There's no way for your home provider to have a real time accounting of the calls that you make while roaming.
That's a bit of an overstatement. There are several ways of speeding up the information and if you use CAMEL it's possible for the home network to specify some limits in advance which gives full real time billing control. It would take a certain amount of effort, but it's not nearly impossible nowadays. How do you think prepaid subscribers get service when they go abroad? Do you think the phone company lets you rack up 28k Euro charges on your 30Euro prepaid SIM before doing reconciliation?
Man; this is so sweet I just wish I could frame you and put you up on my wall.
Let's try that differently: We just need to educate people how to live together. 1) don't hate each other. 2) stop trying to steal from each other; try to share together. 3) love each other be happy 4) use contraceptives properly 5) save and invest; don't try to live your whole life on credit. 6) follow basic rules of hygene and ecology in your life choices. And then, by my estimation 90% of the problems of the world would be solved.
We cannot count on the users to understand. They just aren't interested. Any system designed to make the "internet" secure needs to work even when the users are actively hostile. That means that you need to change you definition of "secure" so that you are talking about network stability not saving all the computers.
Please someone; go Whoosh. Please. The parent was meant to be a joke and I didn't get it. Yes...... Please.
the logical next step is to further decentralise the net and promote wireless mesh networks.
Ah yes, because relying on Sharon or Shuggie to set their access point up correctly sounds like a great solution to increasing the stability of the network. I mean, what with the total perfect stability and reliability we have achieve with wi-fi so far when it's just being just for last mile access, why don't we try to massively increase the load and use it for the backbone traffic as well.
Whenever I read this kind of stuff I really don't think any of these people get what an "internet" is... Once more with feeling the internet is not a network; it is a network of networks.
Last time your home windows computer went down with a virus, my computer worked fine. Even with the incompetents we have in outsourced IT support, last time your corporate network collapsed under attack, mine didn't. The internet is the cess pool^W^W happy village square where we all meet together. Your own network is not the "internet" and you can run it any way you want; it won't influence the rest of the world. If you cut off the internet it by declaring "a gated community" as the article (you did read the article didn't you?) suggests, you are no longer part of the internet.
Anyone trying to build a "new" internet should be encouraged at the same time as given a gentle education in basic network theory. If it's any good, then enough people will join it that when other particular bits of the internet collapse, they can still continue with their own useful lives. We need this kind of thing. If someone could build a network for their own country which could be relied on for emergency calls and at the same time let me read slashdot that would make a real difference (no BT's "all IP" network doesn't count). Definitely it would have to have some priority mechanism so that my slashdot couldn't get in the way of your emergency stuff; however, there's no way that such a new network can be successful if it can't cope with being connected to the current internet. That would just be security through obscurity and uselessness. Like claiming a computer is secure because it's had concrete poured into it.
You seem to be a bit trolling, but you're an interesting troll, so lets go ahead:-)
It's very clear that different parts of open source have different standards of review. Whilst the Debian SSL situation is bad to terrible (I had just installed my home web server on Debian for an experiment; I was not pleased!), however it was discovered only due to the source being open. It's known that actual deliberate attempts to put back doors into the Linux Kernel have been thwarted. By choosing properly supported stable well audited parts of Linux there can really be a benefit. Personally I would strongly recomment RedHat. I was impressed that ther distribution wasn't actually compromised during the recent attacks on their signing infrastructure. It showed a real commitment to defense in depth to a level which surprised me.
I'd take a slightly different moral; you should have layered trust. More for Linux; less for Apache; little for Open Office very little for random Linux games; none for closed source software. Use SELinux to partition your software (if your OS doesn't support SELinux then change it:-). If you care about security then insist on source and actually pay for some parts of source level audits.
A key "talking point" in this discussion would be why the Chinese insisted on having Windows source whilst commercial customers don't get it. Discuss whether your company has any Chinese competitors. Seriously consider switching off a system which gives those competitors a benefit you don't have (sometimes Chinese competitors seem indistinguishable from the government). If they insist on source then so should you.
Don't discuss the attack, that's just playing into the hand they gave you.
Well; if nobody's discussing it, then no. If they do discuss it you should definitely be ready to discuss their specific points with the people who have heard them. Preparing in advance so those points seem silly at the time they are told is also good.
What I would point out is the monthly patch cycle you buy into with MS.
It should be remembered that whilst this doesn't work properly, it was introduced partly at the demand of corporate customers. Some of them still like the idea and so it's maybe not the strongest point. What is worth discussing.
