* DoS attacks on subnets with particular demographics.
* Mis-indexed records, where multiple voters that chose identically are indexed to the same record... leaving unindexed entries with forged information. Oh, but Of course poll workers and election staff and candidates lawyers are going to be trained DBAs and will know what to look for... (not). In reality, it takes true IT expertise years to wend its way into analysis of such problems.
* The physical ballot data is not readily available, except to a few guardians (who cannot realistically compile the data quickly and inconspicuously). But consider how sensitive personal data is now being stolen at a rate never witnessed before in history. We've got everyone from John Poindexter's buddies to the Russian mafia buying-up surreptitiously acquired electronic databases.
Further, if Britons do not want to stand in line with each other for a few minutes on election day, then your society is screwed. There is no hypothetical increase in poll activity that would save you from such mutual antipathy.
If you have to experiment with this sort of fire, you should at least make it count for something and use it as an enabling mechanism for more frequent elections and referendums, and more elected positions. That is the only condition under which I would submit to Internet voting (or other electronic balloting): an experiment in a more direct democratic process. You could even let unions (both would-be and established) utilize the system for their workplace democratic processes...
Its bad enough with the online banking exploits out there, and those are kept in-check because there's no anonymity and both the bankers and the customers can check their statements and trace all activities back to their account numbers.
I'll say it again: Computer voting is Stupid By Design.
There is no satisfactory way around this basic fact.
Conduct elections online, and you open the process up to massive abuse where anonymity effectively become nullified.
For audits and recounts, computer forensics aren't nearly up to the abilities of traditional forensics. Physical ballots are why the Florida 2000 problems were so readily apparent.
Having computers print out physical (human-readable) ballots is fine. But trying to make an electronic "ballot" work anonymously is sheer stupidity.
By your logic, even the most oppressive oligarchy is "free".
As industry becomes the defacto policy-maker by blithely re-establishing the rule of cartels and monopolistic reach, purchasing political loyalty or even installing their own CEOs to government posts, then they will be judged by governmental standards. One of those standards is censorship.
The function of government in the USA has been subverted by a political class of corporatists who, more often than not, literally write the bills they expect their shamiferous Washington lackeys to pass into law.
Please spare us the out-of-touch libertarian cheerleading about the "private sector". There is no more "private", as I'm sure the Dept. of Homeland Security and its infinitely-growing list of "security economy" prison-state contractors would enthusiastically agree.
Here is a general overview of the steps needed to set this up on Debian. Also take note of the responses from Sander.
It is probably more than you are looking for, since it doesn't sound like you want RAID. But that part is easily skipped. The LVM part I would keep, as logical volumes will make managing the virtual machines that much easier.
Actually, a lot of this (the LVM and encryption parts) should be doable from the Debian 4.0 installer.
I think in this case, knowledge is to property what time is to space:
Knowledge and Time are both one-way propositions, and just as you cannot go back in time the way you can return to a point in space, you cannot take back a datum from someone's head as you could take back an object.
So although information and time are both valuable, they are fundamentally unlike other valuable things that can be correctly understood as property (objects and space).
Its enough to make someone go back to basics on their C64;-)
Seriously, I appreciate and agree with your comments. But more than that, the fact is that FOSS vendors do not promote a default modern development environment that budding application developers would appreciate. Its all geared toward system-level developers (which probably explains why our applications are managed in centralized repositories as if they were just another part of the OS).
Its all terribly backward when applied to the personal computing domain, because influential PC (incl. Wintel and Mac) users expect a clearly-defined platform that encourages the installation and development of third-party products.
Windows has Visual Studio + MSDN as a default choice for developers.
OS X has Xcode + ADC as a default choice as well.
"Linux" (or LSB or whatever distro like RedHat) has...... ?
Right now, FOSS mostly gets major applications that were developed commercially for Windows then ported to Unix for niche appeal before being pushed out of the proprietary market. The home-grown Linux apps tend to have many shortcomings that, IMO, stem from a system programmers trying to scratch the application itch while not really knowing what they're doing... many are trying to fill a void that application programmers won't go near because the latter can't identify a clearly defined and promoted development platform. Also, the former collectively look down their noses at the latter quite intently.
