I'm a writer and editor at Heritage (look it up). I've never seen anyone get pressured about anything w/r/t Microsoft here. A few months ago, someone sent around an email touting Mozilla--no pushback from anyone at all.
I can't speak for any of these other places, but there is no Microsoft influence at Heritage.
For what it's worth, Heritage has long been suspicious of antitrust law. Perhaps this encouraged some MS funding, but that didn't change any positions here one iota.
Last time around, under Bush, Sr., the cost estimate for a manned mission to mars was between $500 and $800 billion. Unless things have radically changed, $1 trillion would be a reasonable estimate today.
That's a lot of money. I'd rather see my taxes going to other things...like back into my pocket, for example.
If this is going to happen at a reasonable price, it cannot go through NASA, which may be the most inefficient federal agency (and that's really saying something!). If recent history is any indicator, a NASA-led mission will cost lots of money and probably not even get off the ground.
Private industry and competition (lots of it) are the way to get to Mars at a price we can afford.
Check out discmakers.com. They make these things really easy and have decent prices.
No, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, no kickbacks, nothing. I do know the owner of the place, though, and he's a very honest guy. A lot of people in the CD manufacturing industry are not.
I see that you didn't mention the popular Ensim control panel software.
Good thing. Ensim is the worst, buggiest, least stable server software I have ever used. Ever. Period.
I realize that this is a bit off-topic, but if it saves one person the trouble that I went through working with Ensim (and finally, the trouble of having to wipe several servers to get rid of it), then it was worth it.
Why this sort of research is difficult
on
The Social Web
·
· Score: 1
We tried doing the same sort of survey last year at Dartmouth. The plan was to graph all on-campus email over a period of time (a week?) and determine the average diameter of the graph, distance between faculty and students, strength of graph, cliques, etc. Standard "Small Worlds" problem.
Problem is, someone in the computing services department thought there might be some kind of user-security problem with us (research being coordinated by a faculty member) having access to email header data. We agreed, and offered to replace all names (which are unique in Dartmouth's DND directory system) with unique numbers and designators (e.g., a binary designator for "faculty member") or even provide to computing services a script which they could run to do this for themselves. <br><br>
Of course, nothing like this had ever been done before. Nobody was sure who had the authority to release this sort of data; nobody wanted to be named as the one authorizing this sort of thing. So far as I can tell, our requests got forwarded to the bureaucratic equivalent of/dev/null. <br><br>
So, I developed a client that, authorized by a user, would scan that user's inbox and pull out all of the header information. Unfortunately, most users here empty their inboxes quite regularly (we use a proprietary email system, blitzmail, that, in operation, is similar to IMAP; mail is stored on-server) and the majority of those empty their trash just as regularly. So, basically, we were unable to get any meaningful data. End of research.<br><br>
Too bad, really, because Dartmouth is the ideal setting for this type of work--everybody uses email, average user sends/receives probably over 100 emails a day. It is really the only viable form of communication on campus.<br><br>And this was at a college. Imagine how difficult it would be to gather this sort of data in some other institutional setting.
I'm surprised that Dartmouth turned down a chance to evaluate Carnivore, given that the school's engineering and CS depts seem ready to leap into any ill-advised adventure given promises of funding and PR hits.
For example, take the recently founded ISTS. No one has yet been able to explain to me why this is housed at Dartmouth. A bit of investigation reveals some government/Dartmouth administration cronyism. The functional result is that Dartmouth faculty will soon (if they aren't already) be using these new government funds to fund existing projects seemingly unrelated to the purposes of ISTS.
Interesting, mais non?
If anyone has any info or thoughts on this, I'd appreciate it, either here or by email (grossdog@dartmouth.edu) for a story I'm working on. I can keep names/sources confidential if necessary.
The Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts were designed to protect _consumers_, not business competitors.
As I remember from econ 1 oh so long ago, competition is good for the consumer.. It keeps prices down, gets technology into the market faster, provides greater choice, etc, etc.<br><br> So, MS may not have walked into your home or office and stolen money out of your wallet and put horrible programs on your PC, but the effect is largely the same as if they had.
At least in the US, where it's not being rammed down our throats, censorware is what prevents laws like the CDA from taking the Internet hostage and prevents the government from arbitrarily enforcing all sorts of rules on citizens.
The key things about censorware are choice and competition. To begin with, personal Internet services don't come, by default, "blocked" with filtering software. The user, most often a parent or guardian, has to make the choice to install and configure such software. Minors, unfortunately, do not have the "right" to access any information as they please on the Internet or through other mediums. Some movies are forbidden (without explicit parental permission), some TV shows are aired late at night (after bedtimes), and printed pornography is certainly off-limits (in special rooms of video stores, not accessable without ID).
Internet filtering is a natural extension of this, but is actually more "free" that any of the above initiatives. Why? Well, in all the above cases, limits were set by the government through regulations, threats (to regulate the MPAA and TV networks), and other means. Internet filtering, though, is controlled by parents, who are able to decide, often quite specifically, what gets through and what does not, using lists of sites, keywords, and other means. Parents can even decide to turn filtering off, perhaps at a child's request if a site has been arbitrarily blocked. Filtering software lets parents open up the Internet for their children without worrying (too much) about the sites out there that don't mesh with their values. Like it or lump it, parents do have the ability to control what information their children are allowed access to (up to a certain age); filtering software helps them do this in the least oppressive way possible.
