CSO has a story claiming that patching just doesn't work as a security solution: there are too many vulnerabilities, and the patch creation and implementation process creates new vulnerabilities. For example, the article cites Microsoft's release of a nonsecurity hotfix for SQL Server -- which could reopen servers to the Slammer worm.
I was just talking about Blaster last night with one of the guys interviewed in the article. His solution is centralized patch management -- installing client software on his ten thousand boxes that checks whether a patch that he's approved for distribution has been installed yet, and either installing overnight or warning the user that the machine will be downloading, applying and rebooting soon -- save your work.
The original "lickable" OS X interface -- right down to the thin horizontal gray lines on menu bars and window borders -- almost certainly was designed to resemble the original iMac and Blue-and-White G3. The design aesthetics reinforced each other, and even extended to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which gives you the choice of browser chrome to match your hardware (including the venerable Bondi Blue).
Apple went out of its chromatic phase in a blaze of glory with the regrettable "Blue Dalmatian" and "Flower Power" iMacs. Ever since then they've moved in a more elegant direction, with no more dramatic change than the shift from colorful, purse-like iBooks to today's snowy variant. OS X has looked dated in comparison -- it did its job too well. It's no coincidence that as brushed metal themes are emerging more and more often, especially in the new Finder, that the new G5's following suit.
Why am I suddenly reminded of Homer Simpson looking skyward and saying, "I'm not usually a praying man, but if you can hear me, save me, Superman!"
Even if the EFF or another advocacy group is in a position to swoop down from the sky and help take your case, this is a major international corporation you're dealing with, and a broadly written law (the DMCA) that has many constitutional questions surrounding it. You will likely need to spend the money on a good attorney to represent you if you intend to fight this.
Cox on governments adopting open source software
on
Alan Cox Interview
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Governments should evaluate open source technologies certainly. The fact they get the source code and can audit it has been a reason for some countries to adopt open source, pricing is another. However, I don't think its right that government should have fixed rules beyond "fair review". There may be situations where proprietary software is genuinely the right choice.
This is a very pragmatic way to look at it. Obviously, moving government offices to (GNU/)Linux and KOffice or StarOffice would save taxpayer money in per-seat licenses. The costs of platform migration, service, and especially user training might eat up those savings, however. In addition, the public, which is under the Desktop Monopoly's thumb, would demand interoperability with government agencies. ("I'm sorry, I can't read your.doc file. Could you reformat it to take out this feature which StarOffice can't handle?" "It's a freaking Word document! How hard does it have to be for you to read it?!")
I also wonder about the unfair competition argument which MS and any other proprietary developer might raise. If governments mandate -- and contribute code to -- free software, is that government unlawfully competing with private enterprise? And even if it's lawful, is it politically feasible? Here in the U.S., folks would be skeptical if they felt like the U.S. government was setting up their own computing standard as a public monopoly in order to take down Microsoft.
The political considerations aren't limited to the perception that (pick a government or agency) is in Microsoft's pocket. It also raises questions about the government's role in steering the direction of technology, and whether government could usurp the roles of both software companies and free software developers in declaring standards.
Remarkable: Already slashdotted
on
Alan Cox Interview
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Before even seven comments were posted, the server fell down and went boom. There are times when I fear the raw destructive power of Slashdot readers, especially when someone says, "Look! Over there! It's Alan Cox!"
If you're a publisher, why spend money on an altruistic solution when there's a cheaper one? With the flood of cheap content on the Internet, freelancers who don't have the benefit of "celebrity" can always be replaced, so the economic benefits of giving them a break are negligible. If archives do in fact start going blank, I won't be surprised.
This should have no real effect on new content, however -- publishers are being sure to include electronic redistribution rights as part of any contract these days.
Here's a quote by Neil Gaiman, a popular fantasy and comic-book writer (Sandman, Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, etc.). This blogger entry was a sort of eulogy written just after Adams' death, and sums up why I think the unpublished stuff should remain so (unless the Hitchhiker's movie is finally made with no changes to Adams' script).
He was a very brilliant man. (Not said lightly. I think he really was one of those astonishingly rare people who saw things differently and more clearly and from a different angle.) I don't think he liked the process of writing very much to begin with, and I think he liked it less and less as time went on. Probably, he wasn't meant to be a writer. I'm not sure that he ever figured out what it was that he did want to do; I suspect it's something they don't have a concept for yet, let alone a name -- and if he'd been around when this thing was around (World Designer? Explainer?) he would have done it brilliantly.