So outside of the systems development sphere, the other important players in the "Desktop Linux" game - end users and application developers - are not seeing a consistent and easily identifiable platform.
Interestingly, Charter Communications (ISP) currently won't resolve the address for the site hosting that article (epluribusmedia.org). I can access it through a proxy though.
...so they attempting to turn categories like copyright and patents into property. Politicians jump on this bandwagon because of 1) corporate patronage, and 2) its one of the few remaining large exports for the USA and more important as a trade negotiating tool as a result.
If people became aware of this simple fact - that intellectual property does not exist - I think it might be easier to persuade even politicians to do something about this crazy state of affairs.
The term "IP" is a very clever trick played by those who indeed want to own ideas. I always use the phrase "intellectual monopoly" instead, because that's what copyright and patents are: they are monopolies granted by the government for a limited time to encourage innovation and creativity. If, instead of talking about extending "property" rights for "IP", you phrase it as extending a monopoly right, that doesn't sound so good, because it's clear that something is being taken away from everyone.
I think we must work hard to roll back this term "IP", because every time we use it we reinforce the misconception that ideas can be owned. As soon as you get people to think in terms of monopolies, they become far less impressed by big business's demands for more "IP" protection, and the case for copyright and patents is correspondingly weaker.
...and it will dry up the Linux 'eco-system' because no small-medium shops will be able to indemnify their customers.
Then when Samsung's contract runs out, MS will have a Windows Embedded fitted especially for Samsung's most lucrative products... and suddenly Linux marketshare starts plummeting even among large vendors.
...with trade lawsuits lately. They came after that spat where S. Korea took MS to court over monopoly abuses. Even the US State Dept. got involved as I recall, interfering in a Korean court case.
You can tie one outgoing server to each incoming mail account, and freely switch which identity (and therefore outgoing server) from a drop down menu above the addressing. Now, if you want multiple outgoing servers for a single incoming account, then you have a problem.
In my experience, choosing the identity in the composition window still results in email always being sent through the same SMTP server.
Perhaps it is a bug and not intentional, but its damn inconvenient.
The 'GNU' part adds a shell userland and some libraries that are nice for systems programmers. But the bulk of high-level functionality that defines a 'desktop' is included/excluded pretty capriciously by the various distros.
Without a standardized core of UI and API functionality that makes system environments relatively easy and predictable for end-users and application programmers alike, then you don't have a platform. Without a platform (like a desktop version of LSB), these people will feel like "Linux" is a waste of time.
Also, the platform should have its own name, not "Linux". You'll know that Linux is succeeding on the desktop PC when people commonly refer to the platform containing Linux, instead of the kernel.
There seems to be quite a bit of kneejerk ideology at work here with the moderation of my parent post. "Shoot the messenger" I suppose.
Anyway, my point wasn't to support RMS' ideas but to underline the lack of a consistent platform that meets the expectations of PC users. Its too bad that Slashdotters are so extremely political on this subject, that they didn't even recognize that I don't consider GNU to be good enough. But I guess mentioning "GNU" is like waving a red cape.
The 'GNU' part adds a shell userland and some libraries that are nice for systems programmers. But the bulk of high-level functionality that defines a 'desktop' is included/excluded pretty capriciously by the various distros.
Without a standardized core of UI and API functionality that makes system environments relatively easy and predictable for end-users and application programmers alike, then you don't have a platform. Without a platform (like a desktop version of LSB), these people will feel like "Linux" is a waste of time.
Also, the platform should have its own name, not "Linux". You'll know that Linux is succeeding on the desktop PC when people commonly refer to the platform containing Linux, instead of the kernel.
If you paid attention to what went on in US military protectorates and occupied territories like Iraq, Columbia, Guatemala, Philippines, Haiti, former Yugoslavia and even the EU, then you wouldn't be so cocky about your "sense of reality".
