Naw, the NSA cares about Linux because Linux does not yet have an NSAKey like Windows does. If people start adopting Linux, then they'll have no way to watch them. ..
We already have a BSD whose primary development focus is on security - so why doesn't the NSA concentrate on that, build on that effort that's been going on for years, instead of working with this new and far less mature OS (just because it's popular? Madonna is popular).
the ignorant customer does NOT know about the need for safety. That's when the government stepped in with testing and regulation. That's why we have seatbelts. And laws requiring people to wear them, because they're too stupid to do it on their own.
I'm not talking about security software. I'm talking about ALL software. Regular software has no security, because real security is hard. It requires very smart people to engineer. People who understand cryptology, information theory, etc. Your general High School dropout making 6-figures programmer may be hot with VisualBasic, but do they understand the issues? And even if they do, does their MBA manager understand the issues? Does their Product Manager understand the issues? Are their Sales people savvy enough to use these issues to increase sales?
If you think software companies fix security holes in software out of some sense of responsibility, you're wrong. Well, not totally, my team is pretty good about obvious stuff, and when it comes to a management decision (because the fix become significant in terms of man-hours=money and schedule), more often than not, responsibility wins out - on the other hand, if it's going to impact the schedule, and if they're reasonably sure that no customers are going to see a bug, there's a good chance they're going to postpone it. Fiduciary responsibility, unfortunately, trumps technical responsibility.
on the other hand, we may get to Pluto, and find out that because of the atmosphere, we can't see a goddamn thing (not unlike little sis Venus). Mabye be better off waiting.
not to undermine the ecological effort, but I think that no matter what proof we come up with that cow-farts (or car-farts) are destroying the environment, we're not going to stop anything until long after it's too late (I believe it's already far too late).
No amount of proof or evidence is going to convince those with money and power to give it up so that their grandchildren can live. They want their Ferarris and they want them now. Screw future generations.
That said, spending ANY money on researching the environment is a total waste (why study it if no matter what evidence you find, you won't convince anybody to do anything about it?) - and we should spend all of our money on finding a faster way to deliver pizzas.
I was also involved in a "prank" where I wrote a gwbasic program that looked and acted like a DOS prompt, but then proceeded to pretend to delete everything on the 5.25" floppy
heh - we did that too - in assembler (actually, in BASIC with poke and peek), on a TRS-80 model III, it looked like the DOS prompt (we ran DOS, not CP/M on those machines- because they had floppies, the older ones did not). What glorious fun we had with that. The unfinished project that would have been cool was to try to get an Eliza-like program in as part of the prompt to totally screw with newbees. Never finished that one. Three years ago, I found the disk I had that code on. I still have a 486-33 that has a 5.25" drive, but couldn't read the disk.:(
I had several similar experiences throughout my education - and an interesting statement from one of my teachers:
(names have been changed to protect the anonymous)
"Well, Mr. Coward, I am having a really hard time understanding your grades here. You act in class as if you haven't read the material - that is, when you show up. You have not done one single homework assignment, yet you consistently score 100% on tests. The only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that you must either be psychic or cheating. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let you pass this class on test scores alone when all of the other students have to do the work."
um- hello?
Where are these teachers being trained?
yes, but; how do you prove or disprove "intent" in a court?
With fancy lawyers looking for witches to burn (and notches in their gun-belt), and prosecutors looking for "examples" so they can have a record of "being tough on crime" - intent gets washed away.
oh come now, come now, you don't have to be so dumb now.
That Security is pretty much a joke field is because there is a high-demand market, with UNEDUCATED CONSUMERS. Software companies are only going to build features for which there is a high demand. Right now, that's pretty GUI's (if you believe Steve Jobs). The consumers (and I'm not talking just about Joe Sixpack - I'm also talking about Joe Seeeyeoh) are blissfully unaware of security. The press has made some noise about it, but they're trying to make it into a social problem, (one that's easy to understand) rather than a technical problem (hard to understand = hard to sell).
When the market at large truly begins to understand computers, technology, and the security and privacy ramifications (we're talking about a chilly day in hell, here), then security will stop taking a backseat.
It's only natural that people who are interested in security will feel the desire to educate those who are not. It feels like a good deed. The cause may be better served by staying out of jail, and becoming a key industry figure, important enough that people will listen to you. Wardialing and Portscanning is the short and easy path.
'sounds to me like you may still have some learning to do.
Yes, it's great to be smug about how much money you're making, but did you ever stop to consider that you're really not worth that? I mean, "to society". Your inflated wage is a product of market dynamics, skilled computer workers are in short supply, so basically, if a person can turn on a computer, they can have a job. The supply of people who are skilled such as you (and I'm not disputing your skill/talent/intelligence - whatever), is much smaller than the demand.
This is the same exact reason why the RIAA can charge 20 fucking bucks for a CD that costs 50 cents to manufacture. (only they artificially constrain the supply). Perhaps the supply of skilled workers is somewhat artificially constrained (although I'm a vocal opponent of increasing H1-B visas). But in that analogy, that makes you no better as a net admin than n*sync is as musicians.
If the market changes, without a HS diploma, you are well and truly fucked. Supply does seem to be guaranteed to be short, even with the corporate lapdog congress increasing H1-B caps - but you don't know for a fact that *demand* is going to stay high.
There is a buttload of EXPERIENCED sysadmins out there, with decades of Unix experience, engineering degrees, etc. Right now, you're taking advantage of a system that permits a company to exist on a rediculously inflated market cap from a starry-eyed stock market. With lots of market cap, they can get lots of credit to buy fancy web servers, and hire high school dropouts for six figures. But as the economy slows, (debatable) and their market cap drops (that's indisputable, have you checked NASDAQ lately?), it's going to be harder for banks to justify credit to these companies, and as they default when they have no revenue to show for it, their payroll will be scrutinized.
In other words, to quote Vader "don't be too proud of this technological marvel you've created - the power to destroy a planet pales in comparison to the Force" (that is, market Force).
You are wise to "grab your share" before the market drops out - but make sure you arrange things so that you can KEEP it. And stop spending your nights at raves, because you just may find that someday, you're looking for the same job as a college graduate. Finish school and get that degree.
What has education become? A pile of shit. I do not dispute that. Don't you know that it has always been that? But at the top of that pile of shit is a piece of paper - which comes in handy when you need to wipe your ass.
There's an old DOS program out there called FLASHER.EXE, which causes your computer to flash it's monitor at certain rates, utilizing a technique called photic brainwave stimulation. The theory is that the pulses of photons into the eyes are processed by the brain in pulses, which sets up an oscillation in the brain, once the optical processing centers begin to pick up on the oscillation, others may join in, and alter your state of consciousness. Back in the '80's, they used to sell light goggles for thousands of dollars that did this (anybody reasonably skilled in electronics could probably build a set for about $5 of parts).
You could set FLASHER for a rate, and pattern and color, (neither of which really affects anything), and zone out in front of your machine trying to achieve an altered state. I think alpha worked okay, but the beta, theta, delta didn't work very well. Except when I smoked a doob, then delta would put me right to sleep.:)
half baked gogglebox doogooders telling everybody it's bad for you.
pernicious nonsense.
a guy could take a hundred chest xrays a year.
ought ta have em too. ..
Well, someone will just have to code a browser like Moz that can selectively disable javascript features like popups (that would be GREAT!), while allowing other features.
Re:Has anybody found Freenet useful yet?
on
P2P Piracy? Piffle!
·
· Score: 2
It's also very possible/likely that the RIAA can hire data hit-men to go out, and upload crap onto freenet, causing some of the symptoms you're seeing, which will ultimately keep freenet's adoption rate low.
We've already seen that with Napster, where you'd download some supposed track, and get either garbage, or an ad, instead of what the track was labeled.
trust/honor is probably the only workable long-term solution.
But people with money and power like to at least preserve the illusion that they have it. So I expect that there will be a huge effort by the media companies (and their government suckwhores^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lapdogs) to eliminate piracy through legislation and technological locks. This will be about as successful as it's been so far.
I'm betting the solution will end up being something along the lines of coin-op (more likely credit card operated) music kiosks that will let you download SMDI tracks, and encode them on SMDI disks, and play them on SMDI players. You and I and the other geek/hackers will find other means to get at our music (there are millions of people out there now with computers, and gigs of MP3s - they'll find some way to spread them). But 99% of kids out there are going to take mommy and daddy's charge card, and go download the latest Backstreet Boyz and make a CD - because that will be what's promoed on TV and Radio, by their favorite spokespersons. Because 99% of people out there are stupid tasteless sheep. Make no mistake, that is exactly how we got into this situation in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
if they can "dissapear" unruly congressmen, they can "dissapear" an unruly Canadian. :)
Naw, the NSA cares about Linux because Linux does not yet have an NSAKey like Windows does. If people start adopting Linux, then they'll have no way to watch them. . .
believe it or not, Microsoft has a whole TEAM of people dedicated to dissing Linux.
We already have a BSD whose primary development focus is on security - so why doesn't the NSA concentrate on that, build on that effort that's been going on for years, instead of working with this new and far less mature OS (just because it's popular? Madonna is popular).
the ignorant customer does NOT know about the need for safety. That's when the government stepped in with testing and regulation. That's why we have seatbelts. And laws requiring people to wear them, because they're too stupid to do it on their own.
I'm not talking about security software. I'm talking about ALL software. Regular software has no security, because real security is hard. It requires very smart people to engineer. People who understand cryptology, information theory, etc. Your general High School dropout making 6-figures programmer may be hot with VisualBasic, but do they understand the issues? And even if they do, does their MBA manager understand the issues? Does their Product Manager understand the issues? Are their Sales people savvy enough to use these issues to increase sales?
If you think software companies fix security holes in software out of some sense of responsibility, you're wrong. Well, not totally, my team is pretty good about obvious stuff, and when it comes to a management decision (because the fix become significant in terms of man-hours=money and schedule), more often than not, responsibility wins out - on the other hand, if it's going to impact the schedule, and if they're reasonably sure that no customers are going to see a bug, there's a good chance they're going to postpone it. Fiduciary responsibility, unfortunately, trumps technical responsibility.
and you could use belching to propell yourself in zero G.
Not to mention the uses for beer-farts! (better not do this until those scrubbers get fixed!)
heh- heh, heh heh heh.
he said sperm.
heh heh heh
on the other hand, we may get to Pluto, and find out that because of the atmosphere, we can't see a goddamn thing (not unlike little sis Venus). Mabye be better off waiting.
not to undermine the ecological effort, but I think that no matter what proof we come up with that cow-farts (or car-farts) are destroying the environment, we're not going to stop anything until long after it's too late (I believe it's already far too late).
No amount of proof or evidence is going to convince those with money and power to give it up so that their grandchildren can live. They want their Ferarris and they want them now. Screw future generations.
That said, spending ANY money on researching the environment is a total waste (why study it if no matter what evidence you find, you won't convince anybody to do anything about it?) - and we should spend all of our money on finding a faster way to deliver pizzas.
six figures? at 45, (if he invests smart) he'll be friggin retired.
I was also involved in a "prank" where I wrote a gwbasic program that looked and acted like a DOS prompt, but then proceeded to pretend to delete everything on the 5.25" floppy
:(
heh - we did that too - in assembler (actually, in BASIC with poke and peek), on a TRS-80 model III, it looked like the DOS prompt (we ran DOS, not CP/M on those machines- because they had floppies, the older ones did not). What glorious fun we had with that. The unfinished project that would have been cool was to try to get an Eliza-like program in as part of the prompt to totally screw with newbees. Never finished that one. Three years ago, I found the disk I had that code on. I still have a 486-33 that has a 5.25" drive, but couldn't read the disk.
I had several similar experiences throughout my education - and an interesting statement from one of my teachers:
(names have been changed to protect the anonymous)
"Well, Mr. Coward, I am having a really hard time understanding your grades here. You act in class as if you haven't read the material - that is, when you show up. You have not done one single homework assignment, yet you consistently score 100% on tests. The only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that you must either be psychic or cheating. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let you pass this class on test scores alone when all of the other students have to do the work."
um- hello?
Where are these teachers being trained?
yes, but; how do you prove or disprove "intent" in a court?
With fancy lawyers looking for witches to burn (and notches in their gun-belt), and prosecutors looking for "examples" so they can have a record of "being tough on crime" - intent gets washed away.
the important question is tho-
Did it get him laid?
:)
oh come now, come now, you don't have to be so dumb now.
That Security is pretty much a joke field is because there is a high-demand market, with UNEDUCATED CONSUMERS. Software companies are only going to build features for which there is a high demand. Right now, that's pretty GUI's (if you believe Steve Jobs). The consumers (and I'm not talking just about Joe Sixpack - I'm also talking about Joe Seeeyeoh) are blissfully unaware of security. The press has made some noise about it, but they're trying to make it into a social problem, (one that's easy to understand) rather than a technical problem (hard to understand = hard to sell).
When the market at large truly begins to understand computers, technology, and the security and privacy ramifications (we're talking about a chilly day in hell, here), then security will stop taking a backseat.
It's only natural that people who are interested in security will feel the desire to educate those who are not. It feels like a good deed. The cause may be better served by staying out of jail, and becoming a key industry figure, important enough that people will listen to you. Wardialing and Portscanning is the short and easy path.
Yes, George W. Bush has his education to thank for where he is today. His third grade teacher must be so proud.
'sounds to me like you may still have some learning to do.
Yes, it's great to be smug about how much money you're making, but did you ever stop to consider that you're really not worth that? I mean, "to society". Your inflated wage is a product of market dynamics, skilled computer workers are in short supply, so basically, if a person can turn on a computer, they can have a job. The supply of people who are skilled such as you (and I'm not disputing your skill/talent/intelligence - whatever), is much smaller than the demand.
This is the same exact reason why the RIAA can charge 20 fucking bucks for a CD that costs 50 cents to manufacture. (only they artificially constrain the supply). Perhaps the supply of skilled workers is somewhat artificially constrained (although I'm a vocal opponent of increasing H1-B visas). But in that analogy, that makes you no better as a net admin than n*sync is as musicians.
If the market changes, without a HS diploma, you are well and truly fucked. Supply does seem to be guaranteed to be short, even with the corporate lapdog congress increasing H1-B caps - but you don't know for a fact that *demand* is going to stay high.
There is a buttload of EXPERIENCED sysadmins out there, with decades of Unix experience, engineering degrees, etc. Right now, you're taking advantage of a system that permits a company to exist on a rediculously inflated market cap from a starry-eyed stock market. With lots of market cap, they can get lots of credit to buy fancy web servers, and hire high school dropouts for six figures. But as the economy slows, (debatable) and their market cap drops (that's indisputable, have you checked NASDAQ lately?), it's going to be harder for banks to justify credit to these companies, and as they default when they have no revenue to show for it, their payroll will be scrutinized.
In other words, to quote Vader "don't be too proud of this technological marvel you've created - the power to destroy a planet pales in comparison to the Force" (that is, market Force).
You are wise to "grab your share" before the market drops out - but make sure you arrange things so that you can KEEP it. And stop spending your nights at raves, because you just may find that someday, you're looking for the same job as a college graduate. Finish school and get that degree.
What has education become? A pile of shit. I do not dispute that. Don't you know that it has always been that? But at the top of that pile of shit is a piece of paper - which comes in handy when you need to wipe your ass.
There's an old DOS program out there called FLASHER.EXE, which causes your computer to flash it's monitor at certain rates, utilizing a technique called photic brainwave stimulation. The theory is that the pulses of photons into the eyes are processed by the brain in pulses, which sets up an oscillation in the brain, once the optical processing centers begin to pick up on the oscillation, others may join in, and alter your state of consciousness. Back in the '80's, they used to sell light goggles for thousands of dollars that did this (anybody reasonably skilled in electronics could probably build a set for about $5 of parts).
:)
You could set FLASHER for a rate, and pattern and color, (neither of which really affects anything), and zone out in front of your machine trying to achieve an altered state. I think alpha worked okay, but the beta, theta, delta didn't work very well. Except when I smoked a doob, then delta would put me right to sleep.
half baked gogglebox doogooders telling everybody it's bad for you. .
pernicious nonsense.
a guy could take a hundred chest xrays a year.
ought ta have em too. .
or maybe you should stop using obnoxious functions, and rewrite your code.
Because rule #1 is if you annoy your customers, your customers will go somewhere else. Then you'll be flipping burgers, not writing code.
no matter what they do, they'll have to realize one fact.
People put up with those annoying javascript popups because it gets them to compelling content. Pr0n.
Until the other sites provide some equally compelling content, pushing annoyances like javascript popus on their users will only chase the users away.
no coordination required.
alt-f4
Well, someone will just have to code a browser like Moz that can selectively disable javascript features like popups (that would be GREAT!), while allowing other features.
It's also very possible/likely that the RIAA can hire data hit-men to go out, and upload crap onto freenet, causing some of the symptoms you're seeing, which will ultimately keep freenet's adoption rate low.
We've already seen that with Napster, where you'd download some supposed track, and get either garbage, or an ad, instead of what the track was labeled.
trust/honor is probably the only workable long-term solution.
But people with money and power like to at least preserve the illusion that they have it. So I expect that there will be a huge effort by the media companies (and their government suckwhores^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lapdogs) to eliminate piracy through legislation and technological locks. This will be about as successful as it's been so far.
I'm betting the solution will end up being something along the lines of coin-op (more likely credit card operated) music kiosks that will let you download SMDI tracks, and encode them on SMDI disks, and play them on SMDI players. You and I and the other geek/hackers will find other means to get at our music (there are millions of people out there now with computers, and gigs of MP3s - they'll find some way to spread them). But 99% of kids out there are going to take mommy and daddy's charge card, and go download the latest Backstreet Boyz and make a CD - because that will be what's promoed on TV and Radio, by their favorite spokespersons. Because 99% of people out there are stupid tasteless sheep. Make no mistake, that is exactly how we got into this situation in the first place.