One argument made against filtering software is that it blocks, arbitrarily, many sites that have ideological content that aren't "obscene" or "pornography." There are two ways to look at this. First, this may be desired by some customers, who don't want their children exposed to this material; for better or for worse, it's really their call. The other way is that Acme Internet Filtering's software may be blocking arbitrary sites with which it has qualms; say, for instance, the owner of Acme hates feminism, so all feminist sites are blocked. If the parent's agree with this, that's their prerogative. If not, though, they're free to switch to another company's filtering product that blocks sites that they feel should be blocked or allows more custimization and control over what gets blocked.
Put simply, this software puts power into the hands of parents who, realistically, don't have the time to supervise their children everytime their children go online. It lets them filter sites according to their values rather than an arbitrary government mandate. There's a lot on the Internet a parent might not want their kid seeing; I think we can all agree with that. Properly set-up and configured filtering software should filter exactly that much, according to the parent's prerogative. Fortunately, because we have a free market, filtering companies are competing with one another to see who can best serve their customer, the parent. As time goes by , the filtering industry will only get better in this respect.
In other areas, the issue is a bit more murky. What should be filtered in schools, for example? Some would say "none." To this, I disagree. I think the correct answer should be "only material that could conceiveably be in line with the institution's mission," in this case education. This would permit some level of filtering. Students in schools are rarely left unsupervised; if a student wishes to access a relevant site (by his criteria) that is blocked, it could be "unlocked" by the faculty member supervising. This would permit case-by-case decisions to be made and cause filtering software to only block that which is definitely not in line with the school's mission.
Finally, what about libraries and the like? I believe this is the murkiest issue of all. The purpose of a library is to allow access to information; this pretty much precludes filtering, or does it. I see three solutions for libraries. The first is the status quo: allow children onto the net without filtering software. Trust that the public nature of libraries will keep them from the more obscene sites. To an extent, this self-regulation isn't so bad; who's going to call up "Laviscious Lesbians" when every patron who walks by can see it? A way to modify this might be to require children to have permission from their parents to use library computers; just a note or a card perhaps, nothing elaborate. Of course, there would be children, then, who wouldn't be allowed to access the net at the library. For their sake, filtering software might be put on several computers; perhaps this would placate their parents. Yet, neither of these are satisfactory solutions; they border on the technocratic. I think the status quo is the best; if a parent is so concerned about the things his or her child would be accessing on the Internet at a public library, the parent certainly wouldn't want his or her child accessing many things ont he library's shelves, either. Thus, these children may not even be allowed to visit the libary by themselves, which, again, is their parents' prerogative.
Filtering software isn't bad then, although some implementations of it may be. That's the beauty of it: rather than one "one-size fits all" government mandate we have custom-tailored filtering here in the US. To stretch this metaphor, if the shirt doesn't fit, one can get a new one or go topless (in many localities, haha). To those who think children have the right to access all information as they please, your quarrel is not with filtering software but with the whole concept of a being a minor. Internet filtering is but a small symptom of this. For those who believe that parents have the right to monitor and restrict their children's information access, filtering software seems a logical way to do this.
It's a neat idea, but perhaps not a good idea. Instead of bemoaning the sad fate of all genius inventors, think of why an idea like this hasn't been produced. I can think of several reasons:
-ruggedness. How much of anything can a paper computer withstand?
-Use. If your target market has capable PCs sitting on their desks, why would you send them a cheap single-function computer that would look chintzy compared to what they already use (color monitor, full size keyboard, etc, etc). for other applications, what kind of interface is possible with a paper computer? If you have to retrain everyone and take lots of support calls everytime a new one is released, there go your savings.
-Quality. Do paper computers work consistantly? Are many defective and, if so, to what extent? Even more important, with the way that we view computing devices do they look and feel reliable to the target audience?
-Advantage. What purposes can these paper computers fulfill that other computers can't or that can be done much more efficiently than existing computers. Voting ballots might be nice, but, when everything is considered, I'd imagine paper computer ballots would cost about the same as traditional voting methods, if not more. Also, don't forget transition costs! To be compelling, a new product has to be significantly better than what is already installed. Nobody would by a fax machine that was 2% faster; probably not even 20% faster. Only at 100% or 150%, I'd imagine, would a new generation of machines be likely to sell.
My point is that plenty of capital exists in the market for funding companies and bringing ideas to fruition. However, that money is guarded (usually), by people who consider these things, who think about their return on investment. It may seem like something is a great idea, a leap forward in technology. Well, technology doesn't matter for it's own sake, only for what can be done with it, which translates roughly into sales. I think a paper computer is a neat idea, but there aren't too many things, well any, that I could with one that I couldn't do nearly as efficiently, if not more efficiently, with existing, already purchased and installed technology.
Venture capitalists are in the business of making money. If an idea, no matter how great, won't do that, they will be uninterested. Looking at it from the economic perspective, though, products lose money when either there isn't enough demand for them or the technology for producing them is prohibitively expensive. In other words, even as they look at their own bank-accounts, the VCs are also acting as a proxy for consumer valuations. Knowing several people who have set up a few VC funds, I can tell you that if they only looked towards their friends for ideas, they would have been out of business very quickly. First an foremost, VCs are economic actors and will leap at ideas which they believe have promise. For proof of this, take a look at the past couple hundred IPOs on NASDAQ. 'nuff said.
