would have noticed that it wasn't an operating nuclear plant and the fuel wasn't in the reactors, they were being decommissioned in a cooling pond.
So; the fact that the material from the reactor remains dangerous and at risk of a "supercharged radioactive fire" even when it's not actually in use any more is supposed to be a good thing????
The answer you get depends on the numbers you put in. Please tell us exactly what values you used for
I think that there are a new generation of nuclear plants that may turn out to be reasonably safe. However, past experience says that everything the nuclear industry says is lies so maybe lets just calm down and see some evidence before we commit to it.
Hint; if your calculation was on a course on nuclear power; the people helping you do it were not without their own bias.
The parent post is a bit silly, but it's making a standard and interesting point. It's not a total troll; should be modded up (at least to +1; not -1) and it should be answered.
But taking my work and copying it and giving it away at your whim is not free speech.
As a reasonably literate and eloquent person (though you might find that if you SHOUTED less and didn't call your debating partner "asshole" you would be listened to a bit more; you probably lost many people at your first sentence) you are able to explain your point clearly and on your own. There are many people, however, who aren't. If they agree with you but can't explain it clearly (perhaps because English isn't their first language; perhaps because they are almost illiterate, used to a non standard dialect, new to an issue or just plain stupid) then passing on the words you wrote literally may be their best way of saying what they have to say.
There is a huge history of this and control of printing presses and duplication of political works has always been crucial to oppression and fighting opression. Have a look at the history of illegal pamphlets during the war or at the history of Solidarity in communist Poland.
The right to copy Britney Spears may not seem worth much (though I'm sure there are some freaks^W people who feel she 'expresses their feelings'). Definitely there are some publications so worthless that my argument shouldn't apply to them, but there has been a decision in many countries that it is too difficult for a judge to decide which speech is worthless and which is worthwhile. The easiest way to permit free speech is to permit almost all speech. This should include most of the right to personal copying.
In a democracy (and I'm not saying you live in one, but even the USA has some of the characteristics of a democracy), mandatory surrender of rights enforced by the government is a long term voluntary surrender of rights. Some decisions just don't work at the individual level.
The point that the grandparent is making here is that a fundamental right; free speech; has been impinged on by a convenience: copyright rules which encourage the production of more material. This was done on an extremely limited basis in a deal in which the beneficiaries of that deal (the copyright holders) should provide very large benefit to society in return for something which would normally be an extreme human rights violation (limitation of other people's right to free speech). A large group of the copyright holders have fundamentally gone outside this deal and are not only not providing benefit, but actually doing harm. If one side fails to deliver it's part of a bargain, then the correct thing to do is withdraw the bargain. Copyright laws should be repealed or extremely restricted until such time as copyright holders show that they can behave acceptably. The only question is, are there any copyright holding groups which have tried to hold up their side of the bargain? If so then ways to maintain their copyrights should be found when other copyrights are cancelled.
I think key characteristics for people who should be allowed to keep their copyrights might be
Apart from those people who have kept their deal; other copyright holders have been reducing free speech without any justification. They are effectively serious criminals, taking away a right many have died for. Cancellation of their copyrights is a pretty minimal and very just solution.
Maybe they have been involved in defence but they've managed to as I've said before; they've managed to completely mess it up. I'll quote the illiterate AC who replied to me:
Why would an agency dedicated to SPYING on other countries want the PUBLIC to use technologies such as IPSEC? They obviously understand the importance of computing security for our countries' future more than you will ever be able to comprehend.
To answer the ACs first point, because they are also responsible for defense through their Informations Assurance Directorate; If the internet becomes part of the critical infrastructure of the USA (which it probably already has) then defences like IPSEC have to be widespread standards.
The second point from AC mirrors yours. If the NSA has been doing so much for defence; if they understand it so well; where do the botnets come from?
If not pretty means "used too many stars on a line but was otherwise pretty good" then I would definitely not fire, but I would go ahead and give a warning or at least a discussion. On the other hand "not pretty" is normally a euphamism for "unreadable pile of shit that looks like you may have been trying to do something good with so I can't actually bring myself to tell you exactly what a totally pointless coder you are; it's so terrible that I don't really know where to begin with telling you how bad it is". If that's so, and that thought is more or less accurate, then I'd actually give the guy a pat on the back for his community spirit.
Could someone post a code review for the patch in question so we can discuss this in a bit less of a vacuum.
Yes, and the fact that teddy bears wear green doesn't mean that piranhas chew on paint tubs...