Linux has SELinux / iptables and other second level defenses which make many vulnerabilities easier to control
Linux patch management is integrated for both standard applications and OS making the likelyhood of an unpatched system much less than on Windows;
Linux patch management is flexible, allowing automated patching of systems on a self imposed schedule; e.g. desktops automatically, servers at night after warning.
If you do want to discuss Microsoft's patch cycle, discuss it in the light of specific problems it causes. You should know of a specific "zero day" unpatched vulnerability which should obviously be patched and hasn't been.
I'm not saying that Windows contains back doors and switches
Then you must be completely unaware of Windows update. Not that I'm criticising, and RedHat network and / or Synaptic have exactly the same power, but Microsoft already has a 100% hole into your computer. There is nothing to stop them signing a special remote control module of some kind and having your computer install it. Probably they could be forced to do this by a court.
At least with RedHat or Fedora it's easy to build a company internal software distribution channel which uses separate dedicated signing keys and builds from the source so couldn't easily be used by RedHat to install malware. Part of this can be done on Windows with software like Tivoli, but it's not the same without the source.
Well, a simple google search shows that the information is pretty widespread (try parts of the search and remember to show all results) so I was going to call you on that for an unjustified attack, but it seems that it could all be an echo of the pcpro article and there is no link to the original release anywhere. This includes MSN and various other Microsoft friendly sites. Strange. I wonder if Microsoft is trying to start this rumour so that they can deny or "reconsider" it later...
There are several kinds of "giant toaster". A good one is a pump storage scheme which can take electrical energy and use it to pump water up a hill converting it into potential energy. It's also possible to just feather back most wind generators very quickly (relative to typical conventional generators). You could also divide water into hydrogen and oxygen, but that's not yet economic because electricity costs too much. Now if someone really was willing to pay to take away electricity then it would become worthwhile. There should be no problem with an oversupply of wind energy for any competently run national electricity grid which has the basic levels of redundancy and over-capacity needed for safety and extreme weather conditions.
This is yet another example of a Microsoft inspired campaign of lies. This group never changes and they and their software should be automatically excluded from all state contracts for ethical violations.
What's your suggested better alternative for a just starting to read kid who doesn't get to play with a computer that much? The sugar turtle application has been really good fun. Also some of the educational games. I can believe that there's lots of misguided stuff, but I don't think that there's ever been a complete educational environment, so I don't see how anyone could have done real observation and testing under it. Maybe we have to wait for it to exist first.
Having said that, XO should definitely have gone with a "true redhat" version as a backup for sugar.
It would seem a bit anomalous, therefore, to allow a patent on specialized hardware that embodies precisely the same inventive character as its patent ineligible software counterpart.
Actually, from my point of view not at all. I think this may be exactly where the line should be drawn. There are very clear differences between a hardware embodiment and a software one. The most important one is that a software one is much more end user modifiable. The hardware is a fixed product which can't be modified. This means that the software system should be seen as a form of communication and be protected as free speech; at least in cases where the source code is available. Hardware should be seen as a product. There is no more anomaly in this than that it is legal to stand outside someone's land and protest rudely against them whilst it is illegal to throw eggs at them. Both may be annoying for the person, but only the second one involves a physical process / attack on them.
you probably pay more for it than you would if it was private.
this is one of the things that many people think, and it might become true in the near future however the truth is that until the late 1980s the NHS was pretty much the most cost efficient health system on the planet. It wasn't the best (German health was generally considered better, but much much more expensive) and it definitely wasn't the most luxurious (single rooms pretty much strictly for the dying; communal television for four or eight patients or even a whole ward) but it delivered very good care at a price matched by none. Even now the value for money is pretty good and definiteliy better than fully private systems like the US.
The change from best to good started as more private industry types of management were introduced in the NHS in the 80s. Particularly cost controls and so on. What seems to have happened is that the fraud and cheating level in the NHS were much lower than expected; so low that measures to control fraud actually cost much more than the fraud itself. Unfortunately, it's likely that the reason for this efficiency was that doctors felt like respected and important members of the community. They were reasonably paid (especiallly consultants and up) but not as much as elsewhere. They were given lots of freedom and basically just took what they thought they needed to treat patients. Introducing mangers who were in charge of doctors took away that respect and so meant that they no longer cared as much. Now the doctors have learned to cheat their managers (e.g. to be able to care for an elderly patient who should be excluded from treatment by some stupid inflexible rule, but who actually would beneifit greatly from the treatment). Probably if controls were taken away there would be a noticable fraud level. Reversing this change would take a long time and realliy clever work.
If this is true, it's too big a secret to have stayed 100% unknown. Some / many of your journalists must have known about it and are traitors to your nation. Those are not the people you want to trust to protect you. Possibly he's the first person willing to publish when others were willing to hide the truth. If so, you should punish them together with the spies.