With DVDs, we certainly do not have the same quality video at home as a film would afford in a theater. The sound may be getting closer (although still not there. most home audio systems are crap. up until maybe this year or last home theater audio was a joke. dolby pro logic? please stop kidding me. And the people who do spend $500 on a decoder and 5 speakers are getting incredibly ripped off on patent audio technical mumbo jumbo. anyway...) Film is just much higher resolution that your television. much much much higher. NTSC is something like 480 X600 (i kow I'm wrong, but in that ballpark) and DVD can do that without ghosting, blurring, or any of the other problems of VHS. But to say that it's just like 35 mm film is just wrong. I'd guess that film resolution is several orders of magnitude higher than DVD. Look at how big a film is on a big screen. do you see lines and pixels? definitely not, unless, of course, the director intended them. Further, telecining film, digitising it for special effects, etc, requires a tremendous amount of storage, beyond the size of a DVD for as little as a minute's worth. I'm not knocking DVD, it's definitely a step up from VHS (maybe even from laserdisk, but I'm a bit hesitant on that), but in o way can it compete with film in terms of image quality.
(the above comments were made by someone who until recently had a screening room in his house with a film projector and TV projector. His parents recently added an NAD THX six amplifier system with dolby 5.1 (?) to said screening room, finally bringing it up to the level of "not bad" for movies on laser/DVD)
On the surface, moves by Apple in the 80s and MS now may seem similar. The difference would be that Macintosh's, having been a second class computer in terms of quantity since their introduction, have nearly always been able to integrate well with existing systems, such as UNIX systems, WinNT, etc. Although apple sells a file server package and, now, a server OS, one should keep in mind that Appleshare is in no way the only way to integrate Macs effectively and the MACOS Server provides much of the same functionality as any other UNIX derivative.
Sure, Apple might encourage schools to adopt MacOS server, but the promotional literature that I've seen from the company stresses the ease of using their computers with a variety of other systems. Here at dartmouth, for example, the majority of students use macs, the administrative network is VAX-based, and student-level servers are mostly UNIX (irix and aix). Our email is run on UNIX boxes as well (DEC, AIX).
By making a reasonable effort here to ensure that all network services follow standards, etc, Dartmouth has made it easy for any client (mac, win, nix) and any server on the network to work together. And it does work pretty well.
Still, MS instills a culture where the machine does everything for you. You are not supposed to question what is really going on. The OS has deep roots in a single user non-networked system. A switch to Linux along with some training might be more effective in changing the state of some minds than you think.
Should the majority of people who use computers have to worry about "what is really going on"? Tha advantage to using Linux in sensitive government applications comes from the ability of admins to review their systems and set them up properly more easily. From a user's point of view, it would be better the more internals of computation the software is able to obfuscate.
Should a general really be concerned about TCP stack bugs? Should a general even know that his computer has a TCP stack? If it allows him to do effectively whatever he does as a general and is easily kept secure by his system administrators, then that's great.
Don't get me wrong - I think Linux could definitely be great in a lot of government applications. But relying on users' increased sense of "knowing what the computer's doing" is a far from ideal situation.
For most companies/organizations, you just can't beat Macintosh's total cost of ownership (tco). Sure, they may cost a little (or a lot) more to begin with, even though this margin is constantly shrinking for comparable hardware (vs x68, windows). But, when you get into training, administration, support, and the like for average users (non-geeks, the majority at any non-tech company), the TCO for Windows machines goes through the roof, to the point of doubling or tripling for Windows boxes vs. Macs per year.
The point? Sure, you can save a few bucks to being with by going with Windows. Maybe even $100 more per box by going with Linux. But, try giving a secretary a Linux box; intimidation city! Even worse with Windows: it's too easy to break things (or to have them break on their own or not work for some nonspecific reason or etc etc).
What Macs have going for them is that they tend to work and, when they don't, are usually easily fixable, often by a non-expert.
I've seen this especially in a graphics company in which I used to work. About half the place (the graphics people) had Macs, the rest PCs with Windows. There was a dozen-person MIS dept keeping the PCs going and they were still frequently down. The Macs were kept up internally by the graphic designers (who, it might be added, were giving their computers more fo a workout than the marketing and sales types their PCs). It should also be added that the entire MIS dept was MS-trained/certified (ha!).
If one is a computer enthusiast (programmer, administrator, nerd, geek, etc) you might not want a Mac for your own system. But, you definitely want them for any users you're supporting. To be able to recommend and put your users on a platform that is always up and that garners few compliants is a great thing and will give you plenty of time to hone those q3a skills, which is really what it's all bout, right?
I think that this all really is a bit much. When the moderations system gets too complicated to explain in about a sentence, something's wrong.
Beyond that, though, this new system has the feeling of a chunk of code that I know could've been written more elegently, with fewer vars, etc, but wasn't for lack of forethought. I appreciate the effort put into all of this, but it would be more worthwhile to have discussion before coding.
I actually liked the wasy moderation was working up until this week. I usually browse on -1 and read down until I lose interest, which works pretty well. Having looked at all these comments, it seemed to me that moderation was working well. Sure, there might be a couple errent comments now and again, but having to scroll an extra inch or two down is hardly a problem.
