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  1. Re:No surprising. on Einstein's 1,427-Page F.B.I. File · · Score: 1

    You're pretty much on target here. The people McCarthy was hounding were communists. They supported a brutal and murderous regime in the USSR and later China.

    If we are to remain free though, we have to be willing to accept the idea that people will have differeing opinions on politics.

    McCarthy's open attacks on Constitution protections is enough to make me oppose him an his methods.

    In a free country, the ends cannot justify the means.

  2. Re:Go Peru! on Peruvian Congressman vs. Microsoft FUD · · Score: 1

    Are there any Peruvians reading that might be able to give us an idea of how likely it actually is that this proposed law is passed?

    I'd really like to know, but Peruvian politics is not my best subject. I'm sure there might be others interested as well.

  3. Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it on Back on TV: Max Headroom · · Score: 1

    (Oh, and BTW, after all of what people called a fiasco of coke/new coke/coke II overall sales after it were UP. So it proved the theory that 'all publicity is good publicity')

    On this point, you are absolutely correct. I worked at a market research company that did all the tracking studies for CocaCola before, during and after the entire campaign. We were doing massive usage tracking the whole way through and it was a beautiful thing to watch as supplies of Origional Coke dried up throughout the nation.

    We'd call people all across the country and ask them what they'd bought in the past 7 days... time after time you'd get responses of 'coke, coke, coke' right down the line. Then when you asked them about what they thought about 'New Coke', they'd bitch, piss and moan about how much they hated it. BUT, the point was, they were still buying it!

    The end result of the entire campaign was literally hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertizing, and when all was said and done, Coke gained 6% market share! 6% of the cola market is bloody huge.

    To this day, I have the utmost admiration for the guy who piped up in a board room saying 'hey, why don't we change the formula in coke'.

    btw: there were at least 6 different formulations scattered around the country. Some regions got more carbonation, some got less, some were sweeter, some less sweet. It was facinating to watch it all from before the public was even aware of it, all the way to the end.

  4. Re:Ob. Beowulf Comment on When IT and Bad Government Meet, Everyone Loses · · Score: 1

    LOL! Congratulations on the best beowulf derivation I've seen yet. +5 funny no doubt!

  5. Re:Dead Tree Society on First Folding-Screen e-Book Reader · · Score: 1
    While you did say 'many' and not 'all' vendors of ebook have crippling levels of copy protection, I'd like to put in another plug for a publisher that has gotten this e-book thing right. Baen.com offers some for free on their site. /. had a link to them a week ago I think. I've read through their site, and have come to the conclusion that I really appreciate their philosophy. It's nice to find a publisher that doesn't think we're all nothing but thieves.

    I've leeched several books from their site since hearing about it, and have found 2 new authors that I'd never have tried out that I've added to my 'authors to check for whilst browsing bookstores' list.

    Your point about dropping it in the bathtub is well taken. I haven't seen any that would survive extreme conditions very well. I wonder if the army has a 'militarized' version of Palm... unfortunately, the'd cost $5k each...

  6. Re:Retroactive loophole? on Tech Industry Versus Content Industry · · Score: 1

    If "Jungle Book" fell under the current copyright act, Disney would have to pay the decendants of Kipling for the rights until 2006.

  7. Re:Slashdotted! on Staggeringly Amazing Church of Lego · · Score: 1

    All lego are yellow, not white.

  8. Good idea but not likely to be effective on GeekPAC · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is a god idea in theory, but unless a lot more than $100,000 can be raised, it won't be able to do much of anything. In the article, it mentioned possibly hiring proffesionals to lobby for the effort in the future. I'm sure the organizers realize that retaining someone with any kind of pull (of the type noted by Rand) will take most if not all of the sums they are talking about. It costs a lot of money to play the game in the D.C. (District of Criminals).