The number of foreign journalists US soldiers have (enthusiastically, I might add) attacked in Iraq outclasses anything you are likely to find from Russia over the same time period. What a lucky thing US corporate media were 'embedded' with the military, a proposition that was probably decided as necessary at some point given the Bush administration's determination to control public perception and eliminate foreign news sources that could broadcast embarrassing information.
Of course that's all excusable because of the war, right? And we'll just forget that Russia has a war raging within its own borders, against hostiles who have demonstrated a certain proclivity for terrorist tactics.
But nevermind, just you keep wagging that finger and be thankful the embedded-ones have given you a reason to feel proud to be a US'er again.
Most of the neocon's most dangerous critics and political adversaries were murdered in Iraq. US media even gloated for a while how Sunnis belonging to Saddam's party were being eliminated. The bulk of anti-journalist carnage over the past decade was committed by US forces and allies in the Middle East.
OTOH, the last time internal power struggle became a real threat to the US mandarins, all the prominent liberal leaders incl. JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X were 'mysteriously' assassinated. It even happened to the Israelis in the 1990s.
(Moral equivalence can be taken too far. Don't be so blinded by local demagogues that you allow them to mask true evil happening elsewhere. You end up making bad valuations.)
I agree. Who could really compare what the US empire does in all of its military protectorates, occupied territories, and fascist banana republics around the globe, with a producer-nation like Russia?
"No country is an angel, the US just masks and redirects its oppressive influences on others besides their home country."
Except for black, Hispanic and now Muslim people, with the first two groups bearing the brunt of the society (USA) that sends more people to jail and prison than any other. Building and running prisons has become very good business for corporations.
The US is an international empire with a huge number of military bases all over the world, acting in the interests of corporate oligarchs. The authors of TFA are vested in the machinery of that empire and would not care to name the nature of the beast, much less actually examine it. Far easier (and more comfortable) to become hysterical over non-compliant oil producers (Iraq, then Russia and Iran) on the other side of the planet.
Israelis tend to kill many more Palestinians than vice-versa, and they use war machinery against civilian neighborhoods. Where is the sense of proportion there? And when was the last time any major news outlet took them to task for it by labeling the kind of murder they perpetrate with a judgmental term like "terrorism"?
As for the US, it is constantly opening new military bases all over the planet and looking for new wars to start. The CIA is nearly full-time occupied with encouraging inter-ethnic hostility esp. in and around Russia and the Middle East (and are at it again within Iran at this moment) in order to bring about Balkanization (never mind that it encourages genocide). To the current US elites, countries like Franco's Spain and Saudi Arabia are the ideal foreign countries, esp. if they have plentiful resources: weak, fascist and compliant to the demands of US corporations.
People outside the US will become more sensitive about Russia if/when it shows aggression and expansionism, but so far no one can come close to the American empire in those matters. The Russian people at least have news media that has some democratic accountability attached to it; the US gov't OTOH is controlled by corporate oligarchs including the media, and lately have had to stoop to sending their CEO types to Washington to run the rubber-stamping branch of American Capitalism.
Why 'freedom-loving' American press is unconcerned with the spread of oligarch power in the US is not much of a mystery. Or why the same things they expect out of Russia are derided as "anarchy" within US borders; not hard to figure out. People who want an example of government and press as separated estates should look elsewhere, as the US corporate media is 'embedding' with its CEO-turned-leader errand boys in Washington.
Note that the linked articles are foreign, discussing production of biodiesel in places like Malaysia. US biodiesel production, OTOH, is a by-product of soybeans grown for human and animal consumption; the fuel does not compete with food here in the USA.
Now, if we started importing biodiesel the way we have with ethanol, then its an entirely different situation. Product from Brazil or Malaysia would almost certainly come from a process of deforestation.
The EU farms rapeseed specifically for biodiesel production, and it is pushed heavily as a rotation crop. They are introducing ways to make the byproducts edible (at least for livestock) although how beneficial this is remains to be seen. At least there seems to be no large-scale deforestation associated with EU rapeseed.