To some extent, this is like the problem of spam at Dartmouth. Every so often, someone I know gets an unsolicited email and gets very angry about it. Of course, the college blocks like 90% of such emails using ridiculous filtering, which works pretty well. I find it's much easier and more reasonable to simply ignore that monthly unwanted message (maybe forwarding it to the postmaster) than making a big deal about it and railing that spam filtering must be improved.
Yo I got my bros and my bro-ettes backin me up so you best step lest you wanna be hurting, youknowwhatimsayin?
No offence, my man, but this is really pitiful. If you're going to reply to a/. story and rant about what a great guy you are and how many people got your back, at least sign it with your own name, alright?
God, what a loser!
Sorry for the flamage, but, god, somebody had to do it!
Other reversible encryption schemes merely make it hard to decrypt a message.
Hard? I think the word you mean to use is intractable, which is to say possible but unlikely in a short amount of time. For example, while it is possible to crack an RSA encrypted message, it is unlikely that it could be done without a tremendous amount of time + resources (assuming a large key).
Also, your thoughts on security "even if your computers were seized" is wrong. If you or your recipient had that block of "random data" on their computer (or cd or whatever), it would be not too intensive to crack the encrypted messages still stored on either computer. OTP encryption is nearly useless as far as digital data is concerned.
It's unlikely that the feds have "cracked" PGP (which is really just a key protocal. It might be more accurate to say either/or RSA Diffie-Hellman). To do so would require either very unlikely mathematical advances (easy to factor large numbers, solve knapsack/travelling-salesman problem, etc) or absolutely ridiculous amounts of computer equipment (1000X distributed.net in a basement somewhere). In other words, pretty unlikely.
This is what happens when people confuse mathematic/scientific terms for their normal English usages. Unlikely really does mean not very likely, but in the sense of intractable rather than "probably not."
Me, personally, if I was subjected to the same situation, I'd probably plead guilty in an instant. Pride is nice, but when you've been jerked around with for YEARS by the Fed. Gov., do you really want to prolong it when you are reasonably sure that a guilty plea will get you out of their greedy little paws in a few months?
Maybe he could have won a trial, but he'd be an idiot to have tried.
The amount of restitution is completely arbitrary. The judge neither likes Mitnick nor has any idea what she's talking about regarding computers.
It's hard to say what he's barred from using exactly, but one would imagine that it wouldn't be enforced too strictly (ATMs, microwaves, etc.) although the Gov. certainly could if it wanted to (which may be the case).
I think that equating religion with goodness. may be a bit much. On the other hand, that may just be there because the religious nuts tend to be the ones dissin' the Internet the most. Yet, that only proves their ignorance, fearmongering, and evilness.
I'm writing to you regarding Fidnet, the Federal Intrusion Detection Network, which is currently in the planning stages. I will keep this brief because I recognize that your office probably receives quite a few letters and emails.
If you're unfamiliar with it, Fidnet, as proposed, is intended to "protect our national information infrastructure" by monitoring non-Governmental computer networks. This in itself should sound suspicious. There are several reasons why such a program should be opposed and I hope that, after reading them, you and your office do what you can to prevent this ill-though-out program.
1) This is an incredible intrusion on the populace's privacy, providing the FBI, which would be in charge of Fidnet, with unmonitored access to the electronic communications of nearly every American.
2) At the same time, however, criminals, who often use encryption schemes to disguise their online activities, would be largely unaffected, as Fidnet would have no capabilities for dealing with encryption.
3) Our country's "nongovernmental information infrastructure" is the domain of private business. The government should not be protecting private companies from "electronic attacks" when such protection, in the form of knowledgable computer specialists, is available in the private sector. Further, how crippling would an attack on our private networks be? Every corporation controls their own connectivity; the nation's private networks cannot be lumped into a single network that is vulnerable to attack. At worst, it is possible that individual company's network access could be taken down, but this would be the fault of the company for not assuring its own security and providing redundant connectivity. The economic and societal effects would be hardly staggering if amazon.com, one of the largest companies on the Internet, was offline for a day or two.
4) Finally, the concept of "electronic warfare" is a flawed one, meant to bolster the budgets of those who feel they need more resources. The Government keeps no crucial data on the Internet; the "hacking" of a government site is, at worst, an embarrassment. While losses can result when companies are offline for any amount of time, their are not actually any bombs or violence involved in this "electronic warfare." Sure, one's Web site may be down for a few hours and some business may be lost, but this hardly seems to be something that the government should be compromising the nation's privacy for.
I realize this was a bit long, but I feel that the issue is an important one. Please inform me if their is anyone else I could contact about this or if you would like more information or clarifications from a very computer-literate constituent. Thank you for your time.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a writer and editor at Heritage (look it up). I've never seen anyone get pressured about anything w/r/t Microsoft here. A few months ago, someone sent around an email touting Mozilla--no pushback from anyone at all.
I can't speak for any of these other places, but there is no Microsoft influence at Heritage.
For what it's worth, Heritage has long been suspicious of antitrust law. Perhaps this encouraged some MS funding, but that didn't change any positions here one iota.
Ummmm, I know a lot of politically significant people who read Reason regularly. They may not be out and out libertarians, but so what?
