Yea, the NDS stopped reviews till Beta 4. But they also asked the gaming mags/pages not to do a 'real' review for a month after release so that they could get the bugs worked out (since every new title has teething problems.
The mistake Funcom made was that after the serious problems they were having the day of the release, they promised the users that the month of 'free' time that you received when you purchased the game would not start until things were worked out. And then they started the time when THEY felt the problems were fixed, not when 90% of the customer base could actually play the game in a reasonable manner. So when they started the time, and most of the customers still couldn't play very well, the screaming started (and hopefully so will more reviews).
To put it mildly, things are screwed in AO land. The last three patches have made things seriously worse, the publicity folks aren't talking to the programmers, there is no support (in-game or out), there are several serious exploits that have been known for some time (and are still exploitable), and there are a lot of unhappy people.
If the number of returns I've seen for my little burg is mirrored across the AO customer base in bigger markets, then this ship is going down..
They never forced the issue because they never had a way to enforce such a practice via hardware; without hardware being in the loop, there would be no way to create a 'foolproof' anti-piracy mechanism.
CPRM would give them that enforcement mechanism. If they could tie a specific OS/application license to a specific piece of harware (in this case a HD) via an encryption key created for a specific HD serial number (or master encryption block), and force that piece of hardware to validate that the OS/application is valid (and registered), then you wouldn't have PC shops cloning 1000 versions of an OS with the same serial number, as it had already been registered to one specific HD.
In this case, I fully believe that MS and other software companies would implement a requirement for CPRM hardware compliance into their operating systems and applications, so that they could cut down on 'piracy'. If the software couldn't 'call home' it would refuse to install.
And I guarantee that the mechanism to allow a person to re-install software onto a new HD (in the case of HD failure) would make the U.S. Tax Code read like 'See Jane run'.
If this standard did in fact become the 'law of the land', has the T.13 figured out how the implementation would affect several activities that are common today?
How would the drive know that something is 'legal'? Would it really have to contact a server somewhere to validate the software or file? What happens if you need to get the system operating to the point that you get a network connection to validate the OS, but can't get the system up to that point without validating that the OS is legal? I have no doubt that if CPRM is on a drive, that entities such as MS will require it be used.
Say that the 'go key' for the OS is stored on the drive in such a manner that it can access it without validating it with an external source. Would the same hold true for other files? What would prevent someone from developing an application that could generate a valid key, and either 'trick' the drive into accepting it, or in fact giving an 'a okay' signal itself without checking the drive in the first place?
It just seems to me that this is a no-win situation for everyone, as the less technically inclined will suffer greviously for the actions of a few, and the technically astitute will find ways around CPRM in short order, thus invalidating it's reason for existing.
"In this sense OS X is an important milestone in OS development: Apple has set a new standard."
Did I miss something here, or does this guy think Apple developed unix? Great, pretty new colors and shapes for the user, but a GUI does not an operating system make.
Not only did they leave out several distributions, this was nothing more than an exercise in statistics (lies, damn lies, and stats).
There was NO indepth look at the underlying security of the various distributions, what security functions or applications ships with each , or even what fundamental security problems are faced by all of the distributions (two examples, f'ing please).
You'd think these guys were doing an 'unbiased' look at webservers or something.. that or writing for ZDNet..
Linux at computer trade shows is nothing new -- but this show in particular targets no one outside the largest buyer of computers and software in the entire world, bar none: the Feds
That one quote says it all. If linux gets the monetary support of the U.S. government, it will finally be in a position to become a 'real world' operating system, not just a hobbyists toy.
Go ahead and flame me, but it's the truth; the vast majority of government and corporate concerns in america see linux as a toy for geeks, not as a viable alternative to MS's flavor-of-the-month Windoze franchise, or to unix.
I do think direct neural interfaces (DNI) will happen, it's just a matter of when.
Probably take a decade to get a good map of the brain and the activity 'code' so that you can reproduce sight (which they already have to some extent for blind 'lab rats') and have interaction via brain impulses alone. Add to that the time necessary to develop the nanites necessary to rig the connections (as any human, and probably most robots, would be to ham fisted to do that kind of work), and you have the hardware & firmware done.
