As though Apple were an American company? I've heard they have some sort of design office in California somewhere, but in any meaningful sense they're at least as much of a foreign company as Samsung. At least Samsung has some fabs in Austin and whatnot.
I'm fine with a little protectionism if it means protecting American operations, but people get very confused about the difference between where a company's headquarters are and where it operates. It's like people who say my Toyota is a foreign car. It's 85% value added in the US - a lot more American than almost any Ford or GM model.
people would be incentivized to innovate in the area, and over time we'd advance the state of the art
Innovation in something like this is useless without cooperation (good luck with that) or regulation.
WiFi and similar open spectrum uses have advanced state-of-the-art radio technology substantially faster than all the prior, protected spectrum uses.
WiFi runs on the ISM bands, and they're highly regulated, not some sort of Wild West in the aether that you suggest. The ISM bands have limits on transmit power, dwell time for frequency hopping, spreading for CDMA or OFDMA, etc.
Remember, there is no such thing as "interference" unless the emissions are coherent. Electromagnetic coherence doesn't happen unless you try really, really hard.
Generating a coherent signal in RF or microwave bands is the easiest thing in the world, it's called a sine wave.
So the only rule you truly need is to not be malicious.
Right, who would maliciously interfere with a system that has defense applications.
Worried about an "arms war" on power output? Good! All the more incentive to create more sensitive receivers, or to advance coding theory.
More sensitive receivers are the last thing you need when dealing with interference. As for coding theory, we're already pretty close to Shannon's limit. BTW, the space fence has a 768kW EIRP transmitter. Talk about a serious entry into the "arms war". You also need that kind of power for what they're doing. We're not talking about a WiFi reaching 100 feet.
Do we restrict the number of washer machine detergents that are allowed to be sold commercially, lest "interference" with competitors make the market in detergent too difficult to sustain?
My washing machine doesn't interfere with my neighbor's washing machine. My 10kW transmitter might interfere with his reception.
The beauty of (natural) science is that you can replicate the results.
Spoken from a true armchair POV. Trying to replicate results can be very expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, failure to replicate results does not immediately invalidate the original work, as there can be all kinds of legitimate explanations. Either party may have simply made a mistake, or there may be some critical variable that isn't yet recognized. Fraud in science is a very serious matter, a major impediment and expense, and unfortunately can be very difficult to prove. Therefore when it is found it should be punished severely.
The esteemed Gen. Shelton is playing politics. This is a standard trick. Whenever someone threatens or enacts budget cuts, politicians (and you don't get to be a general without being a politician) start shutting down things which may cost very little, but are highly noticeable or annoying. Obviously this demonstrates how catastrophic it would be to have your budget cut.
Agreed, Mittens' only vices were raiding corporations and bleeding them dry, and considering half the citizens of this country free loaders on self-made virtuous people like himself. I'm sure he's wonderful as a family man and a driver (at least if you're not a dog).
the NSA may end up being a huge liability to the security of the country
Wrong tense - they are a huge liability to America's security, because our real security is dependent on adhering to the Constitution and the faith of the people in their government.
Hypocrisy and irony are concepts that high level officials either have a congenital inability to understand, or have it surgically removed. No person cognizant of those concepts could possibly have the self-restraint or acting ability to make such pronouncements without bursting out laughing.
How do you know Snowden got everything worth spilling? He was only one low level guy.
Dear de facto Dictator for Life Putin, May I suggest you hang out a big "Welcome former NSA sysadmins" sign on your country. Tell 'em the weather is cold but the girls are hot (and something for the women sysadmins too - we Yanks frown on sexism). Your country may be a sewer due to its government, but as an American I'd be very grateful for anything you can do to help expose the use of our Constitution as toilet paper.
It may be worth the effort to show the little douchebags that the lulz are on them.
Not so many years ago I would have agreed with you. After the financial crisis, and the government bending over backwards to ignore criminal behavior, or worse rewarding the criminals with our money, I no longer feel that way. The whole idea of justice is a joke, especially in financial crimes (and what 'neuron' did is strictly financial damage). I don't defend anything he did, but until people in the financial sector pay a proportional penalty, or any penalty, it's not justice. I'd be just as happy if he got away with it.
Nor am I some sort of kid indulging in a nihilistic "it's all rigged" rant. For many years I had more faith in the "system", knowing full well it was far from perfect. I've reached the point where I no longer believe that, and it's more because the system has changed than because I have. Search on almost anything written by William K. Black. He's been there and done that. He was a mucky muck in the OCC (one of our numerous bank regulating agencies) when the S&L crisis hit. He was instrumental in getting over 1000 criminal convictions, and establishing the case law for control fraud, in a scandal that was a pittance compared to the recent financial crisis. He knows what control fraud looks like, and that's what the financial crisis was in spades.
Selfish attention whores report maybe 0.5% of the issues. The other 99.5% are reported and fixed with no drama.
From whence do these statistics come?
So Microsoft, Adobe, et al have never issued any security updates, ever?