(I hope that his death isn't followed by the publishing of all the stuff he hadn't wanted to see print.)
Re:Jeffrey B. Lotspiech at Stanford Tommorrow!
on
CPRM Voted Down
·
· Score: 1
Would anyone who attends please attach a comment to this story?
> I'll grant that "Me Media" produces less conformity
> (whether this is a bad thing or not is a separate
> discussion).
I don't think I buy that, nor do I think that this is Sunstein's argument (as presented). Just the opposite:
> People living in democracies, Sunstein maintains,
> should be exposed to ideas they might not have chosen
> themselves. Unplanned, spontaneous, unanticipated
> encounters are central, though they "often involve
> topics and points of view that people have not sought out
> and perhaps find quite irritating." They are important,
> nonetheless, he says, partly because they protect
> against fragmentation and extremism, a predictable
> outcome when like-minded people communicate only with one
> another."
The way I read this, Sunstein's arguing that "Me Media" breeds _more_ conformity, not less. Not conformity with the vanishing mass culture, but conformity with group norms or the dominant philosophy of self-selected, filtered news source.
It's as though my only source of news was (pick your politics) _Mother Jones_ or _National Review_. If I choose not to be intellectually challenged, or to have my assumptions questioned, then by my definition I'm embracing conformity. Certainly complacency.
Sunstein's saying that I'm far better off if I read _both_. He's also not saying that I should adopt some mushy middle position between the two extremes, just that I should do everything in my power to ensure that I'm developing a _thoughtful_ perspective on issues in public life instead of seeking mindless reinforcement.
If Nader is causing the Dems to lose votes, then why the hell aren't the Dems thinking about taking on some Green platforms? Nader isn't getting votes just to piss Gore off; he's getting votes because he has issues that are really appealing to a segment of the population that feels neglected. Why aren't the pundits talking about how the Dems should react? Instead they are just complaining about him being a spoiler.
Very simple. The country is less liberal, as a whole, than Gore. The country is far less liberal than Nader. If Gore had tacked further to the left, appeasing the Greens, then it would have been all over at 10:00 with CNN announcing a Bush landslide.
Don't mistake ideological purity for popular will. The American public, while sadly vulnerable to sound bites and propaganda, is still sufficiently centrist to mistrust fundamentalists of the Left and Right.
If you check out WCBS' web article about the debate, you'll notice not a single reference to the 602P hoax. On their message boards, however, a couple of people are screaming for the head of the moderator, "Chief Investigative/Political Reporter for NEWS 2" Marcia Kramer.
My spider-sense tells me the Don Imus show (on sister station WFAN-AM) is going to have a field day tomorrow. I guess WCBS doesn't feel their own screwups are worth correcting.
Moderate HerrNewton's post up; this is a good point. I remember Babylon 5 executive producer talking about the levels of infighting between different entertainment arms of Time Warner (TNT vs. Warner Bros. Domestic Television vs. Warner Home Video...). I would not be at all surprised to see folks in the editorial side of CNN who are completely at odds with the supression of DeCSS on First Amendment principles.
Come to think of it, you could draw an anology to Nullsoft's release of the original Gnutella and AOL's aghast reaction.
Don't call it "hypocrisy" just yet. There is a long tradition in "legitimate" journalism of a wall of separation between the editorial (content) and business (financial) sides of news organizations. This wall is admittedly getting some chunks knocked out of it in today's corporate-driven media, but there are many journalists who will be damned if they'll let the suits spike their story.
I wouldn't be surprised if some folks in the news division at CNN.com, or IDG, or LinuxWorld -- whoever's responsible -- included the link on the same basis as they would any other external link. Maybe they even thought that highlighting this worldwide list was important in driving a point home. They made their journalistic point. Then the lawyers for the Suits noticed; rather than have that inconsistency noted for all and sundry to see (too late -- thanks, Scripting News), and to keep themselves from violating the law as interpreted by Kaplan, the suits pulled the plug.
Why am I bothering with this when M18 is already so much better? My wish: that Netscape gets their act together for PR3. This is one of the stupidest rollouts that I've seen (worse than PR1, even). Damnit, guys - the Mozilla product is so much better.
I recommend downloading an M18 build if you're looking for a better indication of where the product is at currently. The PR2 build doesn't do it justice, and I don't see that it has enough useful extras to recommend it.