The really crazy part of this is the argument that doubling the kinetic energy available to accidents makes things safer. Sure, if you are inside a car hit by something else, then making it stronger (or at least better at absorbing impact), and probably heavier makes it safer. However, for everyone else, it's much better if your car is lighter. Even for you, it's much better if the other car is lighter.
Safety regulations which demand heavier cars should be banned.
Well if you had both read the fine article before it was overloaded and had to be changed, you would have find that it had a perfect system for getting rich whilst meeting beautiful girls (or boys or non-determined goth types, depending on your taste) which unfortunately I can follow but can't explain. So don't make this mistake next time.
For some definition of "improve". In particular a definition which doesn't include "minimum power requirements" and "minimal maintenance". Passive reflectors / repeaters are really excellent in many difficult solutions. If you need a microwave link from valley to valley in a mountainous region nothing beats them. The chance of being sent up a thousand metres into a snow storm in winter falls considerably when your repeater is nothing much more than a half tonne slab of metal. Indoors it saves you wiring up for power and the whole point of "wireless" is avoiding wires...
This seems pretty obvious to me. People who cheat on their tests are more effective at cheating on their manager's assessments. It's always been my opinion that the best way to get a good assesment is to lie about the likely outcome. E.g. if your sales target should be 100 then say that sales will be 80 (because you already sold everything he market could bear) and stop selling when you get to 90 (so you have extra for next year).
No no. There's a hidden button which I'll link to indirectly which completely changes all the authors. Warning. Do not follow link without having a non nerd helper on standby. It may have a stronger effect on you than a.cx link.
Hmm.. Judging from a number of entries, that's a list of fairly patent friendly companies. Two things come to mind.
a) since these companies support patents they can't use anti-patent arguments. b) if they gave in and paid up it might make it easier to sue someone else.
I guess a). I think this is more likely to be a list of companies who have argued in court that software patents are valid and so when they try to argue otherwise their own arguments can be used against them. I guess this is an attempt to squeeze the last value out of software patents before recent supreme court decisions end up making them worthless.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the data format CDs have much better error protection than audio CDs.
This means that audio quality could be influenced by an error rate which would still allow you to read a complete data CD.
There's no way for your home provider to have a real time accounting of the calls that you make while roaming.
That's a bit of an overstatement. There are several ways of speeding up the information and if you use CAMEL it's possible for the home network to specify some limits in advance which gives full real time billing control. It would take a certain amount of effort, but it's not nearly impossible nowadays. How do you think prepaid subscribers get service when they go abroad? Do you think the phone company lets you rack up 28k Euro charges on your 30Euro prepaid SIM before doing reconciliation?
Man; this is so sweet I just wish I could frame you and put you up on my wall.
Let's try that differently: We just need to educate people how to live together. 1) don't hate each other. 2) stop trying to steal from each other; try to share together. 3) love each other be happy 4) use contraceptives properly 5) save and invest; don't try to live your whole life on credit. 6) follow basic rules of hygene and ecology in your life choices. And then, by my estimation 90% of the problems of the world would be solved.
We cannot count on the users to understand. They just aren't interested. Any system designed to make the "internet" secure needs to work even when the users are actively hostile. That means that you need to change you definition of "secure" so that you are talking about network stability not saving all the computers.
Please someone; go Whoosh. Please. The parent was meant to be a joke and I didn't get it. Yes.. .. .. Please.
Ah yes, because relying on Sharon or Shuggie to set their access point up correctly sounds like a great solution to increasing the stability of the network. I mean, what with the total perfect stability and reliability we have achieve with wi-fi so far when it's just being just for last mile access, why don't we try to massively increase the load and use it for the backbone traffic as well.
Whenever I read this kind of stuff I really don't think any of these people get what an "internet" is... Once more with feeling the internet is not a network; it is a network of networks.
Last time your home windows computer went down with a virus, my computer worked fine. Even with the incompetents we have in outsourced IT support, last time your corporate network collapsed under attack, mine didn't. The internet is the cess pool^W^W happy village square where we all meet together. Your own network is not the "internet" and you can run it any way you want; it won't influence the rest of the world. If you cut off the internet it by declaring "a gated community" as the article (you did read the article didn't you?) suggests, you are no longer part of the internet.