Sorry; just getting with the surreal spirit of your comment. Maybe we should start a dadaist comment club.
You do know that the browser which runs your HTML app itself falls under the category of "Every other option ..." right?
Absolutely... in theory. In real life the browser is, through various historical reasons, always there already.
The browser itself which you take as implicit is just another application. Browsers have trojan/virus/compatibility problems. Browsers have pop-up blocking and other firewall software issues. Browsers are susceptible to bugs like the cross-site scripting ones we've seen and others that are worse. Browsers can act differently on different platforms.
Somehow, you are right and yet, whilst I can easily point to several corporate desktops where the JVM is essentially disabled (my own included) I know no single one where there isn't a browser. In a "they're all turing complete" sense, I don't disagree with the great grandparent. However, if you are deciding which platform to deploy on; HTML is the one which will most easily just work. Platform to platform differences for basic old HTML 2 are trivial. Stick with the old and there will be no problem.
The benefits don't exist, they're just abstracted in your mind because you ignore what's under the layer of abstraction.
I ignore it because I can ignore it. The theoretical benefits do not exist. The practical ones are plain for all to see.
Do it the other way round. Your outside computer is the transparent proxying router. Your computer inside gets the same address as the outside one (or more likely is NATed onto it). Remember to do TTL regularisation and packet normalisation so all connections look like Windows (OpenBSD helps here). You may have a decent chance even against a minor BOFH...
a) Use the same thing; if it works a bit it might be worth it.
b) allow access also for any system which sends a simple text file like "I follow the AUP/I updated virus today/I updated OS 3 days ago/I have a firewall or equivalent" to port 80 on a local web server to have access.
Use an IDS to block access to any noticed bot or illegal P2P traffic.
This means that there's no specific proprietary protocol needed and students who don't trust the client can implement their own for any OS. At the same time, you can make running an insecure OS a disciplinary matter. Anyone who can overcome this obstacle knows enough to not be in the category of "college students who don't know the first thing about maintaining and protecting their PCs".
Finally, remember that if such a system becomes standard, then botnets will start faking it too. You need to start protecting the network in other ways.
Were you watching Minnesota in the last congressional election?
which is the entire point. You could watch it because physical ballot papers had to be found. If you are right that it was fraudulent, and I have no idea, then the fraudsters put themselves at a much greater risk. The ballot papers they added could have their genetic material or chemical contamination or many other signs of tampering. With an e-voting system there will be nothing to tell you that there was fraud and they won't have to wait until afterwards to know whether they need to "just add a few more fraudulent ballots". They'll add just enough to be safe (e.g. avoid a recount; avoid a suspicious miscount etc.).
Try not to think about what you could do to make a safe voting system. Instead think "how could I manipulate an e-voting system". When you think about it, you'll find lots of ways to do it for fun and profit. I recommend that everybody in the USA with the opportunity starts trying to fix ballots to go to third parties (even if you support the Republicrats or Democans). That will get e-voting off the agenda quicker than you can possibly imagine.
Technically, you are certainly right. The NSA are brilliant in practical cryptography etc.. However, the current security disaster we call the internet is directly linked to the NSA. If they hadn't been so determined to block strong crypto for so many years; if they had actually understood the importance of computing security to the future of their nation; if they had done their job right, many things could be better. Some sensible mechanism like IPSEC could easily be standard everywhere. A civilian standard for basic secure systems could be widely recognised. Many consumer standard systems could have much better security. Having them decide cyber security policy has been a disaster which has left the commercial infrastructure of the USA and the rest of the world needlessly insecure. Having people from the outside who actually see this has to be better.
Right; most taxes are based on transfers of capital. There's no fundamental difference between a tax on a corporation / income tax or sales tax. The money has moved from control of one (legal) person to another. Also the grandparent is assuming that companies charge for their products according to their costs which is garbage. They charge according to what they can charge. If MS starts paying fair taxes and increases product costs to cover it, that would give linux distribution builders who have to pay full income tax a more fair chance in the market.
Well; actually; no. The cop does it to the black man because he knows he can. He knows he can because he knows that the judicial system in the US is stacked against the black man. The judicial system is stacked against the black man because it's set up to only work for the rich and big corporates and the black man, especially in the areas where the cops hang out, is mostly often neither of these (look at the outrage when it turned out that OJ got off because he was rich). The RIAA can go around suing computer illiterate, disabled, grandmothers because they're a big corporate. The RIAA and their lawyers are the original topic of discussion.
It's all pretty close to on topic and has even has a legitimate chain of posting back to the original summary.