Its great to see that McCain still is fighting for campaign finance reform. If only he had gotten the GOP nomination... I would have voted for him in a heartbeat, and he would have "beat Gore like a drum" as he once said. Sadly, I think the man had too many ideals of his own, and that isn't what the GOP was looking for. Rather, they were looking for a Bush.
Believe me, I want to think George W is just a bumbling idiot, and really has our best interests in mind. But that isn't an excuse. We don't have a first amendment right anymore, or a fourth amendment right, or a fifth amendment right here shortly. And I'm sure the only reason we still have a second amendment right is the government has a list of all the gun owners, so they'll leave that for last. So tell me, what are we defending? Without that silly Bill of Rights there isn't anything left in this country worth defending. Bring on the terrorists, I say.
But SPAM is a business. Doing that in these uncertain economic times would be unAmerikan! We've rooted you out you commie fag! Report for reeducation at once!
Heh, the part that reminded me of Close Encounters was the guy going nuts, boarding up his house, scaring his wife, etc. Smacked of CEOTTK.
I understand its a well worn topic, but I was hoping for something new and exciting. X Files was for the first few seasons. I'll probably give it another chance tonight though =)
You're obviously a troll, or have no clue about the history of this case. There are many uses for this software besides piracy. Like allowing blind people to unencrypt it to use with text to speech software. Like preserving fair use.
The DMCA is bad legislation, because it makes merely DISCUSSING how to break this encryption illegal! If someone uses the tool to break copyright law, they can be prosecuted under copyright law. Period. The DMCA is a vague, overreaching law that serves no purpose but to quell the freedoms we as Americans supposedly have.
Re:I think they underestimated the downtime cost
on
Win2k Cheaper than Linux
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· Score: 5, Interesting
You laugh? I worked at a company back in 2000 that put a serious investment into developing a website, with a Windows 2000 back end of course. This was a Fortune 500 company, so of course Microsoft conned them into hiring a bunch of MCSDs to code the thing at some insane price. It ended up costing several million for the whole shebang, which included space at Exodus for a 4 webserver cluster, behind an F5 and dual PIXs, with the database running off two quad Xeon boxen sharing a SAN. This all ran Windows 2000 Advanced Server so they could use the HA clustering functionality.
Anyhow, I worked a later shift, and got to monitor in the evenings. Every evening, without fail, I watched each and every machine in that HA cluster get rebooted =). "Scheduled Maintainance" I imagine.
Don't get me wrong though, this isn't an MS bash. I'm and MCP, RHCE, etc, and use both Windows 2000 on the server and desktop, as well as Linux on the server and desktop. Each has their place.
Maybe when the server hosting this report isnt getting/.ed I'll be able to take a look =). I'll still take it with a grain of salt, as I would any report comapring the TCO of either of these products. Lies, damn lies, and TCO studies indeed.
It ISN'T circumventing copyright law, it is circumventing an "access control", even when that "access control" is a many thousand year old cipher. One could possibly use it to break copyright law. Regardless, distributing it, assuming it is a "cicrcumvention device", is illegal under the DMCA. Theoretically if it had a significant non-infringing use it would be legal, and to many of us it is clear that it does. Adobe at least said they didn't want to press charges, after the damage had been done.
Still agree?
Oh yea, IANAL, but this is/., you knew that didn't you?
A big one would be the Felton vs SDMI fiasco. They threatened his legitimate work with a DMCA lawsuit, then, after that fucked up any chance of him presenting his work at a security conference, denied that they had any intention of suing.
I'm probably not being accurate by saying the DoJ. In the Felton case, it was the SDMI consortium and RIAA that threatened him. My reply was just a bit hasty.
That isn't the point though. These cases never come to light because those who are challenged can't even begin to mount a legal defense, and therefore, fold like Superman on laundry day. The mere threat of invoking the DMCA has most definitely had a chilling effect. I'm sure you're aware of this though, and that was the point I was trying to make.
Whomever modded this troll is an idiot. pheph is spot on. The reason this is the only case that he has heard of is it is the only one the DoJ thought they had a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Any other case could possibly be used as precedent to challenge their darling little law.
This makes me sick. This guy doesn't care if a blind person can read an ebook, he probably could afford to hire someone to read it to him!
I truly pray justice prevails in this case. Though considering the current political and legal climate in the US, I don't have much hope...