No one said anything of the kind, but there are plenty of cases of them being, how do I say this nicely, not as prompt and responsive as they might be. Like sitting on known issues for months, and/or letting the NSA have fun with them first. Furthermore, Adobe and Microsoft make software for general purpose computers. The focus here is on embedded devices, which are harder to update and have a worse track record.
Lastly, the personal experiences you cite are both with non-profits, and Debian in particular is famous for their speed and responsiveness in patching security problems. If everyone was as responsive as them, blackhats would have a real problem.
ebno's 2nd law: you can write bad code in any language.
It may be a poor choice (I can't really say because I don't know it), but I'm skeptical of blaming major project failures on the choice of language. A good language helps (and reduces the amount of profanity heard from programmers), but successful projects have been built using some pretty awful languages.
Some are more selectively enforced than others. The issue is that and how the selection is made. If done for nefarious reasons, selective prosecution is a trademark of tyranny and a serious enough issue to be a legal defense. Of course that won't matter once somebody labels the defendant a terrorist, but in a system of justice it would.
Lisbon to Minsk is about the same distance from NYC to LA.
How many people travel from Lisbon to Minsk (or equivalent distance) by train? Seriously - I don't know.
People rave about the TGV, but Paris to Lyon is only 237 miles (roughly like a Boston to NY or NY to Washington trip) Even Berlin to Paris (like an old war movie) is only 545 miles. It seems that when people travel from, say London to the south of France, they're more likely to fly, and that's only about 600 miles.
Why would there not be simply some mechanical/electrical switch that triggers the train to slow down automatically approaching sharp corners?
I don't know about Spanish railroads, but the NYC subway system has had what you're talking about for many decades. For a dramatization, watch the original Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (1974). The part where the train is automatically slowed down going around the loop at South Ferry is entirely accurate.
Slashdot Mirror
Hammer is coming down ... on foreign companies.
As though Apple were an American company? I've heard they have some sort of design office in California somewhere, but in any meaningful sense they're at least as much of a foreign company as Samsung. At least Samsung has some fabs in Austin and whatnot.
I'm fine with a little protectionism if it means protecting American operations, but people get very confused about the difference between where a company's headquarters are and where it operates. It's like people who say my Toyota is a foreign car. It's 85% value added in the US - a lot more American than almost any Ford or GM model.
Those little buggers might know how to travel, but they can't beat the speed of the internet.
Evolution is an endless arms race - tachyon based pathogens will evolve.
The replacement is a 'multi-billion dollar project' according to TFA. Does that really qualify as a project which 'costs very little'?
No, but what they're talking about is shutting down the operation of the existing system.
people would be incentivized to innovate in the area, and over time we'd advance the state of the art
Innovation in something like this is useless without cooperation (good luck with that) or regulation.
WiFi and similar open spectrum uses have advanced state-of-the-art radio technology substantially faster than all the prior, protected spectrum uses.
WiFi runs on the ISM bands, and they're highly regulated, not some sort of Wild West in the aether that you suggest. The ISM bands have limits on transmit power, dwell time for frequency hopping, spreading for CDMA or OFDMA, etc.
Remember, there is no such thing as "interference" unless the emissions are coherent. Electromagnetic coherence doesn't happen unless you try really, really hard.
Generating a coherent signal in RF or microwave bands is the easiest thing in the world, it's called a sine wave.
So the only rule you truly need is to not be malicious.
Right, who would maliciously interfere with a system that has defense applications.
Worried about an "arms war" on power output? Good! All the more incentive to create more sensitive receivers, or to advance coding theory.
More sensitive receivers are the last thing you need when dealing with interference. As for coding theory, we're already pretty close to Shannon's limit. BTW, the space fence has a 768kW EIRP transmitter. Talk about a serious entry into the "arms war". You also need that kind of power for what they're doing. We're not talking about a WiFi reaching 100 feet.
Do we restrict the number of washer machine detergents that are allowed to be sold commercially, lest "interference" with competitors make the market in detergent too difficult to sustain?
My washing machine doesn't interfere with my neighbor's washing machine. My 10kW transmitter might interfere with his reception.
The beauty of (natural) science is that you can replicate the results.
Spoken from a true armchair POV. Trying to replicate results can be very expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, failure to replicate results does not immediately invalidate the original work, as there can be all kinds of legitimate explanations. Either party may have simply made a mistake, or there may be some critical variable that isn't yet recognized. Fraud in science is a very serious matter, a major impediment and expense, and unfortunately can be very difficult to prove. Therefore when it is found it should be punished severely.
The esteemed Gen. Shelton is playing politics. This is a standard trick. Whenever someone threatens or enacts budget cuts, politicians (and you don't get to be a general without being a politician) start shutting down things which may cost very little, but are highly noticeable or annoying. Obviously this demonstrates how catastrophic it would be to have your budget cut.
Re linked XKCD: The absence of Google Glass hasn't killed many people. Malaria is a bit different.
What we really need is a pan-global epidemic
In order to make sure it will work well we should first test the pathogen. May I sign you up as a test subject?