I'd concur; I've played with M18 builds on my Win98 laptop and have been very satisfied. Except for some problems rendering radio buttons and associated text on the same line, M18 renders a website I work with far more cleanly.
I believe in the promise of Mozilla, and hope that the Netscape branding and customizing process doesn't bury the project.
of course, it'd be a better world if the software companies would just shrug and say, "aw, what the hell, you can have it." it would give them some say in the matter, as well as market data.
but any rom collector knows that this won't happen. because the companies are stingy. they don't want their software available for free. and i wouldn't blame them, really, if it represented a revenue stream. but it doesn't. and litigation doesn't improve their image.
Q: Why does Company A hold on to its right to otherwise useless, unsellable, out of date software? A: To prevent Company or Individual B from coming along and making a success of their property, thereby demonstrating that B knows how to make a buck and A does not. If Atari had formally given up their rights to Asteroids, for example, then the Playstation/PC game of the same name could never have come around. But there's also the spite mentality. In another medium, TNT relegated Babylon 5 to 7:00 a.m. Saturday mornings because they lost faith in the show. But they resisted handing over the show to another network -- charging far more money for it than B5 was making for them -- because they'd be damned if someone else was going to show them up. They only sold to Sci-Fi Channel because the rights were eventually going to expire anyway. To an executive, there is value in keeping your competitors from profitting from your intellectual property, even if you have no clue what to do with it yourself.
Simple version: space station Babylon 5 is a United Nations in space. Aliens from different worlds arrive to coexist peacefully, which usually fails to happen. Stuff blows up with increasing frequency.
Thematic details: We start with fairly standard SF stories with a couple of intriguing subplots about the history of the B5 universe and its characters (Season 1).
We then get the table kicked out from under us as a couple of the major races go to war and we realize just who's pulling the strings (Season 2).
The good guys and the string-pullers begin to encounter each other in earnest. In the process the status quo changes cataclysmically for the good guys, and they find themselves warring on more than one front. Meanwhile, some we thought were bad become good, and vice versa (Season 3).
Everything comes to a head, and I mean everything (Season 4).
Time to pick up the pieces -- what is the universe like after a major war's end? Meanwhile, a repressed minority begins to flex its muscle, and a new world order slowly emerges (Season 5).
The DVD release is in limbo at the moment -- as are, unfortunately, the VHS releases. IIRC, Warner Home Video released all episodes of Seasons 1 and 5, and some of Seasons 2 and 4, before putting the whole thing on hold. I'm not aware of any official word on whether the VHS releases have been halted.
The problems with home video release of B5 are many. TNT pulled its support of the reruns, relegating them to 7:00 AM Saturday mornings, and killed the B5 sequel Crusade. So WHV wasn't getting any marketing support for the videotapes. There was the confusing release order. (I guess TNT encouraged WHV to rush Season 5 out simultaneously with Season 1 in order to get a fast return on their investment -- unlike the previous 4 seasons, TNT footed the bill for and first-ran the fifth season.) And, of course, B5 is essentially a 112-episode serial. Unlike STAR TREK, you can't pick up a random episode.
So now that the general audience had all kinds of reasons NOT to buy B5 videotapes, Warner Home Video was left with the fan market... many of whom had taped the episodes for themselves... and, knowing B5 was filmed widescreen, were waiting for the DVDs...
... but without good video sales, Warner Home Video has no inkling that there's even a market for the DVDs. Classic vicious circle. Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath.
Slashdot Mirror
CSO has a story claiming that patching just doesn't work as a security solution: there are too many vulnerabilities, and the patch creation and implementation process creates new vulnerabilities. For example, the article cites Microsoft's release of a nonsecurity hotfix for SQL Server -- which could reopen servers to the Slammer worm.
I was just talking about Blaster last night with one of the guys interviewed in the article. His solution is centralized patch management -- installing client software on his ten thousand boxes that checks whether a patch that he's approved for distribution has been installed yet, and either installing overnight or warning the user that the machine will be downloading, applying and rebooting soon -- save your work.
The original "lickable" OS X interface -- right down to the thin horizontal gray lines on menu bars and window borders -- almost certainly was designed to resemble the original iMac and Blue-and-White G3. The design aesthetics reinforced each other, and even extended to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which gives you the choice of browser chrome to match your hardware (including the venerable Bondi Blue).