    That said, it probably wouldn't hurt to try to get some folks to make the geek POV heard at least a little bit. The effort will need a more serious-sounding name though. While GeekPac sounds good in a whimsical sort of way, I don't think it would help to get our foot in the doors that are necessary.

    I'll probably donate to this effort once they get to the point of actually taking donations, but I won't have much hope for it at this time. Judging from the article, it sounds like this is somewhat affiliated with EFF. I would think that this effort could undermine other work the EFF is doing. I could be wrong on that I suppose.

    One thing we definitely need as people who are interested in freedom of all kinds, is a way to counter the power of Disney, Time/Warner, and the other providers of crappy content that spend more money on coffee a month than this effort is looking at raising in a year.

  9. Re:This sounds... on The Perfect Email Client? · · Score: 1

    I think you are correct in that one of the most iportant considerations imo is the question of how mail messages are stored. Personally, I'm pretty partial to a format similar to the standard unix mail format. The main reason for this is that I've used several programs over the years, and have in the past had difficulties porting messages from one program to another. At the present time, I'm not going to switch to something unless I know before hand that I can readily port back to this format easily.

    I also have grave concerns about the single monolithic database format of storing mail (even if the format were fully documented) as file corrruption is always possible. If your database gets thoroly hosed for whatever reason, you can easily lose most/all of your mail! This sucks. If you have a file containing each folder, at worst, you'll lose one folder's worth of messages.

    It also makes syncing between 2 systems that may (for whatever reason) not use the same email program. I've found it useful to be able to copy everything I want to move to another email program to a single folder, and have the other program recognise it as a mail folder it hadn't previously been aware of and *poof* your folder is there.

    There are problems with this method, in that it's kinda clunky, but can be automated easily.

    On another note, I'm currently using Kmail at home because my current needs are pretty much handled by it. One thing that I think would be really useful would be a text-based version of the program for use with telnet/ssh (kinda like pine). It wouldn't need to be fully functional, but with the basic functionality, it would be useful.

    While writing this, a thought came to me that seems to actually work quite well. I can 'rm ~/mail', then 'ln -s Mail mail' to create a symlink to the Mail directory used by Kmail. Now I can use either mail client on the same mail data. Pretty cool.

  10. Re:That's actually a pretty cool idea. on Geo-Encryption: Global Copyright Defense? · · Score: 1

    You're pretty much on target that this will be something that the EFF and others will probably be fighting if it ever comes to fruition.

    You might look here for information on Dorothy Denning's support of Clipper chip tehnology. As I recall, during the debate over key escrow, she was pretty much predictable in her arguments as a government stooge who sees no limit to what Big Brother should be capable of.

    A quick search on google for "dorothy denning clipper" will verify this.

    Since key escrow is off the radar screens, she's now pushing for location escrow. Hmmm... why am I not overly suprised.

  11. Re:Ad - Counter Ad on Microsoft To Start Running Anti-Unix Ads · · Score: 2, Funny

    Here's a better SUN orIBM ad IMO

    Scene: Computer room rull of server racks. There are 2 admins in the room. One has a SUN/IBM/"Unix rules" shirt on, the other a big MS Windows logo. Camera pauses briefly on a calendar that shows the date as Saturday.

    Unix Admin:
    Hi Bob. What are ya here for today?

    MS Admin:
    Nothing much, just running through our monthly reboot cycle. How about you.

    Unix Admin: (as he sits down on a monitor)
    I'm installing some new hardware on a database server. (He logs in. A welcome banner scrolls across the screen, the last line says "Greetings, This server has been up for 475 days."

    The camera zooms on the '475 days' and fades out to a graphic that says "SUN/IBM/Linux/whatever: for those who measure availability (or uptime) in years."

    This post, and all ideas expressed in it are in the public domain.

  12. Re:Here's a thought... on Patent Claimed on System-Level Encryption · · Score: 1

    It's a nice thought. The problem is, in order to sue the government, they have to allow you to do so. I seriously doubt they'd let this suit go forward.



