Actually, while considering the Morris worm, (what was once called THE internet worm), it is important to note that the newer worms are spreading not only by attacking obvious things (network server processes, how the Morris worm spread) but also via user-interface programs like mail readers and web browsers.
So it seems to me the lessons to learn are that we need to:
bulletproof elm, pine, Netscape, Mozilla, and any other News/Mail/Web client against their respective servers.
Avoid the urge put excessive DWIM features in such clients. One of the reasons nimdA got through lots of folks email filters and still ran was that various Windows clients got a "audio/wav" attachment, but looked at it and decided it was really an executable and ran it.
Avoid having downloaded-executable parts of any kind if possible. Java applets, javascript, and even PostScript are examples of this design methodology, and all have lead to numerous potential security violations.
But this is a classic self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you assume that the "vast majority" of
of people who want to run servers do so for commercial reasons, and charge for that, then you get exactly what you predicted, because non-commercial users won't pay the rates businesses will.
The analogy to business phone services is inappropriate -- there is no difference in the service provided between business and residential phone service, only a difference in billing. In either case you get a phone number where people can call you, and you can call them.
The case here is that business users get full service, and residential users get crippled service.
Fortunately, unless the NSA does their own distribution, other folks can review their code looking for backdoors. And besides, would you take a distribution from the NSA? They'd probably reintroduce the old trusted compiler hack, where the binary for the compiler inserts backdoor code into the login program, and new versions of the compiler. A more modern implementation could just do calls to listen(), so every network server automatcially gets a backdoor...
Computing is the only field in which we consider
adding a wing to the building to be maintenance.
Personally, I've been hearing ``Imminent Death of the Net Predicted'' since ARPANET days. Back in 1977 or thereabouts there was a failure of the old ARPANET routing algorithm that shut the whole net down. As late as 1987 I was still hearing people (mostly OSI backers, it's true) cite that incident as proof that packet switching was not viable, and only circuit switching (as in X.25) could possibly support massive amounts of traffic....
This is the Same Old -- er -- Stuff, recycled.
Computing is the only field in which we consider
adding a wing to the building to be maintenance.
I think Microsoft(tm) has been anti-competitive, but that the Netscape case is
a very weak forum to demonstrate that.
Take for example Netcarta Webmapper(tm) for Unix(tm).
This is a product which
used to be available for
Solaris and several other Unices, which made Solaris a better WWW maintenance platform.
Microsoft
bought Netcarta, and now, new releases of Webmapper (now part of Back Office) are no longer avalailble Unix, and no longer have a remote web interface to launch searches (you have to be on the console of the Windows box).
While they still "support" (emphasis on the quotes) Webmapper on Unix, this support consisits
of telling you that your bugs are fixed in the
new release, which by the way is only avalailable for Microsoft platforms.
So who has been harmed here?
people who bought Webmapper for Unix
Unix vendors(who have one less application available for their OS.)
Now it would be different if this were an isolated
instance, but Microsoft eats up software companies
who sell software that runs on competitors' operating systems, and turns off real support (by which I mean continued new releases)
for those other operating systems.
(see over here
for lots more examples.)
So they are actively removing application choices and upgrade support for users of other operating systems, and that harms those users and those
operating systems vendors.
Many years ago when I started working at the Death Star -- er AT&T, in amongst the 2-inch-deep pile
of papers they handed me to fill in, sign, and otherwise abuse on my first day, was an intellectual property "agreement" -- they would own basically anything I ever thought of. As I recall, it didn't even terminate upon me leaving the company. So I filed it at the bottom of the
pile, unsigned, and went on.
Three years later, apparently someone noticed, and
they sent me a memo, and a copy of the agreement, saying they couldn't find my signed agreement, and could I please send them a new one. Not surprisingly, I don't think I ever got around to it.;-)
Of course, I left there after 5 years, but as
far as I can tell, I could have gone on
indefinitely without ever signing that silly
piece of paper.
Basically, they can't sue you over it if
they don't have a signed copy, and unless they're actually organized, they will figure that they lost it.
So don't complain about
it, don't ask about it, just don't sign it.
Actually, SPAMming coded messages to thousands of people has the benefit of obscuring which one of them is the intended recipient. Analyzing where
the data goes and when is an important part of breaking codes, as anyone who's read Cryptonomicon (and who here hasn't?) should know.
So encoding messages in junk mail and sending them to thousands of people is an excellent scheme for getting secrets to the people who need them. You can even send a copy to the head of the CIA directly, and he or she will probably throw it out:-)
Can't someone scrounge around and find out how much income the major virus scanning software
companies make on that software every year?
For example,
this article points out that Network Associates
brought in about $9Million last quarter from
McAfee.com, and this one claims that McAfee has
47% of the market; so that says that folks
spent around $20Million last quarter on virus
software alone -- assuming linear rates,
that means $80Million last year...