I'd also like to note that the EU some years ago blocked the import of palm oil fuels. Partly because of this, in order to have any biodiesel market at all, Malaysia and other Pacific rim nations have agreed to form a commission regulating the land use associated with the industry.
The main problem is that suburbia is inherently energy-intensive (i.e. wasteful). Americans aren't building new urban areas that would automatically cut down on waste (esp. for transportation and heating) because their culture doesn't include the city in the "American dream".
Slashdot Mirror
* DoS attacks on subnets with particular demographics.
* Mis-indexed records, where multiple voters that chose identically are indexed to the same record... leaving unindexed entries with forged information. Oh, but Of course poll workers and election staff and candidates lawyers are going to be trained DBAs and will know what to look for... (not). In reality, it takes true IT expertise years to wend its way into analysis of such problems.
* The physical ballot data is not readily available, except to a few guardians (who cannot realistically compile the data quickly and inconspicuously). But consider how sensitive personal data is now being stolen at a rate never witnessed before in history. We've got everyone from John Poindexter's buddies to the Russian mafia buying-up surreptitiously acquired electronic databases.
Further, if Britons do not want to stand in line with each other for a few minutes on election day, then your society is screwed. There is no hypothetical increase in poll activity that would save you from such mutual antipathy.
If you have to experiment with this sort of fire, you should at least make it count for something and use it as an enabling mechanism for more frequent elections and referendums, and more elected positions. That is the only condition under which I would submit to Internet voting (or other electronic balloting): an experiment in a more direct democratic process. You could even let unions (both would-be and established) utilize the system for their workplace democratic processes...
Its bad enough with the online banking exploits out there, and those are kept in-check because there's no anonymity and both the bankers and the customers can check their statements and trace all activities back to their account numbers.
I'll say it again: Computer voting is Stupid By Design.
There is no satisfactory way around this basic fact.
Conduct elections online, and you open the process up to massive abuse where anonymity effectively become nullified.
For audits and recounts, computer forensics aren't nearly up to the abilities of traditional forensics. Physical ballots are why the Florida 2000 problems were so readily apparent.
Having computers print out physical (human-readable) ballots is fine. But trying to make an electronic "ballot" work anonymously is sheer stupidity.
By your logic, even the most oppressive oligarchy is "free".
As industry becomes the defacto policy-maker by blithely re-establishing the rule of cartels and monopolistic reach, purchasing political loyalty or even installing their own CEOs to government posts, then they will be judged by governmental standards. One of those standards is censorship.
The function of government in the USA has been subverted by a political class of corporatists who, more often than not, literally write the bills they expect their shamiferous Washington lackeys to pass into law.
Please spare us the out-of-touch libertarian cheerleading about the "private sector". There is no more "private", as I'm sure the Dept. of Homeland Security and its infinitely-growing list of "security economy" prison-state contractors would enthusiastically agree.
Here is a general overview of the steps needed to set this up on Debian. Also take note of the responses from Sander.
It is probably more than you are looking for, since it doesn't sound like you want RAID. But that part is easily skipped. The LVM part I would keep, as logical volumes will make managing the virtual machines that much easier.
Actually, a lot of this (the LVM and encryption parts) should be doable from the Debian 4.0 installer.
+Insightful
I think in this case, knowledge is to property what time is to space:
Knowledge and Time are both one-way propositions, and just as you cannot go back in time the way you can return to a point in space, you cannot take back a datum from someone's head as you could take back an object.
So although information and time are both valuable, they are fundamentally unlike other valuable things that can be correctly understood as property (objects and space).
Its enough to make someone go back to basics on their C64 ;-)
Seriously, I appreciate and agree with your comments. But more than that, the fact is that FOSS vendors do not promote a default modern development environment that budding application developers would appreciate. Its all geared toward system-level developers (which probably explains why our applications are managed in centralized repositories as if they were just another part of the OS).
