Last I heard, radio stations have to pay the big liscensing companies for broadcast of all those top-40 hits and all. ASCAP, BMI, etc. all gets paid...... I forget the price per song, but it's not terribly high.
I kinda feel differently than the majority of the other guys here, in that I see the "sharing" of your music as piracy, plain and simple. The problem, though, is I don't think Napster is the actual wrongdoer here. Napster provides an easy way for people to share data between each other. It's much like Yahoo.com's ability to find websites that carry Metallica MP3. Napster is a lot like the hammer. It can be used as either a tool or a weapon, but there's nothing illegal about the device itself. My questions are: Do you guys believe that anybody can really stop piracy between person and person through the internet without bending or breaking constitutional rights? Do you see a serious potential for the death of conventional music distribution (CDs, of course)? And is there a follow-up to Garage Inc. planned:) ?
The real diff between GNU and other software orgs:
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Thus Spake Stallman
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· Score: 2
The main thing that you must realize with GNU as an organization is that the leader is strong-minded when it comes to the position on how all software should be, however, many of GNU's contributors and supporters just don't agree with him to that extent. And that's perfectly fine. Personally, I think that supporting the free-ing of all software everywhere is like supporting total pacifism or communism. They are very good ideas, and would be cool... if it actually worked. Every one has _way_ to many inherent flaws, because this is an imperfect world.
To clarify, you'll want the most vehement racist at the front of the KKK, and you'll want the most bleeding heart liberal out there to fight gun control (poor people just can't pathom the idea that it's not the guns but the people who kill people). You'll also want the biggest die-hard free software advocate to run GNU.
Thankfully, the GPL doesn't include a clause that say you have to agree with free software idealism in order to use it. Otherwise, RMS would be alone in his quest for free software, and GNU and it's software as a whole would be painfully undeveloped.
The guy needs to make money somehow! I'd much rather see him do one of the few things he knows to do, something as generally harmless as talking to crowds, than see him leech welfare money off of the government. Almost every other job *requires* some type of computer contact, even janitorial work. If he was talking about _how_ to break intp pentagon computers, then I'd see a problem. But come on....
There are several problems in the implementation of mailinglists and newsgroups that can be worked around on the web that makes those "old" services less desirable when it comes to using them.
Yes, it's nice that VA sponsors that soundforge work, but when it comes down to it, VA does like to keep a good deal of control over the work of it's sponsored projects, because when it comes down to legal liability, they don't want to be stuck in a corner, as do any other company that sponsors these projects.
What do I see as a solution? Not the abandonment of web forums, because they tend to be much more effective when implemented correctly (admittedly, most of them suck right now;). But sponsorship without control. Don't count on this happening though. With Linux being the new bandwagin to jump on, corporations want a flauntable piece of the pie, something that they can control and do whatever they want with. Until the need for greed wears of in a couple of years, expect open-source collaboration to be very rocky, with the buisnesses that contribute the least to be making the most noise and stirring up the most bullshit.
(Slashdot does not condone the use of it's users saying the word "bullshit")
Probably going to be off topic ;)
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On to Mars
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· Score: 2
"which seems like a lot--until you realize that the movie Waterworld costed more." "Costed"? Cost is used both as a present and a past tense verb in that spelling. "Costed" isn't a real word;)
Probably the same type stuff you would wind on playstation discs and some PC game CDs... Most often, they'll do something like multiple FAT entries (say, 1000 copies of track TEN or something) that'll work on a regular(stupid) CD player but will make any player that tries to make sense of the table barf.....
Lawyers backed by corporations are using the fact that most judges and jurys do not realize these cases as something that would merit a simple, swift ruling because of the "technology" stigma.
For example, while we see a single-page "Table of Contents" in literature as something completely unpatentable, would it have been so cut and dry if the printing press was recently invented. To take it a step further, imagine people patenting "Footnotes" in a book like they patent "Single-Click Ordering" nowadays.
Whereas mega-corporations see this as an oppritunity, everyone else sees it as exploitation of a good idea that should not be owned. Not that I'm trying to be self righteous, as I might even do the same things if I was in Jeff Bezos' shoes, but I hope I would be more of a man than that.
The sadest part is that these processes are belittleing (sp) the best damn Judicial system in the world (US, in my not-so-humble opinion), and even if techies can't get people to draw parallels on how much computer-related technology resembles every other industry, the ridicuolous exploitation is going to continue.
No artist needs _ANY_ of these MP3-centric websites. But, 90% of the people on the web really don't understand the power that they are supposed to be able to have, including many musicians.... Ask around, and a good deal of people believe that there should be one central point to the web, and a good deal of them actually think AOL is that point. Musicians, likewise, are told that mp3.com and emusic.com and such are the _only_ way to get their music out. This couldn't be more wrong. It doesn't take much looking for them to find a local web designer (like myself) who can tell them everything that they need to know about music and the net. For a franklin or two, I can easily set up a good (not the best for that amount of money) website that they can distribute sample Mp3s from, and set up little tour schedules and message boards for them. A little more, I'd set up a simple catalog (because, really, nobody buys a bunch of MP3s online when it costs just as much to get the actual, portable, rippable CD mailed). All without the artist needing to fear about getting hornswaggled. No contracts invloved. But, ignorance prevails. And artists are taken in by (music-alikes).com because they are too lazy to learn the simple facts. By the way, e-marketers are starting to suck as badly as lawyers.
Fortunately, there are so many groups out there that will attack the entire organiztions doing or attempting to do net censorship and privacy invasions that much of this legistlation and those government-appointed agencies who have to do something, even if it's bad, to justify their existence, that I'm not worried about it. Examples? A censorship group includes homosexual terminology, words such as "gay" and "lesbian", as words that should be filtered out by xyz. Homosexual organizations, including people who are not homosexual but support the organiztions, will make tons of noise, and heads will roll, killing off said legistlation and censorship groups because, in reality, there is only one right way to do it. Parental supervision. When the President of Austrailia learns that not only a lower government agency is reading his mail and watching his child-porn-net-browsing habits, but that regular joe citizen can also do it by cracking software or leaked software from the agency, heads will roll once again. My point is, radical change leads to radical mistakes. ....And, on a political note, who do you think is more interested in staying out of your private buisness, Democrats or Republicans? Liberals or Conservatives? If you don't know, find out. Believe it or not, voting does count, especially when you get everyone else you know in your boat.
Why do we constantly insist on oversimplifying the "Linux" package? Marketing reasons from the commercial sector? Whichever reason, here are the facts:
The entity commonly refered to as "Linux" is based on a kernel called Linux, which does all the low-level dirty work in the OS. On top of Linux we've got the basic GNU tools, and several free-and-stable programs that can make a copmuter running the operating system a hell of a server. Sysadmins like that.
But, GNU tools are optional. Add-ons. So is the server software.
And, the X windows system is optional. You can choose from a variety of X servers, or none at all. You can also use a completely different window system. you can use differnet GUI based end-user applications. Each one is unique, and completely optional. They might kick ass, and they may suck. But if they do suck, QUIT BLAMING LINUX AS A WHOLE. This is mainly directed to the thousands of clue deficient software reviewers and evangelists out there who couldn't tell the difference between a daemon and a watermelon.
Too many local "Linux experts" who have seen my computer, running Enlightenment in X, say "Hey, my Linux doesn't look anything like that." And most of the naysayers to the Linux movement have less of a clue than that. Frankly, I'm starting to care less. Don't get me started on how many people out there think Linux is a new company in silicon valley.
FUD is just the end result of ignorance and laziness on the part of members of the press trying to make a quick buck. The same press that keeps discovering "new" technologies like E-mail, multi-gazillion dollar net startups like e-lemonade.com (for all your lemonade needs!), and internet cell phones.
I'm not saying that Linux should be touted as complex, but that there are millions of parts to the commonly reffered to whole of Linux. Denying the individuality of different projects commonly included in each Linux distribution is akin to denying that your car has four seperate tires, and each on can be made by a different company or have different characteristics.
Nobody really knows what's going to happen. Nobody. Too many unknowns. So, the computer experts take a back seat to the washington sugarcoating and marketing machine. And, of course, everything comming from there is going to look positive and good. Reminds me of Leslie Neilsen in "Naked Gun", standing in front of a burning fireworks warehouse, saying "Move Along. Nothing to see here. Move Along."
Don't expect much out of this until we improve 3d interfaces, both input and output. Once motion tracking and holographic technology is improved enough to be usable, we'll be able to move our floting windows around on our literal desktop by physically grabbing them. Transparent computing at it's best - floating in midair:)
First of all, the article reads as a half-backed introduction to CT and how it relates to other forms of terrorism and the history of related terrorist events in the past decade. Reads too much like a boring history report done by a college freshman... but, to anwer the questions...
Most of the questions are surprisingly elementary, but I'm sure this was done to bring out as many relevant pov's as possible:)
"Using CT, how easy or otherwise is it to bring down or attack vital systems?" It is either easy or hard. The real question, how are the vital systems in question prepared to stand up to said attacks. Like a question on how well armored tanks can stand up to gunfire, it depends on which tank is in question.
"What sort of skills would be needed to do so, and are they common/teachable?" They aren't common in the sense that Joe Blow knows how to hack into the pentagon, but they can definitely be teached. Though skill and talent are considerable factors, they aren't neccesary...
"Commercial-off-the-shelf software: can it really do CT?" Like it says in question one, yes, but it depends on how well the targeted systems are prepared. And if they run NT, well....
"Which systems are actually attackable?" If it exists, it can be attacked. Most vulnerable are those connected to mainstream communication systems such as the internet. Also, you must keep in mind that there are many different types of attacks availibale to your modern cyber-terrorists, including futile ones.
"Can a recovery be made from such attacks?" Yes, and no. Data can always be backed up and restored on virtually any computer system. What is more dangerous is when terrorists defeat system security measures and retrieve privlidged data. There is no way to "steal it back".
"Is it likely to improve/get worse?" Rhetorical question. As computer systems become more complex and the world keeps getting smaller, the more insecure that computer systems will become or at least seem to become...
An eye-catching topic, but slightly sarcastic one too. With support from friends who know linux and can walk you through the installation, or if you just happen to be a natural-born computer person, linux can be for you. But, it's all in what you want to use linux for and where you want it to take you. Nobody is forcing you to use Linux. If you don't like it, then go back to Windows hell:) Yes, Linux is free, and that's great, but it's not something that you should even take as a factor at first in whether or not it's right for you. The fact that it's free makes it a great choice for those who already use it and want to develop for it. You have the power to improve and to contribute, and that, above all, is the main reason that Linux is free. If you want a great server, Linux is for you. If you want a reliable, mission-critical OS, Linux is for you. If you want to use one of Linux's many tools and applications, or just want to get away from Windows, or develop new software on an open operating system, Linux is for you. If you want to become more productive, put time into learning linux and how to put it's powerful tools to use. Linux is NOT for you if it's going to make you look cool. Linux is not for you if you can't accept the fact that it's not perfect either. Linux is not for you if you do not want to put forth any work into making it into a more perfect OS. And linux is not for you if your definition of a "contribution to humanity" is yet another bitchsession about how the world doesn't revolve around you.
I've recently begun work on my own "infobot" for IRC ( mainly to implement original ideas from the start instead of intruding on work of existing bots ), and though the thought of having an intelligent conversationist bot that can emulate a human is appealing in some ways, there are certain problems with taking that approach yet in almost _every_ level of AI work.
First, Artificial Intelligence's time has not yet come. We've got to be able to make our robots and computers operate as tools to a much better degree than we do today. If we ever hope to succeed in the loftier goals of AI specified in Katz's column, let's first try for the basic goals first. Let's make digital machines or perfect servants first, able to understand our behavior and speech and interact with us before "blessing" them with independant thought. At the present day, the average population still is running into a gigantic learning curve in using Windows98. Let's eliminate this barrier first:).
True AI, though it is a great academic endeavour, it is also a very futile endeavour. What can we really hope to accomplish with a free thinking robot? Heck, look how most of the free-thinking humans are turning out;)
Personally, I think the best use of AI is to give it a limited role in the ways certain digital machines interact with us. I do not believe that it is a machines job to become schoolteachers. I do believe, however, that a house-wide information and service computer that can understand speech and interact with humans is going to be a VERY useful tool in the future. However, we have yet to see how much AI is going to play a part in that.