For what it's worth, every new issue is distributed at the vastrightwingconspiracy meetings held every wednesday in downtown DC.
Really.
Last time around, under Bush, Sr., the cost estimate for a manned mission to mars was between $500 and $800 billion. Unless things have radically changed, $1 trillion would be a reasonable estimate today.
That's a lot of money. I'd rather see my taxes going to other things...like back into my pocket, for example.
If this is going to happen at a reasonable price, it cannot go through NASA, which may be the most inefficient federal agency (and that's really saying something!). If recent history is any indicator, a NASA-led mission will cost lots of money and probably not even get off the ground.
Private industry and competition (lots of it) are the way to get to Mars at a price we can afford.
Check out discmakers.com. They make these things really easy and have decent prices.
No, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, no kickbacks, nothing. I do know the owner of the place, though, and he's a very honest guy. A lot of people in the CD manufacturing industry are not.
Easy: if the plant were plasma-filtered, none.
If the plant weren't, still none.
Acid rain doesn't directly kill birds.
Yes, there are problems with many coal plants, but spreading misinformation is no way to address environmental problems.
I see that you didn't mention the popular Ensim control panel software.
Good thing. Ensim is the worst, buggiest, least stable server software I have ever used. Ever. Period.
I realize that this is a bit off-topic, but if it saves one person the trouble that I went through working with Ensim (and finally, the trouble of having to wipe several servers to get rid of it), then it was worth it.
If you want your users to love you, check out Dartmouth's
Anyone who has ever been to Dartmouth or any other school using a BlitzMail installation will vouch for the strength, ease of use, and plain usefullness of the system.
We tried doing the same sort of survey last year at Dartmouth. The plan was to graph all on-campus email over a period of time (a week?) and determine the average diameter of the graph, distance between faculty and students, strength of graph, cliques, etc. Standard "Small Worlds" problem.
/dev/null. <br><br>
Problem is, someone in the computing services department thought there might be some kind of user-security problem with us (research being coordinated by a faculty member) having access to email header data. We agreed, and offered to replace all names (which are unique in Dartmouth's DND directory system) with unique numbers and designators (e.g., a binary designator for "faculty member") or even provide to computing services a script which they could run to do this for themselves. <br><br>
Of course, nothing like this had ever been done before. Nobody was sure who had the authority to release this sort of data; nobody wanted to be named as the one authorizing this sort of thing. So far as I can tell, our requests got forwarded to the bureaucratic equivalent of
So, I developed a client that, authorized by a user, would scan that user's inbox and pull out all of the header information. Unfortunately, most users here empty their inboxes quite regularly (we use a proprietary email system, blitzmail, that, in operation, is similar to IMAP; mail is stored on-server) and the majority of those empty their trash just as regularly. So, basically, we were unable to get any meaningful data. End of research.<br><br>
Too bad, really, because Dartmouth is the ideal setting for this type of work--everybody uses email, average user sends/receives probably over 100 emails a day. It is really the only viable form of communication on campus.<br><br>And this was at a college. Imagine how difficult it would be to gather this sort of data in some other institutional setting.
--Andrew Grossman
I'm surprised that Dartmouth turned down a chance to evaluate Carnivore, given that the school's engineering and CS depts seem ready to leap into any ill-advised adventure given promises of funding and PR hits.
For example, take the recently founded ISTS. No one has yet been able to explain to me why this is housed at Dartmouth. A bit of investigation reveals some government/Dartmouth administration cronyism. The functional result is that Dartmouth faculty will soon (if they aren't already) be using these new government funds to fund existing projects seemingly unrelated to the purposes of ISTS.
Interesting, mais non?
If anyone has any info or thoughts on this, I'd appreciate it, either here or by email (grossdog@dartmouth.edu) for a story I'm working on. I can keep names/sources confidential if necessary.
--Andrew Grossman
The Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts were designed to protect _consumers_, not business competitors.
As I remember from econ 1 oh so long ago, competition is good for the consumer.. It keeps prices down, gets technology into the market faster, provides greater choice, etc, etc.<br><br>
So, MS may not have walked into your home or office and stolen money out of your wallet and put horrible programs on your PC, but the effect is largely the same as if they had.
--Andrew Grossman
The key things about censorware are choice and competition. To begin with, personal Internet services don't come, by default, "blocked" with filtering software. The user, most often a parent or guardian, has to make the choice to install and configure such software. Minors, unfortunately, do not have the "right" to access any information as they please on the Internet or through other mediums. Some movies are forbidden (without explicit parental permission), some TV shows are aired late at night (after bedtimes), and printed pornography is certainly off-limits (in special rooms of video stores, not accessable without ID).
Internet filtering is a natural extension of this, but is actually more "free" that any of the above initiatives. Why? Well, in all the above cases, limits were set by the government through regulations, threats (to regulate the MPAA and TV networks), and other means. Internet filtering, though, is controlled by parents, who are able to decide, often quite specifically, what gets through and what does not, using lists of sites, keywords, and other means. Parents can even decide to turn filtering off, perhaps at a child's request if a site has been arbitrarily blocked. Filtering software lets parents open up the Internet for their children without worrying (too much) about the sites out there that don't mesh with their values. Like it or lump it, parents do have the ability to control what information their children are allowed access to (up to a certain age); filtering software helps them do this in the least oppressive way possible.