Its all terribly backward when applied to the personal computing domain, because influential PC (incl. Wintel and Mac) users expect a clearly-defined platform that encourages the installation and development of third-party products.
Windows has Visual Studio + MSDN as a default choice for developers.
OS X has Xcode + ADC as a default choice as well.
"Linux" (or LSB or whatever distro like RedHat) has...... ?
Right now, FOSS mostly gets major applications that were developed commercially for Windows then ported to Unix for niche appeal before being pushed out of the proprietary market. The home-grown Linux apps tend to have many shortcomings that, IMO, stem from a system programmers trying to scratch the application itch while not really knowing what they're doing... many are trying to fill a void that application programmers won't go near because the latter can't identify a clearly defined and promoted development platform. Also, the former collectively look down their noses at the latter quite intently.
So outside of the systems development sphere, the other important players in the "Desktop Linux" game - end users and application developers - are not seeing a consistent and easily identifiable platform.
Interestingly, Charter Communications (ISP) currently won't resolve the address for the site hosting that article (epluribusmedia.org). I can access it through a proxy though.
Glyn Moody from Linux Journal:
...have the right to play in the middle of the 'Information Superhighway' are almost always rotten.
Handing over the keys to the car is something you do when your kid turns 15. There ought to be a similar ethic WRT Internet access.
...and it will dry up the Linux 'eco-system' because no small-medium shops will be able to indemnify their customers.
Then when Samsung's contract runs out, MS will have a Windows Embedded fitted especially for Samsung's most lucrative products... and suddenly Linux marketshare starts plummeting even among large vendors.
...with trade lawsuits lately. They came after that spat where S. Korea took MS to court over monopoly abuses. Even the US State Dept. got involved as I recall, interfering in a Korean court case.
...and ready for Samsung's most lucrative products by the time the deal expires. Ta-da, embedded Linux has shrinking market-share.
Don't worry, MS will make sure that Samsung has software for use in their products.
In my experience, choosing the identity in the composition window still results in email always being sent through the same SMTP server.
Perhaps it is a bug and not intentional, but its damn inconvenient.
There seems to be quite a bit of kneejerk ideology at work here with the moderation of my parent post. "Shoot the messenger" I suppose.
Anyway, my point wasn't to support RMS' ideas but to underline the lack of a consistent platform that meets the expectations of PC users. Its too bad that Slashdotters are so extremely political on this subject, that they didn't even recognize that I don't consider GNU to be good enough. But I guess mentioning "GNU" is like waving a red cape.
Ole, bull-y mods
It is a kernel.
The 'GNU' part adds a shell userland and some libraries that are nice for systems programmers. But the bulk of high-level functionality that defines a 'desktop' is included/excluded pretty capriciously by the various distros.
Without a standardized core of UI and API functionality that makes system environments relatively easy and predictable for end-users and application programmers alike, then you don't have a platform. Without a platform (like a desktop version of LSB), these people will feel like "Linux" is a waste of time.
Also, the platform should have its own name, not "Linux". You'll know that Linux is succeeding on the desktop PC when people commonly refer to the platform containing Linux, instead of the kernel.
If you paid attention to what went on in US military protectorates and occupied territories like Iraq, Columbia, Guatemala, Philippines, Haiti, former Yugoslavia and even the EU, then you wouldn't be so cocky about your "sense of reality".
The number of foreign journalists US soldiers have (enthusiastically, I might add) attacked in Iraq outclasses anything you are likely to find from Russia over the same time period. What a lucky thing US corporate media were 'embedded' with the military, a proposition that was probably decided as necessary at some point given the Bush administration's determination to control public perception and eliminate foreign news sources that could broadcast embarrassing information.
Of course that's all excusable because of the war, right? And we'll just forget that Russia has a war raging within its own borders, against hostiles who have demonstrated a certain proclivity for terrorist tactics.
But nevermind, just you keep wagging that finger and be thankful the embedded-ones have given you a reason to feel proud to be a US'er again.