I'm pretty sure the software side for the computer/deck will already be written by then, so I'll take bets that the technology for DNI will be viable in 25 years.
If this could be brought down to the consumer level, and you have fiber to your flop, and the switches can keep up, and the backbone is there..
And you have a system that can keep up with the byte firehose...
Then we would finally have the bandwidth required to push enough information down the pipe to a system to create a true, functional, VRML interface. Get some gloves and a vision rig, munge up some software to do the data to image translation (which is being worked on for the Internet2 project) and let the games begin!
Who'd care about flatscreen monitors then? Would carple tunnel be a thing of the past? Would it make information overload a true psychological problem? You decide!
Honeypots have already been created that mirror not only the environment of one system, but a whole subnet. They are convincing up to a point, but do have some flaws: 1. If someone scans the box they will find the false subnet; if they run a sniffer on the subnet they won't see any traffic. 2. They're very hardware intensive. 3. They send their logs to another system for 'safe keeping'; a sniffer will see this traffic.
Basically a careful and methodical cracker (read PARANOID) will notice something fishy and bail due to the way the network is responding (or not responding) to various tools and commands - it'll just be 'too good' and way too open. Script kiddies will just punch along and not do any real damage.
As for entrapment - for systems in the U.S. government, they are supposed to place a warning banner on all possible services that can be used to access the system warning you that: 'You are entering a government computer blah blah blah'.
So you know that you're not supposed to be there, that you are subject to monitoring if you choose to access the system, and that you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law if you do something malicious. You were warned and are responsible for your actions after that point.
If the site doesn't have a warning then it's time for dueling lawyers, depending on what they try to tag you with. If it's a gov site without the banner they can't try to bury you for electronic B&E on a gov site (which is a federal offense), just electronic B&E in general (which can still just ruin your day).
If you're going to crack you can't whine about entrapment; John V. isn't holding a gun to your head and making you punch keys.
Do you think that the moniker 'artifical' can really hold true in the pursuit of creating intelligence?
Based on the premise that intelligence was an evolutionary process, and not something that just spontaneously happened, what justifies calling a silicon/germanium/other-than-carbon-based intelligence artifical? Aren't we in fact, through the process of improving computer hardware and software, evolving something that, while not aware today, may be aware in the future?
(Note: I will not rant on other facets of this topic, as I would spend several hours typing before the villagers showed up with their torches and pitchforks)
MS started out as an OS company, and though it still pumps out millions of copies in Win98/NT/2000/FUBAR a year, change has been in the wind for a while.
Microsoft makes the majority of it's profit creating applications and selling support, not by selling their OS, though they have a great advantage when it comes to building apps for their OS.
But MS has gotten a couple of wake-up calls recently. They're porting Outlook and Exchange to *nix as the U.S. Army was going to chose Lotus Notes as it runs on *nix and MS systems. They're seeing the growth of Apache far outpacing IIS, possibly in part due to Apache running on damn near anything. They're seeing Office take some hits as businesses re-trench and start using WordPerfect or Star Office, again on different platforms.
While MS may never totally give up cranking out an OS, that's not their focus in the next decade.
There is a way to do this with a router or firewall, but it would be damn hardware intensive, and some tricksy code would have to be written:
1. Have the machine log packer header info to a log. You could have the log on another machine, but it would possibly interfere with step 3.
2. Do statisical analysis on the headers; if you start seeing a large number of packets from a specific IP address in a short period of time (like 3-5 seconds), flag the address and put it into an 'action' log. This could also hold true for a large number of malformed or 'impossible' packets from an address.
3. Have the device check the action log periodically to either raise an alarm at the management console (if you're paraniod about false positives) or configure itself to block the offending address for a defined period of time.
Most DDOS software isn't sending out packets with spoofed IPs; it doesn't care to spoof as it's coming from a victim machine anyway. And if the victim site has their router/firewall configured correctly it should be stopping packets that aren't originating from 'inside' anyway.
This won't help with the pipe being congested; you would need some kind of agreement with provider's 'upstream' to stop the flow before it logjammed the target site. But perhaps some kind of cooperative sensor web could be established, where alert logs are forwarded to a site for collation, and the owners of victim sites could be alerted that they're spewing packets onto the net.
Of course, as a comp security weenie, I know how many people have their perimeter devices correctly configured to stop this kind of thing.
By following your train of thought, you won't mind if fourteen salespeople show up on your doorstep one night/calling you, trying to sell you insurance, because you bought a new car? You wouldn't be just a little miffed that the dealership released your address and/or phone number without your consent?
Now add other possible factors. You start getting queries from detailers, start getting info from garages and oil change places - this may be good info to get.
But.. you get a letter saying your spousal support is going to be increased (you have a new vehicle, you can afford it - where did that info come from?).. the advertising database of a company contacted by your dealership is cracked by car thieves that just happen to be looking for vehicles of a certain type - this is a bad use of info.
By conglomerating even more information on not just your buying habits, but your shopping habits as well, you're allowing not only for a correct use of that information, but also it's incorrect use. More efficient is not necessarily better. Do you really want to give someone that kind of insight into your life? And I say someone, as problems with unauthorized access to IRS data has shown the human equation is always going to be there.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The government will cook the numbers to fit whatever agenda they want to push that day. Congresscritters getting upset because too many foreigners are taking tech jobs in their district? Corporate 'sponsors' of senators want more cheap labor from overseas? The numbers swing depending on who's doing the counting.
There really can't be a yardstick for average hours in the tech industry, as it's all a matter of where you're employed and you're hobbies:
Startups will work hellacious hours to get themselves established in the market. Managers will push developers into overdrive to make the crunch time before a major release. Government contractors may have their hours rigidly controlled by the funding of a contract. Some positions require major amounts of travel around the world. The main output of some organizations are meetings, meetings, and more meetings.
What about all the tech's wearing camoflage? Does physical training and military training time count towards their primary tech specialty? I put in months of consecutive time while deployed to Somalia. Donit get out of the computer shelter.. stay in the computer shelter.
Some people take work home, but some of us take out hobbies to work, or our hobby became our work. Does the time not count if I'm having a blast rooting around in a machines internals? Is it only work if you're not loving it?
Some of those continents have to have land bridges to the Corp Net (like Buy Net), so that the lawyers won't drown travelling between them; if they grouped onto a net 'plane' I'm sure some saboteur would plant a bomb on it, so I bet their insurance wouldn't cover it..
I nominate Cmdr. Taco as President for Life of Tech Net.. and hopefully he'll push the button and nuke the dot.coms back to the age of moveable typeface.
Knowing that you face a hostile audience of huge, nay cultish, proportions who would like nothing else than to see you dropped into a tank of radioactive waste, how can you still post articles that require some thought and intelligence to grok?
Well, they figured out another step on the path, BUT:
The materials they're talking about are hideously expensive to manufacture.. and I doubt their set-up is very fast at this point. I also have to wonder if they've started testing what normal electron flow, or thermal effects, to the material would cause in the way of intereference.
But they are starting to use angled beams to layer information, which should make the overall construct small, so possibly feasable to systems needing huge storage capacity.. at least short term capacity.. I also have to wonder if the beam disturbs areas that it's just 'passing through' and not trying to read.. in that case I hope the IRS adpots this technology in the near future.. I can just imagine what wholesale data degredation would cause some 'interesting' activity..
Home security system? Frag that.. my cat had better mend his ways and stop demanding to be fed at 6.30 on weekends.. already have a mindstorms chassis that would accept something like this with a few modifications..
And why shouldn't we use something creative to build a weapon? Usually it's the other way around.. if you don't keep things balanced in life you start getting an itchy feeling to get into politics..
Perhaps she got an interview because she asked? As for a Slashdot interview, well guys? He may never have heard of Slashdot, but I'd bet he'd become a daily reader..
I personally didn't think the questions were terribly superficial.. she asked several questions that anyone interviewing him probably would have asked. As for terribly 'deep' questions, well she really didn't have the background to ask the literary side of the house, and Mr. Gibson made it plain that, while he takes not of technology, he's not immersed in it like many of us..
All ideas are built upon a layer of previous ideas. An example is that crypto grew out of mathematics; tools build tools build tools, and things fall out along the way that we use.
This individual is working from the idea that someone else came up with, just like millions of others have before him. Making the claim that he's 'stealing' anything without the evidence of wrongdoing seems to be a hallmark of the (in)justice system of the U.S. where guilty until proven innocent seems to hold sway..
If this individual is gleaning information from articles and trade papers he's not stealing; he's availing himself of freely available information to take an idea, whether patented or a 'trade secret' (oxymoron if I ever heard one), to a further level, or along a different path to reach the same result. Much akin to building a homemade skateboard; you know someone patented the idea, but are you really going to hurt their business by 'rolling your own'? If you try to sell the resulting product is one thing, but creating something for yourself, IMHO, cannot be a crime.
I for one am glad that there are individuals like this in society who are willing to step up and make ideas happen, even in the face of the extremely juvenile patent law system of the U.S.; juvenile in the sense that it is not sufficent to deal with the current state of intellectual property, and has no provisions to give a clear cut reach to law regarding trade secrets.
Slashdot Mirror
The mistake Funcom made was that after the serious problems they were having the day of the release, they promised the users that the month of 'free' time that you received when you purchased the game would not start until things were worked out. And then they started the time when THEY felt the problems were fixed, not when 90% of the customer base could actually play the game in a reasonable manner. So when they started the time, and most of the customers still couldn't play very well, the screaming started (and hopefully so will more reviews).
To put it mildly, things are screwed in AO land. The last three patches have made things seriously worse, the publicity folks aren't talking to the programmers, there is no support (in-game or out), there are several serious exploits that have been known for some time (and are still exploitable), and there are a lot of unhappy people.
If the number of returns I've seen for my little burg is mirrored across the AO customer base in bigger markets, then this ship is going down..
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2672 131,00.html
Looks like MS is already going this route..
CPRM would give them that enforcement mechanism. If they could tie a specific OS/application license to a specific piece of harware (in this case a HD) via an encryption key created for a specific HD serial number (or master encryption block), and force that piece of hardware to validate that the OS/application is valid (and registered), then you wouldn't have PC shops cloning 1000 versions of an OS with the same serial number, as it had already been registered to one specific HD.
In this case, I fully believe that MS and other software companies would implement a requirement for CPRM hardware compliance into their operating systems and applications, so that they could cut down on 'piracy'. If the software couldn't 'call home' it would refuse to install.
And I guarantee that the mechanism to allow a person to re-install software onto a new HD (in the case of HD failure) would make the U.S. Tax Code read like 'See Jane run'.
How would the drive know that something is 'legal'? Would it really have to contact a server somewhere to validate the software or file? What happens if you need to get the system operating to the point that you get a network connection to validate the OS, but can't get the system up to that point without validating that the OS is legal? I have no doubt that if CPRM is on a drive, that entities such as MS will require it be used.
Say that the 'go key' for the OS is stored on the drive in such a manner that it can access it without validating it with an external source. Would the same hold true for other files? What would prevent someone from developing an application that could generate a valid key, and either 'trick' the drive into accepting it, or in fact giving an 'a okay' signal itself without checking the drive in the first place?
It just seems to me that this is a no-win situation for everyone, as the less technically inclined will suffer greviously for the actions of a few, and the technically astitute will find ways around CPRM in short order, thus invalidating it's reason for existing.
Did I miss something here, or does this guy think Apple developed unix? Great, pretty new colors and shapes for the user, but a GUI does not an operating system make.
I got moded up, then down.. must have been a ZDNet writer me thinks..
There was NO indepth look at the underlying security of the various distributions, what security functions or applications ships with each , or even what fundamental security problems are faced by all of the distributions (two examples, f'ing please).
You'd think these guys were doing an 'unbiased' look at webservers or something.. that or writing for ZDNet..
That one quote says it all. If linux gets the monetary support of the U.S. government, it will finally be in a position to become a 'real world' operating system, not just a hobbyists toy.
Go ahead and flame me, but it's the truth; the vast majority of government and corporate concerns in america see linux as a toy for geeks, not as a viable alternative to MS's flavor-of-the-month Windoze franchise, or to unix.
Probably take a decade to get a good map of the brain and the activity 'code' so that you can reproduce sight (which they already have to some extent for blind 'lab rats') and have interaction via brain impulses alone. Add to that the time necessary to develop the nanites necessary to rig the connections (as any human, and probably most robots, would be to ham fisted to do that kind of work), and you have the hardware & firmware done.
I'm pretty sure the software side for the computer/deck will already be written by then, so I'll take bets that the technology for DNI will be viable in 25 years.
I would have, but they decided to send it over the network anyway, through a SSH session (which would make me suspicious).
And you have a system that can keep up with the byte firehose...
Then we would finally have the bandwidth required to push enough information down the pipe to a system to create a true, functional, VRML interface. Get some gloves and a vision rig, munge up some software to do the data to image translation (which is being worked on for the Internet2 project) and let the games begin!
Who'd care about flatscreen monitors then? Would carple tunnel be a thing of the past? Would it make information overload a true psychological problem? You decide!
1. If someone scans the box they will find the false subnet; if they run a sniffer on the subnet they won't see any traffic.
2. They're very hardware intensive.
3. They send their logs to another system for 'safe keeping'; a sniffer will see this traffic.
Basically a careful and methodical cracker (read PARANOID) will notice something fishy and bail due to the way the network is responding (or not responding) to various tools and commands - it'll just be 'too good' and way too open. Script kiddies will just punch along and not do any real damage.
As for entrapment - for systems in the U.S. government, they are supposed to place a warning banner on all possible services that can be used to access the system warning you that: 'You are entering a government computer blah blah blah'.
So you know that you're not supposed to be there, that you are subject to monitoring if you choose to access the system, and that you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law if you do something malicious. You were warned and are responsible for your actions after that point.
If the site doesn't have a warning then it's time for dueling lawyers, depending on what they try to tag you with. If it's a gov site without the banner they can't try to bury you for electronic B&E on a gov site (which is a federal offense), just electronic B&E in general (which can still just ruin your day).
If you're going to crack you can't whine about entrapment; John V. isn't holding a gun to your head and making you punch keys.
Based on the premise that intelligence was an evolutionary process, and not something that just spontaneously happened, what justifies calling a silicon/germanium/other-than-carbon-based intelligence artifical? Aren't we in fact, through the process of improving computer hardware and software, evolving something that, while not aware today, may be aware in the future?
(Note: I will not rant on other facets of this topic, as I would spend several hours typing before the villagers showed up with their torches and pitchforks)
Microsoft makes the majority of it's profit creating applications and selling support, not by selling their OS, though they have a great advantage when it comes to building apps for their OS.
But MS has gotten a couple of wake-up calls recently. They're porting Outlook and Exchange to *nix as the U.S. Army was going to chose Lotus Notes as it runs on *nix and MS systems. They're seeing the growth of Apache far outpacing IIS, possibly in part due to Apache running on damn near anything. They're seeing Office take some hits as businesses re-trench and start using WordPerfect or Star Office, again on different platforms.
While MS may never totally give up cranking out an OS, that's not their focus in the next decade.
1. Have the machine log packer header info to a log. You could have the log on another machine, but it would possibly interfere with step 3.
2. Do statisical analysis on the headers; if you start seeing a large number of packets from a specific IP address in a short period of time (like 3-5 seconds), flag the address and put it into an 'action' log. This could also hold true for a large number of malformed or 'impossible' packets from an address.
3. Have the device check the action log periodically to either raise an alarm at the management console (if you're paraniod about false positives) or configure itself to block the offending address for a defined period of time.
Most DDOS software isn't sending out packets with spoofed IPs; it doesn't care to spoof as it's coming from a victim machine anyway. And if the victim site has their router/firewall configured correctly it should be stopping packets that aren't originating from 'inside' anyway.
This won't help with the pipe being congested; you would need some kind of agreement with provider's 'upstream' to stop the flow before it logjammed the target site. But perhaps some kind of cooperative sensor web could be established, where alert logs are forwarded to a site for collation, and the owners of victim sites could be alerted that they're spewing packets onto the net.
Of course, as a comp security weenie, I know how many people have their perimeter devices correctly configured to stop this kind of thing.
Now add other possible factors. You start getting queries from detailers, start getting info from garages and oil change places - this may be good info to get.
But.. you get a letter saying your spousal support is going to be increased (you have a new vehicle, you can afford it - where did that info come from?).. the advertising database of a company contacted by your dealership is cracked by car thieves that just happen to be looking for vehicles of a certain type - this is a bad use of info.
By conglomerating even more information on not just your buying habits, but your shopping habits as well, you're allowing not only for a correct use of that information, but also it's incorrect use. More efficient is not necessarily better. Do you really want to give someone that kind of insight into your life? And I say someone, as problems with unauthorized access to IRS data has shown the human equation is always going to be there.
There really can't be a yardstick for average hours in the tech industry, as it's all a matter of where you're employed and you're hobbies:
Startups will work hellacious hours to get themselves established in the market. Managers will push developers into overdrive to make the crunch time before a major release. Government contractors may have their hours rigidly controlled by the funding of a contract. Some positions require major amounts of travel around the world. The main output of some organizations are meetings, meetings, and more meetings.
What about all the tech's wearing camoflage? Does physical training and military training time count towards their primary tech specialty? I put in months of consecutive time while deployed to Somalia. Donit get out of the computer shelter.. stay in the computer shelter.
Some people take work home, but some of us take out hobbies to work, or our hobby became our work. Does the time not count if I'm having a blast rooting around in a machines internals? Is it only work if you're not loving it?
I nominate Cmdr. Taco as President for Life of Tech Net.. and hopefully he'll push the button and nuke the dot.coms back to the age of moveable typeface.
Knowing that you face a hostile audience of huge, nay cultish, proportions who would like nothing else than to see you dropped into a tank of radioactive waste, how can you still post articles that require some thought and intelligence to grok?
The materials they're talking about are hideously expensive to manufacture.. and I doubt their set-up is very fast at this point. I also have to wonder if they've started testing what normal electron flow, or thermal effects, to the material would cause in the way of intereference.
But they are starting to use angled beams to layer information, which should make the overall construct small, so possibly feasable to systems needing huge storage capacity.. at least short term capacity.. I also have to wonder if the beam disturbs areas that it's just 'passing through' and not trying to read.. in that case I hope the IRS adpots this technology in the near future.. I can just imagine what wholesale data degredation would cause some 'interesting' activity..
And why shouldn't we use something creative to build a weapon? Usually it's the other way around.. if you don't keep things balanced in life you start getting an itchy feeling to get into politics..
Perhaps she got an interview because she asked? As for a Slashdot interview, well guys? He may never have heard of Slashdot, but I'd bet he'd become a daily reader..
I personally didn't think the questions were terribly superficial.. she asked several questions that anyone interviewing him probably would have asked. As for terribly 'deep' questions, well she really didn't have the background to ask the literary side of the house, and Mr. Gibson made it plain that, while he takes not of technology, he's not immersed in it like many of us..
This individual is working from the idea that someone else came up with, just like millions of others have before him. Making the claim that he's 'stealing' anything without the evidence of wrongdoing seems to be a hallmark of the (in)justice system of the U.S. where guilty until proven innocent seems to hold sway..
If this individual is gleaning information from articles and trade papers he's not stealing; he's availing himself of freely available information to take an idea, whether patented or a 'trade secret' (oxymoron if I ever heard one), to a further level, or along a different path to reach the same result. Much akin to building a homemade skateboard; you know someone patented the idea, but are you really going to hurt their business by 'rolling your own'? If you try to sell the resulting product is one thing, but creating something for yourself, IMHO, cannot be a crime.
I for one am glad that there are individuals like this in society who are willing to step up and make ideas happen, even in the face of the extremely juvenile patent law system of the U.S.; juvenile in the sense that it is not sufficent to deal with the current state of intellectual property, and has no provisions to give a clear cut reach to law regarding trade secrets.
"Brother Smith, this is Reverend Gillmore.. I've recieved information that you've visited www.sheeplovers.com 42 times in the past month"
If that's the case.. wonder if they'll accept Visa and Mastercard for indulgences?
Wraith