I've been considering setting up a dedicated box to do work serving pages generated by PHP3 (off of a mysql database). Though it's going to be for local buisnesses, I'm wondering what the best option would be to hook it up to the net. I'll need to host various pages off of it, including several on different domain names.
Right now, I'm looking at getting dish TV. Not because cable isn't availiable in this area, but that this is a very small town and the man who owns the rights to provide cable service is religious. The most hard-core channel I can get is MTV. No, I'm not an evil person, but I do like to watch all sorts of content above the dammned sitcom fare of the major networks. Having this poor fool "protect the town" from content is, in my judgement, outrageous. And, I'm sorry, but parents who do not monitor their child's viewing, or even in my opinion, lets their child watch any more than 2 hours a day of TV.... they've got something comming to them whenever little billy takes a gun to school. Children are far too young and impressionable to interpret the messages ANY type of media gives them without proper adult supervision and guidance (I didn't say censorship. Ignorance may be bliss, but the ostrich who sticks his head in the ground will get eaten by the lion.). Sadly, most of the current generation of parents are so fscking clueless (they think Stanley Kubric is the founder of Wendy's), I feel bad for our future. Only strong, smart leadership will save us:).... The reason so many atrocities like this occur is because most of the public out there have been dumbed down not to care, and the people that do care just can't get control away from the standards-imposing, blindly self-righteous, extreeme religious right.
I remember buying the packaging and disks for shareware versions of Duke Nukem and Commander Keen from those guys, back when modem access wasn't common. It was a bit of a rip-off, selling shareware levels at $20 a pop in some cases, but many people didn't know better and neglected to read the fine print about shareware. Most likely..... I'd guess that Alley19's shareware version, but it is not COMMERCIALLY DISTRIBUTABLE shareware. Meaning that GT had no right to make money off of selling the shareware "media" that they are so accustomed to doing....
Why it's sooo hard for this stuff to happen.....
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911 Calls Linux
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Who takes responsibility when it doesn't work? Or, actually, who recieves the blame? Like he said, Motorolla and MS take the blame for the NT box that they have to connect too, but they don't take responsibility. The sad truth is, that most supervisors and managers out there, especially in life-and-death related feilds, are much more concerned more with _liability_ than _reliability_. Can't really blame them, because this is a world where everyone grew up with Microsoft applications and the inevitablity of bugs and errors and system reboots. It's hard for them to accept software that works correctly. It's really hard not to have anyone to blame when things might go wrong. This is a world where Murphy's Law and Linux are the only things not effected by Murphy's Law.;)
Re:College age *CHILDREN*?.... uhm....
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Quack!
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· Score: 1
Actually, I'm 20. I just meant sons and daughters when I said children.
Beyond that article, it needs noting that violence and hatred are nothing new. History repeats itself people, let's not fool ourselves here. It's pretty amazing that we only get a random school shooting, few and far between, when you consider that a little over 50 years ago the mass genocide of an entire group of people, the Holocaust, was rather acceptable to many people (until the Germans wanted more......). We can't expect change overnight, and hatred can't be stomped out in one day. Hatred is passed on to Children through those most filled with hate. I'd hate to take a poll to see how many college age childen are possessed by hatred for the veitnamese because of experiences their fathers went through. Change takes time, but the problem we are seeing are people with too much time on their hands trying to spoon-feed children to develop as some type of morally-righteous robot. Children need freedom to learn, to explore. Sure, innoccence may be lost, but it is necessary for them to interpret messages for themselves and for the PARENTS to guide them trough.
Don't bury innovative ideas by making the "process" of software-development water tight. Though the project will accomplish it's goal, it is usually in the project's best intrest to be open to development of primary ideas after the launch. Software devlopment can be seen like the making of a Jim Carrey movie. Sure, you can force Jim to follow the script to the letter, but if you keep him from doing his last-minute improvisational work, you loose the lifeblood of the movie (and wind up with shit like "The Cable Guy").
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Last I heard, radio stations have to pay the big liscensing companies for broadcast of all those top-40 hits and all. ASCAP, BMI, etc. all gets paid...... I forget the price per song, but it's not terribly high.
I kinda feel differently than the majority of the other guys here, in that I see the "sharing" of your music as piracy, plain and simple. The problem, though, is I don't think Napster is the actual wrongdoer here. Napster provides an easy way for people to share data between each other. It's much like Yahoo.com's ability to find websites that carry Metallica MP3. Napster is a lot like the hammer. It can be used as either a tool or a weapon, but there's nothing illegal about the device itself. :) ?
My questions are: Do you guys believe that anybody can really stop piracy between person and person through the internet without bending or breaking constitutional rights? Do you see a serious potential for the death of conventional music distribution (CDs, of course)? And is there a follow-up to Garage Inc. planned
The main thing that you must realize with GNU as an organization is that the leader is strong-minded when it comes to the position on how all software should be, however, many of GNU's contributors and supporters just don't agree with him to that extent. And that's perfectly fine. Personally, I think that supporting the free-ing of all software everywhere is like supporting total pacifism or communism. They are very good ideas, and would be cool... if it actually worked. Every one has _way_ to many inherent flaws, because this is an imperfect world.
To clarify, you'll want the most vehement racist at the front of the KKK, and you'll want the most bleeding heart liberal out there to fight gun control (poor people just can't pathom the idea that it's not the guns but the people who kill people). You'll also want the biggest die-hard free software advocate to run GNU.
Thankfully, the GPL doesn't include a clause that say you have to agree with free software idealism in order to use it. Otherwise, RMS would be alone in his quest for free software, and GNU and it's software as a whole would be painfully undeveloped.
The guy needs to make money somehow! I'd much rather see him do one of the few things he knows to do, something as generally harmless as talking to crowds, than see him leech welfare money off of the government. Almost every other job *requires* some type of computer contact, even janitorial work. If he was talking about _how_ to break intp pentagon computers, then I'd see a problem. But come on....
There are several problems in the implementation of mailinglists and newsgroups that can be worked around on the web that makes those "old" services less desirable when it comes to using them.
;). But sponsorship without control. Don't count on this happening though. With Linux being the new bandwagin to jump on, corporations want a flauntable piece of the pie, something that they can control and do whatever they want with. Until the need for greed wears of in a couple of years, expect open-source collaboration to be very rocky, with the buisnesses that contribute the least to be making the most noise and stirring up the most bullshit.
Yes, it's nice that VA sponsors that soundforge work, but when it comes down to it, VA does like to keep a good deal of control over the work of it's sponsored projects, because when it comes down to legal liability, they don't want to be stuck in a corner, as do any other company that sponsors these projects.
What do I see as a solution? Not the abandonment of web forums, because they tend to be much more effective when implemented correctly (admittedly, most of them suck right now
(Slashdot does not condone the use of it's users saying the word "bullshit")
"which seems like a lot--until you realize that the movie Waterworld costed more." "Costed"? Cost is used both as a present and a past tense verb in that spelling. "Costed" isn't a real word ;)
Probably the same type stuff you would wind on playstation discs and some PC game CDs... Most often, they'll do something like multiple FAT entries (say, 1000 copies of track TEN or something) that'll work on a regular(stupid) CD player but will make any player that tries to make sense of the table barf.....
For example, while we see a single-page "Table of Contents" in literature as something completely unpatentable, would it have been so cut and dry if the printing press was recently invented. To take it a step further, imagine people patenting "Footnotes" in a book like they patent "Single-Click Ordering" nowadays.
Whereas mega-corporations see this as an oppritunity, everyone else sees it as exploitation of a good idea that should not be owned. Not that I'm trying to be self righteous, as I might even do the same things if I was in Jeff Bezos' shoes, but I hope I would be more of a man than that.
The sadest part is that these processes are belittleing (sp) the best damn Judicial system in the world (US, in my not-so-humble opinion), and even if techies can't get people to draw parallels on how much computer-related technology resembles every other industry, the ridicuolous exploitation is going to continue.
No artist needs _ANY_ of these MP3-centric websites. But, 90% of the people on the web really don't understand the power that they are supposed to be able to have, including many musicians.... Ask around, and a good deal of people believe that there should be one central point to the web, and a good deal of them actually think AOL is that point. Musicians, likewise, are told that mp3.com and emusic.com and such are the _only_ way to get their music out. This couldn't be more wrong. It doesn't take much looking for them to find a local web designer (like myself) who can tell them everything that they need to know about music and the net. For a franklin or two, I can easily set up a good (not the best for that amount of money) website that they can distribute sample Mp3s from, and set up little tour schedules and message boards for them. A little more, I'd set up a simple catalog (because, really, nobody buys a bunch of MP3s online when it costs just as much to get the actual, portable, rippable CD mailed). All without the artist needing to fear about getting hornswaggled. No contracts invloved. But, ignorance prevails. And artists are taken in by (music-alikes).com because they are too lazy to learn the simple facts. By the way, e-marketers are starting to suck as badly as lawyers.
Fortunately, there are so many groups out there that will attack the entire organiztions doing or attempting to do net censorship and privacy invasions that much of this legistlation and those government-appointed agencies who have to do something, even if it's bad, to justify their existence, that I'm not worried about it.
....And, on a political note, who do you think is more interested in staying out of your private buisness, Democrats or Republicans? Liberals or Conservatives? If you don't know, find out. Believe it or not, voting does count, especially when you get everyone else you know in your boat.
Examples?
A censorship group includes homosexual terminology, words such as "gay" and "lesbian", as words that should be filtered out by xyz. Homosexual organizations, including people who are not homosexual but support the organiztions, will make tons of noise, and heads will roll, killing off said legistlation and censorship groups because, in reality, there is only one right way to do it. Parental supervision.
When the President of Austrailia learns that not only a lower government agency is reading his mail and watching his child-porn-net-browsing habits, but that regular joe citizen can also do it by cracking software or leaked software from the agency, heads will roll once again.
My point is, radical change leads to radical mistakes.
Why do we constantly insist on oversimplifying the "Linux" package? Marketing reasons from the commercial sector? Whichever reason, here are the facts:
The entity commonly refered to as "Linux" is based on a kernel called Linux, which does all the low-level dirty work in the OS. On top of Linux we've got the basic GNU tools, and several free-and-stable programs that can make a copmuter running the operating system a hell of a server. Sysadmins like that.
But, GNU tools are optional. Add-ons. So is the server software.
And, the X windows system is optional. You can choose from a variety of X servers, or none at all. You can also use a completely different window system. you can use differnet GUI based end-user applications. Each one is unique, and completely optional. They might kick ass, and they may suck. But if they do suck, QUIT BLAMING LINUX AS A WHOLE. This is mainly directed to the thousands of clue deficient software reviewers and evangelists out there who couldn't tell the difference between a daemon and a watermelon.
Too many local "Linux experts" who have seen my computer, running Enlightenment in X, say "Hey, my Linux doesn't look anything like that." And most of the naysayers to the Linux movement have less of a clue than that. Frankly, I'm starting to care less. Don't get me started on how many people out there think Linux is a new company in silicon valley.
FUD is just the end result of ignorance and laziness on the part of members of the press trying to make a quick buck. The same press that keeps discovering "new" technologies like E-mail, multi-gazillion dollar net startups like e-lemonade.com (for all your lemonade needs!), and internet cell phones.
I'm not saying that Linux should be touted as complex, but that there are millions of parts to the commonly reffered to whole of Linux. Denying the individuality of different projects commonly included in each Linux distribution is akin to denying that your car has four seperate tires, and each on can be made by a different company or have different characteristics.
Nobody really knows what's going to happen. Nobody. Too many unknowns. So, the computer experts take a back seat to the washington sugarcoating and marketing machine. And, of course, everything comming from there is going to look positive and good. Reminds me of Leslie Neilsen in "Naked Gun", standing in front of a burning fireworks warehouse, saying "Move Along. Nothing to see here. Move Along."
Don't expect much out of this until we improve 3d interfaces, both input and output. Once motion tracking and holographic technology is improved enough to be usable, we'll be able to move our floting windows around on our literal desktop by physically grabbing them. Transparent computing at it's best - floating in midair :)
First of all, the article reads as a half-backed introduction to CT and how it relates to other forms of terrorism and the history of related terrorist events in the past decade. Reads too much like a boring history report done by a college freshman... but, to anwer the questions...
:)
Most of the questions are surprisingly elementary, but I'm sure this was done to bring out as many relevant pov's as possible
"Using CT, how easy or otherwise is it to bring down or attack vital systems?"
It is either easy or hard. The real question, how are the vital systems in question prepared to stand up to said attacks. Like a question on how well armored tanks can stand up to gunfire, it depends on which tank is in question.
"What sort of skills would be needed to do so, and are they common/teachable?"
They aren't common in the sense that Joe Blow knows how to hack into the pentagon, but they can definitely be teached. Though skill and talent are considerable factors, they aren't neccesary...
"Commercial-off-the-shelf software: can it really do CT?"
Like it says in question one, yes, but it depends on how well the targeted systems are prepared. And if they run NT, well....
"Which systems are actually attackable?"
If it exists, it can be attacked. Most vulnerable are those connected to mainstream communication systems such as the internet. Also, you must keep in mind that there are many different types of attacks availibale to your modern cyber-terrorists, including futile ones.
"Can a recovery be made from such attacks?"
Yes, and no. Data can always be backed up and restored on virtually any computer system. What is more dangerous is when terrorists defeat system security measures and retrieve privlidged data. There is no way to "steal it back".
"Is it likely to improve/get worse?"
Rhetorical question. As computer systems become more complex and the world keeps getting smaller, the more insecure that computer systems will become or at least seem to become...
An eye-catching topic, but slightly sarcastic one too. :)
With support from friends who know linux and can walk you through the installation, or if you just happen to be a natural-born computer person, linux can be for you. But, it's all in what you want to use linux for and where you want it to take you. Nobody is forcing you to use Linux. If you don't like it, then go back to Windows hell
Yes, Linux is free, and that's great, but it's not something that you should even take as a factor at first in whether or not it's right for you. The fact that it's free makes it a great choice for those who already use it and want to develop for it. You have the power to improve and to contribute, and that, above all, is the main reason that Linux is free.
If you want a great server, Linux is for you. If you want a reliable, mission-critical OS, Linux is for you. If you want to use one of Linux's many tools and applications, or just want to get away from Windows, or develop new software on an open operating system, Linux is for you. If you want to become more productive, put time into learning linux and how to put it's powerful tools to use.
Linux is NOT for you if it's going to make you look cool. Linux is not for you if you can't accept the fact that it's not perfect either. Linux is not for you if you do not want to put forth any work into making it into a more perfect OS. And linux is not for you if your definition of a "contribution to humanity" is yet another bitchsession about how the world doesn't revolve around you.
I've recently begun work on my own "infobot" for IRC ( mainly to implement original ideas from the start instead of intruding on work of existing bots ), and though the thought of having an intelligent conversationist bot that can emulate a human is appealing in some ways, there are certain problems with taking that approach yet in almost _every_ level of AI work.
:).
;)
First, Artificial Intelligence's time has not yet come. We've got to be able to make our robots and computers operate as tools to a much better degree than we do today. If we ever hope to succeed in the loftier goals of AI specified in Katz's column, let's first try for the basic goals first. Let's make digital machines or perfect servants first, able to understand our behavior and speech and interact with us before "blessing" them with independant thought. At the present day, the average population still is running into a gigantic learning curve in using Windows98. Let's eliminate this barrier first
True AI, though it is a great academic endeavour, it is also a very futile endeavour. What can we really hope to accomplish with a free thinking robot? Heck, look how most of the free-thinking humans are turning out
Personally, I think the best use of AI is to give it a limited role in the ways certain digital machines interact with us. I do not believe that it is a machines job to become schoolteachers. I do believe, however, that a house-wide information and service computer that can understand speech and interact with humans is going to be a VERY useful tool in the future. However, we have yet to see how much AI is going to play a part in that.
I've been considering setting up a dedicated box to do work serving pages generated by PHP3 (off of a mysql database). Though it's going to be for local buisnesses, I'm wondering what the best option would be to hook it up to the net. I'll need to host various pages off of it, including several on different domain names.
Right now, I'm looking at getting dish TV. Not because cable isn't availiable in this area, but that this is a very small town and the man who owns the rights to provide cable service is religious. The most hard-core channel I can get is MTV. No, I'm not an evil person, but I do like to watch all sorts of content above the dammned sitcom fare of the major networks. Having this poor fool "protect the town" from content is, in my judgement, outrageous. And, I'm sorry, but parents who do not monitor their child's viewing, or even in my opinion, lets their child watch any more than 2 hours a day of TV.... they've got something comming to them whenever little billy takes a gun to school. Children are far too young and impressionable to interpret the messages ANY type of media gives them without proper adult supervision and guidance (I didn't say censorship. Ignorance may be bliss, but the ostrich who sticks his head in the ground will get eaten by the lion.). Sadly, most of the current generation of parents are so fscking clueless (they think Stanley Kubric is the founder of Wendy's), I feel bad for our future. Only strong, smart leadership will save us :)....
The reason so many atrocities like this occur is because most of the public out there have been dumbed down not to care, and the people that do care just can't get control away from the standards-imposing, blindly self-righteous, extreeme religious right.
This is not a public forum. It is a moderated forum, and the owners of slashdot will do whatever the hell they want to :)
I remember buying the packaging and disks for shareware versions of Duke Nukem and Commander Keen from those guys, back when modem access wasn't common. It was a bit of a rip-off, selling shareware levels at $20 a pop in some cases, but many people didn't know better and neglected to read the fine print about shareware.
Most likely..... I'd guess that Alley19's shareware version, but it is not COMMERCIALLY DISTRIBUTABLE shareware. Meaning that GT had no right to make money off of selling the shareware "media" that they are so accustomed to doing....
If that _is_ the case, I can't tell yet. Here is StarPlay's press release.
Who takes responsibility when it doesn't work? Or, actually, who recieves the blame? Like he said, Motorolla and MS take the blame for the NT box that they have to connect too, but they don't take responsibility. The sad truth is, that most supervisors and managers out there, especially in life-and-death related feilds, are much more concerned more with _liability_ than _reliability_. Can't really blame them, because this is a world where everyone grew up with Microsoft applications and the inevitablity of bugs and errors and system reboots. It's hard for them to accept software that works correctly. It's really hard not to have anyone to blame when things might go wrong. ;)
This is a world where Murphy's Law and Linux are the only things not effected by Murphy's Law.
Actually, I'm 20. I just meant sons and daughters when I said children.
My favorite /. headline to date. :)
Beyond that article, it needs noting that violence and hatred are nothing new. History repeats itself people, let's not fool ourselves here. It's pretty amazing that we only get a random school shooting, few and far between, when you consider that a little over 50 years ago the mass genocide of an entire group of people, the Holocaust, was rather acceptable to many people (until the Germans wanted more......). We can't expect change overnight, and hatred can't be stomped out in one day. Hatred is passed on to Children through those most filled with hate. I'd hate to take a poll to see how many college age childen are possessed by hatred for the veitnamese because of experiences their fathers went through.
Change takes time, but the problem we are seeing are people with too much time on their hands trying to spoon-feed children to develop as some type of morally-righteous robot. Children need freedom to learn, to explore. Sure, innoccence may be lost, but it is necessary for them to interpret messages for themselves and for the PARENTS to guide them trough.
Somebody's been watching too many budwiser commercials. Norm MacDonald's popularity is yet another red flag signalling the comming apocalypse :)
Don't bury innovative ideas by making the "process" of software-development water tight. Though the project will accomplish it's goal, it is usually in the project's best intrest to be open to development of primary ideas after the launch. Software devlopment can be seen like the making of a Jim Carrey movie. Sure, you can force Jim to follow the script to the letter, but if you keep him from doing his last-minute improvisational work, you loose the lifeblood of the movie (and wind up with shit like "The Cable Guy").
:)
Maybe I just need to get some sleep