...just as with the hysteria over Iraq and Iran.
Most of the neocon's most dangerous critics and political adversaries were murdered in Iraq. US media even gloated for a while how Sunnis belonging to Saddam's party were being eliminated. The bulk of anti-journalist carnage over the past decade was committed by US forces and allies in the Middle East.
OTOH, the last time internal power struggle became a real threat to the US mandarins, all the prominent liberal leaders incl. JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X were 'mysteriously' assassinated. It even happened to the Israelis in the 1990s.
(Moral equivalence can be taken too far. Don't be so blinded by local demagogues that you allow them to mask true evil happening elsewhere. You end up making bad valuations.)
I agree. Who could really compare what the US empire does in all of its military protectorates, occupied territories, and fascist banana republics around the globe, with a producer-nation like Russia?
"No country is an angel, the US just masks and redirects its oppressive influences on others besides their home country."
Except for black, Hispanic and now Muslim people, with the first two groups bearing the brunt of the society (USA) that sends more people to jail and prison than any other. Building and running prisons has become very good business for corporations.
The US is an international empire with a huge number of military bases all over the world, acting in the interests of corporate oligarchs. The authors of TFA are vested in the machinery of that empire and would not care to name the nature of the beast, much less actually examine it. Far easier (and more comfortable) to become hysterical over non-compliant oil producers (Iraq, then Russia and Iran) on the other side of the planet.
Israelis tend to kill many more Palestinians than vice-versa, and they use war machinery against civilian neighborhoods. Where is the sense of proportion there? And when was the last time any major news outlet took them to task for it by labeling the kind of murder they perpetrate with a judgmental term like "terrorism"?
As for the US, it is constantly opening new military bases all over the planet and looking for new wars to start. The CIA is nearly full-time occupied with encouraging inter-ethnic hostility esp. in and around Russia and the Middle East (and are at it again within Iran at this moment) in order to bring about Balkanization (never mind that it encourages genocide). To the current US elites, countries like Franco's Spain and Saudi Arabia are the ideal foreign countries, esp. if they have plentiful resources: weak, fascist and compliant to the demands of US corporations.
People outside the US will become more sensitive about Russia if/when it shows aggression and expansionism, but so far no one can come close to the American empire in those matters. The Russian people at least have news media that has some democratic accountability attached to it; the US gov't OTOH is controlled by corporate oligarchs including the media, and lately have had to stoop to sending their CEO types to Washington to run the rubber-stamping branch of American Capitalism.
Why 'freedom-loving' American press is unconcerned with the spread of oligarch power in the US is not much of a mystery. Or why the same things they expect out of Russia are derided as "anarchy" within US borders; not hard to figure out. People who want an example of government and press as separated estates should look elsewhere, as the US corporate media is 'embedding' with its CEO-turned-leader errand boys in Washington.
You're going to need better social skills than that when your suburb becomes too expensive and you have to move to the city.
...it depends on how you produce it.
Note that the linked articles are foreign, discussing production of biodiesel in places like Malaysia. US biodiesel production, OTOH, is a by-product of soybeans grown for human and animal consumption; the fuel does not compete with food here in the USA.
Now, if we started importing biodiesel the way we have with ethanol, then its an entirely different situation. Product from Brazil or Malaysia would almost certainly come from a process of deforestation.
The EU farms rapeseed specifically for biodiesel production, and it is pushed heavily as a rotation crop. They are introducing ways to make the byproducts edible (at least for livestock) although how beneficial this is remains to be seen. At least there seems to be no large-scale deforestation associated with EU rapeseed.
I'd also like to note that the EU some years ago blocked the import of palm oil fuels. Partly because of this, in order to have any biodiesel market at all, Malaysia and other Pacific rim nations have agreed to form a commission regulating the land use associated with the industry.
The main problem is that suburbia is inherently energy-intensive (i.e. wasteful). Americans aren't building new urban areas that would automatically cut down on waste (esp. for transportation and heating) because their culture doesn't include the city in the "American dream".