If that's the mechanism they're trying to patent, then finding prior art shouldn't be too hard. On the other hand, if it isn't, then you're free to do exactly that without risk of violating the patent.
(Assuming my understanding of patents is correct...)
On the upside of this particular solution though, it'd get harder and harder as time goes on for spammers to find customers that won't want to break their legs because of past experiences getting billed for their compromised systems' spam.;)
(X) It is defenseless against brute force attacks (X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once (X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email (X) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email (X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft (X) I don't want the government reading my email
I'd also add one not on the form:
(X) No objective standard for what is and is not spam.
Some basic physics: Spammers *cannot* send literally infinite numbers of spam messages, for any cost.
Some basic economics: "very little cost" != "no cost".
Some basic statistics: You don't get to determine the actual response rate by dividing actual responses by the potential number of messages you claim they *could* send, even if that number was somehow right.
Some basic logic: The fact that your argument gives a particular conclusion (namely, that 1 or more sales out of an infinity of attempts is a 0% response rate) does not mean that the converse holds (namely, that a 0% response rate means that there was 1 or more sale).
If he open-sourced it, who would maintain the codebase and update the copy running in the basement when necessary? You can't expect a suicidal coder to be patient enough to write *two* advanced AIs, and would you really trust your transcoded soul to an intelligence you didn't create yourself?
Also, if it were me, I sure wouldn't want anyone reading my soul's source code.
Whether they develop a resistance or not, if enough mosquitos that bite infected humans die in the short term, it seems that could have at least the potential to cause extinction of the dengue fever virus. If the chance of spreading the virus is low enough for long enough, it just might work.
If the timeframe is short enough, or if the vaccine's usage is modulated on a decade-scale frequency to keep the virus population down but let the mosquito population "forget", perhaps the mosquito-immunity scenario could also be avoided (if it's a serious risk in the first place).
Does the virus have any non-human carriers? Can we mosquito-poison the other hosts' blood too?
oblig. disclaimer: IANA practitioner of whatever discipline this falls under.
I don't think fault is relevant. The consequence of bad code in drivers that can trash the kernel is that the OS, which is all but useless without drivers, has bad code actively executing in kernel space on some deployed systems.
Obviously, a choice had to be made about how to provide drivers. I personally have no problem with the one that was made, and I suspect many security-conscious linux users would rather not accept the efficiency trade-offs for user-space drivers. The current situation does mean, though, that if you want to analyze or talk about the security of Linux you can't just dismiss drivers as "not part of the OS" - at least not the ones you're running on any systems you care about.
Bizarre unprovable things like the notion that the universe follows laws? Or the notion that nothing (or perhaps only nothing we should care about) exists which cannot be observed? Or that truth can be reliably approximated by generalization from observed phenomena?
These concepts are fundamental to the modern notion of science, but are themselves every bit as irrational as Flying-Spaghetti-Monster-ism. The only thing they have going for them is that they have worked so far - or at least, we believe that we remember that they have.
Actually, fuzzyfuzzyfungus, you weren't being especially pedantic, and your basic point is one I agree with. In retrospect, I don't know why it irked me so, other than my own need to be pedantic over the "just makes those people stupid" part. I apologize for my too-slow brain-to-submit-button filter. Mentally replace "we're" with "i'm" in the first line of my post, and you'll have what I now realize I should have meant.;-)
I suspect that any pediatrician will tell you that people in their practice take antibiotics for viral infections. And that, of course, just makes those people stupid.
As long as we're being pedantic, what that actually makes them is merely "wrong." The cause of wrongness may in fact be stupidity in some cases, but I suspect that in a much larger number a more accurate adjective would be "uninformed." If you feel the need to insult them, carry on with "stupid" but keep in mind that it may make you wrong too, and others might try to explain your wrongness using equally or even less favorable adjectives.
Or maybe you were just karma whoring to get modded up for being critical of someone bashing someone for bashing MS.
Ooh, can I join? How's this: You're obviously a very feeble-minded person if you think bashing a karma whore for being critical of someone bashing someone for bashing MS will get you *my* mod points, you insensitive clod!
Responsibility or blame is irrelevant. They both have a problem, and the problem is that dissatisfied customers stop being customers.
Let's continue with your analogy. You take your meal home and add salt. It turns out your salt supplier failed to mention that its really sodium chromate instead of sodium chloride. Who is at fault? Who should "own" the problem?
Well, if the salt had a shiny little logo of the meal's trademark, put on it with the meal producer's permission, I'd be pretty pissed at both of them. The notion of "owning" the problem is a bit simplistic, but it *will* be both companies' problem. Neither will ever receive my business again, if I can help it.
The following idea will probably never fly, and almost certainly shouldn't, but I find it interesting anyway:
Maybe the legal system needs "ethics traps" for manipulative businesses. Deliberately insert loopholes in laws like this one, but with (possibly hidden) major penalties for taking advantage of them in "unethical" ways. I'm thinking "cruel and unusual" on a corporate scale. Penalties such as forfeiture of all patents, or automatic and mandatory layoffs of the entire executive staff, with restraining-order-type judgments barring them from ever working in the same industry again.
Of course, the definition of "unethical" is an extremely sticky point, but were it not for the probably inescapably arbitrary or subjective nature of any possible definition I'd be very willing to consider legislation like that. After all, aren't corporations "people" too, under US law at least? If an individual person gamed the system like that, I tend to believe they'd be taken down a few dozen pegs, and fast.
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If that's the mechanism they're trying to patent, then finding prior art shouldn't be too hard. On the other hand, if it isn't, then you're free to do exactly that without risk of violating the patent.
(Assuming my understanding of patents is correct...)
On the upside of this particular solution though, it'd get harder and harder as time goes on for spammers to find customers that won't want to break their legs because of past experiences getting billed for their compromised systems' spam. ;)
but then I couldn't send you an E-Mail either, and I actually DO know the secret to penis enlargement.
Maybe, but I'd still ignore it anyway.
Get the Mythbusters to find the optimal method. That bamboo-shoot-growing-through-the-chest thing looked promising.
You forgot to check a few (and possibly others):
(X) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(X) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(X) I don't want the government reading my email
I'd also add one not on the form:
(X) No objective standard for what is and is not spam.
Some more basic math: zero != near zero
Some basic physics: Spammers *cannot* send literally infinite numbers of spam messages, for any cost.
Some basic economics: "very little cost" != "no cost".
Some basic statistics: You don't get to determine the actual response rate by dividing actual responses by the potential number of messages you claim they *could* send, even if that number was somehow right.
Some basic logic: The fact that your argument gives a particular conclusion (namely, that 1 or more sales out of an infinity of attempts is a 0% response rate) does not mean that the converse holds (namely, that a 0% response rate means that there was 1 or more sale).
Or that all performers are artists, I hope ;-)
If he open-sourced it, who would maintain the codebase and update the copy running in the basement when necessary? You can't expect a suicidal coder to be patient enough to write *two* advanced AIs, and would you really trust your transcoded soul to an intelligence you didn't create yourself?
Also, if it were me, I sure wouldn't want anyone reading my soul's source code.
If everyone that expects the government to make everyone do something good just did that good thing themselves, I wonder where we'd be.
(I'm serious. For some reason when I say stuff like this people seem to think I'm being sarcastic.)
Whether they develop a resistance or not, if enough mosquitos that bite infected humans die in the short term, it seems that could have at least the potential to cause extinction of the dengue fever virus. If the chance of spreading the virus is low enough for long enough, it just might work.
If the timeframe is short enough, or if the vaccine's usage is modulated on a decade-scale frequency to keep the virus population down but let the mosquito population "forget", perhaps the mosquito-immunity scenario could also be avoided (if it's a serious risk in the first place).
Does the virus have any non-human carriers? Can we mosquito-poison the other hosts' blood too?
oblig. disclaimer: IANA practitioner of whatever discipline this falls under.
I don't think fault is relevant. The consequence of bad code in drivers that can trash the kernel is that the OS, which is all but useless without drivers, has bad code actively executing in kernel space on some deployed systems.