First, I admit, I use Windows XP on my main PC. It is a Dell laptop, and XP supports every function of it terribly well. Linux does just as well on most counts, but with a laptop I don't want to concede any features just to run my OS of choice.
That aside, I don't think cognitive dissonance plays into it all that much, at least not in the case of most Linux users I know. The ferociously loyal can be overzealous at times, but there is good cause to be. Just comparing the kernels of Windows 2K/XP and Linux, it is obvious to me that Linux is superior. The TCP/IP stack in Linux is very fast, very stable, and very flexible, though Windows has gotten much, much better of late. The VM system in Linux I find to work much better now as well. It really bugs me that Windows is swapping applications to disk when I still have 300 MB of physical memory left.
As the popularity of Linux has surged I have seen it improve that much more in recent months. I remember when it seemed like 2.4 would never come, now we are discussing what 2.6 is going to offer? =)
Regardless of the technical merits of Linux, there is a lot to be said about an OS and software that is "by the people, for the people". Stallman et. al. make a lot of noise to this end, and piss off a lot of people in the process, but we really have something to be proud of. This little kernel has found its way into all sorts of niche markets, from the lowliest embedded boards to big iron like the S/390, NUMA supercomputers, and more. There is a lot to be said for a piece of software so versatile.
As for making concessions to run Linux, if it means that much to someone to not be dependent on MS, more power to em! I get sick of Microsoft's business practices, subpar software, absurd licensing schemes, dancing monkey execs, and more too. If their products are the best fit for the application, though, there isn't much more to debate.
Good question. I must admit I haven't kept up to date with the whole fiasco, but even the MPEG4IP site admits that you have to pursue the licensing issue yourself.
I didnt mention anything about security concerns. The FLDOT's network is all over private leased lines, so security isn't too much of an issue. From the poles it goes straight back to their datacenter and that is where they focus on security.
You don't mention what state you are with, but perhaps you should get in touch with someone at the Florida DOT. My company has some equipment at their regional traffic center nearby, that we use to stream realtime traffic video to clients in the field. I've had the opportunity to visit their data center before and was very impressed. They seem to be using the VBrick units for encoding and decoding. I can understand that you would balk at the cost, as they are quite pricey, but they are well worth the cost. They have, last I checked, 52 cameras along the major highway here, and I believe they have 1000BaseSX to all the poles. All that video comes back to their regional center where it is processed and sent to various media outlets.
Free, except that he has to pay royalties for the use of MPEG4. Considering this is a goverment organization, I think he would need to take that into consideration as well.
I will say I compiled the DSS and MPEG4IP stuff, and it is hella cool, if only because the only viable option I had for realtime streaming before was expensive hardware (VBrick) or Windows Media Services.
Does it support the Sony DVD remote control? The dongle plugs into a controller port so I assume it sends the same signals as a regular controller, but that would be a biggie for me =).
EXACTLY! They have to make sure the LAN is up! This we can agree on. Part of that is making sure you KNOW what is on your network, and are aware of the possible vulnerablilities. And the only way to do so is to spell out exactly what IS and ISN'T allowed on your LAN.
I work for a company composed largely of engineers, who are working on a networking product. Yet these same engineers don't think twice of plugging a box into our core LAN, and running a piece of software designed to do funky things with IP they can't predict the results of. I had my core LAN going down once or twice a week because some engineer's machine was spewing bogus ARP packets on the network. I do my best to accomodate these guys and not inconvenience them, but when they start taking down the LAN and interrupting everyone else's work I had to draw the line.
IT shouldn't act like a bunch of Nazis, but part of keeping a LAN secure and functional is dictating a policy of what is and isn't allowed on a network. This is where the management side of MIS comes in. There is more to MIS than being a tech. Maybe I'm confusing MIS and IT? Perhaps, but then a lot of people here are too. Do any of the idiots bashing this guy have any experience at all?
There are plenty of threats posed by XP boxes, especially if this guy doesn't have much experience with Windows. Windows vulnerabilities may not directly attack Mac OS X boxen, but they certainly could take down his LAN, infect outside clients, attack other networks, etc. I covered a bit of this in another post.
Used to be browsing at +1 or +2, sans modpoints, was enough to get a decent SnR on here. I'm not so sure anymore...