Of course that doesn't count virus-scanning firewalls, and so on, much less peoples' time.
Actually what Gore is proposing is a continuation
of what he and Clinton have been doing, giving tax cuts that will increase tax revenue down the road.
For example, I give you a tax cut to get a college degree, you get the degree, get a higher paying job, and pay more taxes.
This is why we are developing surpluses -- you help people get better jobs and the tax revenue goes up. You provide high tech companies with a larger trained workforce and they make more money and tax revenue goes up.
The Bush proposal on the other hand, spreads out the tax cuts so evenly that there isn't enough of it in any one place to do any good.
When the ocean starts flooding the coastal cities after the ice caps melt, Real Life can seriously mess with your computers and networking.
One of our Leading U.S. Presidential Candidates thinks burning more natural gas and less oil is going to help with global warming, apparently not realizing that both are hydrocarbons and put the same amount of C02 in the atmosphere.
Your mission -- find out which one. (Hint, he's affiliated with the oil industry)
Aaarrggghh!! I'm really tired of hearing this one. It wouldn't bug me so much, except that
the folks who repeat this are slandering a candidate for President, by repeating the false
claim that he said he "invented" the internet. For details see:
Gore in Context.
If the were really out to get us, they would hide the redirection part of
the URL. Oh and they would add it to any user-defined bookmarks,too....And they'd proxy the pages, so they
could edit out any anti-Microsoft sentiment
that might be expressed therein.
Refuse to sign that particular document, not under grounds that they don't have rights to your invention (you would lose, given the IP agreement), but on the grounds that what they describe is not your invention.
I mean, if they came to you and asked you to
sign a patent application for an improved
bread slicer, would you have to sign it?
Maybe even write up a more specific, more accurate
description of your invention, and sign that and give it to them.
In fact, I for one feel the statement by the judge
ought to be considered slanderous, both against the defendants, and the members of the Open Source movement as a whole.
There are plenty of unselfish, altruistic, philanthropic folks here on the Net; we just don't talk as much as the folks Ms. Borsook has been listening to.
Some of us just prefer to wait for there to be something worth saying before speaking.
... is that Hunkapiller actually contributed to the design and development of what his company is selling, as opposed to Gates, who other than some work on the initial Microsoft Basic interpreter as far as I can tell bought other folks software and sold it.
Of course, Katz is right about one thing. People are famous in this country for the lamest of reasons -- being good looking, having acting ability, and having cash. With a very few exceptions, (i.e. Albert Einstein) the people who do the work that really changes the world are ignored.
Obviously, Pizza Hut wants to be ready to deliver pizzas to the International Space Station They'll basically have a monopoly, at least until Domino's and Papa John's get their stuff into orbit... Of course, making a pizza oven mounted on a 1G centrifuge in orbit may be tougher than they think. 0.5*:-)
I think the cause of misunderstanding is simple: Law and Technology are fundamentally different.
Technology thrives on the application of exceedingly general "laws" of science, which are globally applicable and affect all things. There is no discussion about whether the laws of physics apply -- you apply a sufficient voltage, and the electrons move. No discussion.
Law thrives on specific rules applied to specific situations. Discussion in the law largely centers around which rules apply to a given situation. Legal situations are generalized only grudgingly.
So when technology-minded folks like your average Slashdotter look at laws, they tend to consider the effect of generalizing them and applying them widely, which would often lead to immensely inane consequences. Fortunately the law doesn't actually work that way.
Thus the shuddering reaction of programmers to software patents -- they think:
if
this simple thing can be patented, and owned, etc. then anything that simple can be patented and owned.
Where the perception of how simple something is or is not is completely unrelated to the legal definition of "novelty".
It's interesting to me that no-one mentioned either Emacs/w3, or Amaya as possible contenders in the browser wars. Either one of which currently runs better than Mozilla, and both of which are Open Source.
Slashdot Mirror
So it seems to me the lessons to learn are that we need to:
The analogy to business phone services is inappropriate -- there is no difference in the service provided between business and residential phone service, only a difference in billing. In either case you get a phone number where people can call you, and you can call them.
The case here is that business users get full service, and residential users get crippled service.
Computing is the only field in which we consider adding a wing to the building to be maintenance.
Computing is the only field in which we consider adding a wing to the building to be maintenance.
Computing is the only field in which we consider adding a wing to the building to be maintenance.
Computing is the only field in which we consider adding a wing to the building to be maintenance.
Take for example Netcarta Webmapper(tm) for Unix(tm). This is a product which used to be available for Solaris and several other Unices, which made Solaris a better WWW maintenance platform.
