User: Sanity

Wrong on two counts...

On: Smart Routers

1) While this could theoretically be used for what you might call "censorship", the intention is actually a good one. It is quite sensible to give higher priority to realtime data such as audio and video than it is for, say, SMTP traffic, and all users would benefit from this.
2) Unlike IPv6, this doesn't require widespread deployment before it can be used (the chicken-and-egg problem that is delaying IBv6 deployment). Even if you are the only ISP on the planet using it, there will still be some benefit to your users.

--

Energy crisis? Rubbish

On: Solar Power Satellites by 2020?

With all of Bush's rhetoric about an energy crisis, why doesn't NASA latch onto this idea to secure more funding?

Isn't it obvious? Because it wouldn't work, the energy crisis is a myth, except in California, where the crisis was created not by a lack of resources but by a botched deregulation. Comparisons with the 1970s are phony, there is no oil crisis, oil prices are prefectly reasonable.

The real reason for Bush's "energy crisis" rhetoric is to funnel more money into the pockets of his friends in the oil business and to justify further destruction of the environment.

--

These guys are slimy

On: Gracenote Reponds Regarding Roxio Lawsuit

They took data which was generated by the Internet community in good faith, then suddenly slapped a license on it, and now they are pulling this type of thing. There is no reason that people shouldn't use truly free alternatives such as FreeDB. I advocate that people avoid them at all costs.

--

Re:this is getting silly

On: SQL Over FreeNet

Then don't. You have a lot of work to do to catch up with people who were writing useful code while you were working the PR machine, you don't need to be wasting time arguing about minutiae with them here.

Do you have to try to be an asshole or does it come naturally?

--

Strawman argument

On: Mundie Responds

He has shifted from trying to persuade people not to use Linux, to a claim that writing GPL'd software isn't as profitable as writing closed source code. Well duh! But this isn't what we are talking about. We honestly don't care whether Microsoft is able to make money, we just want good software, and Open Source seems to provide this.

--

Final Fantasy blows this away...

On: Linux and Shrek

I did think that this was somewhat impressive, until I saw some of the trailers for Final Fantasy. I watched it and was impressed by they way they combined real actors with computer generated backgrounds.

That was until I heard that the whole movie was computer generated!

--

Computer industry always under-represented

On: U.S. Intellectual Property Law Goes Global

The DMCA, and similar dumb anti-hacker (a "hacker" being someone who enjoys programming, not to be confused with a "cracker") laws are largely as a result of the fact that despite driving much of the US economy (much more-so than the music and movie industries combined), the computer industry has not really asserted itself. Yes, sometimes it is the big players within the computer industry who are the bad guys, but even Bill G was a hacker in his day.

I would advocate support of groups such as the Electronic Frontiers Foundation by going to their website now and joining, thus helping them fight the good fight. I have.

--

Really?

On: RFC for Spammers

While it may appear to be financially attractive to advertise via the use of Mass-Messaging ("spam"), as a responsible Internet user, ADVERTISERS SHOULD AVOID THIS OPTION. The possibility of income generation and market or business expansion are minuscule

I don't think that this RFC will gain acceptance unless it is honest. If people weren't making money out of Spam, then there wouldn't be repeat offenders. The reality is that people do make money, and that is why they do it. The RFC should give simple measures that won't be onerous to spammers, such as placing "ADV:" in the subject lines of emails. Telling them to target their audience is silly, the whole reason that people do spam is so that they don't need to go to the expense of targetting people, they just hit everyone.

This is akin to telling drug users "DON'T DO DRUGS" rather than giving them practical advice as to how they can do drugs safely.

--

Don't be an ass

On: 13-Year-Old Suspended For Hacking Commits Suicide

Why don't they fix they damn holes before they kill another kid?!?

You should feel like an idiot for saying this. You are taking the tragic death of a child and using it to advance your no-brainer views on computer security.

Is it just me or are we seeing a serious loss of perspective here?

--

This is a disgrace

On: 13-Year-Old Suspended For Hacking Commits Suicide

Of course, this will be modded down a troll, the price you pay for having a different opinion on slashdot, but I am going to say it anyway...

What if Microsoft used the suicide of a Linux user to advance the view that Linux was bad? Well the same thing is happening here. Anyone who kills themselves has serious problems, and the implication that just because a kid gets suspended from school, and commits suicide, means that the school killed him, is oppertunism at its worst. If you think that people should concentrate more on security, than on punishing people who break security, then so-be-it. But don't use the death of a clearly disturbed child to advance your view point.

--

:-)

On: France Telecom To Support Jabber

yes i sure would.

--

this is getting silly

On: SQL Over FreeNet

Just because the someone doesn't know what causes a pattern does not make it random.

And then, after insulting me, you agree with my original comment - that it is not, in fact, random!

I don't know why I bother...

--

they may be in-trouble

On: France Telecom To Support Jabber

I suspect their investors will probably slap their wrists for saying how much equity they bought, that is normally highly confidencial.

--

but either are areas of interest....

On: SQL Over FreeNet

Geography isn't physical on Freenet, but groups of people with similar interests are rarely associated with geography either. I don't think this really matters for what we are discussing.

--

again... no

On: SQL Over FreeNet

It is not at random. As far as the retriever is concerned the availability of data will be proportional to its popularity.

--

you misunderstand

On: SQL Over FreeNet

popularity on freenet is measured locally, not globally. For example, globally the Spice Girls might be extremely popular, but with a local region, such as Oxford, England, Radiohead might be more popular. Thus Freenet would retain Radiohead in Oxford, even though the Spice Girls would be more globally distributed (actually, this is a simplification, but it is the best explanation I can do at 1.45am).

Of course, data may eventually be dropped, however a mechanism to permenantly store data is a very different design proposition to Freenet. Not that one is better than the other, any more than a knife is better than a fork, they are different tools for different jobs. Actually, the WWW is one way to store content permenantly (provided you can afford it - there is always a trade-off).

--

do the research...

On: SQL Over FreeNet

do the research, you clearly don't understand what you are talking about. Freenet drops data based on local popularity, not global, which means that your fear is not justified. Visit the website for more info - I don't have time to spoonfeed.

--

i sit corrected...

On: SQL Over FreeNet

....but my other points still stand.

--

is this really newsworthy?

On: SQL Over FreeNet

While it is good to see anyone creating anything over Freenet, I have some issues with this:

• Is this even newsworthy? There is no code, not even a homepage, nothing to suggest this isn't vapourware (of which there is no shortage on Sourceforge)
• Freenet isn't very well suited to this task because it forgets unpopular information, which is just what you don't want a database to do

Note that the lack of permenant data is not a flaw in Freenet, in this regard Freenet is more like a radio station than a library, or indeed, a database. Before anyone says "but why not just add permenant data to freenet" know that someone suggests this on the freenet mailing lists about once every two days - it isn't possible while staying true to Freenet's other goals.

--

freenet's publicity lacking?

On: Cult of the Dead Cow Going P2P?

Freenet got on the front page of the new york times in March 2000, and is on the BBC more than Terry Wogan. If anything, Freenet has too much publicity.

--

you are right

On: Cult of the Dead Cow Going P2P?

...i am reading the node list at octayne.

--

there is a c++ version too

On: Cult of the Dead Cow Going P2P?

There is also a C++ version called Whiterose.

--

P2P Bandwagon

On: Cult of the Dead Cow Going P2P?

So now, almost a year after the P2P bandwagon got started, and only a few weeks after Sun removed any doubts that it was, in fact, a bandwagon by jumping on and promptly falling off (see here), those trend-setters at the Cult of the Dead Cow announce that they too plan to join the happy caravan, with something that sounds rather similar to one of the first pieces of software in the P2P space, and almost definitely the most sophisticated (namely Freenet).

Good luck!

--

Sounds like no publisher anonymity

On: Cult of the Dead Cow Going P2P?

It sounds like it doesn't provide publisher anonymity, just reader anonymity (although this based on an article that is pretty low on detail). It is also unusual that there is no comparision given with Freenet given that this is a very high-profile anti-censorship P2P system which has been in development for quite a while and is in relatively wide use (new node every 3 minutes, total of 700,000 downloads).

Some comparison with prior work please.....

--

Isn't this susceptible to MITM attacks?

On: Making Quantum Crypto Actually Work

What is to safeguard this from a "man in the middle" attack? Someone could intercept the quantum communication, and convince the sender that they are the receiver, and the receiver that they are the sender. They can then read, and even manipulate, all communication over the supposedly secure link. More conventional mechanisms such as "Diffie-Hellman"(sp?) key-exchanges combined with symmetric crypto are also vulnerable to this attack.

--