Apple went out of its chromatic phase in a blaze of glory with the regrettable "Blue Dalmatian" and "Flower Power" iMacs. Ever since then they've moved in a more elegant direction, with no more dramatic change than the shift from colorful, purse-like iBooks to today's snowy variant. OS X has looked dated in comparison -- it did its job too well. It's no coincidence that as brushed metal themes are emerging more and more often, especially in the new Finder, that the new G5's following suit.
Why am I suddenly reminded of Homer Simpson looking skyward and saying, "I'm not usually a praying man, but if you can hear me, save me, Superman!"
Even if the EFF or another advocacy group is in a position to swoop down from the sky and help take your case, this is a major international corporation you're dealing with, and a broadly written law (the DMCA) that has many constitutional questions surrounding it. You will likely need to spend the money on a good attorney to represent you if you intend to fight this.
This is a very pragmatic way to look at it. Obviously, moving government offices to (GNU/)Linux and KOffice or StarOffice would save taxpayer money in per-seat licenses. The costs of platform migration, service, and especially user training might eat up those savings, however. In addition, the public, which is under the Desktop Monopoly's thumb, would demand interoperability with government agencies. ("I'm sorry, I can't read your .doc file. Could you reformat it to take out this feature which StarOffice can't handle?" "It's a freaking Word document! How hard does it have to be for you to read it?!")
I also wonder about the unfair competition argument which MS and any other proprietary developer might raise. If governments mandate -- and contribute code to -- free software, is that government unlawfully competing with private enterprise? And even if it's lawful, is it politically feasible? Here in the U.S., folks would be skeptical if they felt like the U.S. government was setting up their own computing standard as a public monopoly in order to take down Microsoft.
The political considerations aren't limited to the perception that (pick a government or agency) is in Microsoft's pocket. It also raises questions about the government's role in steering the direction of technology, and whether government could usurp the roles of both software companies and free software developers in declaring standards.
Before even seven comments were posted, the server fell down and went boom. There are times when I fear the raw destructive power of Slashdot readers, especially when someone says, "Look! Over there! It's Alan Cox!"
You haven't lived until you've read the source code in the original Klingon....
If you're a publisher, why spend money on an altruistic solution when there's a cheaper one? With the flood of cheap content on the Internet, freelancers who don't have the benefit of "celebrity" can always be replaced, so the economic benefits of giving them a break are negligible. If archives do in fact start going blank, I won't be surprised.
This should have no real effect on new content, however -- publishers are being sure to include electronic redistribution rights as part of any contract these days.
Here's a quote by Neil Gaiman, a popular fantasy and comic-book writer (Sandman, Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, etc.). This blogger entry was a sort of eulogy written just after Adams' death, and sums up why I think the unpublished stuff should remain so (unless the Hitchhiker's movie is finally made with no changes to Adams' script).
Would anyone who attends please attach a comment to this story?
> I'll grant that "Me Media" produces less conformity
> (whether this is a bad thing or not is a separate
> discussion).
I don't think I buy that, nor do I think that this is Sunstein's argument (as presented). Just the opposite:
> People living in democracies, Sunstein maintains,
> should be exposed to ideas they might not have chosen
> themselves. Unplanned, spontaneous, unanticipated
> encounters are central, though they "often involve
> topics and points of view that people have not sought out
> and perhaps find quite irritating." They are important,
> nonetheless, he says, partly because they protect
> against fragmentation and extremism, a predictable
> outcome when like-minded people communicate only with one
> another."
The way I read this, Sunstein's arguing that "Me Media" breeds _more_ conformity, not less. Not conformity with the vanishing mass culture, but conformity with group norms or the dominant philosophy of self-selected, filtered news source.
It's as though my only source of news was (pick your politics) _Mother Jones_ or _National Review_. If I choose not to be intellectually challenged, or to have my assumptions questioned, then by my definition I'm embracing conformity. Certainly complacency.
Sunstein's saying that I'm far better off if I read _both_. He's also not saying that I should adopt some mushy middle position between the two extremes, just that I should do everything in my power to ensure that I'm developing a _thoughtful_ perspective on issues in public life instead of seeking mindless reinforcement.
...unless Lucas has a good spirit medium on retainer. Being that Daley's dead, and all.
Very simple. The country is less liberal, as a whole, than Gore. The country is far less liberal than Nader. If Gore had tacked further to the left, appeasing the Greens, then it would have been all over at 10:00 with CNN announcing a Bush landslide.
Don't mistake ideological purity for popular will. The American public, while sadly vulnerable to sound bites and propaganda, is still sufficiently centrist to mistrust fundamentalists of the Left and Right.
If you check out WCBS' web article about the debate, you'll notice not a single reference to the 602P hoax. On their message boards, however, a couple of people are screaming for the head of the moderator, "Chief Investigative/Political Reporter for NEWS 2" Marcia Kramer.
My spider-sense tells me the Don Imus show (on sister station WFAN-AM) is going to have a field day tomorrow. I guess WCBS doesn't feel their own screwups are worth correcting.
Moderate HerrNewton's post up; this is a good point. I remember Babylon 5 executive producer talking about the levels of infighting between different entertainment arms of Time Warner (TNT vs. Warner Bros. Domestic Television vs. Warner Home Video...). I would not be at all surprised to see folks in the editorial side of CNN who are completely at odds with the supression of DeCSS on First Amendment principles.
Come to think of it, you could draw an anology to Nullsoft's release of the original Gnutella and AOL's aghast reaction.
Don't call it "hypocrisy" just yet. There is a long tradition in "legitimate" journalism of a wall of separation between the editorial (content) and business (financial) sides of news organizations. This wall is admittedly getting some chunks knocked out of it in today's corporate-driven media, but there are many journalists who will be damned if they'll let the suits spike their story.
I wouldn't be surprised if some folks in the news division at CNN.com, or IDG, or LinuxWorld -- whoever's responsible -- included the link on the same basis as they would any other external link. Maybe they even thought that highlighting this worldwide list was important in driving a point home. They made their journalistic point. Then the lawyers for the Suits noticed; rather than have that inconsistency noted for all and sundry to see (too late -- thanks, Scripting News), and to keep themselves from violating the law as interpreted by Kaplan, the suits pulled the plug.
http://www.mozillazine.org
I'd concur; I've played with M18 builds on my Win98 laptop and have been very satisfied. Except for some problems rendering radio buttons and associated text on the same line, M18 renders a website I work with far more cleanly.
I believe in the promise of Mozilla, and hope that the Netscape branding and customizing process doesn't bury the project.
Simple version: space station Babylon 5 is a United Nations in space. Aliens from different worlds arrive to coexist peacefully, which usually fails to happen. Stuff blows up with increasing frequency.
Thematic details: We start with fairly standard SF stories with a couple of intriguing subplots about the history of the B5 universe and its characters (Season 1).
We then get the table kicked out from under us as a couple of the major races go to war and we realize just who's pulling the strings (Season 2).
The good guys and the string-pullers begin to encounter each other in earnest. In the process the status quo changes cataclysmically for the good guys, and they find themselves warring on more than one front. Meanwhile, some we thought were bad become good, and vice versa (Season 3).
Everything comes to a head, and I mean everything (Season 4).
Time to pick up the pieces -- what is the universe like after a major war's end? Meanwhile, a repressed minority begins to flex its muscle, and a new world order slowly emerges (Season 5).
For info on just about everything about the series, be sure to visit The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5.
The DVD release is in limbo at the moment -- as are, unfortunately, the VHS releases. IIRC, Warner Home Video released all episodes of Seasons 1 and 5, and some of Seasons 2 and 4, before putting the whole thing on hold. I'm not aware of any official word on whether the VHS releases have been halted.
The problems with home video release of B5 are many. TNT pulled its support of the reruns, relegating them to 7:00 AM Saturday mornings, and killed the B5 sequel Crusade. So WHV wasn't getting any marketing support for the videotapes. There was the confusing release order. (I guess TNT encouraged WHV to rush Season 5 out simultaneously with Season 1 in order to get a fast return on their investment -- unlike the previous 4 seasons, TNT footed the bill for and first-ran the fifth season.) And, of course, B5 is essentially a 112-episode serial. Unlike STAR TREK, you can't pick up a random episode.
So now that the general audience had all kinds of reasons NOT to buy B5 videotapes, Warner Home Video was left with the fan market... many of whom had taped the episodes for themselves... and, knowing B5 was filmed widescreen, were waiting for the DVDs...
... but without good video sales, Warner Home Video has no inkling that there's even a market for the DVDs. Classic vicious circle. Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath.