For many years before the West was Wild, Native Americans lived there in relative peace and harmony with the earth and each other. There was no money. There was no need for written laws.
This is utter and complete claptrap.
Indian cultures warred on each other with great ferocity. Indian agriculture resembled closely what we refer to as "strip farming".
In other words, they were real people with as many faults and warts as their European invaders, who were simply better armed.
Please folks, don't get your image of native Americans from John Wayne films.
mod_perl should be able to handle somewhere close to this on a single machine
100 million hits???? No. I have mistakingly put perl on one of our most highly visited pages and watched it get crushed like a grape...and this was only a random redirect generator.
Re:Unfortunately, Scott McNealy was right...
on
Database Nation
·
· Score: 2
You are confusing a credit report which companies like Experian will give to anybody for a small amount of money, and a credit card (or a debit card) transaction history, which is possible for the third party to get, but it's much much harder than getting a credit report.
I'm not confusing the two. Cash-equivalent transactions will surely be added to the same reports people like Experian manage, once they see the obvious marketing opportunity available in giving away not just your credit history but your purchase history. Don't assume your banks will continue to horde the valuable commodity known as your audit trail.
Sigh. Why don't you get a clue as to what IP-based networks (such as Internet) are and what are differences between layers in a networking stack?
If you're so well informed regarding IP than you surely know about the unforgeable headers IPv6 will certainly implement to render all of your aforementioned defenses obsolete. Enjoy.
Re:Unfortunately, Scott McNealy was right...
on
Database Nation
·
· Score: 2
What's a pamprin, dearie?
A pill for PMS'ing women.
And remember that the credit report has a reason: you are asking people to lend you money. Don't like the consequences -- don't ask.And remember that the credit report has a reason: you are asking people to lend you money. Don't like the consequences -- don't ask.
Balderdash - debit cards can be tracked as easily as credit cards.
Added to which, asking to be lent money is one thing - tracking where I spend it is another. I don't know why you feel inclined to have your creditors be given have this ability to track you.
the danger to your privacy from the release of a certain piece of info does depend on what's in that piece of info.the danger to your privacy from the release of a certain piece of info does depend on what's in that piece of info.
You're missing the entire notion of why privacy is important, at the base level. Once again, privacy isn't just for people who have "something to hide". If you can't get that and admit to it, don't reply.
But to repeat myself there are tools (e.g. ZeroKnowledge's Freedom.net) which will prevent this if used properly.
Your MAC address is hardwired. Even if the products you discuss cover this up, they can't cover up the bit trail you leave on email servers and routers in your wake.
Re:Unfortunately, Scott McNealy was right...
on
Database Nation
·
· Score: 3
To summarize: don't whine. If you *care* about your privacy, there are tools out there to help you. If you don't want to spend any effort, thought -- don't be surprised at the results.
Take a pamprin honey. Now go back and read the post again and tell me what "tools" you have for realistically obscuring your credit record - news flash, there's more than credit card purchases on that puppy. Any long-term debt is recorded.
This is dangerous only if the credit history reveals much about you: see next.
The value of privacy is independent of whether you have anything to hide or not. If you can't wrap your head around this concept, you're pretty much a write-off.
It all depends. If you give your real name/address/email to all who ask, never look into your cookie file
Your IP address and MAC information can be obtained without you knowing it, and for most of us the IP part is hardwired, even at home.
I'd happily eat my words if someone could demonstrate PHP handling 100 million hits a day. I'd be pleasantly surprised..as my experience at a site that gets this type of traffic (so yes, I actually have some vague idea of what I'm talking about) has indicated otherwise. Our experiences with PHP (yes, we tried it on part of the site) on even moderately traffic'd parts of our site were not good.
Nice thought, but it will never happen
on
Database Nation
·
· Score: 2
While I agree (after a lengthy debate on this topic the other day) that anonymity is a component of privacy, folks had better cherish these last days of anonymity on the web. Spamford Wallace taught us all a lovely lesson when he showed us the amusing things one can do when one cannot be traced. Right then and there mainstream society decided anonymity was on the chopping block.
Unfortunately, Scott McNealy was right...
on
Database Nation
·
· Score: 3
...when he said "you already have no privacy, deal with it".
Consider:
Your entire credit history can be inspected by strangers.
Your name, address, and phone number are in multiple public databases.
Credit car purchases can be easily tracked, measured, and mined to form a frighteningly fitting profile of you. Your emails can be read by your employer.
Your phone may already be "observed" by outside agencies.
Most of your network transactions can be traced, given time and effort.
Folks - the only thing that separates you and Jennicam is the cam.
Ignore your application server vendor...I'm willing to bet that its the most unreliable part of Amazon.com.
Agreed. Almost none of these tools are sufficiently mature to this point.
Use well known, well respected, and evolved tools.
To this point, I would caution against using MySQL - while excellent for smaller jobs, I have found it unable to hold up to high volume concurrent use as well as Oracle. When it comes to an RDBMS, spend the money and get it over with. Free solutions have not closed the gap wuite yet.
Cache! Cache whatever you can.
Make use of Akamai or another caching network where useful.
Be ready to spend. Running a fast, large hits web site is expensive.
And spend wisely. Don't fill up your rackspace with full-height servers when 1u servers will do. Don't tie too much of your site to one piece of hardware - you get better tolerance and granularity from many small servers as opposed to a few big servers. The colocations I visit tend to be a textbook case study in how to waste rack space.
The only market linux is assured of grabbing is the low-end server market. This will be a huge market, particularly for web serving, but it really doesn't threaten Windows2000 as a corporate desktop, and it still doesn't threaten Solaris at the high end.
My experience at a "very high volume" web site tells me quite clearly that if you connect code to the live site, it must be compiled. Perl, Java, etc. are all unable to cope with sites getting more than 50 million hits/day.
You may say that 50 million hits is an unrealistically high number to be discussing, but considering the rate of growth of web traffic, it won't just be the top ten sites that get this much traffic - many sites can expect it.
You can start up a competing certificate facility, but could you succeed at it? Could anyone?
Of course - starting a certificate facility requires that you implement that standard - which is a easy feat for most large tech companies - and that you incorporate your support into web servers.
Both AOL (through Netscape) and Microsoft (through IIS) have large market shares in commerce servers, so they could easily do this.
Added to which, AOL is to be one of the "blessed" registrars, so they could easily counter every "threat" posed by Verisign....and in fact have much deeper pockets. Not only is Verisign not a monopoly, but their success is by no means assured against AOL.
Once again, Verisign does not engage in product tying, predatory pricing, and they do not constitute a barrier to entry.
The fact that digital certificates are a standard means that anyone can implement a certificate authority.
I suspect that AOL will do just that and incorporate it into Netscape commerce servers. Oh, by the way, AOL will also be a "blessed" registrar just like NSI.
AOL, Register.com, NSI and others will be "blessed" registers. Consumers will have choice.
As for the certificate market, AOL will be able to easily incorporate certificates into the Netscape servers they control. Microsoft could easily purchase one of the other registrars, or do a deal with them to incorporate certificates into IIS. IBM, Sun, and HP all have the market presence to make deals to compete with Verisign.
In fact, I don't even see Verisign coming out number one in this fight - I see the deep-pockets of AOL using their ownership of Netscape's commerce server to muscle them out over time.
What, so private citizens can start up their own company, which will go the way of everything else and be forcibly acquired by a behomoth company?
You take tonight's award for most ill-conceived counter-argument. Basically you are telling me that privatization is bad because the company may one day be aquired, grow, shrink, change, or all those other things dynamic private organizations do to optimize their ability to serve customers.
Next boat for North Korea leaves in ten minutes. Be on it.
Speaking of the Fed, there's another public institution that is effective and self suffucient. More evidence to the contrary that anything and everything "government" or "public" is wasteful and stupid.
The Fed is an example of what government should be doing - regulating private commerce, not engaging in it.
I have no problem with federal regulation - I don't believe that corporations are inherently noble - but I do have an issue with the opportunity costs imposed by government competing in spaces where private citizens can capably meet the federally regulated standards of service.
Verisign+NSOL are looking at this from the ecommerce standpoint - names + security = ecommerce real estate.
They will certainly have string competition in this field. AOL will soon be an official registrar with almost limitless cash. They also own Netscape, so inserting their preferred certificate support into Netscape commerce servers is automatic. I would almost venture to say that Verisign is so outgunned by AOL/Netscape that their success is by no means assured.
There will be others. Register.com will certainly find a willing partner such as Sun or IBM who is willing to implement the missing pieces of the security puzzle - both comapnies market ecommerce servers that can be rigged to support their certificates as well.
Then of course, there is Microsoft. They can easily buy any of the blessed registrars outside of AOL, and their ownership of the mid-range server market assures them a huge audience.
With all of this probably competition, it amazes me how anyone can conclude that Verisign is somehow a threat or even a monopolist.
Actually, the government does have it's hands all over the power grid and the phone network. True, it's all run by private companies now, but they are government granted monopolies
It is true that many of these privatized industries had public roots - but since this process was succesfully carried out with power and phone grids, I see no reason why mail cannot make the transition.
Besides, would you really trust someone like UPS or FedEx with official mail?
Hmmm....people here seem to have some exalted opinion of the USPS. Perhaps you missed the 60 minutes where spycams highlighted USPS workers opening mail looking for checks.
The term "going postal" didn't fall out of the sky - its a dysfunctional organization.
To be legally binding, these services will be highly regulated
You, like many other people in here, seem to think that all of society's fundamental transactions are government regulated. Take a visit to your bank sometime and ask them if their wire transfers are government regulated (which is the most important type of "email" there is).
I love reading slashdot - if the topic is privacy, you want to hang the government out to dry and go private. If its mergers and acquisitions, you all decide you want to move to North Korea.
The government is just another corporation. It forces collections of fees and in return offers second rate security and educational services.
but is it really worth worrying about? It doesn't cost us anything
It costs us something - we are depriving private citizens a crack at running the business themselves. This is an opportunity costs, which is not insignifcant.
If postal service can be provided reliably at a profit, let private citizens have a crack at it.
I won't bring up the tired Dutch Tulip analogy, but conditions right up to the 60's and 70's are being mirrored today. Your analogy isn't "Marxist" or "conspiracy" in any way - numerous others have offered the same analogy and argued it congently.
Some points have changed though - firstly, the obvious automatic triggers to halt trading in case of catastrophe.
In other ways, things are worse - the public is much more involved in the investing process today, and most of them are following the herd in the worst possible, thus influencing institutional investors who might otherwise act in a more rational manner.
Even "value" managers are being forced to chase the "easy" money on NASDAQ by cusomters who demand to see high returns come hell or high water. The general public appears to have fundamentally misunderstood risk.
Added to which, as you mention, the preponderonce of consumer debt. This is indeed troubling, particularly when most Americans now have the capability to become debt-free. There isn't much you can do here - just try not to get burned when these basket-cases flame out.
Slashdot Mirror
The French in particular are notorious for carrying on these types of operations.
The judge has mandated that Iridium or its creditors "deorbit" the satellites, although it was not clear who was going to pay for this.
The company cannot leave the satellites there. They will be brought back down and burnup by judicial order. It is unclear how this will be paid for.
History. Its not like this is hidden information - almost any public library of any stature will have numerous references available.
This is utter and complete claptrap.
Indian cultures warred on each other with great ferocity. Indian agriculture resembled closely what we refer to as "strip farming".
In other words, they were real people with as many faults and warts as their European invaders, who were simply better armed.
Please folks, don't get your image of native Americans from John Wayne films.
100 million hits???? No. I have mistakingly put perl on one of our most highly visited pages and watched it get crushed like a grape...and this was only a random redirect generator.
I'm not confusing the two. Cash-equivalent transactions will surely be added to the same reports people like Experian manage, once they see the obvious marketing opportunity available in giving away not just your credit history but your purchase history. Don't assume your banks will continue to horde the valuable commodity known as your audit trail.
Sigh. Why don't you get a clue as to what IP-based networks (such as Internet) are and what are differences between layers in a networking stack?
If you're so well informed regarding IP than you surely know about the unforgeable headers IPv6 will certainly implement to render all of your aforementioned defenses obsolete. Enjoy.
A pill for PMS'ing women.
And remember that the credit report has a reason: you are asking people to lend you money. Don't like the consequences -- don't ask.And remember that the credit report has a reason: you are asking people to lend you money. Don't like the consequences -- don't ask.
Balderdash - debit cards can be tracked as easily as credit cards.
Added to which, asking to be lent money is one thing - tracking where I spend it is another. I don't know why you feel inclined to have your creditors be given have this ability to track you.
the danger to your privacy from the release of a certain piece of info does depend on what's in that piece of info.the danger to your privacy from the release of a certain piece of info does depend on what's in that piece of info.
You're missing the entire notion of why privacy is important, at the base level. Once again, privacy isn't just for people who have "something to hide". If you can't get that and admit to it, don't reply.
But to repeat myself there are tools (e.g. ZeroKnowledge's Freedom.net) which will prevent this if used properly.
Your MAC address is hardwired. Even if the products you discuss cover this up, they can't cover up the bit trail you leave on email servers and routers in your wake.
Take a pamprin honey. Now go back and read the post again and tell me what "tools" you have for realistically obscuring your credit record - news flash, there's more than credit card purchases on that puppy. Any long-term debt is recorded.
This is dangerous only if the credit history reveals much about you: see next.
The value of privacy is independent of whether you have anything to hide or not. If you can't wrap your head around this concept, you're pretty much a write-off.
It all depends. If you give your real name/address/email to all who ask, never look into your cookie file
Your IP address and MAC information can be obtained without you knowing it, and for most of us the IP part is hardwired, even at home.
I'd happily eat my words if someone could demonstrate PHP handling 100 million hits a day. I'd be pleasantly surprised..as my experience at a site that gets this type of traffic (so yes, I actually have some vague idea of what I'm talking about) has indicated otherwise. Our experiences with PHP (yes, we tried it on part of the site) on even moderately traffic'd parts of our site were not good.
While I agree (after a lengthy debate on this topic the other day) that anonymity is a component of privacy, folks had better cherish these last days of anonymity on the web. Spamford Wallace taught us all a lovely lesson when he showed us the amusing things one can do when one cannot be traced. Right then and there mainstream society decided anonymity was on the chopping block.
Consider:
Folks - the only thing that separates you and Jennicam is the cam.
Agreed. Almost none of these tools are sufficiently mature to this point.
Use well known, well respected, and evolved tools.
To this point, I would caution against using MySQL - while excellent for smaller jobs, I have found it unable to hold up to high volume concurrent use as well as Oracle. When it comes to an RDBMS, spend the money and get it over with. Free solutions have not closed the gap wuite yet.
Cache! Cache whatever you can.
Make use of Akamai or another caching network where useful.
Be ready to spend. Running a fast, large hits web site is expensive.
And spend wisely. Don't fill up your rackspace with full-height servers when 1u servers will do. Don't tie too much of your site to one piece of hardware - you get better tolerance and granularity from many small servers as opposed to a few big servers. The colocations I visit tend to be a textbook case study in how to waste rack space.
Most points mentioned here are covered in detail in this book.
You may say that 50 million hits is an unrealistically high number to be discussing, but considering the rate of growth of web traffic, it won't just be the top ten sites that get this much traffic - many sites can expect it.
Of course - starting a certificate facility requires that you implement that standard - which is a easy feat for most large tech companies - and that you incorporate your support into web servers.
Both AOL (through Netscape) and Microsoft (through IIS) have large market shares in commerce servers, so they could easily do this.
Added to which, AOL is to be one of the "blessed" registrars, so they could easily counter every "threat" posed by Verisign....and in fact have much deeper pockets. Not only is Verisign not a monopoly, but their success is by no means assured against AOL.
The fact that digital certificates are a standard means that anyone can implement a certificate authority.
I suspect that AOL will do just that and incorporate it into Netscape commerce servers. Oh, by the way, AOL will also be a "blessed" registrar just like NSI.
As for the certificate market, AOL will be able to easily incorporate certificates into the Netscape servers they control. Microsoft could easily purchase one of the other registrars, or do a deal with them to incorporate certificates into IIS. IBM, Sun, and HP all have the market presence to make deals to compete with Verisign.
In fact, I don't even see Verisign coming out number one in this fight - I see the deep-pockets of AOL using their ownership of Netscape's commerce server to muscle them out over time.
You take tonight's award for most ill-conceived counter-argument. Basically you are telling me that privatization is bad because the company may one day be aquired, grow, shrink, change, or all those other things dynamic private organizations do to optimize their ability to serve customers.
Next boat for North Korea leaves in ten minutes. Be on it.
The Fed is an example of what government should be doing - regulating private commerce, not engaging in it.
I have no problem with federal regulation - I don't believe that corporations are inherently noble - but I do have an issue with the opportunity costs imposed by government competing in spaces where private citizens can capably meet the federally regulated standards of service.
They will certainly have string competition in this field. AOL will soon be an official registrar with almost limitless cash. They also own Netscape, so inserting their preferred certificate support into Netscape commerce servers is automatic. I would almost venture to say that Verisign is so outgunned by AOL/Netscape that their success is by no means assured.
There will be others. Register.com will certainly find a willing partner such as Sun or IBM who is willing to implement the missing pieces of the security puzzle - both comapnies market ecommerce servers that can be rigged to support their certificates as well.
Then of course, there is Microsoft. They can easily buy any of the blessed registrars outside of AOL, and their ownership of the mid-range server market assures them a huge audience.
With all of this probably competition, it amazes me how anyone can conclude that Verisign is somehow a threat or even a monopolist.
It is true that many of these privatized industries had public roots - but since this process was succesfully carried out with power and phone grids, I see no reason why mail cannot make the transition.
Besides, would you really trust someone like UPS or FedEx with official mail?
Hmmm....people here seem to have some exalted opinion of the USPS. Perhaps you missed the 60 minutes where spycams highlighted USPS workers opening mail looking for checks.
The term "going postal" didn't fall out of the sky - its a dysfunctional organization.
To be legally binding, these services will be highly regulated
You, like many other people in here, seem to think that all of society's fundamental transactions are government regulated. Take a visit to your bank sometime and ask them if their wire transfers are government regulated (which is the most important type of "email" there is).
I love reading slashdot - if the topic is privacy, you want to hang the government out to dry and go private. If its mergers and acquisitions, you all decide you want to move to North Korea.
The government is just another corporation. It forces collections of fees and in return offers second rate security and educational services.
It costs us something - we are depriving private citizens a crack at running the business themselves. This is an opportunity costs, which is not insignifcant.
If postal service can be provided reliably at a profit, let private citizens have a crack at it.
Smaller government is better.
Some points have changed though - firstly, the obvious automatic triggers to halt trading in case of catastrophe.
In other ways, things are worse - the public is much more involved in the investing process today, and most of them are following the herd in the worst possible, thus influencing institutional investors who might otherwise act in a more rational manner.
Even "value" managers are being forced to chase the "easy" money on NASDAQ by cusomters who demand to see high returns come hell or high water. The general public appears to have fundamentally misunderstood risk.
Added to which, as you mention, the preponderonce of consumer debt. This is indeed troubling, particularly when most Americans now have the capability to become debt-free. There isn't much you can do here - just try not to get burned when these basket-cases flame out.