Obviously, a choice had to be made about how to provide drivers. I personally have no problem with the one that was made, and I suspect many security-conscious linux users would rather not accept the efficiency trade-offs for user-space drivers. The current situation does mean, though, that if you want to analyze or talk about the security of Linux you can't just dismiss drivers as "not part of the OS" - at least not the ones you're running on any systems you care about.
I'm glad to see you've got the ultimate reality thing all wrapped up. Mind lending me a bit of your apparently transcendental wisdom?
Which colour should I paint the bedroom? I'm currently considering "Universal Umber" and "Café Miel", though I'd be open to any other suggestions (edicts?) such an amazing individual as yourself might make.
Bizarre unprovable things like the notion that the universe follows laws? Or the notion that nothing (or perhaps only nothing we should care about) exists which cannot be observed? Or that truth can be reliably approximated by generalization from observed phenomena?
These concepts are fundamental to the modern notion of science, but are themselves every bit as irrational as Flying-Spaghetti-Monster-ism. The only thing they have going for them is that they have worked so far - or at least, we believe that we remember that they have.
I think "anti-war protesters" is a valid (though ambiguous) way of describing them. They are protesters, who are anti-war.
17-year-olds have this funny tendency to become 18-year-olds...
What's the point of trolling if you tell us you're doing it?
Actually, fuzzyfuzzyfungus, you weren't being especially pedantic, and your basic point is one I agree with. In retrospect, I don't know why it irked me so, other than my own need to be pedantic over the "just makes those people stupid" part. I apologize for my too-slow brain-to-submit-button filter. Mentally replace "we're" with "i'm" in the first line of my post, and you'll have what I now realize I should have meant. ;-)
I suspect that any pediatrician will tell you that people in their practice take antibiotics for viral infections. And that, of course, just makes those people stupid.
As long as we're being pedantic, what that actually makes them is merely "wrong." The cause of wrongness may in fact be stupidity in some cases, but I suspect that in a much larger number a more accurate adjective would be "uninformed." If you feel the need to insult them, carry on with "stupid" but keep in mind that it may make you wrong too, and others might try to explain your wrongness using equally or even less favorable adjectives.
I always think that politics as a career is self-selecting towards power-mad ego-freaks.
Yup, Douglas Adams got it right. Anyone who wants to rule is not qualified.
Just eat your iPhone battery
I've got a bunch of old iPod and laptop batteries you can have too.
L'Ender's Game?
*ducks*
Or maybe you were just karma whoring to get modded up for being critical of someone bashing someone for bashing MS.
Ooh, can I join? How's this: You're obviously a very feeble-minded person if you think bashing a karma whore for being critical of someone bashing someone for bashing MS will get you *my* mod points, you insensitive clod!
Oh wait, I have no mod points...
Responsibility or blame is irrelevant. They both have a problem, and the problem is that dissatisfied customers stop being customers.
Let's continue with your analogy. You take your meal home and add salt. It turns out your salt supplier failed to mention that its really sodium chromate instead of sodium chloride. Who is at fault? Who should "own" the problem?
Well, if the salt had a shiny little logo of the meal's trademark, put on it with the meal producer's permission, I'd be pretty pissed at both of them. The notion of "owning" the problem is a bit simplistic, but it *will* be both companies' problem. Neither will ever receive my business again, if I can help it.
The following idea will probably never fly, and almost certainly shouldn't, but I find it interesting anyway:
Maybe the legal system needs "ethics traps" for manipulative businesses. Deliberately insert loopholes in laws like this one, but with (possibly hidden) major penalties for taking advantage of them in "unethical" ways. I'm thinking "cruel and unusual" on a corporate scale. Penalties such as forfeiture of all patents, or automatic and mandatory layoffs of the entire executive staff, with restraining-order-type judgments barring them from ever working in the same industry again.
Of course, the definition of "unethical" is an extremely sticky point, but were it not for the probably inescapably arbitrary or subjective nature of any possible definition I'd be very willing to consider legislation like that. After all, aren't corporations "people" too, under US law at least? If an individual person gamed the system like that, I tend to believe they'd be taken down a few dozen pegs, and fast.
Times like that, it's sure be nice to be able to flash 10,000+ euros and say, "ok, I'll take this to a shop (or country) not so rude".