No, the majority of the reactions here are "WTF is your problem with letting them run XP? Are you some kind of IT nazi?! No Windows for you!"
IT should ABSOLUTELY be dictating policy on their LAN. Assuming COMPETENT IT personnel, they are responsible for ensuring the security of their LAN. It is going to be IT's ass on the line when some Windows box spews Klez emails all over the web.
Remember that worm that infected Samba shares? What if a file gets infected by a Windows machine, but noone knows until they email it out to some unwitting client? Instead of giving everyone who expresses some dislike for Microsoft products a hard time, how about offering a suggestion to help this guy?
To be honest, it shouldnt take much to keep those XP boxen secure. If they won't be using Outlook, that is a big first step =). After that, keep IIS off the machines, install Microsoft's automagic update feature, and you should be good to go. If possible, make user accounts for the users of the machine and keep them in the users or power users group, to keep them from installing any other software. If they can justify having a Windows box on your company's LAN, you can justify some conditions.
Location based services is one of the features the product my company has developed offers. The concept is the same as with GPS, or triangulation in general. However, one thing calculating location within the network offers over GPS is the ability to calculate position relative to other users and/or infrastructure. This has amazing implications for use in automobiles and other transportation apps. When the Firestone tires on your SUV blowout, your car could signal back to other cars raising an alarm perhaps, warning other drivers, slowing down traffic, etc. It might even be the first step towards "smart highways".
And of course, if you are as directionally deficient as I am, knowing where you are all the time would be a good start =). Location information coupled with real-time, up to date maps would make sure I never get lost again.
Yes, I hope every single Danish citizen participates liberally in P2P file sharing networks. It'd be fun to watch the country dissolve into a police state in which normal human behavior is supressed so that a stupid obsolete law can be enforced by the state.
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Its great to see that McCain still is fighting for campaign finance reform. If only he had gotten the GOP nomination... I would have voted for him in a heartbeat, and he would have "beat Gore like a drum" as he once said. Sadly, I think the man had too many ideals of his own, and that isn't what the GOP was looking for. Rather, they were looking for a Bush.
Believe me, I want to think George W is just a bumbling idiot, and really has our best interests in mind. But that isn't an excuse. We don't have a first amendment right anymore, or a fourth amendment right, or a fifth amendment right here shortly. And I'm sure the only reason we still have a second amendment right is the government has a list of all the gun owners, so they'll leave that for last. So tell me, what are we defending? Without that silly Bill of Rights there isn't anything left in this country worth defending. Bring on the terrorists, I say.
But SPAM is a business. Doing that in these uncertain economic times would be unAmerikan! We've rooted you out you commie fag! Report for reeducation at once!
All you need to know.
And I don't remember voting for comedian of the year. Maybe the Supreme Court appointed him.
Heh, the part that reminded me of Close Encounters was the guy going nuts, boarding up his house, scaring his wife, etc. Smacked of CEOTTK.
I understand its a well worn topic, but I was hoping for something new and exciting. X Files was for the first few seasons. I'll probably give it another chance tonight though =)
Agreed, on both counts. It was mildly entertaining, but reminded my of Close Encounters, one of the best scifi flicks ever, and X Files.
Since they sell products in the US.
You're obviously a troll, or have no clue about the history of this case. There are many uses for this software besides piracy. Like allowing blind people to unencrypt it to use with text to speech software. Like preserving fair use.
The DMCA is bad legislation, because it makes merely DISCUSSING how to break this encryption illegal! If someone uses the tool to break copyright law, they can be prosecuted under copyright law. Period. The DMCA is a vague, overreaching law that serves no purpose but to quell the freedoms we as Americans supposedly have.
Try reading this.
You laugh? I worked at a company back in 2000 that put a serious investment into developing a website, with a Windows 2000 back end of course. This was a Fortune 500 company, so of course Microsoft conned them into hiring a bunch of MCSDs to code the thing at some insane price. It ended up costing several million for the whole shebang, which included space at Exodus for a 4 webserver cluster, behind an F5 and dual PIXs, with the database running off two quad Xeon boxen sharing a SAN. This all ran Windows 2000 Advanced Server so they could use the HA clustering functionality.
/.ed I'll be able to take a look =). I'll still take it with a grain of salt, as I would any report comapring the TCO of either of these products. Lies, damn lies, and TCO studies indeed.
Anyhow, I worked a later shift, and got to monitor in the evenings. Every evening, without fail, I watched each and every machine in that HA cluster get rebooted =). "Scheduled Maintainance" I imagine.
Don't get me wrong though, this isn't an MS bash. I'm and MCP, RHCE, etc, and use both Windows 2000 on the server and desktop, as well as Linux on the server and desktop. Each has their place.
Maybe when the server hosting this report isnt getting
It ISN'T circumventing copyright law, it is circumventing an "access control", even when that "access control" is a many thousand year old cipher. One could possibly use it to break copyright law. Regardless, distributing it, assuming it is a "cicrcumvention device", is illegal under the DMCA. Theoretically if it had a significant non-infringing use it would be legal, and to many of us it is clear that it does. Adobe at least said they didn't want to press charges, after the damage had been done.
/., you knew that didn't you?
Still agree?
Oh yea, IANAL, but this is
A big one would be the Felton vs SDMI fiasco. They threatened his legitimate work with a DMCA lawsuit, then, after that fucked up any chance of him presenting his work at a security conference, denied that they had any intention of suing.
I'm probably not being accurate by saying the DoJ. In the Felton case, it was the SDMI consortium and RIAA that threatened him. My reply was just a bit hasty.
That isn't the point though. These cases never come to light because those who are challenged can't even begin to mount a legal defense, and therefore, fold like Superman on laundry day. The mere threat of invoking the DMCA has most definitely had a chilling effect. I'm sure you're aware of this though, and that was the point I was trying to make.
Whomever modded this troll is an idiot. pheph is spot on. The reason this is the only case that he has heard of is it is the only one the DoJ thought they had a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Any other case could possibly be used as precedent to challenge their darling little law.
This makes me sick. This guy doesn't care if a blind person can read an ebook, he probably could afford to hire someone to read it to him!
I truly pray justice prevails in this case. Though considering the current political and legal climate in the US, I don't have much hope...
First, I admit, I use Windows XP on my main PC. It is a Dell laptop, and XP supports every function of it terribly well. Linux does just as well on most counts, but with a laptop I don't want to concede any features just to run my OS of choice.
That aside, I don't think cognitive dissonance plays into it all that much, at least not in the case of most Linux users I know. The ferociously loyal can be overzealous at times, but there is good cause to be. Just comparing the kernels of Windows 2K/XP and Linux, it is obvious to me that Linux is superior. The TCP/IP stack in Linux is very fast, very stable, and very flexible, though Windows has gotten much, much better of late. The VM system in Linux I find to work much better now as well. It really bugs me that Windows is swapping applications to disk when I still have 300 MB of physical memory left.
As the popularity of Linux has surged I have seen it improve that much more in recent months. I remember when it seemed like 2.4 would never come, now we are discussing what 2.6 is going to offer? =)
Regardless of the technical merits of Linux, there is a lot to be said about an OS and software that is "by the people, for the people". Stallman et. al. make a lot of noise to this end, and piss off a lot of people in the process, but we really have something to be proud of. This little kernel has found its way into all sorts of niche markets, from the lowliest embedded boards to big iron like the S/390, NUMA supercomputers, and more. There is a lot to be said for a piece of software so versatile.
As for making concessions to run Linux, if it means that much to someone to not be dependent on MS, more power to em! I get sick of Microsoft's business practices, subpar software, absurd licensing schemes, dancing monkey execs, and more too. If their products are the best fit for the application, though, there isn't much more to debate.
Good question. I must admit I haven't kept up to date with the whole fiasco, but even the MPEG4IP site admits that you have to pursue the licensing issue yourself.
Hate to respond to my own post, but...
I didnt mention anything about security concerns. The FLDOT's network is all over private leased lines, so security isn't too much of an issue. From the poles it goes straight back to their datacenter and that is where they focus on security.
You don't mention what state you are with, but perhaps you should get in touch with someone at the Florida DOT. My company has some equipment at their regional traffic center nearby, that we use to stream realtime traffic video to clients in the field. I've had the opportunity to visit their data center before and was very impressed. They seem to be using the VBrick units for encoding and decoding. I can understand that you would balk at the cost, as they are quite pricey, but they are well worth the cost. They have, last I checked, 52 cameras along the major highway here, and I believe they have 1000BaseSX to all the poles. All that video comes back to their regional center where it is processed and sent to various media outlets.
Now why can't I get 1000BaseSX to my house? =(
Free, except that he has to pay royalties for the use of MPEG4. Considering this is a goverment organization, I think he would need to take that into consideration as well.
I will say I compiled the DSS and MPEG4IP stuff, and it is hella cool, if only because the only viable option I had for realtime streaming before was expensive hardware (VBrick) or Windows Media Services.
Does it support the Sony DVD remote control? The dongle plugs into a controller port so I assume it sends the same signals as a regular controller, but that would be a biggie for me =).
EXACTLY! They have to make sure the LAN is up! This we can agree on. Part of that is making sure you KNOW what is on your network, and are aware of the possible vulnerablilities. And the only way to do so is to spell out exactly what IS and ISN'T allowed on your LAN.
I work for a company composed largely of engineers, who are working on a networking product. Yet these same engineers don't think twice of plugging a box into our core LAN, and running a piece of software designed to do funky things with IP they can't predict the results of. I had my core LAN going down once or twice a week because some engineer's machine was spewing bogus ARP packets on the network. I do my best to accomodate these guys and not inconvenience them, but when they start taking down the LAN and interrupting everyone else's work I had to draw the line.
IT shouldn't act like a bunch of Nazis, but part of keeping a LAN secure and functional is dictating a policy of what is and isn't allowed on a network. This is where the management side of MIS comes in. There is more to MIS than being a tech. Maybe I'm confusing MIS and IT? Perhaps, but then a lot of people here are too. Do any of the idiots bashing this guy have any experience at all?
+5 Insightful????
There are plenty of threats posed by XP boxes, especially if this guy doesn't have much experience with Windows. Windows vulnerabilities may not directly attack Mac OS X boxen, but they certainly could take down his LAN, infect outside clients, attack other networks, etc. I covered a bit of this in another post.
Used to be browsing at +1 or +2, sans modpoints, was enough to get a decent SnR on here. I'm not so sure anymore...
No, the majority of the reactions here are "WTF is your problem with letting them run XP? Are you some kind of IT nazi?! No Windows for you!"
IT should ABSOLUTELY be dictating policy on their LAN. Assuming COMPETENT IT personnel, they are responsible for ensuring the security of their LAN. It is going to be IT's ass on the line when some Windows box spews Klez emails all over the web.
Remember that worm that infected Samba shares? What if a file gets infected by a Windows machine, but noone knows until they email it out to some unwitting client? Instead of giving everyone who expresses some dislike for Microsoft products a hard time, how about offering a suggestion to help this guy?
To be honest, it shouldnt take much to keep those XP boxen secure. If they won't be using Outlook, that is a big first step =). After that, keep IIS off the machines, install Microsoft's automagic update feature, and you should be good to go. If possible, make user accounts for the users of the machine and keep them in the users or power users group, to keep them from installing any other software. If they can justify having a Windows box on your company's LAN, you can justify some conditions.
The US is rapidly devolving into a police state. If you don't believe so, you're probably a card carrying member of the GOP.
I was mostly making a lame joke. Why it got modded up so high I don't know. Maybe a lot of my fellow citizens agree?
Ahh, the free market at work =)
Location based services is one of the features the product my company has developed offers. The concept is the same as with GPS, or triangulation in general. However, one thing calculating location within the network offers over GPS is the ability to calculate position relative to other users and/or infrastructure. This has amazing implications for use in automobiles and other transportation apps. When the Firestone tires on your SUV blowout, your car could signal back to other cars raising an alarm perhaps, warning other drivers, slowing down traffic, etc. It might even be the first step towards "smart highways".
And of course, if you are as directionally deficient as I am, knowing where you are all the time would be a good start =). Location information coupled with real-time, up to date maps would make sure I never get lost again.
Since when has being accepted in the West helped anything? =)
I saw this at a local artsy theatre. Really, really liked it. The animation was gorgeous, both as a technical work and a work of art.
As far as it helping the West accept anime, Pokemon and the lot have done enough damage as it is...
Yes, I hope every single Danish citizen participates liberally in P2P file sharing networks. It'd be fun to watch the country dissolve into a police state in which normal human behavior is supressed so that a stupid obsolete law can be enforced by the state.
You mean, like the U.S.?
(Score: -1, Unamerikan)