Agreed, Mittens' only vices were raiding corporations and bleeding them dry, and considering half the citizens of this country free loaders on self-made virtuous people like himself. I'm sure he's wonderful as a family man and a driver (at least if you're not a dog).
So does that mean 90% of them were never needed in the first place and you were just wasting taxpayers money?
Or possibly they are needed and you'll now outsource the jobs to the Chinese?
I'd say go with the Russians. They know a lot about security, and have at least one person who can teach about how the NSA operates.
the NSA may end up being a huge liability to the security of the country
Wrong tense - they are a huge liability to America's security, because our real security is dependent on adhering to the Constitution and the faith of the people in their government.
Hypocrisy and irony are concepts that high level officials either have a congenital inability to understand, or have it surgically removed. No person cognizant of those concepts could possibly have the self-restraint or acting ability to make such pronouncements without bursting out laughing.
How do you know Snowden got everything worth spilling? He was only one low level guy.
Dear de facto Dictator for Life Putin,
May I suggest you hang out a big "Welcome former NSA sysadmins" sign on your country. Tell 'em the weather is cold but the girls are hot (and something for the women sysadmins too - we Yanks frown on sexism). Your country may be a sewer due to its government, but as an American I'd be very grateful for anything you can do to help expose the use of our Constitution as toilet paper.
It may be worth the effort to show the little douchebags that the lulz are on them.
Not so many years ago I would have agreed with you. After the financial crisis, and the government bending over backwards to ignore criminal behavior, or worse rewarding the criminals with our money, I no longer feel that way. The whole idea of justice is a joke, especially in financial crimes (and what 'neuron' did is strictly financial damage). I don't defend anything he did, but until people in the financial sector pay a proportional penalty, or any penalty, it's not justice. I'd be just as happy if he got away with it.
Nor am I some sort of kid indulging in a nihilistic "it's all rigged" rant. For many years I had more faith in the "system", knowing full well it was far from perfect. I've reached the point where I no longer believe that, and it's more because the system has changed than because I have. Search on almost anything written by William K. Black. He's been there and done that. He was a mucky muck in the OCC (one of our numerous bank regulating agencies) when the S&L crisis hit. He was instrumental in getting over 1000 criminal convictions, and establishing the case law for control fraud, in a scandal that was a pittance compared to the recent financial crisis. He knows what control fraud looks like, and that's what the financial crisis was in spades.
The million or so that aren't reported on Slashdot are the ones handled properly through the standard process.
How do you know that?
Selfish attention whores report maybe 0.5% of the issues. The other 99.5% are reported and fixed with no drama.
From whence do these statistics come?
So Microsoft, Adobe, et al have never issued any security updates, ever?
No one said anything of the kind, but there are plenty of cases of them being, how do I say this nicely, not as prompt and responsive as they might be. Like sitting on known issues for months, and/or letting the NSA have fun with them first. Furthermore, Adobe and Microsoft make software for general purpose computers. The focus here is on embedded devices, which are harder to update and have a worse track record.
Lastly, the personal experiences you cite are both with non-profits, and Debian in particular is famous for their speed and responsiveness in patching security problems. If everyone was as responsive as them, blackhats would have a real problem.
The BIG one I found had replacement Debian packages out within 48 hours. Wikipedia was patched to fix the vulnerability I found within 24 hours.
Both non-profit. 'nuf said.
*sigh*.... Freedom Fries....
They're sophisticated if you put vinegar or mayonnaise on them :) And mayonnaise is French!
Sometimes I like fancy food myself, but can you honestly tell me you don't like french fries?
ebno's 2nd law: you can write bad code in any language.
It may be a poor choice (I can't really say because I don't know it), but I'm skeptical of blaming major project failures on the choice of language. A good language helps (and reduces the amount of profanity heard from programmers), but successful projects have been built using some pretty awful languages.
All laws are selectively enforced.
Some are more selectively enforced than others. The issue is that and how the selection is made. If done for nefarious reasons, selective prosecution is a trademark of tyranny and a serious enough issue to be a legal defense. Of course that won't matter once somebody labels the defendant a terrorist, but in a system of justice it would.
And the food is better too.
(At any given moment there's more high-speed equipment waiting to depart at Gare du Nord than exists in all of North America.)
But can you buy Freedom Fries on the train?
A future where SF and LA are only 300 miles apart does sound a little unlikely.
Plate tectonics will do the job.
Lisbon to Minsk is about the same distance from NYC to LA.
How many people travel from Lisbon to Minsk (or equivalent distance) by train? Seriously - I don't know.
People rave about the TGV, but Paris to Lyon is only 237 miles (roughly like a Boston to NY or NY to Washington trip) Even Berlin to Paris (like an old war movie) is only 545 miles. It seems that when people travel from, say London to the south of France, they're more likely to fly, and that's only about 600 miles.
Why would there not be simply some mechanical/electrical switch that triggers the train to slow down automatically approaching sharp corners?
I don't know about Spanish railroads, but the NYC subway system has had what you're talking about for many decades. For a dramatization, watch the original Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (1974). The part where the train is automatically slowed down going around the loop at South Ferry is entirely accurate.