Anyone trying to build a "new" internet should be encouraged at the same time as given a gentle education in basic network theory. If it's any good, then enough people will join it that when other particular bits of the internet collapse, they can still continue with their own useful lives. We need this kind of thing. If someone could build a network for their own country which could be relied on for emergency calls and at the same time let me read slashdot that would make a real difference (no BT's "all IP" network doesn't count). Definitely it would have to have some priority mechanism so that my slashdot couldn't get in the way of your emergency stuff; however, there's no way that such a new network can be successful if it can't cope with being connected to the current internet. That would just be security through obscurity and uselessness. Like claiming a computer is secure because it's had concrete poured into it.
You seem to be a bit trolling, but you're an interesting troll, so lets go ahead :-)
It's very clear that different parts of open source have different standards of review. Whilst the Debian SSL situation is bad to terrible (I had just installed my home web server on Debian for an experiment; I was not pleased!), however it was discovered only due to the source being open. It's known that actual deliberate attempts to put back doors into the Linux Kernel have been thwarted. By choosing properly supported stable well audited parts of Linux there can really be a benefit. Personally I would strongly recomment RedHat. I was impressed that ther distribution wasn't actually compromised during the recent attacks on their signing infrastructure. It showed a real commitment to defense in depth to a level which surprised me.
Even the compiler attack you mention has now been countered (see also Schneier's interesting discussion of double compilation). I'm surprised you don't mention it when discussing a 1980's paper (which is why I wonder about the trolling bit). This means that it really is possible to leverage the benefit of "open source" for better security.
I'd take a slightly different moral; you should have layered trust. More for Linux; less for Apache; little for Open Office very little for random Linux games; none for closed source software. Use SELinux to partition your software (if your OS doesn't support SELinux then change it :-). If you care about security then insist on source and actually pay for some parts of source level audits.
A key "talking point" in this discussion would be why the Chinese insisted on having Windows source whilst commercial customers don't get it. Discuss whether your company has any Chinese competitors. Seriously consider switching off a system which gives those competitors a benefit you don't have (sometimes Chinese competitors seem indistinguishable from the government). If they insist on source then so should you.
Well; if nobody's discussing it, then no. If they do discuss it you should definitely be ready to discuss their specific points with the people who have heard them. Preparing in advance so those points seem silly at the time they are told is also good.
It should be remembered that whilst this doesn't work properly, it was introduced partly at the demand of corporate customers. Some of them still like the idea and so it's maybe not the strongest point. What is worth discussing.
If you do want to discuss Microsoft's patch cycle, discuss it in the light of specific problems it causes. You should know of a specific "zero day" unpatched vulnerability which should obviously be patched and hasn't been.
It's really not so difficult. I would use Fedora for a web server, but not one I would seriously call "production".
Then you must be completely unaware of Windows update. Not that I'm criticising, and RedHat network and / or Synaptic have exactly the same power, but Microsoft already has a 100% hole into your computer. There is nothing to stop them signing a special remote control module of some kind and having your computer install it. Probably they could be forced to do this by a court.
At least with RedHat or Fedora it's easy to build a company internal software distribution channel which uses separate dedicated signing keys and builds from the source so couldn't easily be used by RedHat to install malware. Part of this can be done on Windows with software like Tivoli, but it's not the same without the source.
Well, a simple google search shows that the information is pretty widespread (try parts of the search and remember to show all results) so I was going to call you on that for an unjustified attack, but it seems that it could all be an echo of the pcpro article and there is no link to the original release anywhere. This includes MSN and various other Microsoft friendly sites. Strange. I wonder if Microsoft is trying to start this rumour so that they can deny or "reconsider" it later...
There are several kinds of "giant toaster". A good one is a pump storage scheme which can take electrical energy and use it to pump water up a hill converting it into potential energy. It's also possible to just feather back most wind generators very quickly (relative to typical conventional generators). You could also divide water into hydrogen and oxygen, but that's not yet economic because electricity costs too much. Now if someone really was willing to pay to take away electricity then it would become worthwhile. There should be no problem with an oversupply of wind energy for any competently run national electricity grid which has the basic levels of redundancy and over-capacity needed for safety and extreme weather conditions.
Well, I guess my test would be whether it was "user" modifiable. Exact tests and boundaries should probably be defined by courts however..
A simple Google Search shows rather more than just being a vendor of some random proprietary software. Fortify is a Microsoft partner which has indulged in joint product launches with them and this isn't even mentioned in the original article.
This is yet another example of a Microsoft inspired campaign of lies. This group never changes and they and their software should be automatically excluded from all state contracts for ethical violations.
What's your suggested better alternative for a just starting to read kid who doesn't get to play with a computer that much? The sugar turtle application has been really good fun. Also some of the educational games. I can believe that there's lots of misguided stuff, but I don't think that there's ever been a complete educational environment, so I don't see how anyone could have done real observation and testing under it. Maybe we have to wait for it to exist first.
Having said that, XO should definitely have gone with a "true redhat" version as a backup for sugar.
ADA?
Actually, from my point of view not at all. I think this may be exactly where the line should be drawn. There are very clear differences between a hardware embodiment and a software one. The most important one is that a software one is much more end user modifiable. The hardware is a fixed product which can't be modified. This means that the software system should be seen as a form of communication and be protected as free speech; at least in cases where the source code is available. Hardware should be seen as a product. There is no more anomaly in this than that it is legal to stand outside someone's land and protest rudely against them whilst it is illegal to throw eggs at them. Both may be annoying for the person, but only the second one involves a physical process / attack on them.
you probably pay more for it than you would if it was private.
this is one of the things that many people think, and it might become true in the near future however the truth is that until the late 1980s the NHS was pretty much the most cost efficient health system on the planet. It wasn't the best (German health was generally considered better, but much much more expensive) and it definitely wasn't the most luxurious (single rooms pretty much strictly for the dying; communal television for four or eight patients or even a whole ward) but it delivered very good care at a price matched by none. Even now the value for money is pretty good and definiteliy better than fully private systems like the US.
The change from best to good started as more private industry types of management were introduced in the NHS in the 80s. Particularly cost controls and so on. What seems to have happened is that the fraud and cheating level in the NHS were much lower than expected; so low that measures to control fraud actually cost much more than the fraud itself. Unfortunately, it's likely that the reason for this efficiency was that doctors felt like respected and important members of the community. They were reasonably paid (especiallly consultants and up) but not as much as elsewhere. They were given lots of freedom and basically just took what they thought they needed to treat patients. Introducing mangers who were in charge of doctors took away that respect and so meant that they no longer cared as much. Now the doctors have learned to cheat their managers (e.g. to be able to care for an elderly patient who should be excluded from treatment by some stupid inflexible rule, but who actually would beneifit greatly from the treatment). Probably if controls were taken away there would be a noticable fraud level. Reversing this change would take a long time and realliy clever work.
If this is true, it's too big a secret to have stayed 100% unknown. Some / many of your journalists must have known about it and are traitors to your nation. Those are not the people you want to trust to protect you. Possibly he's the first person willing to publish when others were willing to hide the truth. If so, you should punish them together with the spies.
You missed the most important part:
They compensate TV owners for the diminished value of their property resulting from the government action
.
It's specifically his money. Furthermore, it's money which wouldn't be available to anybody without government regulation!
The really crazy part of this is the argument that doubling the kinetic energy available to accidents makes things safer. Sure, if you are inside a car hit by something else, then making it stronger (or at least better at absorbing impact), and probably heavier makes it safer. However, for everyone else, it's much better if your car is lighter. Even for you, it's much better if the other car is lighter.
Safety regulations which demand heavier cars should be banned.
Well if you had both read the fine article before it was overloaded and had to be changed, you would have find that it had a perfect system for getting rich whilst meeting beautiful girls (or boys or non-determined goth types, depending on your taste) which unfortunately I can follow but can't explain. So don't make this mistake next time.
For some definition of "improve". In particular a definition which doesn't include "minimum power requirements" and "minimal maintenance". Passive reflectors / repeaters are really excellent in many difficult solutions. If you need a microwave link from valley to valley in a mountainous region nothing beats them. The chance of being sent up a thousand metres into a snow storm in winter falls considerably when your repeater is nothing much more than a half tonne slab of metal. Indoors it saves you wiring up for power and the whole point of "wireless" is avoiding wires...
This seems pretty obvious to me. People who cheat on their tests are more effective at cheating on their manager's assessments. It's always been my opinion that the best way to get a good assesment is to lie about the likely outcome. E.g. if your sales target should be 100 then say that sales will be 80 (because you already sold everything he market could bear) and stop selling when you get to 90 (so you have extra for next year).
No no. There's a hidden button which I'll link to indirectly which completely changes all the authors. Warning. Do not follow link without having a non nerd helper on standby. It may have a stronger effect on you than a .cx link.
Hmm.. Judging from a number of entries, that's a list of fairly patent friendly companies. Two things come to mind.
a) since these companies support patents they can't use anti-patent arguments.
b) if they gave in and paid up it might make it easier to sue someone else.
I guess a). I think this is more likely to be a list of companies who have argued in court that software patents are valid and so when they try to argue otherwise their own arguments can be used against them. I guess this is an attempt to squeeze the last value out of software patents before recent supreme court decisions end up making them worthless.