    I believe the doctrine of Sovereign Immunity (you can't sue da king) is what would apply here.

  13. Re:Already! on No More Unrestricted Internet At Work · · Score: 1

    They do this at my company as well. They have made surfing the internet downright unreliable. I have to do a bit of research on the net a part of my job, and it has really caused major problems because there are times when the servers just refuse to let me go where I need to. They've restricted access to external email servers as well, so now I can't check home-mail for security bulletins for any of the various mailing lists I am subscribed to.

    They claim they are protecting us from email trojans and other evils, yet they force us to you microsoft outlook for a mail client! hahahahahaahahahahaha.

    Oh well, it's their loss. Too bad the folx in security think it is a bad thing to treat their fellow employees like adults. That management so readily buys into this mindset is sad too.

  14. Re:Wrong URL on theKompany's Shawn Gordon On The GPL · · Score: 1

    I'm entering this fairly late in this thread's life judging from the number of comments already in it, but I'd like to make a couple of comments.

    I use the Quanta+ editor most of the time for my html editing because I really like the way the program works for the most part. (lack of configurability of keyboard shortcuts is a big minus though)

    Much to my suprise, upon visiting at theKompany's website, I discovered that they actually had a retail version of the product that seems to be a bit of an upgrade from the version I'm currently using. "Cool!" thought I. I'm not one of those folks who has a genetic aversion to purchasing software, and I am perfectly willing to do so when I find something that really works well for me. (I'm the only person I know who has a registered copy of pkzip.)

    I downloaded the 'time-limited demo'. I figured that it would be one of those deals where the program wil run for 30 days or so, and then self-destruct itself. Wrong! The program will only run for 5 minutes! After the 5 minutes is up, you are prompted to regester, and if you don't it gives you an opportunity to save your files, then exits! What a crock-o-shit!

    There is no way I can comfortably evaluate this software, which I was alreay greatly predisposed to purchase under those conditions. Here is a major example of cripple-ware destroying a sale. I can't say for sure that I won't buy it because I find quanta+ so useful, but I've already noticed some inconsistancies in the way the programs work that make me slightly hesitant to make the change now. Couple this with the fact that you can't gain any kind of familiarity with the crippleware version, and I have to say that it's time for me to go looking for a new editor again.

    Sorry for the rant, but it kinda hacked me off.

  15. Fair use needs advocates on SSSCA Hearing · · Score: 1

    Given the money sloshing around from all the big players here, we can definitely look forward to attempts to mandate DRM in every device that can concievably contain it. We'll have to find ways to route around this damage, and it will get tougher as time goes on.



    One thing that I find to be interesting is that Intel doesn't really seem to be concerned at all with its customers. They are caving to the shrill voices of Disney and similar corporation that make their living from the institution of the perpetual copyright. It seems to me, and obviously to Vadasz that the music/vid industries are doing everything they can to demonize anyone who simply dosn't want to buy his 15th copy of Dark Side of the Moon.



    We need to be more vocal to the public at large about exactly what fair use is and that the music/vid industries are capable of destroying that right and enforcing this destruction on most of the people out there.



    Fair Use itself needs an advocate.


  16. Re:formmail.pl on Microsoft Instant Messenger Virus Sweeps Net · · Score: 1

    Interesting. I just looked through the past few days worth of errorlogs that I have on hand, and find nothing for formmail.pl, but did see 4601 requests for cmd.exe

  17. Re:correcting a corrector on The Amazing Lego DAT Tape Changer · · Score: 1

    Wow! I can't believe someone on /. actually knows how to correctly use the words "there", "their", and "they're"! Next thing you know, someone will lose a few loose screws from his computer case...

  18. Re:Why Digital Signatures Are Not Signatures on German Government Introduces Digital Signatures · · Score: 1

    I'm suprised that I haven't seen any discussion here regarding the fact that the government will apparently issue you both your public and private key material. This is the wet dream of governments all over the world regarding encryption.



    Where is the key material going to be kept? I surely hope that database is not going to be succeptable to hackers. I wonder how long it will be before fake keys are available on the black market? Want a key that says you're Johannes Rau? Pay the right amount and it's yours! With the likely poor PIN usage, cracking the keys to enable the production of bogus cards will be trivial.



    GAK (Government Access to Keys) is not a good idea at all, as governments can't be trusted. They aren't as motivated to protect your reputation/money/identity as you would be.

  19. Re:I'd use it a bit... on Corporate America Wary of Subscription Software · · Score: 1

    I actually use a subscription-based Linux service. KRUD (Kevin's Uber Redhat Distribution) disks are mailed to me every month. I never have to worry about what needs to be downloaded and updated and whatnot except for programs that I download off the net and install/compile myself.

  20. Re:What are patents for? on Scientific American On Bad Patents · · Score: 1

    Well, it depends upon where you are. In the united states, it is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts". If you can find a copy of the u.s. Constitution, you'll find it listed in Article 1, Section 8 under the powers delegated to congress.



    The full quote is:

    To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;



    zeug

  21. can anything /= outlook use the shared calendar? on HP's OpenMail: I'm Not Dead Yet · · Score: 1

    What I'd be extremely interested in finding is a linux client that will let me use another email application other than Outlook that will interoperate with exchange server 'features' like the shared calendar and address books.

    It would make my life much easier.

    Does anyone know if there is such a beast?

    I use kmail at home, but would =love= to be able to get rid of the windows side of my dual-boot laptop.

  22. Re:Causes on NAI to Sell Off PGP Product Line · · Score: 3, Informative

    You're probably correct that many of the types who would be concerned enough with their privacy are geeks who would rather not pay for something they can get for free, it had a presense in corporate environments. I fought a huge battle at the company I used to work for to get PGP implemented at a departmental and later at the VP level.

    One of the biggest initial issues was that people didn't understand it or the need for secrecy. Thankfully the group I was in had a need to periodically distribute root passwords and management was smart enough to realize that doing so in email was pretty darned dumb. Eventually I was able to get it adopted and we would encrypt a single message to the various people who needed to be able to read it. We also posted the encrypted file on our departmental webserver. It worked pretty well. When someone would leave the dept for whatever reason, we'd distribute the revoked key that was generated at the same time their key, change the password, and repost the file.

    Another issue price. It was pretty difficult to get higher-level approval for the expenditure. We eventually snuck it in one license at a time, and later were able to buy licenses in bulk as my senior manager and later VP understood the issues and thought the solution was worth paying for.

    Eventually an enterprise license was purchased. Unfortunately, the &*%($*%( lawyers wanted to force everyone to use escrowed keys. I'm not sure how it went elsewhere in the company, but we basically said 'sure', and kept using unescrowed keys for internal communications because 'root' is God's way of saying you have too much power.

    PGP's support of key-escrow was the worst thing they could do IMO from the standpoint of trust, especially for those paranoid enough to be really up on the tech. I never fully trusted recent versions of PGP, and use GPG now.

  23. Re:Don't want the attacks clogging up your logs? on Nimda To Strike Again · · Score: 1

    most excellent! thanks for the clue! Darn useful comment IMO.

  24. Re:God's Laws Copyrighted, Why Not Man's? on Is Law Copyrighted? · · Score: 1

    As mentioned above, the work you specify is copyrighted because it is a translation of the origional. If you would like a copy of your own without copyright restrictions on it, you might goto Project Gutenberg and search for "Bible". I did and got 18 hits for copies in a few different languages, and a couple of different versions that are in the public domain. Enjoy!

  25. Re:Waaaaaait a second. on Is Law Copyrighted? · · Score: 1

    I wonder, if you had asked the framers of the Constitution to predict how long it would be until the government they were instituting would be toppled by revolution from within, what would they have said?

    I believe Jefferson is on record as having said about 20 years or so.