Microsoft bought Netcarta, and now, new releases of Webmapper (now part of Back Office) are no longer avalailble Unix, and no longer have a remote web interface to launch searches (you have to be on the console of the Windows box).
While they still "support" (emphasis on the quotes) Webmapper on Unix, this support consisits of telling you that your bugs are fixed in the new release, which by the way is only avalailable for Microsoft platforms.
So who has been harmed here?
- people who bought Webmapper for Unix
- Unix vendors(who have one less application available for their OS.)
Now it would be different if this were an isolated instance, but Microsoft eats up software companies who sell software that runs on competitors' operating systems, and turns off real support (by which I mean continued new releases) for those other operating systems. (see over here for lots more examples.)So they are actively removing application choices and upgrade support for users of other operating systems, and that harms those users and those operating systems vendors.
Three years later, apparently someone noticed, and they sent me a memo, and a copy of the agreement, saying they couldn't find my signed agreement, and could I please send them a new one. Not surprisingly, I don't think I ever got around to it. ;-)
Of course, I left there after 5 years, but as far as I can tell, I could have gone on indefinitely without ever signing that silly piece of paper.
Basically, they can't sue you over it if they don't have a signed copy, and unless they're actually organized, they will figure that they lost it.
So don't complain about it, don't ask about it, just don't sign it.
Actually, SPAMming coded messages to thousands of people has the benefit of obscuring which one of them is the intended recipient. Analyzing where the data goes and when is an important part of breaking codes, as anyone who's read Cryptonomicon (and who here hasn't?) should know. So encoding messages in junk mail and sending them to thousands of people is an excellent scheme for getting secrets to the people who need them. You can even send a copy to the head of the CIA directly, and he or she will probably throw it out :-)
For example, this article points out that Network Associates brought in about $9Million last quarter from McAfee.com, and this one claims that McAfee has 47% of the market; so that says that folks spent around $20Million last quarter on virus software alone -- assuming linear rates, that means $80Million last year...
Of course that doesn't count virus-scanning firewalls, and so on, much less peoples' time.
For example, I give you a tax cut to get a college degree, you get the degree, get a higher paying job, and pay more taxes.
This is why we are developing surpluses -- you help people get better jobs and the tax revenue goes up. You provide high tech companies with a larger trained workforce and they make more money and tax revenue goes up.
The Bush proposal on the other hand, spreads out the tax cuts so evenly that there isn't enough of it in any one place to do any good.
One of our Leading U.S. Presidential Candidates thinks burning more natural gas and less oil is going to help with global warming, apparently not realizing that both are hydrocarbons and put the same amount of C02 in the atmosphere.
Your mission -- find out which one. (Hint, he's affiliated with the oil industry)
Aaarrggghh!! I'm really tired of hearing this one. It wouldn't bug me so much, except that the folks who repeat this are slandering a candidate for President, by repeating the false claim that he said he "invented" the internet. For details see: Gore in Context.
Or maybe its just my paranoia kicking in
Maybe even write up a more specific, more accurate description of your invention, and sign that and give it to them.
Even better, Rot14 is an assymetric public key system, where you can keep the decryption algorithm (Rot12) a Trade Secret!
In fact, I for one feel the statement by the judge ought to be considered slanderous, both against the defendants, and the members of the Open Source movement as a whole.
Some of us just prefer to wait for there to be something worth saying before speaking.
Of course, Katz is right about one thing. People are famous in this country for the lamest of reasons -- being good looking, having acting ability, and having cash. With a very few exceptions, (i.e. Albert Einstein) the people who do the work that really changes the world are ignored.
Obviously, Pizza Hut wants to be ready to deliver pizzas to the International Space Station They'll basically have a monopoly, at least until Domino's and Papa John's get their stuff into orbit... Of course, making a pizza oven mounted on a 1G centrifuge in orbit may be tougher than they think. 0.5*:-)
...in fact, it doesn't even mean it passed the test :-)...
Technology thrives on the application of exceedingly general "laws" of science, which are globally applicable and affect all things. There is no discussion about whether the laws of physics apply -- you apply a sufficient voltage, and the electrons move. No discussion.
Law thrives on specific rules applied to specific situations. Discussion in the law largely centers around which rules apply to a given situation. Legal situations are generalized only grudgingly.
So when technology-minded folks like your average Slashdotter look at laws, they tend to consider the effect of generalizing them and applying them widely, which would often lead to immensely inane consequences. Fortunately the law doesn't actually work that way.
Thus the shuddering reaction of programmers to software patents -- they think:
Where the perception of how simple something is or is not is completely unrelated to the legal definition of "novelty".It's interesting to me that no-one mentioned either Emacs/w3, or Amaya as possible contenders in the browser wars. Either one of which currently runs better than Mozilla, and both of which are Open Source.