One argument made against filtering software is that it blocks, arbitrarily, many sites that have ideological content that aren't "obscene" or "pornography." There are two ways to look at this. First, this may be desired by some customers, who don't want their children exposed to this material; for better or for worse, it's really their call. The other way is that Acme Internet Filtering's software may be blocking arbitrary sites with which it has qualms; say, for instance, the owner of Acme hates feminism, so all feminist sites are blocked. If the parent's agree with this, that's their prerogative. If not, though, they're free to switch to another company's filtering product that blocks sites that they feel should be blocked or allows more custimization and control over what gets blocked.
Put simply, this software puts power into the hands of parents who, realistically, don't have the time to supervise their children everytime their children go online. It lets them filter sites according to their values rather than an arbitrary government mandate. There's a lot on the Internet a parent might not want their kid seeing; I think we can all agree with that. Properly set-up and configured filtering software should filter exactly that much, according to the parent's prerogative. Fortunately, because we have a free market, filtering companies are competing with one another to see who can best serve their customer, the parent. As time goes by , the filtering industry will only get better in this respect.
In other areas, the issue is a bit more murky. What should be filtered in schools, for example? Some would say "none." To this, I disagree. I think the correct answer should be "only material that could conceiveably be in line with the institution's mission," in this case education. This would permit some level of filtering. Students in schools are rarely left unsupervised; if a student wishes to access a relevant site (by his criteria) that is blocked, it could be "unlocked" by the faculty member supervising. This would permit case-by-case decisions to be made and cause filtering software to only block that which is definitely not in line with the school's mission.
Finally, what about libraries and the like? I believe this is the murkiest issue of all. The purpose of a library is to allow access to information; this pretty much precludes filtering, or does it. I see three solutions for libraries. The first is the status quo: allow children onto the net without filtering software. Trust that the public nature of libraries will keep them from the more obscene sites. To an extent, this self-regulation isn't so bad; who's going to call up "Laviscious Lesbians" when every patron who walks by can see it? A way to modify this might be to require children to have permission from their parents to use library computers; just a note or a card perhaps, nothing elaborate. Of course, there would be children, then, who wouldn't be allowed to access the net at the library. For their sake, filtering software might be put on several computers; perhaps this would placate their parents. Yet, neither of these are satisfactory solutions; they border on the technocratic. I think the status quo is the best; if a parent is so concerned about the things his or her child would be accessing on the Internet at a public library, the parent certainly wouldn't want his or her child accessing many things ont he library's shelves, either. Thus, these children may not even be allowed to visit the libary by themselves, which, again, is their parents' prerogative.
Filtering software isn't bad then, although some implementations of it may be. That's the beauty of it: rather than one "one-size fits all" government mandate we have custom-tailored filtering here in the US. To stretch this metaphor, if the shirt doesn't fit, one can get a new one or go topless (in many localities, haha). To those who think children have the right to access all information as they please, your quarrel is not with filtering software but with the whole concept of a being a minor. Internet filtering is but a small symptom of this. For those who believe that parents have the right to monitor and restrict their children's information access, filtering software seems a logical way to do this.
--Andrew Grossman
It's a neat idea, but perhaps not a good idea. Instead of bemoaning the sad fate of all genius inventors, think of why an idea like this hasn't been produced. I can think of several reasons:
-ruggedness. How much of anything can a paper computer withstand?
-Use. If your target market has capable PCs sitting on their desks, why would you send them a cheap single-function computer that would look chintzy compared to what they already use (color monitor, full size keyboard, etc, etc). for other applications, what kind of interface is possible with a paper computer? If you have to retrain everyone and take lots of support calls everytime a new one is released, there go your savings.
-Quality. Do paper computers work consistantly? Are many defective and, if so, to what extent? Even more important, with the way that we view computing devices do they look and feel reliable to the target audience?
-Advantage. What purposes can these paper computers fulfill that other computers can't or that can be done much more efficiently than existing computers. Voting ballots might be nice, but, when everything is considered, I'd imagine paper computer ballots would cost about the same as traditional voting methods, if not more. Also, don't forget transition costs!
To be compelling, a new product has to be significantly better than what is already installed. Nobody would by a fax machine that was 2% faster; probably not even 20% faster. Only at 100% or 150%, I'd imagine, would a new generation of machines be likely to sell.
My point is that plenty of capital exists in the market for funding companies and bringing ideas to fruition. However, that money is guarded (usually), by people who consider these things, who think about their return on investment. It may seem like something is a great idea, a leap forward in technology. Well, technology doesn't matter for it's own sake, only for what can be done with it, which translates roughly into sales. I think a paper computer is a neat idea, but there aren't too many things, well any, that I could with one that I couldn't do nearly as efficiently, if not more efficiently, with existing, already purchased and installed technology.
Venture capitalists are in the business of making money. If an idea, no matter how great, won't do that, they will be uninterested. Looking at it from the economic perspective, though, products lose money when either there isn't enough demand for them or the technology for producing them is prohibitively expensive. In other words, even as they look at their own bank-accounts, the VCs are also acting as a proxy for consumer valuations. Knowing several people who have set up a few VC funds, I can tell you that if they only looked towards their friends for ideas, they would have been out of business very quickly. First an foremost, VCs are economic actors and will leap at ideas which they believe have promise. For proof of this, take a look at the past couple hundred IPOs on NASDAQ. 'nuff said.
--Andrew Grossman
With DVDs, we certainly do not have the same quality video at home as a film would afford in a theater. The sound may be getting closer (although still not there. most home audio systems are crap. up until maybe this year or last home theater audio was a joke. dolby pro logic? please stop kidding me. And the people who do spend $500 on a decoder and 5 speakers are getting incredibly ripped off on patent audio technical mumbo jumbo. anyway...)
Film is just much higher resolution that your television. much much much higher. NTSC is something like 480 X600 (i kow I'm wrong, but in that ballpark) and DVD can do that without ghosting, blurring, or any of the other problems of VHS. But to say that it's just like 35 mm film is just wrong. I'd guess that film resolution is several orders of magnitude higher than DVD. Look at how big a film is on a big screen. do you see lines and pixels? definitely not, unless, of course, the director intended them.
Further, telecining film, digitising it for special effects, etc, requires a tremendous amount of storage, beyond the size of a DVD for as little as a minute's worth.
I'm not knocking DVD, it's definitely a step up from VHS (maybe even from laserdisk, but I'm a bit hesitant on that), but in o way can it compete with film in terms of image quality.
(the above comments were made by someone who until recently had a screening room in his house with a film projector and TV projector. His parents recently added an NAD THX six amplifier system with dolby 5.1 (?) to said screening room, finally bringing it up to the level of "not bad" for movies on laser/DVD)
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
On the surface, moves by Apple in the 80s and MS now may seem similar. The difference would be that Macintosh's, having been a second class computer in terms of quantity since their introduction, have nearly always been able to integrate well with existing systems, such as UNIX systems, WinNT, etc. Although apple sells a file server package and, now, a server OS, one should keep in mind that Appleshare is in no way the only way to integrate Macs effectively and the MACOS Server provides much of the same functionality as any other UNIX derivative.
Sure, Apple might encourage schools to adopt MacOS server, but the promotional literature that I've seen from the company stresses the ease of using their computers with a variety of other systems. Here at dartmouth, for example, the majority of students use macs, the administrative network is VAX-based, and student-level servers are mostly UNIX (irix and aix). Our email is run on UNIX boxes as well (DEC, AIX).
By making a reasonable effort here to ensure that all network services follow standards, etc, Dartmouth has made it easy for any client (mac, win, nix) and any server on the network to work together. And it does work pretty well.
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
Still, MS instills a culture where the machine does everything for you. You are not supposed to question what is really going on. The OS has deep roots in a single user non-networked system. A switch to Linux along with some training might be more effective in changing the state of some minds than you think.
Should the majority of people who use computers have to worry about "what is really going on"? Tha advantage to using Linux in sensitive government applications comes from the ability of admins to review their systems and set them up properly more easily. From a user's point of view, it would be better the more internals of computation the software is able to obfuscate.
Should a general really be concerned about TCP stack bugs? Should a general even know that his computer has a TCP stack? If it allows him to do effectively whatever he does as a general and is easily kept secure by his system administrators, then that's great.
Don't get me wrong - I think Linux could definitely be great in a lot of government applications. But relying on users' increased sense of "knowing what the computer's doing" is a far from ideal situation.
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
For most companies/organizations, you just can't beat Macintosh's total cost of ownership (tco). Sure, they may cost a little (or a lot) more to begin with, even though this margin is constantly shrinking for comparable hardware (vs x68, windows). But, when you get into training, administration, support, and the like for average users (non-geeks, the majority at any non-tech company), the TCO for Windows machines goes through the roof, to the point of doubling or tripling for Windows boxes vs. Macs per year.
The point? Sure, you can save a few bucks to being with by going with Windows. Maybe even $100 more per box by going with Linux. But, try giving a secretary a Linux box; intimidation city! Even worse with Windows: it's too easy to break things (or to have them break on their own or not work for some nonspecific reason or etc etc).
What Macs have going for them is that they tend to work and, when they don't, are usually easily fixable, often by a non-expert.
I've seen this especially in a graphics company in which I used to work. About half the place (the graphics people) had Macs, the rest PCs with Windows. There was a dozen-person MIS dept keeping the PCs going and they were still frequently down. The Macs were kept up internally by the graphic designers (who, it might be added, were giving their computers more fo a workout than the marketing and sales types their PCs). It should also be added that the entire MIS dept was MS-trained/certified (ha!).
If one is a computer enthusiast (programmer, administrator, nerd, geek, etc) you might not want a Mac for your own system. But, you definitely want them for any users you're supporting. To be able to recommend and put your users on a platform that is always up and that garners few compliants is a great thing and will give you plenty of time to hone those q3a skills, which is really what it's all bout, right?
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
I think that this all really is a bit much. When the moderations system gets too complicated to explain in about a sentence, something's wrong.
Beyond that, though, this new system has the feeling of a chunk of code that I know could've been written more elegently, with fewer vars, etc, but wasn't for lack of forethought. I appreciate the effort put into all of this, but it would be more worthwhile to have discussion before coding.
I actually liked the wasy moderation was working up until this week. I usually browse on -1 and read down until I lose interest, which works pretty well. Having looked at all these comments, it seemed to me that moderation was working well. Sure, there might be a couple errent comments now and again, but having to scroll an extra inch or two down is hardly a problem.
To some extent, this is like the problem of spam at Dartmouth. Every so often, someone I know gets an unsolicited email and gets very angry about it. Of course, the college blocks like 90% of such emails using ridiculous filtering, which works pretty well. I find it's much easier and more reasonable to simply ignore that monthly unwanted message (maybe forwarding it to the postmaster) than making a big deal about it and railing that spam filtering must be improved.
Think: Diminishing returns.
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
Yo I got my bros and my bro-ettes backin me up so you best step lest you wanna be hurting, youknowwhatimsayin?
/. story and rant about what a great guy you are and how many people got your back, at least sign it with your own name, alright?
No offence, my man, but this is really pitiful. If you're going to reply to a
God, what a loser!
Sorry for the flamage, but, god, somebody had to do it!
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
Anybody know anything here? It seems to me that mSQL is a bit faster for simpler queries (esp no joins), but that's jsut an observation.
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
Other reversible encryption schemes merely make it hard to decrypt a message.
Hard? I think the word you mean to use is intractable, which is to say possible but unlikely in a short amount of time. For example, while it is possible to crack an RSA encrypted message, it is unlikely that it could be done without a tremendous amount of time + resources (assuming a large key).
Also, your thoughts on security "even if your computers were seized" is wrong. If you or your recipient had that block of "random data" on their computer (or cd or whatever), it would be not too intensive to crack the encrypted messages still stored on either computer. OTP encryption is nearly useless as far as digital data is concerned.
It's unlikely that the feds have "cracked" PGP (which is really just a key protocal. It might be more accurate to say either/or RSA Diffie-Hellman). To do so would require either very unlikely mathematical advances (easy to factor large numbers, solve knapsack/travelling-salesman problem, etc) or absolutely ridiculous amounts of computer equipment (1000X distributed.net in a basement somewhere). In other words, pretty unlikely.
This is what happens when people confuse mathematic/scientific terms for their normal English usages. Unlikely really does mean not very likely, but in the sense of intractable rather than "probably not."
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
This gets moderated up? huh?
/.er, but this is just really stupid and inane.
keep in mind:
1. Linux has nothing to do with this article.
2. Solaris ain't too bad (esp. when it comes to uptime).
3. "win"?
War mentality sucks. Sorry to post basically flaming verbiage against another
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
Me, personally, if I was subjected to the same situation, I'd probably plead guilty in an instant. Pride is nice, but when you've been jerked around with for YEARS by the Fed. Gov., do you really want to prolong it when you are reasonably sure that a guilty plea will get you out of their greedy little paws in a few months?
Maybe he could have won a trial, but he'd be an idiot to have tried.
The amount of restitution is completely arbitrary. The judge neither likes Mitnick nor has any idea what she's talking about regarding computers.
It's hard to say what he's barred from using exactly, but one would imagine that it wouldn't be enforced too strictly (ATMs, microwaves, etc.) although the Gov. certainly could if it wanted to (which may be the case).
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
I think that equating religion with goodness. may be a bit much. On the other hand, that may just be there because the religious nuts tend to be the ones dissin' the Internet the most. Yet, that only proves their ignorance, fearmongering, and evilness.
For example, look at Messianics.
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
China ain't gonna have nothing on the US!
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
Rep. XXX,
I'm writing to you regarding Fidnet, the Federal Intrusion Detection Network, which is currently in the planning stages. I will keep this brief because I recognize that your office probably receives quite a few letters and emails.
If you're unfamiliar with it, Fidnet, as proposed, is intended to "protect our national information infrastructure" by monitoring non-Governmental computer networks. This in itself should sound suspicious. There are several reasons why such a program should be opposed and I hope that, after reading them, you and your office do what you can to prevent this ill-though-out program.
1) This is an incredible intrusion on the populace's privacy, providing the FBI, which would be in charge of Fidnet, with unmonitored access to the electronic communications of nearly every American.
2) At the same time, however, criminals, who often use encryption schemes to disguise their online activities, would be largely unaffected, as Fidnet would have no capabilities for dealing with encryption.
3) Our country's "nongovernmental information infrastructure" is the domain of private business. The government should not be protecting private companies from "electronic attacks" when such protection, in the form of knowledgable computer specialists, is available in the private sector. Further, how crippling would an attack on our private networks be? Every corporation controls their own connectivity; the nation's private networks cannot be lumped into a single network that is vulnerable to attack. At worst, it is possible that individual company's network access could be taken down, but this would be the fault of the company for not assuring its own security and providing redundant connectivity. The economic and societal effects would be hardly staggering if amazon.com, one of the largest companies on the Internet, was offline for a day or two.
4) Finally, the concept of "electronic warfare" is a flawed one, meant to bolster the budgets of those who feel they need more resources. The Government keeps no crucial data on the Internet; the "hacking" of a government site is, at worst, an embarrassment. While losses can result when companies are offline for any amount of time, their are not actually any bombs or violence involved in this "electronic warfare." Sure, one's Web site may be down for a few hours and some business may be lost, but this hardly seems to be something that the government should be compromising the nation's privacy for.
I realize this was a bit long, but I feel that the issue is an important one. Please inform me if their is anyone else I could contact about this or if you would like more information or clarifications from a very computer-literate constituent. Thank you for your time.
--Andrew Grossman
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu