Currently on the internet, the more popular definition and usage is along the lines of "a market that exists with no government interference. Corporations are allowed to do as they wish because if they do something that hurts the public, the public will respond by not purchasing their products."
We are stronger than them, for we have truth on our side. The definition of "free market" is well established in the literature, and their offenses against it are easily identified. If we, at every step, deny them their attempts to sully the term, and carefully, rationally, with supporting evidence demonstrate that their pretense is deception, we can take the term back. Today it is just you and I and our rationalist friends here on Slashdot. Tomorrow it will be a dozen blogs, Facebook pages, and Tweets. And the day after that, the world. The social networks are highly susceptible to simple, defensible, objective truth.
We do not have to fight on the difficult side of "Do you believe in the free market?" We are not on the difficult side. Do not allow them to push us around rhetorically, using the term for our principles as an emotional weapon against us. We are the defenders of the principles of the free market.
Never let them take our principles and wear them as sheep's clothing to gain emotional support. Yes, it will involve an uphill argument all too often at the beginning, but it is easier to explain to a typical businessman why the free market is what Adam Smith intended than it is to convince a typical businessman that "free market" should no longer be abstracted to "good thing" in his mind.
Let them have "laissez-faire." We can argue that one, and they deserve it. But give no quarter when they try to misappropriate "free market."
Allow me to use, for the first time in my life, a turn of a phrase that I generally find to be rather repugnant:
If you fear freedom so much, why don't you move to Iran?
This country is for people who love freedom. Who are willing to risk their lives for it. You scared, little, cowards -- shivering in your pajamas at night wetting your bed because you don't know everything I am thinking, all the time -- have no right place in this, the Founding Fathers' most extraordinary experiment.
You think you are more trustworthy than The Constitution? I do not trust you as much as the average crazy screaming panhandler on the corner, let alone as much as the average free American Citizen. You are too scared to be trusted. Scared people act unpredictably. And certainly I do not trust you as much as what is perhaps the most inspired legal document in history.
You are the threat to the American way of life. Not us. Your cowardice eats away at us, and our great society, like a disease. If you can't handle freedom, move to a master planned community with big gates, or even one of the many authoritarian regimes around the world. But don't shit all over what makes this country great just because you can't handle freedom.
Apparently you do not know what a free market is. I suspect you vote Democrat.
Let's ask the expert, shall we? Adam, what do you think?
"To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." -- Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"
I am in no way a supporter of a "free market" and I believe in heavy regulation and oversight from 3rd parties to ensure that we have a fair market for consumers. I'm just simply pointing out that you can't have "free market" and "fair market"--it just doesn't work.
I suspect that we agree, but that I am using the term in a different way.
By "free market", I intend what Adam Smith intended: That the only decider of how dollars are spent, on a per-transaction basis, is the person who opens his or her purse. The silent hand.
Is the purse-holder the only decider here? No, the contract participants are making part of the decision. That is antithetical to the principles of a "free market".
What I am trying to do is to wrest back the term "free market" from the "laissez-faire" corporatists. "Free market" necessarily implies that the silent hand is unfettered. And as you note, that requires our government to punish anti-competitive behavior from time to time. But the interference need not be falsely accused of being a step toward socialism. Let us stand on principle, call it what it is, seize the high ground: We call upon the government to defend the free market from those who would inhibit the free action of the silent hand.
Also, consider this: Is the government not already interfering in this case? Whose courts, banks, jails, and guns give those contracts their force? Why it is the government. Of course, even in the absence of the government enforcement of those contracts, collusion would exist. But should we not first seize the high ground by calling this what it is? It is collusion, restraint-of-trade, anti-trust violation, &c. Do not let them hide behind the noble term "free market" or "contract." Contracts are obligations to perform services for consideration -- not restraints of trade that destroy the foundational silent hand of the free market.
Do not give an inch. Do not let those who depend on government interference to destroy the free market accuse you of favoring government interference that destroys the free market. We are those who believe in free competition, the free market, and the noble objectives of Adam Smith. They are the ones who wish to suckle at the government teat at the expense of market efficiency.
And if you have a minute more, allow me to share some Adam Smith quotes:
"The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commo-dities much above the natural price."
"The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got."
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
"To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
All those quotes come from The Wealth of Nations.
It is not the free market which is flawed, it is those who bear false witness about it, who destroy it. They are not us. We are the noble ones, you and I.
But nationwide operators, including Verizon, maintain (PDF) that 'in the absence of exclusivity agreements, wireless carriers would have less incentive to develop and promote innovative handsets.'
Why are wireless carriers involved in the development and promotion of innovative handsets? Isn't the free market supposed to motivate handset developers to develop and promote innovative handsets?
Or do the wireless carriers not believe in the free market? I, for one, think the free market is a pretty good thing. You know, when it genuinely lets the purse-holder freely decide.
Aren't these the same corporations who cry "free market" every time the government tries to regulate them?
Perhaps, and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but just maybe; the wireless carriers actually are not objective supporters of the free market? Maybe what they want is not the free market, but laissez-faire capitalism. But then must we not ask, without a free market, how can laissez faire capitalism seek efficiency?
Please, can you help us to set up some sort of network using our home wireless access points? Can anybody show us a link on how to install small TV/radio stations? Any suggestion for setting up a network? Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US.
Here's a great guide from an African organization:
And, JM2C: I don't think either Barack or Mahmoud will fire the first nuke. Scary as it is, MAD is pretty stable. Think about how it would play out:
America strikes first: 1. Iran destroyed. (sorry to be so blunt, but it is a fact) 2. Global backlash against America. 3. America rapidly destabilizes economically (ie: much worse than now). 4. North Korea senses weakness and takes out Seoul (probably conventional, not nuclear).
And that's not considering anything else that would happen in the Middle East. For example, there's a good chance Israel would be destroyed. Barack understands that whole chain of events - it's not rocket science.
As for Mahmoud? Love him or hate him, think he's good, evil, or has his back against the wall -- regardless of any of that, he's fairly smart. You don't get to his position without having a fair bit of desire for power, and the mental capacity to figure out how to get it. If he strikes first, he loses everything he has built. He knows that.
So, build your mesh network, let's get to know each other through global social networks, and work together to stop the hatred and fear on both sides.
I like the idea of Wikipedia contributors getting paid, and I like the idea of the money coming from those who want articles about specific topics created or enriched.
The only downside is the risk of bias. How can you remove that risk?
Quick thought: Anyone can put money, and a target topic, into a kitty. The most funded topics get paid research done on them. The researchers are not told who put the money in the fund. So they don't know if they payer was a supporter or critic.
If someone has an unbiased desire for a more rich Wikipedia, this approach works just fine. If they want a particular spin, there's no data channel for their preference to be communicated.
Just a quick rough thought - how could you make it work better?
Other than that they serve no other purpose, like wasps.
Hey, if it weren't for WASPs, who would shop at The Gap or Banana Republic? Who would buy purse-sized dogs? And who would keep psychotherapists and badminton set manufacturers in business?
Reports indicate that the FCC received upwards of 300,000 calls on Friday from consumers seeking late help with the transition, but they were prepared, with over 4,000 operators available to handle problems. The FCC's DTV website also had over 3 million hits on Friday. Both phone and internet traffic have now tapered off, and supplies of converter boxes appear to have held out just fine.
Much of my comment history has been dedicated to chastising the government when they get things wrong. I should also recognize when they get it right.
So, is this a real threat to net neutrality (and the end-to-end principle) or just another bad business model that doesn't stand a chance?
This is the other boot dropping.
1. ISPs try to charge media companies for discriminatory access to their customers. 2. Media companies try to charge ISPs for content. 3. Big ISPs and big media discover that they can scratch each others' backs and put the cost on the independents.
We're on the first part of step 2. Step 3 is absolutely inevitable if we do not pass net neutrality. The Internet will become as inaccessible to individuals and small business as television, radio, and print.
"Freedom of the press belongs to those who have one." The big ISPs and big media will eventually realize that is a value proposition if they can buy enough power from the DC corrupt.
If a company releases a cool gadget or computer with a TPM but doesn't give me the keys, then I simply don't buy that gadget.
I like to believe that the free market knows all -- I'm a big fan of it.
I worry though about computers. Will there come a day when all computers will ship with TPM? As far as I know, there is only one HD tuner card that does not meekly succumb to the copy bit. Will the rest of the hardware follow? Or are we, who prefer to own the things we buy, too small a tail to sway the mass market obsessed vendors?
The Trusted Computing Group(TCG) runtime Integrity Measurement Architecture(IMA) maintains a list of hash values of executables and other sensitive system files, as they are read or executed. If an attacker manages to change the contents of an important system file being measured, we can tell. If your system has a TPM chip, then IMA also maintains an aggregate integrity value over this list inside the TPM hardware, so that the TPM can prove to a third party whether or not critical system files have been modified.
From the recommended article, the key dilemma:
There are clear advantages to a structure like this. A Linux-based teller machine, say, or a voting machine could ensure that it has not been compromised and prove its integrity to the network. Administrators in charge of web servers can use the integrity code in similar ways. In general, integrity management can be a powerful tool for people who want to be sure that the systems they own (or manage) have not be reconfigured into spam servers when they weren't looking.
The other side of this coin is that integrity management can be a powerful tool for those who wish to maintain control over systems they do not own. Should it be merged, the kernel will come with the tools needed to create a locked-down system out of the box. As these modules get closer to mainline confusion, we may begin to see more people getting worried about them. Quite a few kernel developers may oppose license terms intended to prevent "tivoization," but that doesn't mean they want to actively support that sort of use of their software. Certainly it would be harder to argue against the shipping of locked-down, Linux-based gadgets when the kernel, itself, provides the lockdown tools.
OK, maybe this is overdramatic, but trading freedom from third-party oversight through trusted computing for the security of first-party oversight through trusted computing seems a little like:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
But I can see both sides. Pondering... what are your thoughts?
Could a slashdotter post some "simple to understand code" that produces output I cannot reverse engineer?
While I *love* the first respondent's answer, and giggled like an idiot when I read it, perhaps this will be more a more useful example for understanding how it works.
The modulus operator in arithmetic returns the remainder after integer division. It is commonly noted "x % y", "x mod y", "mod( x, y )", or similar.
So: 3 mod 2 = 1 4 mod 3 = 1 4 mod 2 = 0 5 mod 2 = 1 5 mod 3 = 2 5 mod 4 = 1...
Now, suppose a password structure "x:y" -- you are required to enter your password as two digits, separated by a colon (not normal, but just suppose).
You could enter, as your password, "4:3", and the system could store as your password hash "1" -- the result of "4 mod 3". Then, when you attempt to log in next time, if you submit "4:3", the system would take the modulus and check the result, "1", against its internal table of password hashes and allow you in.
Now, suppose you get the table of hashes, and see: joeSmith: 1
joeSmith has the password hash "1". Is his actual password "3:2", "4:3", "5:2", or "5:4"? Since the modulus of all those pairs is "1", the correct answer cannot be determined from the output alone. Modulus is what is called a "non-reversible function." The output of the modulus function contains less information than the input, so it cannot be reversed.
In this example it is trivial, however, to generate another password combination that results in the same hash. For example, "6:5" also equates to the hash "1". This is called a collision between "6:5" and "4:3". The attacker does not have to know joeSmith's actual password, as long as he can supply input that results in the correct hash. That leads to the next step in identity verification systems: ensuring that it is not possible for a reasonably funded attacker to forge a document which collides with the actual document (or password in this case, which is a special kind of document).
If the logic is that they have some ongoing interest in the product they sell us, then doesn't that imply that as a purchaser we have an ongoing interest in the money we give them?
Thank you.
It took me a bit to turn that one around in my mind and really grasp the simple beauty of it. I go out for 8 - 10 hours a day to harvest dollars. I collect them into bundles and decide who to give them to. That process is hard, time consuming, and is the fundamental backbone of the gross domestic product.
For that effort, I earn a right to the value created in the transaction when I spend that bundle of dollars. Exactly the same sort of right to the value of the transaction as the vendor has for collecting materials, talent, machinery, and energy to create a complex form.
What portion of the transaction value do we each get? How is the transaction value divided? That is a matter for the free market to decide.
How does the free market decide in a truly neutral fashion? By equating all value to dollars, a truly neutral representation of wealth (or at least, as close to neutral as is practical, barring outside forces on currency value like export restrictions on Krugerands or standardization on the US Dollar in some international markets -- but I digress).
The dollars are a representation of the wealth I created at the office. The item being sold is the embodiment of the wealth created by the manufacturer. Why would one of those forms of wealth have more post-sale rights than another?
Can I reproduce and distribute the item being sold to me? Supposing it is a pure copyright good, the answer is no. Can the manufacturer reproduce and distribute the money I give them? Well, no -- that would be counterfeiting.
But how true is that, really? Actually, under certain conditions, the manufacturer can reproduce and distribute that money. What conditions are those? Why they are called interest rates! How simple is that? How long does it take to copy a stack of dollars using interest? Well, at about 7% compounding, it would be 10 years. At about 3.5%, it would be 20 years. I guess that tells us how long copyright should be.
some publishers and manufacturers want a piece of the pie.
Ooo Ooo! Me too! Can I have some of that money too, please? I have just as much of a property right over that copy as the publisher does, so I'd like to have some of GameStop's money too, please!
"Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest," the FTC said.
Pornography featuring violence or incest is illegal? Even if it is consensual? Or is the FTC just saying they don't like it, and the average joe would find it repugnant, which makes it a good marketing weapon?
I can understand that bestiality may cross the line of cruelty to animals (yes, insert joke here, but you get the point), and maybe there are some blue laws in individual states about incest. But is the FTC saying those things are "illegal", "malicious", or "harmful"? And under what law?
Don't get me wrong, I don't find that stuff appealing, but I don't find gay sex appealing either. That doesn't mean it's wrong -- it's just not my thing.
1. The RIAA PR person, the CBS PR person, and the Last.fm PR person. -- or -- 2. A completely unverifiable source who may have an axe to grind or other nefarious motive for completely fabricating the story.
Shut down GDM, KDM, XDM, or whatever your X launcher is (or just Control-Alt-F1 before heading into common areas). Then use command line tools like Lynx, Emacs, Vi, Pico, whatever. If someone asks to use it say, "Sure", log out, log back in on a dedicated "for monkeys" chrooted account, still at that command line, and hand it to them. The mesmerizing inky darkness of the console, and the plaintively blinking cursor will put them into a trance-like state. Then you can simply pluck your computer back as their facial muscles go slack and the spittle begins to well at the corners of their mouth.
Seriously though, set up a guest user account and learn to use your "special purpose"(*) as a stepping stone to winning friends and influencing people(**). Being computer literate means you will be getting questions and requests for the rest of your life. College is an excellent place to learn how to turn a conversation opener (like, "can I use your laptop") into a social entree. As long as you're getting something (a stronger social bond, a sense of gratitude) out of it, it's worth it. Just be sure to develop the connection while you have it. If you just silently let them use the machine you'll have gained little or no connection strength. Ask them for their opinion on something, anything, the weather if you have to. And be genuinely interested in their response.
Soon, you'll not just be "the guy with the laptop", you'll become "the nice guy with the laptop." And ideally, "the nice, kinda quirky-cute guy with the laptop who I should set up with my friend."
* See Steve Martin's "The Jerk" for reference. ** See Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" for reference.
the exclusive province of cloistered academics... the online public sphere
You're thinking of it wrong. You're stuck on your belief that there is some dramatic difference between one human mind and a collection of human minds. Not so -- they are just different scales of the thinking machine we call "Earth", "Humanity", or "The Hive Mind." To ask whether academics or commoners should discourse about advanced topics is to suggest a belief that they are not part of the same network.
I could just as easily say, "This cluster of neurons is the smart cluster, and does a better job of processing information than this other cluster."
The networking of human minds through blogs, podcasts, and tweets is like increasing the connectivity of neurons or moving a computer network closer to being fully connected. Enabling more nodes of the hive mind to participate through more connections is like connecting more neurons to the math section of your brain. They may not be "math" neurons, but they get better and better at contributing through reinforcement. Same thing with commoners talking about advanced subjects, they may contribute little at first but they get better and better at it over time, and the hive mind is stronger for having their signal available. This is true even if it rejects that signal most of the time, particularly at first.
The hive mind is the thing. The more of us we have connected, and the greater the connection density, the smarter Earth gets. Some of the neurons may seem to always get the wrong answer, but the increased connection density that they imply is a very good thing.
I have written Open Source code, I have worked with and been friends with dozens of Open Source hackers, I even organized a Linux install-fest once. I have never heard one single Open Source hacker whisper the slightest hint of a complaint about the free rider problem. When you get into developing Open Source, it is almost certainly after having spent a lot of time with proprietary software, and having spent some time wondering, "How does this Open Source thing work?" If you've pondered that problem for more than eleven seconds, you've asked yourself the "what about free riders" question. If you've done that, you must've reached the only conclusion: Open Source is Open Source.
Are there some people out there who regret making their code Open Source at all? Sure, but they aren't representative of this community. They're people who don't grasp why Open Source is worth the rather obvious cost.
Are there corporations that have bought Open Source subsidiaries and regretted it? Sure, and I'll bet they try to convince the employees of the subsidiary that the free rider problem is a problem. But the complainers aren't part of the Open Source community.
The free rider problem is a natural and accepted part of Open Source development, that anyone serious about Open Source completely accepts. Not a single person I know in the community has every complained, and this article is a crock.
Who does this article identify as those complaining about the fact that Open Source is Open Source?
Matt Asay, vice president of business development at Alfresco, said in a post earlier this year.
Are you kidding me? On what planet does a vice president of business development get to talk about what contributors to Open Source think? Unless he's spending a lot of time filing bug reports, he's not a contributor and he can stick his opinion up his ass. Has he ever even posted a comment on Slashdot? I bet not. No offense to business guys, who are important parts of the US and global economy, and do many important things that I cannot. But you are not Open Source contributors, and not part of the community, even if you insist that the community does not exist.
Suppose I said, "CEOs are frustrated that their technology divisions are not contributing more to Open Source." Would you write an article in CEO Magazine about how CEOs are frustrated that their technology divisions are not contributing more to Open Source? No? Of course not. Because I'm no more a representative of CEO's than Asay is a representative of Open Source contributors.
Dave Rosenberg, co-founder and former CEO of MuleSource, and now part of the founding team of RiverMuse
CEO guy decided he doesn't like the way Open Source works? Bye. Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
Michael Scharf, a member of the Eclipse Foundation's architecture council
OK, that's one.
So this article picked two business weenies to flesh out their claims that the community is pissed off about Open Source software being Open Source software, based on a single actual technologist's gasbag blog post.
If you bring together a big enough group of experts, they seldom are unanimous.
I only suggested an 11-person committee. But that is the less important point.
In politics, religion, and art, I agree completely. In science, I do not.
Perhaps they could not agree on the finest nuance, but they could agree on the color of the carpeting in the room they are in.
From there, they can move to "Should encryption be employed when transmitting sensitive data over the Internet?"
Then "Is AES-256, if implemented perfectly, sufficient security for sensitive data at present?"
Certainly every security practitioner can agree on those questions. Then they move forward one agreement at a time until they reach a point on which they cannot agree. At that point, they ask themselves; "Should the government make this decision on which we, as scientists, cannot agree?"
If the members of the committee cannot agree on solutions, yet still believe that the government should impose decisions on society, then they have failed in their duty and should be replaced.
When you reach the point where each successive committee bickers without finding common ground, it necessarily implies that the remaining threat is insufficient to warrant concern. If their differences are more important to them than finding a solution, at that point the problem is no longer serious enough to offset the imperfect hand of government.
Here's my quick, from the hip view on how to maximize the probability of a successful outcome:
Cybersecurity is focused on maintaining control of systems and networks. Cyber-warfighting is a valuable source for understanding potential threats, but it is not the objective of the cybersecurity committee to advance the state-of-the-art of cyber-warfighting.
To advance the ability of the citizens and organizations of the United States to retain control of their information systems, an elite task-force will be formed:
1. Retain Bruce Schneier
2. Retain Ten Specialists, Bruce's Choice, Following Criteria:
2.1. One EFF Constitutional Rights specialist
2.2. One ACLU Constitutional Rights specialist
2.3. One significant code contributor from the NSA SE:Linux project
2.4. Two information security specialists from among:
2.4.1. Microsoft
2.4.2. Google
2.4.3. Apple
2.4.4. IBM
2.5. Two espionage defense specialists from among:
2.5.1. General Dynamics
2.5.2. GE
2.5.3. Boeing
2.5.4. Halliburton
2.6. Three platform specialists
2.6.1. Microsoft
2.6.2. Mac
2.6.3. *nix
3. Specialists Get One Vote Each
4. Bruce Gets Tie-Breaker Vote
5. Each Specialist Can Employ Two Research Specialists
Votes are expected to be unanimous or nearly unanimous - non-unanimous decisions imply that every member of the panel is failing. It is every member's job to think critically, to respect diverse needs, and to help the others understand their perspective. Failure to do so implies betrayal of duty.
All votes will be secret for at least one year. Sensitive votes will be secret for five years.
Sensitive entities (corporations, organizations, government agencies) get free advanced training, room, and board, conducted at a military academy. Security practitioners get preferred enrollment. Corporations must continue to pay the employee. Corporations can choose not to send anyone, but the name of any sensitive corporation which chooses not to send some top rank security specialists will be published. It's tough, but fair, and necessary.
Curriculum will focus on practices for keeping each system under the full control of its owner. Curriculum will not sacrifice that mission to advance the ability of any non-owner of a system to compromise full control by the owner of that system.
Slashdot Mirror
Currently on the internet, the more popular definition and usage is along the lines of "a market that exists with no government interference. Corporations are allowed to do as they wish because if they do something that hurts the public, the public will respond by not purchasing their products."
We are stronger than them, for we have truth on our side. The definition of "free market" is well established in the literature, and their offenses against it are easily identified. If we, at every step, deny them their attempts to sully the term, and carefully, rationally, with supporting evidence demonstrate that their pretense is deception, we can take the term back. Today it is just you and I and our rationalist friends here on Slashdot. Tomorrow it will be a dozen blogs, Facebook pages, and Tweets. And the day after that, the world. The social networks are highly susceptible to simple, defensible, objective truth.
We do not have to fight on the difficult side of "Do you believe in the free market?" We are not on the difficult side. Do not allow them to push us around rhetorically, using the term for our principles as an emotional weapon against us. We are the defenders of the principles of the free market.
Never let them take our principles and wear them as sheep's clothing to gain emotional support. Yes, it will involve an uphill argument all too often at the beginning, but it is easier to explain to a typical businessman why the free market is what Adam Smith intended than it is to convince a typical businessman that "free market" should no longer be abstracted to "good thing" in his mind.
Let them have "laissez-faire." We can argue that one, and they deserve it. But give no quarter when they try to misappropriate "free market."
My Dearest NSA,
Allow me to use, for the first time in my life, a turn of a phrase that I generally find to be rather repugnant:
If you fear freedom so much, why don't you move to Iran?
This country is for people who love freedom. Who are willing to risk their lives for it. You scared, little, cowards -- shivering in your pajamas at night wetting your bed because you don't know everything I am thinking, all the time -- have no right place in this, the Founding Fathers' most extraordinary experiment.
You think you are more trustworthy than The Constitution? I do not trust you as much as the average crazy screaming panhandler on the corner, let alone as much as the average free American Citizen. You are too scared to be trusted. Scared people act unpredictably. And certainly I do not trust you as much as what is perhaps the most inspired legal document in history.
You are the threat to the American way of life. Not us. Your cowardice eats away at us, and our great society, like a disease. If you can't handle freedom, move to a master planned community with big gates, or even one of the many authoritarian regimes around the world. But don't shit all over what makes this country great just because you can't handle freedom.
Apparently you do not know what a free market is. I suspect you vote Democrat.
Let's ask the expert, shall we? Adam, what do you think?
"To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." -- Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"
I am in no way a supporter of a "free market" and I believe in heavy regulation and oversight from 3rd parties to ensure that we have a fair market for consumers. I'm just simply pointing out that you can't have "free market" and "fair market"--it just doesn't work.
I suspect that we agree, but that I am using the term in a different way.
By "free market", I intend what Adam Smith intended: That the only decider of how dollars are spent, on a per-transaction basis, is the person who opens his or her purse. The silent hand.
Is the purse-holder the only decider here? No, the contract participants are making part of the decision. That is antithetical to the principles of a "free market".
What I am trying to do is to wrest back the term "free market" from the "laissez-faire" corporatists. "Free market" necessarily implies that the silent hand is unfettered. And as you note, that requires our government to punish anti-competitive behavior from time to time. But the interference need not be falsely accused of being a step toward socialism. Let us stand on principle, call it what it is, seize the high ground: We call upon the government to defend the free market from those who would inhibit the free action of the silent hand.
Also, consider this: Is the government not already interfering in this case? Whose courts, banks, jails, and guns give those contracts their force? Why it is the government. Of course, even in the absence of the government enforcement of those contracts, collusion would exist. But should we not first seize the high ground by calling this what it is? It is collusion, restraint-of-trade, anti-trust violation, &c. Do not let them hide behind the noble term "free market" or "contract." Contracts are obligations to perform services for consideration -- not restraints of trade that destroy the foundational silent hand of the free market.
Do not give an inch. Do not let those who depend on government interference to destroy the free market accuse you of favoring government interference that destroys the free market. We are those who believe in free competition, the free market, and the noble objectives of Adam Smith. They are the ones who wish to suckle at the government teat at the expense of market efficiency.
And if you have a minute more, allow me to share some Adam Smith quotes:
"The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commo-dities much above the natural price."
"The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got."
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
"To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
All those quotes come from The Wealth of Nations.
It is not the free market which is flawed, it is those who bear false witness about it, who destroy it. They are not us. We are the noble ones, you and I.
But nationwide operators, including Verizon, maintain (PDF) that 'in the absence of exclusivity agreements, wireless carriers would have less incentive to develop and promote innovative handsets.'
Why are wireless carriers involved in the development and promotion of innovative handsets? Isn't the free market supposed to motivate handset developers to develop and promote innovative handsets?
Or do the wireless carriers not believe in the free market? I, for one, think the free market is a pretty good thing. You know, when it genuinely lets the purse-holder freely decide.
Aren't these the same corporations who cry "free market" every time the government tries to regulate them?
Perhaps, and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but just maybe; the wireless carriers actually are not objective supporters of the free market? Maybe what they want is not the free market, but laissez-faire capitalism. But then must we not ask, without a free market, how can laissez faire capitalism seek efficiency?
Please, can you help us to set up some sort of network using our home wireless access points? Can anybody show us a link on how to install small TV/radio stations? Any suggestion for setting up a network? Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US.
Here's a great guide from an African organization:
http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/DIY_Mesh_Guide
Good luck!
And, JM2C: I don't think either Barack or Mahmoud will fire the first nuke. Scary as it is, MAD is pretty stable. Think about how it would play out:
America strikes first:
1. Iran destroyed. (sorry to be so blunt, but it is a fact)
2. Global backlash against America.
3. America rapidly destabilizes economically (ie: much worse than now).
4. North Korea senses weakness and takes out Seoul (probably conventional, not nuclear).
And that's not considering anything else that would happen in the Middle East. For example, there's a good chance Israel would be destroyed. Barack understands that whole chain of events - it's not rocket science.
As for Mahmoud? Love him or hate him, think he's good, evil, or has his back against the wall -- regardless of any of that, he's fairly smart. You don't get to his position without having a fair bit of desire for power, and the mental capacity to figure out how to get it. If he strikes first, he loses everything he has built. He knows that.
So, build your mesh network, let's get to know each other through global social networks, and work together to stop the hatred and fear on both sides.
But don't sweat the nukes. It won't happen.
I like the idea of Wikipedia contributors getting paid, and I like the idea of the money coming from those who want articles about specific topics created or enriched.
The only downside is the risk of bias. How can you remove that risk?
Quick thought: Anyone can put money, and a target topic, into a kitty. The most funded topics get paid research done on them. The researchers are not told who put the money in the fund. So they don't know if they payer was a supporter or critic.
If someone has an unbiased desire for a more rich Wikipedia, this approach works just fine. If they want a particular spin, there's no data channel for their preference to be communicated.
Just a quick rough thought - how could you make it work better?
Other than that they serve no other purpose, like wasps.
Hey, if it weren't for WASPs, who would shop at The Gap or Banana Republic? Who would buy purse-sized dogs? And who would keep psychotherapists and badminton set manufacturers in business?
Reports indicate that the FCC received upwards of 300,000 calls on Friday from consumers seeking late help with the transition, but they were prepared, with over 4,000 operators available to handle problems. The FCC's DTV website also had over 3 million hits on Friday. Both phone and internet traffic have now tapered off, and supplies of converter boxes appear to have held out just fine.
Much of my comment history has been dedicated to chastising the government when they get things wrong. I should also recognize when they get it right.
Nice work, guys!
So, is this a real threat to net neutrality (and the end-to-end principle) or just another bad business model that doesn't stand a chance?
This is the other boot dropping.
1. ISPs try to charge media companies for discriminatory access to their customers.
2. Media companies try to charge ISPs for content.
3. Big ISPs and big media discover that they can scratch each others' backs and put the cost on the independents.
We're on the first part of step 2. Step 3 is absolutely inevitable if we do not pass net neutrality. The Internet will become as inaccessible to individuals and small business as television, radio, and print.
"Freedom of the press belongs to those who have one." The big ISPs and big media will eventually realize that is a value proposition if they can buy enough power from the DC corrupt.
If a company releases a cool gadget or computer with a TPM but doesn't give me the keys, then I simply don't buy that gadget.
I like to believe that the free market knows all -- I'm a big fan of it.
I worry though about computers. Will there come a day when all computers will ship with TPM? As far as I know, there is only one HD tuner card that does not meekly succumb to the copy bit. Will the rest of the hardware follow? Or are we, who prefer to own the things we buy, too small a tail to sway the mass market obsessed vendors?
Integrity Management Architecture
Contributor: IBM
Recommended LWN article: http://lwn.net/Articles/227937/
The Trusted Computing Group(TCG) runtime Integrity Measurement Architecture(IMA) maintains a list of hash values of executables and other sensitive system files, as they are read or executed. If an attacker manages to change the contents of an important system file being measured, we can tell. If your system has a TPM chip, then IMA also maintains an aggregate integrity value over this list inside the TPM hardware, so that the TPM can prove to a third party whether or not critical system files have been modified.
From the recommended article, the key dilemma:
There are clear advantages to a structure like this. A Linux-based teller machine, say, or a voting machine could ensure that it has not been compromised and prove its integrity to the network. Administrators in charge of web servers can use the integrity code in similar ways. In general, integrity management can be a powerful tool for people who want to be sure that the systems they own (or manage) have not be reconfigured into spam servers when they weren't looking.
The other side of this coin is that integrity management can be a powerful tool for those who wish to maintain control over systems they do not own. Should it be merged, the kernel will come with the tools needed to create a locked-down system out of the box. As these modules get closer to mainline confusion, we may begin to see more people getting worried about them. Quite a few kernel developers may oppose license terms intended to prevent "tivoization," but that doesn't mean they want to actively support that sort of use of their software. Certainly it would be harder to argue against the shipping of locked-down, Linux-based gadgets when the kernel, itself, provides the lockdown tools.
OK, maybe this is overdramatic, but trading freedom from third-party oversight through trusted computing for the security of first-party oversight through trusted computing seems a little like:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
But I can see both sides. Pondering... what are your thoughts?
Could a slashdotter post some "simple to understand code" that produces output I cannot reverse engineer?
While I *love* the first respondent's answer, and giggled like an idiot when I read it, perhaps this will be more a more useful example for understanding how it works.
The modulus operator in arithmetic returns the remainder after integer division. It is commonly noted "x % y", "x mod y", "mod( x, y )", or similar.
So: ...
3 mod 2 = 1
4 mod 3 = 1
4 mod 2 = 0
5 mod 2 = 1
5 mod 3 = 2
5 mod 4 = 1
Now, suppose a password structure "x:y" -- you are required to enter your password as two digits, separated by a colon (not normal, but just suppose).
You could enter, as your password, "4:3", and the system could store as your password hash "1" -- the result of "4 mod 3". Then, when you attempt to log in next time, if you submit "4:3", the system would take the modulus and check the result, "1", against its internal table of password hashes and allow you in.
Now, suppose you get the table of hashes, and see:
joeSmith: 1
joeSmith has the password hash "1". Is his actual password "3:2", "4:3", "5:2", or "5:4"? Since the modulus of all those pairs is "1", the correct answer cannot be determined from the output alone. Modulus is what is called a "non-reversible function." The output of the modulus function contains less information than the input, so it cannot be reversed.
In this example it is trivial, however, to generate another password combination that results in the same hash. For example, "6:5" also equates to the hash "1". This is called a collision between "6:5" and "4:3". The attacker does not have to know joeSmith's actual password, as long as he can supply input that results in the correct hash. That leads to the next step in identity verification systems: ensuring that it is not possible for a reasonably funded attacker to forge a document which collides with the actual document (or password in this case, which is a special kind of document).
That is a much harder topic.
This almost makes me believe that the government is serious about cyber-security.
Now, next, add a Constitutional Rights specialist from the EFF or ACLU and I might have an honest-to-goodness heart attack.
If the logic is that they have some ongoing interest in the product they sell us, then doesn't that imply that as a purchaser we have an ongoing interest in the money we give them?
Thank you.
It took me a bit to turn that one around in my mind and really grasp the simple beauty of it. I go out for 8 - 10 hours a day to harvest dollars. I collect them into bundles and decide who to give them to. That process is hard, time consuming, and is the fundamental backbone of the gross domestic product.
For that effort, I earn a right to the value created in the transaction when I spend that bundle of dollars. Exactly the same sort of right to the value of the transaction as the vendor has for collecting materials, talent, machinery, and energy to create a complex form.
What portion of the transaction value do we each get? How is the transaction value divided? That is a matter for the free market to decide.
How does the free market decide in a truly neutral fashion? By equating all value to dollars, a truly neutral representation of wealth (or at least, as close to neutral as is practical, barring outside forces on currency value like export restrictions on Krugerands or standardization on the US Dollar in some international markets -- but I digress).
The dollars are a representation of the wealth I created at the office. The item being sold is the embodiment of the wealth created by the manufacturer. Why would one of those forms of wealth have more post-sale rights than another?
Can I reproduce and distribute the item being sold to me? Supposing it is a pure copyright good, the answer is no. Can the manufacturer reproduce and distribute the money I give them? Well, no -- that would be counterfeiting.
But how true is that, really? Actually, under certain conditions, the manufacturer can reproduce and distribute that money. What conditions are those? Why they are called interest rates! How simple is that? How long does it take to copy a stack of dollars using interest? Well, at about 7% compounding, it would be 10 years. At about 3.5%, it would be 20 years.
I guess that tells us how long copyright should be.
But wait! Dollars devalue over time!
And, what? You're saying Britney Spears songs don't?!?
Damn. You spun my head off in a really fun direction. Thank you.
some publishers and manufacturers want a piece of the pie.
Ooo Ooo! Me too! Can I have some of that money too, please? I have just as much of a property right over that copy as the publisher does, so I'd like to have some of GameStop's money too, please!
Thanks!
"Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest," the FTC said.
Pornography featuring violence or incest is illegal? Even if it is consensual? Or is the FTC just saying they don't like it, and the average joe would find it repugnant, which makes it a good marketing weapon?
I can understand that bestiality may cross the line of cruelty to animals (yes, insert joke here, but you get the point), and maybe there are some blue laws in individual states about incest. But is the FTC saying those things are "illegal", "malicious", or "harmful"? And under what law?
Don't get me wrong, I don't find that stuff appealing, but I don't find gay sex appealing either. That doesn't mean it's wrong -- it's just not my thing.
So, who do I trust more:
1. The RIAA PR person, the CBS PR person, and the Last.fm PR person.
-- or --
2. A completely unverifiable source who may have an axe to grind or other nefarious motive for completely fabricating the story.
Frankly, it's a tough call.
Shut down GDM, KDM, XDM, or whatever your X launcher is (or just Control-Alt-F1 before heading into common areas). Then use command line tools like Lynx, Emacs, Vi, Pico, whatever. If someone asks to use it say, "Sure", log out, log back in on a dedicated "for monkeys" chrooted account, still at that command line, and hand it to them. The mesmerizing inky darkness of the console, and the plaintively blinking cursor will put them into a trance-like state. Then you can simply pluck your computer back as their facial muscles go slack and the spittle begins to well at the corners of their mouth.
Seriously though, set up a guest user account and learn to use your "special purpose"(*) as a stepping stone to winning friends and influencing people(**). Being computer literate means you will be getting questions and requests for the rest of your life. College is an excellent place to learn how to turn a conversation opener (like, "can I use your laptop") into a social entree. As long as you're getting something (a stronger social bond, a sense of gratitude) out of it, it's worth it. Just be sure to develop the connection while you have it. If you just silently let them use the machine you'll have gained little or no connection strength. Ask them for their opinion on something, anything, the weather if you have to. And be genuinely interested in their response.
Soon, you'll not just be "the guy with the laptop", you'll become "the nice guy with the laptop." And ideally, "the nice, kinda quirky-cute guy with the laptop who I should set up with my friend."
* See Steve Martin's "The Jerk" for reference.
** See Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" for reference.
the exclusive province of cloistered academics ... the online public sphere
You're thinking of it wrong. You're stuck on your belief that there is some dramatic difference between one human mind and a collection of human minds. Not so -- they are just different scales of the thinking machine we call "Earth", "Humanity", or "The Hive Mind." To ask whether academics or commoners should discourse about advanced topics is to suggest a belief that they are not part of the same network.
I could just as easily say, "This cluster of neurons is the smart cluster, and does a better job of processing information than this other cluster."
The networking of human minds through blogs, podcasts, and tweets is like increasing the connectivity of neurons or moving a computer network closer to being fully connected. Enabling more nodes of the hive mind to participate through more connections is like connecting more neurons to the math section of your brain. They may not be "math" neurons, but they get better and better at contributing through reinforcement. Same thing with commoners talking about advanced subjects, they may contribute little at first but they get better and better at it over time, and the hive mind is stronger for having their signal available. This is true even if it rejects that signal most of the time, particularly at first.
The hive mind is the thing. The more of us we have connected, and the greater the connection density, the smarter Earth gets. Some of the neurons may seem to always get the wrong answer, but the increased connection density that they imply is a very good thing.
I call bullshit on this article.
I have written Open Source code, I have worked with and been friends with dozens of Open Source hackers, I even organized a Linux install-fest once. I have never heard one single Open Source hacker whisper the slightest hint of a complaint about the free rider problem. When you get into developing Open Source, it is almost certainly after having spent a lot of time with proprietary software, and having spent some time wondering, "How does this Open Source thing work?" If you've pondered that problem for more than eleven seconds, you've asked yourself the "what about free riders" question. If you've done that, you must've reached the only conclusion: Open Source is Open Source.
Are there some people out there who regret making their code Open Source at all? Sure, but they aren't representative of this community. They're people who don't grasp why Open Source is worth the rather obvious cost.
Are there corporations that have bought Open Source subsidiaries and regretted it? Sure, and I'll bet they try to convince the employees of the subsidiary that the free rider problem is a problem. But the complainers aren't part of the Open Source community.
The free rider problem is a natural and accepted part of Open Source development, that anyone serious about Open Source completely accepts. Not a single person I know in the community has every complained, and this article is a crock.
Who does this article identify as those complaining about the fact that Open Source is Open Source?
Matt Asay, vice president of business development at Alfresco, said in a post earlier this year.
Are you kidding me? On what planet does a vice president of business development get to talk about what contributors to Open Source think? Unless he's spending a lot of time filing bug reports, he's not a contributor and he can stick his opinion up his ass. Has he ever even posted a comment on Slashdot? I bet not. No offense to business guys, who are important parts of the US and global economy, and do many important things that I cannot. But you are not Open Source contributors, and not part of the community, even if you insist that the community does not exist.
Suppose I said, "CEOs are frustrated that their technology divisions are not contributing more to Open Source." Would you write an article in CEO Magazine about how CEOs are frustrated that their technology divisions are not contributing more to Open Source? No? Of course not. Because I'm no more a representative of CEO's than Asay is a representative of Open Source contributors.
Dave Rosenberg, co-founder and former CEO of MuleSource, and now part of the founding team of RiverMuse
CEO guy decided he doesn't like the way Open Source works? Bye. Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
Michael Scharf, a member of the Eclipse Foundation's architecture council
OK, that's one.
So this article picked two business weenies to flesh out their claims that the community is pissed off about Open Source software being Open Source software, based on a single actual technologist's gasbag blog post.
Nothing to see here. Move on.
So who you supposed to notify when you dig?
Notification is easy: You go into the bathroom, turn on the water, and quietly whisper where you are planning to dig. They'll hear. :)
Jonathan James, Adrian Lam, Kevin Mitnick, Kevin Poulsen, Robert Tappan Morris.
Those guys should be on the cyber-warfighting committee. And should play war games against the cybersecurity team.
If you bring together a big enough group of experts, they seldom are unanimous.
I only suggested an 11-person committee. But that is the less important point.
In politics, religion, and art, I agree completely. In science, I do not.
Perhaps they could not agree on the finest nuance, but they could agree on the color of the carpeting in the room they are in.
From there, they can move to "Should encryption be employed when transmitting sensitive data over the Internet?"
Then "Is AES-256, if implemented perfectly, sufficient security for sensitive data at present?"
Certainly every security practitioner can agree on those questions. Then they move forward one agreement at a time until they reach a point on which they cannot agree. At that point, they ask themselves; "Should the government make this decision on which we, as scientists, cannot agree?"
If the members of the committee cannot agree on solutions, yet still believe that the government should impose decisions on society, then they have failed in their duty and should be replaced.
When you reach the point where each successive committee bickers without finding common ground, it necessarily implies that the remaining threat is insufficient to warrant concern. If their differences are more important to them than finding a solution, at that point the problem is no longer serious enough to offset the imperfect hand of government.
Here's my quick, from the hip view on how to maximize the probability of a successful outcome:
Cybersecurity is focused on maintaining control of systems and networks. Cyber-warfighting is a valuable source for understanding potential threats, but it is not the objective of the cybersecurity committee to advance the state-of-the-art of cyber-warfighting.
To advance the ability of the citizens and organizations of the United States to retain control of their information systems, an elite task-force will be formed:
1. Retain Bruce Schneier
2. Retain Ten Specialists, Bruce's Choice, Following Criteria:
2.1. One EFF Constitutional Rights specialist
2.2. One ACLU Constitutional Rights specialist
2.3. One significant code contributor from the NSA SE:Linux project
2.4. Two information security specialists from among:
2.4.1. Microsoft
2.4.2. Google
2.4.3. Apple
2.4.4. IBM
2.5. Two espionage defense specialists from among:
2.5.1. General Dynamics
2.5.2. GE
2.5.3. Boeing
2.5.4. Halliburton
2.6. Three platform specialists
2.6.1. Microsoft
2.6.2. Mac
2.6.3. *nix
3. Specialists Get One Vote Each
4. Bruce Gets Tie-Breaker Vote
5. Each Specialist Can Employ Two Research Specialists
Votes are expected to be unanimous or nearly unanimous - non-unanimous decisions imply that every member of the panel is failing. It is every member's job to think critically, to respect diverse needs, and to help the others understand their perspective. Failure to do so implies betrayal of duty.
All votes will be secret for at least one year. Sensitive votes will be secret for five years.
Sensitive entities (corporations, organizations, government agencies) get free advanced training, room, and board, conducted at a military academy. Security practitioners get preferred enrollment. Corporations must continue to pay the employee. Corporations can choose not to send anyone, but the name of any sensitive corporation which chooses not to send some top rank security specialists will be published. It's tough, but fair, and necessary.
Curriculum will focus on practices for keeping each system under the full control of its owner. Curriculum will not sacrifice that mission to advance the ability of any non-owner of a system to compromise full control by the owner of that system.