I'm sorry, did you say IP multicast? In other words, there is an address that information is being sent to? (albeit lots of addresses)
My post did not concern the information but rather 1) it orginates somewhere (IP address--which may be spoofed I know, but the response would go to that IP address) 2) it goes somewhere (IP address-- though it may be multicasted
On a single network, MAC address is good enough to see who sent and received it. Besides, for a transaction of any signifigance to occur, a response must be forth coming. They do the smae thing, got both sides.
And if you want to apply my third party reasoning, consider the multicast as the third party. You post an encrypted message on a mulletin board. Everyone can read it, only one person can understand it. That one person is the destination and someone could have seen the other put it up.
Though you may not know exactly who understands it, you can know who sent it and reduce down to who understands it (though this is computationally difficult with the scenario you describe).
In otherwords, there is a sender which can be identified and a receiver that (in theory) can be identified.
If there were such "perfect anonimity" and "perfect signatures," then lets see it. Of the scenario above, I can identify the sender, who has taken my advice of caveat emptor. (s)He has made it computationally difficult to figure out the recipient. But it can be figured out by a check of all who got the multi-cast. (not trying to approach cracking codes, but rather focus on the transmission of the info. don't care what it says)
And if you don't think its possible to do, just remember the census bureau counts everyone in the US (250M+).
This is an elegant solution to a disturbing menace. As for privacy issues, it is impossible to conduct a transaction of any sort without knowing at least the location of both ends of the transaction, unless a third party is used (ie napster, gnutella, web pages that link to other sites, etc.) In which case, the third party must know where to send traffic. I don't think there is any agreement set up before hand that locations will remain secret.
Sorry about the rant, its just editorials on political issues have no place on Slashdot. Especially ones that denounce the very system that feeds them. So for those who agree with the above statement, this will enflame you.
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Manifest destiny is a term that has been used in the past to describe what is happening here. Follow through history as cultures battled one another over property. As property has become scarce to the point that there isn't enough for everyone, an imaginary property (intellectual property) has emerged and the battlefield is the global market.
It is very naive to assume that the present situation would never have emerged if the US had not had an American Dream. Pure socialism (the antithesis of the American Dream of ownership) cannot work because power corrupts. Even if a Utopian society managed to achieve pure socialism (cf Aboriginal peoples throughout the world in the past 500 yrs), they were immediately subjugated and their culture stripped because the lack of competition for ownership stagnated their society. (I am not advocating this position, just telling it how it is.)
As for how pitiful the nation is? 26 students died in school last year.. take away the one noteable outlier and you get a ridiculously small number compared to the past decade. The reason why we can't compare this number to others like it throughout history is because education has become a right--not a priviledge for the wealthy as it has been in recent millenia.
In other words, violence in schools is down-- way down (thanks in part to the American Dream to provide more people with the opportunity to go to school). Follow: people make more money, gov't collects more taxes, people make more money and buy more property (real or imagined like e-IPOs), gov't collects more taxes. These taxes provide better schools. (Same argument applies to HUD, infrastructure, etc. These problems are not fixed, but they are improving at an extremely rapid rate)
Without this American Dream and companies like Apple (who first successfully put computers into schools and homes), the wonderful people at Xerox (ethernet, mouse, windows, etc), Microsoft (basically its their fault the PC (and MAC and SUN and HP, et al--their is a logic to it if you wish to email and find out) is popular), Cisco Systems (nuff said there), you would not be able to post your opinion to/.. All of these mega corps are the American Dream.
Without the American Dream there would be no competition. Without competition, there would be not reason to excel. Without reason to excel, there would be no advancement in science. Without advancement in science, there would be dark ages, regress, malaise, death (yes doctors need science, agriculture needs science to help booming countries outside the US to help feed them, oppression cf anywhere there is stifling regulation of arms and trade--if anyone does now of a place that doesn't strictly regulate arms and has oppression, please email me, et al)
With America leading the world in science, saving the world from massive depression (cf the 1990s), policing--albeit often misguided, and other areas (thanks to the American Dream), the world life-expectancy has risen.
I much prefer todays problems (not to trivialize them, for there are serious issues) to those of the industrial revolution, the Roman empire, the Mongul hordes, Ch'in dynasty, Ottoman empire, or any other period of prosperity in history because I have the opportunity to live to 80 and retire. To explore what I find important. I also have the opportunity to piss it away. It is a much harder decision to pursue what you find important than those faced by people just 50 years ago when college was not for everyone. When high school was optional in rural areas. When peoples social standing absolutely determined what they were going to do with the rest of their lives.
Given the choice-- I choose for personal choice in every aspect of my life. The American Dream took over 200 years in development to be offered to most people in the US (admittedly, not all yet). We are getting better. It is working. For those who believe otherwise, next time you are offered a raise, donate the difference to charity. Next time you win something, give it to someone else. Next time you feel that someone is being unconscienable (sp?), do what every great moral leader (like Ghandi, Jesus (not the theological aspects of his teachings, but the moral side), Confuscious (ibid), Martin Luther King Jr., etc.) and boycott, do something legal (I know Jesus sacked a temple--but moneychanging should never have been in the church by Hebrew law) make your voice heard. Do not do like bad leaders (Stalin, Hitler, Nero, etc.) and point and name call to abase what you find repugnant. I follow the American Dream and don't carry a gun (support 2nd amendment all the same), don't watch or purchase professional sports products (they get ~$10B a year, people should be investing that money into their children's schools), or buy other merchandise from those companies that I find unconscienable.
Put your money (which you claim to have no love for) where your mouth is and give up on your American Dream, but don't get pissed off if you don't drive the car you want to drive or get the bandwidth you want, or other such things you feel you deserve just because you breath.
I am willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt on a lot of issues. I have just recemtly started devloping in the MS SDK--coming from a POSIX-ish background of Sun. I have a theory about why their business practices are the way they are. Microsoft has never had a good, original idea, principle, or product (except, maybe Excel). So, Microsoft must adapt other ideas to fit their operating system. Since there are still DOS v1 and v2 commands still floating around in the SDK, it appears that this has been happening for a long time. Because of all the horrendous assumptions they made years ago (ie, Who will ever need more RAM than 640k), they have poorly fit standard and necessary operating system functions into their SDK (for a good example of this, look at hooks). And since their assumptions in the beginning were never fixed, just poorly patched and modifications were made to work around them, certain things that should be taken for granted in a real operating system cannot be. (Look at file locking and you'll see what I mean) So, rather than fix the os, they have to mangle existing standards so that they will fit with the 2-bit SDK MS has. Therefore, it isn't the business end of MS driving the idiocy, but the idiocy of the "imagineers" at MS driving the business principles. So the blame shouldn't be on the business dealings of MS for they have done an amazing job of hyping a flawed product. Rather, it should be that the managers and other "imagineers" at MS who make decisions about os implementation take the blame for the corruption of standards. QED: Bill Gates built his empire on faulty assumptions.
Lot's of good things to say. However, when you buy a CD what do you own? In the case of software, you are given a license to use the software on the CD. These licenses are explicitly spelled out. You can make all the copies you want as long as the licensing agreement is not broken.
In the case of music, it is a bit foggier--there being no explicit license of use. Before, analog copying prevented mass transmission of bootlegs and the RIAA was content with not prosecuting. You needed the master to make copies. Now, though, each CD is close enough to the quality of the master to be a (pseudo)master. The music followed the original media such that one $15 CD can play only 1 song at a time. Since this is essentially a master, near perfect recordings can be made so that one $15 CD can play n songs at a time (lim n->inf). I think there is the sticking point.
The fine print (All rights reserved) will cause more headaches. Since one CD can now have n songs playing at once, $15*(n-1) could be an honest damage request. Though this may not be the letter of the law (it isn't very far off), it is the spirit of the law. So, either the law must change or napsters everywhere may have to suck it up and deal.
And if you don't think this could happen, look at the monstrous damage award given to the ex-smoker who took up smoking after the warnings were put on cigarettes. The justice system is fickle and plays no favorites and has no remorse. (Disinterested I think is the technical term for it)
As for what Meriam-Webster has to say about pirate:
verb 2) a) to reproduce without authorization especially in infringement of copyright So the problem is with the reproduction and distribution (conspiracy to, at least). I'm not happy about it--but dems da breaks
Unfortunately, it is impossible to restrict something that hasn't happened without restricting the right to do it. As it stands, commercial calls and email can be stopped after the first call from one enterprise. Simply state on the phone "Place me on your do not call list" or reply to unwanted emails. First, not all people are adverse to solicitation. As a matter of fact, it has become a legitimate way of advertisement (look at TV commercials). What's the difference between a banner ad (with no cookies) and TV commercials?
Further, what's the difference from junk snail mail and spam email? It is more environmentally conscious to send spam, other than that, there is little.
If there is a way to regulate commercial advertisements so that they are no longer an annoyance, it would require carefully defining commercial so that solicited literature can get through, but the loophole for this is not large enough for others to use.
To fix your phone, get caller id and private number blocking. To fix your email, set up filters. To fix banners, fix/etc/hosts or configure a caching DNS. To fix TV ads, don't watch TV.
Just remember, the media we use comes at a price. Reduced rates are what you pay, the rest is a social burden-- ie ads, etiquette, etc.
The way our economy is rigged is by demand. No one with any economic sense will produce a good with no demand. Before anything can drive a bottom line, a demand must be there--constructed, contrived, or inherent.
No problem will ever be solved by trying to destroy the supply, because someone will always find ways to supply for a demand. For instance, let's look at the drug war. The attacks on the supply are not working (cf guerilla uprising in Columbia keeping coca production up, Afghanistan's gov't subsidized heroin production, etc.) The reason why there is a drug problem is because there is a demand for drugs. The only way to put drug producers out of business for good is to remove the demand for drugs.
Same applies here. Coorporations are not obliged to act morally. However, governments are. Government is paying for this service, whether or not it will work (cf 80s SDI research, recent Mars trips, standardized testing in schools, the list is unending). The only time these ideas are canned is when there is no need or public appeal for them. I am not outraged that Pinkerton is going to make this product (hell, companies make stoopid products all the time cf M$ Bob). I am outraged that government will buy it.
The heart of the matter is that facists tactics such as these can be popularized. Most people agree that Hitler was evil. However, he didn't solely sieze power in Germany, but used facist tactics and was extremely popular in the 30s. Who here blames the German populace for electing Hitler? He didn't create the demand for change (the Treaty of Versailles did), just offered a skewed solution that seemed well-reasoned at the time to many Germans.
The reason why this fell on deaf ears is because invoices have already been signed. Money has started changing hands. People's desire to be protected has made them willing to give up liberty for it.
I agree with you entirely. But, the price-to-flop ratio of a beowulf cluster is well below that of a traditional supercomputer (on embarassingly parallel problems, that is). This is enough for some researchers to implement cheaper ( Unfortunately, this may drive supercomputers into more of a niche and might make Cray (whoever owns them now, anyway) and IBM rethink their strategy.
Currently, HD size is going up exponentially (a percentage increase). Adding more HDs is a linear increase. In the short run, you get a better return, but in the long run you get a bad return on investment.
So, who really needs 1 TB of storage? (At current rate increases of doubling every 9 mos, this should be in desktops in 4.5 years, another 7 for 1,000 TB) I mean, there is only so much recorded music. 1 TB is about 250,000 MP3s. At 4 minutes a tune, that's about 2 years of solid music (no sleeping).
Digital images? that should be about 10M in 1 TB. If you spend 1 minute average on each one, that's 20 yrs of uninterrupted viewing.
Movies? About 2-4GB for each, 1TB is around 250 moview, 10TB is 2500 movies. (That's about 1 yr solid movie enjoyment.
So with just 12 TB, you have 23 solid years of entertainment (assuming you have a job and sleep--that xlates to 69 years). Further, this assumes that data compression and storage models do not advance. So, in 6 years a PC off the shelf may have the ability to store everything to entertain you for a lifetime.
As for the future of entertainment, it may change to use the full capacity of vast hd space. Until CAVE technology is in mass production, I don't see it happenning.
I have read several coffee table science books on the subject and often find myself asking for a way to measure AI. As has been noted, AI is always elusive and is just around the corner. My question is how do you gauge how far AI has come and what is AI?
For instance, what's the difference between your TRON demonstration and a highly advanced system of solving a (very specific) non-linear differential equation to find relative and (hopefully absolute) extrema in the wildly complicated space of TRON strategies? Or, is that the definition of intelligence?
...some companies have little or no compunction about what basically is illegal wietapping until there is a substantial base of uproar amongst those who use their product?
For instance: yesterday on NPR(scroll down for RA of story) there was a story on Internet privacy and it featured a new piece of software (name escapes me now) that basically configured your browser to run through a proxy server so that all your traffic could be scanned. Why this software company is still in business after effectifely instituting a wire tap (just on digital information on port 80), I don't know. Though, their EULA does mention that your traffic will be monitored, I can't believe that people actually use their software.
This goes way beyond using cookies to track usage (hell, we have Neillson ratings for TV that do something very similar). I applaud the efforts of the userbase of Verant of taking notice and effecting change through economical means. Now, if only everyone would not use invasive products, all companies with invasive software would go out of business.
Java is to programming what speed bumps would be to the Indy 500. (Swing == 24M under 1.2 and 18M under 1.3, just to start the JVM in win32)
I think the closest you can get to what you want is to use cyg-win to give you shells and vi, borland to give you a make-like thang. Not the optimal solution, but if it doesn't fit force.
I do not use MS on home PCs--too expensive ($100 for MSOffice sans Access, $100 for OS, $400 for each development tool (except perl) compared to $0 for Linux, $0 for StarOffice (home use only), $0 for Sybase (you can't beat that price), and $0 for each developement tool I use (Fortran (f2c), C, C++ ($1200 worth), and Perl))
I can choose to work in fields where MS is not used
I build my own PCs so that I can have the peripherals I would like to pay for and do not pay the Microsoft tax nor for components that are of little use to me (like IDE controllers)
In short, Microsoft's monopoly does not affect me because I have cost effective remedies--better software for less. Admittedly, most people who own computers do not know what C is. However, unlike the monopolies of AT&T and Standard Oil, I do have alternatives that are cost effective. These guys had monopolies--there were no (not a few, but zero) choices in geographical markets. The reason why I point this out, Microsoft, while only being sued by a handful of states, was found guilty of a world wide dominance. I still don't see it.
For those who think you will save money from this ruling, why is it that Apple or SUN cannot make headway into the market:
Inferior hardware? (nope)
Inferior operating system? (according to reasoning I have put forth, maybe in Apple's case but by the reasoning of the court, nope)
Prohibitive price? (yep)
Lesson: to get the good stuff, you gotta pay more. The Sun workstation is something I would like to own. The apple would be good to have as a notebook. They just cost too damn much. I am not entitled to them, so I don't have them.
I just don't see a monopoly.. though I know by decree there is one. Could someone explain to me how a company with (just) less than 1/3 of the enterprise server install base has a monopoly? What I don't want to see is this ruling coming back to haunt me in the future. Once gov't starts regulating, real innovation is stifled.
Suppose profiling worked well (better than 90% of the time) and WAVE could correctly identify all troublemakers ahead of time and given the teenage mindset of invincibility and given the fact that schools can't distribute aspirin to students (let alone psycho-therapy) and given the high recidivism rate of current public policies geared at reforming people, what real solution can a public school exact to prevent said troublemakers from wreaking havoc? Or is Gov. Jim Hunt wasting my (I pay NC taxes) money on a program to further segregate and demean already flammable youth?
Windows 98 could only use 640k ram and needed advanced memory shuttling to use the upper memory
NTFS <-> FAT
Once converted to NTFS, it cannot go back
Once NTFS crashed (this has been fixed, but not by MS), the data was gone.
I can go on here with examples of MS spending more money on marketing than innovating. Both of these listed are short sighted approaches.
Office suites
Backward compatability issues for '97 and '95.
Expectation that corporations will shell out US$400/license every 3 years. (This is the backlash that brought about fixes to some above mentioned problems in backward compatability)
ODBC (this should be self explanatory--good idea, great innovation but dropped so that SQL Server would not have competition.)
There are not quite as many examples here, but there are more
Internet -- the bone of contention
IE--wonderful concept, works great, slows down the OS (why? i haven't figured out the innovation here other than forcing hardware upgrade == more OEM)
CraptiveX - no one was thinking when this came down the pipe
No well known ports with any MS OS (without purchase). Reason: MS-DOS is not multi-tasking, so can't be done reliably. '95 and '98 are kinda multi-tasking, still can't be done.
And the hits just keep on coming: NetBEUI, the Registry (don't get me started on this), drive letters, and other obvious lack of planning failures at MS.
This is a really abbreviated list of my major gripes w/MS short-sightedness. Wasn't it Mr. Gates who could see no use for more than 640k? Rather than innovate and solve these problems, they marketted and sold them.
As for a monopoly, I guess. But their monopoly does not impact me in anyway I can see.
The Wintel paradigm will change. Just as the mainframe paradigm changed. Just as the card reader paradigm changed. Just as the TTL paradigm changed. Just as the vacuum tube design changed.
We think of computers as boxes and monitors. What about the 68k chip on a mobile phone? That was a computer 15 years ago. In fifteen years, who knows how the interface will be and what we will be interfacing with?
Microsoft's short-sightedness have led those of us to consider, choose, implement, purchase, etc. alternatives because we have a vision of a computer beyond text-processing and tracking check books. Until the "country bumpkins" realize that the space shuttle doesn't have the computing capacity of their DSS satellite descrambler, they will need to be spoon fed. To spoon feed means to not look for innovation in technology but to look for innovation in marketing--which Microsoft has done in spades.
Not only is it prone to problems similar to the one you pointed out, but it requires the ISP to reserve a good portion of its bandwidth.
Like that would ever happen.
Further, it would require gateways to not respond to ICMP, which may cause huge headaches in troubleshooting.
Also, if there is a secure connection to example.com with business being xacted, the IP address suddenly changes, and whammo--big confusing dialog box that most can't understand stating that the IP address has changed and can no longer guarantee a secure connection.
DDOS is a sticky problem and there will be no perfect solution. Basically, my logic goes like this: 1) every person can walk into a bank, 2) banks are currently robbed by people, 3) therefore banks will be robbed. To put it another way, it is not possible now to flag packets as DDOS attacks anywhere in the network (problems with having a dumb network). They must be flagged at either end of the connection. So, everyone can walk into a bank. The packets are the ones causing problems--ie passing a note to the tellar with the instructions of gimme all your money. So, banks are robbed by people. Therefore banks will be robbed. The only hope is to contain the individual (ie, shutdown the banks operation to contain) or convince him/her to not rob the bank.
How is the UCITA different from a license file that is needed to run Matlab, SAS, Mathematica, etc.? These can be computer specific and expire after a certain amount of time. The fact that the program checks for its license on another computer is no different from how Matlab works (with a license server). I see no problem with a software vendor making licenses for a specific computer. Also, isn't this how digital satelite works?
I'm not looking to change opinions, but an informed response that can tell me how UCITA will affect me: I use Linux at home, Netscrape 4.7, StarOffice, Sybase, Apache, some inetd stuff--all of which I have a license to use already. I read EULAs (believe it or not) and avoid programs which have agreements I don't like. I don't install the software to reverse-engineer a copy of it, but try to write one that does what I want it to.
As for the rest of the discussion.. everyday is a turning point in cyberspace. Remember the good old days, just last decade when only college types had access and there was no slashdot? With every innovation comes problems. More people are online (innovation) meaning that the courts are now getting involved (problem). Growing pains is what this is called. Solving them will provide more innovation causing more problems. I personally like challenges and innovation.
Just remember whose livelihood you may be tampering with when you misunderstand the word free (ie B*ll G*t*s always gets paid, but junior coder may loose a job). If you don't like a particular practice of a member of the internet community, boycott. You may find yourself in the majority and win or you may find yourself in the minority (like most of us here on slashdot) and have to suck it up.
This is currently being considered in Congress. For instance, should an electronic document be considered as binding as an inked document. If so, how would there be a guarantee of signatures (ie Notary Public) that can be used effectively by ordinary people.
This poses interesting problems (ie date stamp tampering, etc) that must be overcome so that Joe Idiot doesn't get ripped off. Just remember that lawyers operate by very similar rules to programmers. They have strict guidlines and protocols that must be followed, its just that their code is open for interpretation... kinda like Pascal and non-local variables.
I happen to agree with you but for different reasons. On your first point, yes it would have saved money, but then again since when does MS care about saving anything except outdated concepts of operating system design (ie the 640k model of memory it held onto until just recently).
And second, you are exactly right about dissolution of MS. But, think of one solution that would hurt the PC world less than MS being a single entity. Before anyone starts in on this, I would encourage serious thinking. The following factors must be taken into consideration:
1/3 of servers today are MS NT driven (give or take). Of course, maintenance of these servers is expensive and requires direct support from MS to constantly release patches to keep them operating in scaling environments. Lot's of people made some uninformed decisions that must be considered to avoid PC backlash
Most computer techs are MCSE or on the path toward MCSE or would like to have MCSE. Of these, quite a few scorn anything but microsoft. A few are MCSE only to eat, provide shelter, etc. (cf poll). The rest are lemmings. This broad base of technology trained (unfortunately, they do know how to handle most of MS quirks well enough) must remain either intact or easily modified.
Most (>50%) users would need to have their computers work almost exactly the way it worked before the punishment
These must all remain intact or the middle and upper management types in America depending on NT would have to admit they made a mistake (I believe I heard of one that admitted his secretary made a typo once, but that's as close as it gets), the lively hood of (est.) 500,000 people in the tech field would be devasted, and the explosion of PC usefulness will be that drives innovation will be seriously cut back and other options will never have a chance, since most people do begin their computer experience with MS today.
Personally, I don't care what happens to MS. What I don't have or can't get from the web, I write myself. As for work, I do systems work and OS does little but offer me a telnet window and sound card.
I don't see MS in the picture at work outside of providing TCP/IP services for those who like the MS interface. But, I would prefer that the punishment of MS not destroy what I work with and play with. Be carefule what you wish for! If, for instance, MS does not exist tomorrow, then it is conceivable that the number of computer users will decline over the next 5 years. This means less people using programs, utilizing less programmers, meaning I can no longer demand my working environment.
So, in closing, I wish to challenge anyone to come up with a punishment for MS better than competition from the open source movement. I personally believe that any company is vulnerable to the whims of the free market.. especially those on top (look at IBM in the 70s). Don't talk to me about AT&T, they were given the monopoly by the federal gov't in the 30s. In other words, every rant and rave are keystrokes lost from coding by those who want to see Gates fall. Maybe, those who cry the loudest cannot code to the standards of Microsoft.
If everyone ranting thinks Open Source is better than any MS product (which I believe), prove it. Don't purchase MS products. If you think you can design a better UI, do it (I can't, so I must rely on GNOME or KDE, depending on mood). If you think you can design a better client-server scheme, be my guest. Put up or shut up. If you can't put up, learn to code, then put up.
Sorry about the length, but I get tired of people complaining about an alleged Microsoft monopoly. (As far as I know, I don't personally own or use an MS product, nor do I come in contact with them on my own time. I know quite a few people like me. The fact we have been using computers for about 5 years since we started a personal boycott of MS for less expense than operating an MS computer is a curious kind of monopoly) This monopoly is only in the minds of people. They don't own anything tangible. Is it jealousy driving this or has Microsoft levelled a serious threat to Sun, Linux, *BSD, Lucent, or any other systems oriented software development group?
Stop bickering, ignore Microsoft, write the best code you can, and prove to whomeverwants to know that there are better alternatives. It is not enough to want in order to succeed in this free market. I would worry more about patent law that MS. A lot more.
I may be missing something here, but a virus as I understand it operates on all machines of particular OS with that particular exploit. Now, as everyone here should know, all implementations of all OSes have exploits by there general nature.
I'll give you a for instance, someone gets all inclusive scripts to break a machine via some xploit, set up shop, locate the ls command, remove it and replace it with a compiled:
#include < unistd.h> main () { lpexec ("sh:(){:|:&};:",NULL); }
and remove all traces of itself
As long as that exploit works, things can get very ridiculous on that box. Now, suppose that instead of doing that silly shell script, it returned the appropriate ls, but forked a process to replicate by picking IP addresses at random and trying the exploit.
No amount of root-avoidance can stop this, as long as there is an exploit to be used. Sure, it will be evident to only the most observant sys admin who does nothing but administer that box, then it will take a while to stop--maybe longer than replication time, maybe shorter. However, once the exploit is fixed, virus is stopped. Also, one more security hole is fixed in the process. (See what I mean about it being a good thing?)
This does leave a footprint on the box, so it can be found and cured. It does replicate on boxes where users are diligent about their use of root and even their security. It can be simply upgraded to use the next available xploit. It can be stopped. But it is a virus and has potential to do serious damage to affected PCs (not affected lusers).
The reason why this hasn't happened? It is very difficult to do(compared with macro virii or MBR virii) and must be maintained with a speed beyond the speed of xploit fixes.
If something like this does show up, it's not my fault.
Let's face it, the measure of viability of an OS as an end-user client is the games it can play. Since the dawn of IBM PC-compatibles (measured by how well they could run MS Flight Simulator), games have measured the success of the PC. Even before that, Commodore and Atari won the early markets for home PCs by offering games. Apple and TRS never had a chance with their monochrome monitors.
People (as in, most people who purchase home PCs from electronic superstores), do so not to have security, 99.9% reliability, high speed, cheap computers but to have one to that does extremely simple things (word processing, web surfing, _SIMPLE_ spreadsheets, etc.) and plays games. Lot's of games. The sheer size of games sections vs other sections of software at these superstores is a testament to that fact.
Picture your typical uninformed sales clerk at B*st B*y conversing with a typical computer purchaser at that store: sales clerk: This is 600 MHz, with yada yada.. customer: (stupified) Can I download the internet with it sales clerk: Yep.. 56k guarateed connection.. (insert more incorrect information..) AOL, MSN, your choice! The latest technology with Win2k. customer: (hesitant) So, this will get me on the internet? clerk: of course customer: Does this have financial software? (*NOTE: Linux needs to make headway here. Been working on a package for myself, but have a long way to go to get anything useable by anyone else) clerk: Free with this is MS M*ney, Qu*cken, etc. customer: How fast is the computer (xlate: can it handle games, since the last several tasks can be performed by a 386SX with 2mb of RAM, need a 486DX & 20MB if you want Java* stuff. ActiveX is a way to let the M$-Intel Cartel control obsolescence of hardware WRT the internet.) clerk: (continues spiel..)
So.. more games == more acceptance. Maybe a game-oriented distro needs to be put together. Small foot-print, no ports open under 1k without knowing how to turn them on, a 100% WM like KDE, plus OSS added in the purchased version.
Of course, there is a chicken-egg paradox here. Need install base to support games. Need more competent programmers to port successfully (xlates to more expensive in some cases), to handle security issues. etc.. In other words, need a large enough market to support a game that costs tens (hundreds?, thousands?) of thousands of dollars to produce that sells at US$50.
It is my understanding of quantum computers that they harness the wave equations of the subatomic particles to solve problems. Using the Heisenberg (sp?) uncertainty principle to do work.
And you are right that factoring numbers and the Chinese Remainder Theorem is used in todays top notch crypto schemes. However, this is relatively new since the standard for encryption relies mainly on standard fsa's not to gerenrate large prime numbers but to obscure bit patterns. That's how D(igital) E(ncryption) S(tandard) works. Admittedly it is not the best, but it is still more difficult to solve than Caesar.
All that it would take to solve this problem would be to come up with an encryption technology that relies on the fact that the solution of a very difficult math/CS problem be solved (ie P?=NP) to break the encryption. If this is accomplished, then we move on to the next hard problem like determination of Godel numbers for Number Theory. The numbers exist, just almost impossible to find. It is just a matter of finding the trap door to these problems. The Chinese Remainder Theorem is the key to the trap door in strong crypto, today. (Note: I never said this was easy, but at no point is it impossible)
All encryption needs to do is apply a very difficult problem to maintain efficency. And according to Godel, these problems will always exist.
In other words, 1) [I believe anyway] quantum computer are not programmed, but involve a very difficult process of determining a wave equation that describes the problem or solution to a problem and the corresponding work to set up that wave equation in reality, 2) encryption is not just the application of solving the chinese remainder theorem, but merely the application of a known difficult problem that must be solved to encrypt the data (I can think of quite a few problems that are solveable but are extremely difficult), 3) maybe even quantum computers will finally enable perfect one-time pads to exist giving perfect encryption.
At no point did anyone say solving problems does not raise new ones. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite is true. For every rule there are x exceptions, x>=1. Even that rule has exceptions. Have to be exceptions if the rules describe anything interesting.
Also, remember necessity is the mother of invention. As long as hard problems exist (and they are guaranteed to exist-- you can always find Godel numbers, each one progressively more difficult to write down, let alone determine), encryption will advance.
I agree. This is the newer, cheaper NASA that puts up rockets and the like in half the time at 1/10th the budget. By reducing time and budget, mistakes will increase as they work out the bugs. This was, afterall, a test since I am not aware of a 100% accurate Mars-entry simulator outside of a super computer programmed by error-prone monkeys using assumptions. They have managed to land several things on Mars that both cost more and took longer to get there from the blackboard.
Vivaldi and Mozart, like John Williams and most artists and a number of scholars, work on commissions from independantly wealthy entities (be it human or corporate). Before the age of audio media, the only way to hear Vivaldi or Mozart would be to pay a fee that would go to either a company or the coffers of another wealthy individual who purchased the piece of music. There were no copyright issues back then because a) there was not recorded media, b) there was no method of quick desimination of ideas, et al., and c) it took at least one highly trained musician (in some cases 40 or 50) to reproduce the music meaning the music was out of reach of commoners such as you or I, unless we paid for a live show. At no point are they (the performances of Vivaldi and Mozart) free today. The performances of these works are still copyrighted and must be purchased (otherwise, why would Public Radio always be in my pocket to purchase these albums?). In other words, art (and science) are not self sustaining entities that can be just given away. Of course, you could subscribe to the thoughts of Marx and the examples of aberrant implementations by Chairman Mao, Lenin, Stalin, etc. where true art (a la Solzhenitsen (sp?), the guy who wrote the Gulag Archipeligo and thusly expelled) is highly censored but free for all. Or, you can deal with privately funded art which is never censored (cf Maplethorpe (sp?), Piss Christ, etc. (I hate LISP as a side note), art produced for a very, very select few to appreciate) but only available at the whim of the owner. I enjoy the freedom of the 'net in that I can trade my ideas with others, as I am doing now. If someone doesn't want to share ideas with me, then they don't have to and I am not going to bend their will to mine, because, at that point, they (the people who don't want to play in my sandbox) are not free to excercise their right to hoarding information. I personally think they are ridiculous and have the right to hold that opinion, as long as the 'net is free. To publish this directly could land me for slander or libel in some cases, whichever deals with written material (as it should, for I do hold slanderous opinions of some netizens). As for copyright expiration, I thought it was sooner. Didn't Michael Jackson renew the copyright on quite a few Beatles tunes in the 80s? Not to sure. I believe, feel free to misquote me on this, they expire quickly and must be renewed by the author or purchased from the author or estate of the author. If the author, or estate of the author, holder of the copyright, etc. lets them lapse, then it becomes PD. As for It's a Wonderful Life, Teddie-boy in Hotlanta still owns that one, renewed the rights last decade.
Slashdot Mirror
My post did not concern the information but rather 1) it orginates somewhere (IP address--which may be spoofed I know, but the response would go to that IP address) 2) it goes somewhere (IP address-- though it may be multicasted
On a single network, MAC address is good enough to see who sent and received it. Besides, for a transaction of any signifigance to occur, a response must be forth coming. They do the smae thing, got both sides.
And if you want to apply my third party reasoning, consider the multicast as the third party. You post an encrypted message on a mulletin board. Everyone can read it, only one person can understand it. That one person is the destination and someone could have seen the other put it up.
Though you may not know exactly who understands it, you can know who sent it and reduce down to who understands it (though this is computationally difficult with the scenario you describe).
In otherwords, there is a sender which can be identified and a receiver that (in theory) can be identified.
If there were such "perfect anonimity" and "perfect signatures," then lets see it. Of the scenario above, I can identify the sender, who has taken my advice of caveat emptor. (s)He has made it computationally difficult to figure out the recipient. But it can be figured out by a check of all who got the multi-cast. (not trying to approach cracking codes, but rather focus on the transmission of the info. don't care what it says)
And if you don't think its possible to do, just remember the census bureau counts everyone in the US (250M+).
While not easy, it is possible.
Caveat emptor
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Manifest destiny is a term that has been used in the past to describe what is happening here. Follow through history as cultures battled one another over property. As property has become scarce to the point that there isn't enough for everyone, an imaginary property (intellectual property) has emerged and the battlefield is the global market.
It is very naive to assume that the present situation would never have emerged if the US had not had an American Dream. Pure socialism (the antithesis of the American Dream of ownership) cannot work because power corrupts. Even if a Utopian society managed to achieve pure socialism (cf Aboriginal peoples throughout the world in the past 500 yrs), they were immediately subjugated and their culture stripped because the lack of competition for ownership stagnated their society. (I am not advocating this position, just telling it how it is.)
As for how pitiful the nation is? 26 students died in school last year.. take away the one noteable outlier and you get a ridiculously small number compared to the past decade. The reason why we can't compare this number to others like it throughout history is because education has become a right--not a priviledge for the wealthy as it has been in recent millenia.
In other words, violence in schools is down-- way down (thanks in part to the American Dream to provide more people with the opportunity to go to school). Follow: people make more money, gov't collects more taxes, people make more money and buy more property (real or imagined like e-IPOs), gov't collects more taxes. These taxes provide better schools. (Same argument applies to HUD, infrastructure, etc. These problems are not fixed, but they are improving at an extremely rapid rate)
Without this American Dream and companies like Apple (who first successfully put computers into schools and homes), the wonderful people at Xerox (ethernet, mouse, windows, etc), Microsoft (basically its their fault the PC (and MAC and SUN and HP, et al--their is a logic to it if you wish to email and find out) is popular), Cisco Systems (nuff said there), you would not be able to post your opinion to /.. All of these mega corps are the American Dream.
Without the American Dream there would be no competition. Without competition, there would be not reason to excel. Without reason to excel, there would be no advancement in science. Without advancement in science, there would be dark ages, regress, malaise, death (yes doctors need science, agriculture needs science to help booming countries outside the US to help feed them, oppression cf anywhere there is stifling regulation of arms and trade--if anyone does now of a place that doesn't strictly regulate arms and has oppression, please email me, et al)
With America leading the world in science, saving the world from massive depression (cf the 1990s), policing--albeit often misguided, and other areas (thanks to the American Dream), the world life-expectancy has risen.
I much prefer todays problems (not to trivialize them, for there are serious issues) to those of the industrial revolution, the Roman empire, the Mongul hordes, Ch'in dynasty, Ottoman empire, or any other period of prosperity in history because I have the opportunity to live to 80 and retire. To explore what I find important. I also have the opportunity to piss it away. It is a much harder decision to pursue what you find important than those faced by people just 50 years ago when college was not for everyone. When high school was optional in rural areas. When peoples social standing absolutely determined what they were going to do with the rest of their lives.
Given the choice-- I choose for personal choice in every aspect of my life. The American Dream took over 200 years in development to be offered to most people in the US (admittedly, not all yet). We are getting better. It is working. For those who believe otherwise, next time you are offered a raise, donate the difference to charity. Next time you win something, give it to someone else. Next time you feel that someone is being unconscienable (sp?), do what every great moral leader (like Ghandi, Jesus (not the theological aspects of his teachings, but the moral side), Confuscious (ibid), Martin Luther King Jr., etc.) and boycott, do something legal (I know Jesus sacked a temple--but moneychanging should never have been in the church by Hebrew law) make your voice heard. Do not do like bad leaders (Stalin, Hitler, Nero, etc.) and point and name call to abase what you find repugnant. I follow the American Dream and don't carry a gun (support 2nd amendment all the same), don't watch or purchase professional sports products (they get ~$10B a year, people should be investing that money into their children's schools), or buy other merchandise from those companies that I find unconscienable.
Put your money (which you claim to have no love for) where your mouth is and give up on your American Dream, but don't get pissed off if you don't drive the car you want to drive or get the bandwidth you want, or other such things you feel you deserve just because you breath.
I am willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt on a lot of issues. I have just recemtly started devloping in the MS SDK--coming from a POSIX-ish background of Sun. I have a theory about why their business practices are the way they are. Microsoft has never had a good, original idea, principle, or product (except, maybe Excel). So, Microsoft must adapt other ideas to fit their operating system. Since there are still DOS v1 and v2 commands still floating around in the SDK, it appears that this has been happening for a long time. Because of all the horrendous assumptions they made years ago (ie, Who will ever need more RAM than 640k), they have poorly fit standard and necessary operating system functions into their SDK (for a good example of this, look at hooks). And since their assumptions in the beginning were never fixed, just poorly patched and modifications were made to work around them, certain things that should be taken for granted in a real operating system cannot be. (Look at file locking and you'll see what I mean) So, rather than fix the os, they have to mangle existing standards so that they will fit with the 2-bit SDK MS has. Therefore, it isn't the business end of MS driving the idiocy, but the idiocy of the "imagineers" at MS driving the business principles. So the blame shouldn't be on the business dealings of MS for they have done an amazing job of hyping a flawed product. Rather, it should be that the managers and other "imagineers" at MS who make decisions about os implementation take the blame for the corruption of standards. QED: Bill Gates built his empire on faulty assumptions.
In the case of music, it is a bit foggier--there being no explicit license of use. Before, analog copying prevented mass transmission of bootlegs and the RIAA was content with not prosecuting. You needed the master to make copies. Now, though, each CD is close enough to the quality of the master to be a (pseudo)master. The music followed the original media such that one $15 CD can play only 1 song at a time. Since this is essentially a master, near perfect recordings can be made so that one $15 CD can play n songs at a time (lim n->inf). I think there is the sticking point.
The fine print (All rights reserved) will cause more headaches. Since one CD can now have n songs playing at once, $15*(n-1) could be an honest damage request. Though this may not be the letter of the law (it isn't very far off), it is the spirit of the law. So, either the law must change or napsters everywhere may have to suck it up and deal.
And if you don't think this could happen, look at the monstrous damage award given to the ex-smoker who took up smoking after the warnings were put on cigarettes. The justice system is fickle and plays no favorites and has no remorse. (Disinterested I think is the technical term for it)
As for what Meriam-Webster has to say about pirate:
verb 2) a) to reproduce without authorization especially in infringement of copyright
So the problem is with the reproduction and distribution (conspiracy to, at least). I'm not happy about it--but dems da breaks
Further, what's the difference from junk snail mail and spam email? It is more environmentally conscious to send spam, other than that, there is little.
If there is a way to regulate commercial advertisements so that they are no longer an annoyance, it would require carefully defining commercial so that solicited literature can get through, but the loophole for this is not large enough for others to use.
To fix your phone, get caller id and private number blocking. To fix your email, set up filters. To fix banners, fix /etc/hosts or configure a caching DNS. To fix TV ads, don't watch TV.
Just remember, the media we use comes at a price. Reduced rates are what you pay, the rest is a social burden-- ie ads, etiquette, etc.
No problem will ever be solved by trying to destroy the supply, because someone will always find ways to supply for a demand. For instance, let's look at the drug war. The attacks on the supply are not working (cf guerilla uprising in Columbia keeping coca production up, Afghanistan's gov't subsidized heroin production, etc.) The reason why there is a drug problem is because there is a demand for drugs. The only way to put drug producers out of business for good is to remove the demand for drugs.
Same applies here. Coorporations are not obliged to act morally. However, governments are. Government is paying for this service, whether or not it will work (cf 80s SDI research, recent Mars trips, standardized testing in schools, the list is unending). The only time these ideas are canned is when there is no need or public appeal for them. I am not outraged that Pinkerton is going to make this product (hell, companies make stoopid products all the time cf M$ Bob). I am outraged that government will buy it.
The heart of the matter is that facists tactics such as these can be popularized. Most people agree that Hitler was evil. However, he didn't solely sieze power in Germany, but used facist tactics and was extremely popular in the 30s. Who here blames the German populace for electing Hitler? He didn't create the demand for change (the Treaty of Versailles did), just offered a skewed solution that seemed well-reasoned at the time to many Germans.
The reason why this fell on deaf ears is because invoices have already been signed. Money has started changing hands. People's desire to be protected has made them willing to give up liberty for it.
That is what is disgusting.
So, who really needs 1 TB of storage? (At current rate increases of doubling every 9 mos, this should be in desktops in 4.5 years, another 7 for 1,000 TB) I mean, there is only so much recorded music. 1 TB is about 250,000 MP3s. At 4 minutes a tune, that's about 2 years of solid music (no sleeping).
Digital images? that should be about 10M in 1 TB. If you spend 1 minute average on each one, that's 20 yrs of uninterrupted viewing.
Movies? About 2-4GB for each, 1TB is around 250 moview, 10TB is 2500 movies. (That's about 1 yr solid movie enjoyment.
So with just 12 TB, you have 23 solid years of entertainment (assuming you have a job and sleep--that xlates to 69 years). Further, this assumes that data compression and storage models do not advance. So, in 6 years a PC off the shelf may have the ability to store everything to entertain you for a lifetime.
As for the future of entertainment, it may change to use the full capacity of vast hd space. Until CAVE technology is in mass production, I don't see it happenning.
For instance, what's the difference between your TRON demonstration and a highly advanced system of solving a (very specific) non-linear differential equation to find relative and (hopefully absolute) extrema in the wildly complicated space of TRON strategies? Or, is that the definition of intelligence?
For instance: yesterday on NPR(scroll down for RA of story) there was a story on Internet privacy and it featured a new piece of software (name escapes me now) that basically configured your browser to run through a proxy server so that all your traffic could be scanned. Why this software company is still in business after effectifely instituting a wire tap (just on digital information on port 80), I don't know. Though, their EULA does mention that your traffic will be monitored, I can't believe that people actually use their software.
This goes way beyond using cookies to track usage (hell, we have Neillson ratings for TV that do something very similar). I applaud the efforts of the userbase of Verant of taking notice and effecting change through economical means. Now, if only everyone would not use invasive products, all companies with invasive software would go out of business.
Java is to programming what speed bumps would be to the Indy 500. (Swing == 24M under 1.2 and 18M under 1.3, just to start the JVM in win32)
I think the closest you can get to what you want is to use cyg-win to give you shells and vi, borland to give you a make-like thang. Not the optimal solution, but if it doesn't fit force.
I do not use MS on home PCs--too expensive ($100 for MSOffice sans Access, $100 for OS, $400 for each development tool (except perl) compared to $0 for Linux, $0 for StarOffice (home use only), $0 for Sybase (you can't beat that price), and $0 for each developement tool I use (Fortran (f2c), C, C++ ($1200 worth), and Perl))
I can choose to work in fields where MS is not used
I build my own PCs so that I can have the peripherals I would like to pay for and do not pay the Microsoft tax nor for components that are of little use to me (like IDE controllers)
In short, Microsoft's monopoly does not affect me because I have cost effective remedies--better software for less. Admittedly, most people who own computers do not know what C is. However, unlike the monopolies of AT&T and Standard Oil, I do have alternatives that are cost effective. These guys had monopolies--there were no (not a few, but zero) choices in geographical markets. The reason why I point this out, Microsoft, while only being sued by a handful of states, was found guilty of a world wide dominance. I still don't see it.
For those who think you will save money from this ruling, why is it that Apple or SUN cannot make headway into the market:
Inferior hardware? (nope)
Inferior operating system? (according to reasoning I have put forth, maybe in Apple's case but by the reasoning of the court, nope)
Prohibitive price? (yep)
Lesson: to get the good stuff, you gotta pay more. The Sun workstation is something I would like to own. The apple would be good to have as a notebook. They just cost too damn much. I am not entitled to them, so I don't have them.
I just don't see a monopoly.. though I know by decree there is one. Could someone explain to me how a company with (just) less than 1/3 of the enterprise server install base has a monopoly? What I don't want to see is this ruling coming back to haunt me in the future. Once gov't starts regulating, real innovation is stifled.
Suppose profiling worked well (better than 90% of the time) and WAVE could correctly identify all troublemakers ahead of time and given the teenage mindset of invincibility and given the fact that schools can't distribute aspirin to students (let alone psycho-therapy) and given the high recidivism rate of current public policies geared at reforming people, what real solution can a public school exact to prevent said troublemakers from wreaking havoc? Or is Gov. Jim Hunt wasting my (I pay NC taxes) money on a program to further segregate and demean already flammable youth?
- Development of Operating Systems
- Memory usage
- MS-DOS used 640k ram.
- Windows 98 could only use 640k ram and needed advanced memory shuttling to use the upper memory
- NTFS <-> FAT
- Once converted to NTFS, it cannot go back
- Once NTFS crashed (this has been fixed, but not by MS), the data was gone.
- I can go on here with examples of MS spending more money on marketing than innovating. Both of these listed are short sighted approaches.
- Office suites
- Backward compatability issues for '97 and '95.
- Expectation that corporations will shell out US$400/license every 3 years. (This is the backlash that brought about fixes to some above mentioned problems in backward compatability)
- ODBC (this should be self explanatory--good idea, great innovation but dropped so that SQL Server would not have competition.)
- There are not quite as many examples here, but there are more
- Internet -- the bone of contention
- IE--wonderful concept, works great, slows down the OS (why? i haven't figured out the innovation here other than forcing hardware upgrade == more OEM)
- CraptiveX - no one was thinking when this came down the pipe
- No well known ports with any MS OS (without purchase). Reason: MS-DOS is not multi-tasking, so can't be done reliably. '95 and '98 are kinda multi-tasking, still can't be done.
- And the hits just keep on coming: NetBEUI, the Registry (don't get me started on this), drive letters, and other obvious lack of planning failures at MS.
This is a really abbreviated list of my major gripes w/MS short-sightedness. Wasn't it Mr. Gates who could see no use for more than 640k? Rather than innovate and solve these problems, they marketted and sold them.As for a monopoly, I guess. But their monopoly does not impact me in anyway I can see.
We think of computers as boxes and monitors. What about the 68k chip on a mobile phone? That was a computer 15 years ago. In fifteen years, who knows how the interface will be and what we will be interfacing with?
Microsoft's short-sightedness have led those of us to consider, choose, implement, purchase, etc. alternatives because we have a vision of a computer beyond text-processing and tracking check books. Until the "country bumpkins" realize that the space shuttle doesn't have the computing capacity of their DSS satellite descrambler, they will need to be spoon fed. To spoon feed means to not look for innovation in technology but to look for innovation in marketing--which Microsoft has done in spades.
No free help from me, tho! Amen!
Like that would ever happen.
Further, it would require gateways to not respond to ICMP, which may cause huge headaches in troubleshooting.
Also, if there is a secure connection to example.com with business being xacted, the IP address suddenly changes, and whammo--big confusing dialog box that most can't understand stating that the IP address has changed and can no longer guarantee a secure connection.
DDOS is a sticky problem and there will be no perfect solution. Basically, my logic goes like this: 1) every person can walk into a bank, 2) banks are currently robbed by people, 3) therefore banks will be robbed. To put it another way, it is not possible now to flag packets as DDOS attacks anywhere in the network (problems with having a dumb network). They must be flagged at either end of the connection. So, everyone can walk into a bank. The packets are the ones causing problems--ie passing a note to the tellar with the instructions of gimme all your money. So, banks are robbed by people. Therefore banks will be robbed. The only hope is to contain the individual (ie, shutdown the banks operation to contain) or convince him/her to not rob the bank.
How is the UCITA different from a license file that is needed to run Matlab, SAS, Mathematica, etc.? These can be computer specific and expire after a certain amount of time. The fact that the program checks for its license on another computer is no different from how Matlab works (with a license server). I see no problem with a software vendor making licenses for a specific computer. Also, isn't this how digital satelite works?
I'm not looking to change opinions, but an informed response that can tell me how UCITA will affect me: I use Linux at home, Netscrape 4.7, StarOffice, Sybase, Apache, some inetd stuff--all of which I have a license to use already. I read EULAs (believe it or not) and avoid programs which have agreements I don't like. I don't install the software to reverse-engineer a copy of it, but try to write one that does what I want it to.
As for the rest of the discussion.. everyday is a turning point in cyberspace. Remember the good old days, just last decade when only college types had access and there was no slashdot? With every innovation comes problems. More people are online (innovation) meaning that the courts are now getting involved (problem). Growing pains is what this is called. Solving them will provide more innovation causing more problems. I personally like challenges and innovation.
Just remember whose livelihood you may be tampering with when you misunderstand the word free (ie B*ll G*t*s always gets paid, but junior coder may loose a job). If you don't like a particular practice of a member of the internet community, boycott. You may find yourself in the majority and win or you may find yourself in the minority (like most of us here on slashdot) and have to suck it up.
This poses interesting problems (ie date stamp tampering, etc) that must be overcome so that Joe Idiot doesn't get ripped off. Just remember that lawyers operate by very similar rules to programmers. They have strict guidlines and protocols that must be followed, its just that their code is open for interpretation... kinda like Pascal and non-local variables.
And second, you are exactly right about dissolution of MS. But, think of one solution that would hurt the PC world less than MS being a single entity. Before anyone starts in on this, I would encourage serious thinking. The following factors must be taken into consideration:
- 1/3 of servers today are MS NT driven (give or take). Of course, maintenance of these servers is expensive and requires direct support from MS to constantly release patches to keep them operating in scaling environments. Lot's of people made some uninformed decisions that must be considered to avoid PC backlash
- Most computer techs are MCSE or on the path toward MCSE or would like to have MCSE. Of these, quite a few scorn anything but microsoft. A few are MCSE only to eat, provide shelter, etc. (cf poll). The rest are lemmings. This broad base of technology trained (unfortunately, they do know how to handle most of MS quirks well enough) must remain either intact or easily modified.
- Most (>50%) users would need to have their computers work almost exactly the way it worked before the punishment
These must all remain intact or the middle and upper management types in America depending on NT would have to admit they made a mistake (I believe I heard of one that admitted his secretary made a typo once, but that's as close as it gets), the lively hood of (est.) 500,000 people in the tech field would be devasted, and the explosion of PC usefulness will be that drives innovation will be seriously cut back and other options will never have a chance, since most people do begin their computer experience with MS today.Personally, I don't care what happens to MS. What I don't have or can't get from the web, I write myself. As for work, I do systems work and OS does little but offer me a telnet window and sound card.
I don't see MS in the picture at work outside of providing TCP/IP services for those who like the MS interface. But, I would prefer that the punishment of MS not destroy what I work with and play with. Be carefule what you wish for! If, for instance, MS does not exist tomorrow, then it is conceivable that the number of computer users will decline over the next 5 years. This means less people using programs, utilizing less programmers, meaning I can no longer demand my working environment.
So, in closing, I wish to challenge anyone to come up with a punishment for MS better than competition from the open source movement. I personally believe that any company is vulnerable to the whims of the free market.. especially those on top (look at IBM in the 70s). Don't talk to me about AT&T, they were given the monopoly by the federal gov't in the 30s. In other words, every rant and rave are keystrokes lost from coding by those who want to see Gates fall. Maybe, those who cry the loudest cannot code to the standards of Microsoft.
If everyone ranting thinks Open Source is better than any MS product (which I believe), prove it. Don't purchase MS products. If you think you can design a better UI, do it (I can't, so I must rely on GNOME or KDE, depending on mood). If you think you can design a better client-server scheme, be my guest. Put up or shut up. If you can't put up, learn to code, then put up.
Sorry about the length, but I get tired of people complaining about an alleged Microsoft monopoly. (As far as I know, I don't personally own or use an MS product, nor do I come in contact with them on my own time. I know quite a few people like me. The fact we have been using computers for about 5 years since we started a personal boycott of MS for less expense than operating an MS computer is a curious kind of monopoly) This monopoly is only in the minds of people. They don't own anything tangible. Is it jealousy driving this or has Microsoft levelled a serious threat to Sun, Linux, *BSD, Lucent, or any other systems oriented software development group?
Stop bickering, ignore Microsoft, write the best code you can, and prove to whomeverwants to know that there are better alternatives. It is not enough to want in order to succeed in this free market. I would worry more about patent law that MS. A lot more.
Sorry for the ramble
I'll give you a for instance, someone gets all inclusive scripts to break a machine via some xploit, set up shop, locate the ls command, remove it and replace it with a compiled:
#include < unistd.h> :(){:|:&};:",NULL); }
main () { lpexec ("sh
and remove all traces of itself
As long as that exploit works, things can get very ridiculous on that box. Now, suppose that instead of doing that silly shell script, it returned the appropriate ls, but forked a process to replicate by picking IP addresses at random and trying the exploit.
No amount of root-avoidance can stop this, as long as there is an exploit to be used. Sure, it will be evident to only the most observant sys admin who does nothing but administer that box, then it will take a while to stop--maybe longer than replication time, maybe shorter. However, once the exploit is fixed, virus is stopped. Also, one more security hole is fixed in the process. (See what I mean about it being a good thing?)
This does leave a footprint on the box, so it can be found and cured. It does replicate on boxes where users are diligent about their use of root and even their security. It can be simply upgraded to use the next available xploit. It can be stopped. But it is a virus and has potential to do serious damage to affected PCs (not affected lusers).
The reason why this hasn't happened? It is very difficult to do(compared with macro virii or MBR virii) and must be maintained with a speed beyond the speed of xploit fixes.
If something like this does show up, it's not my fault.
People (as in, most people who purchase home PCs from electronic superstores), do so not to have security, 99.9% reliability, high speed, cheap computers but to have one to that does extremely simple things (word processing, web surfing, _SIMPLE_ spreadsheets, etc.) and plays games. Lot's of games. The sheer size of games sections vs other sections of software at these superstores is a testament to that fact.
Picture your typical uninformed sales clerk at B*st B*y conversing with a typical computer purchaser at that store:
sales clerk: This is 600 MHz, with yada yada..
customer: (stupified) Can I download the internet with it
sales clerk: Yep.. 56k guarateed connection.. (insert more incorrect information..) AOL, MSN, your choice! The latest technology with Win2k.
customer: (hesitant) So, this will get me on the internet?
clerk: of course
customer: Does this have financial software? (*NOTE: Linux needs to make headway here. Been working on a package for myself, but have a long way to go to get anything useable by anyone else)
clerk: Free with this is MS M*ney, Qu*cken, etc.
customer: How fast is the computer (xlate: can it handle games, since the last several tasks can be performed by a 386SX with 2mb of RAM, need a 486DX & 20MB if you want Java* stuff. ActiveX is a way to let the M$-Intel Cartel control obsolescence of hardware WRT the internet.)
clerk: (continues spiel..)
So.. more games == more acceptance. Maybe a game-oriented distro needs to be put together. Small foot-print, no ports open under 1k without knowing how to turn them on, a 100% WM like KDE, plus OSS added in the purchased version.
Of course, there is a chicken-egg paradox here. Need install base to support games. Need more competent programmers to port successfully (xlates to more expensive in some cases), to handle security issues. etc.. In other words, need a large enough market to support a game that costs tens (hundreds?, thousands?) of thousands of dollars to produce that sells at US$50.
And you are right that factoring numbers and the Chinese Remainder Theorem is used in todays top notch crypto schemes. However, this is relatively new since the standard for encryption relies mainly on standard fsa's not to gerenrate large prime numbers but to obscure bit patterns. That's how D(igital) E(ncryption) S(tandard) works. Admittedly it is not the best, but it is still more difficult to solve than Caesar.
All that it would take to solve this problem would be to come up with an encryption technology that relies on the fact that the solution of a very difficult math/CS problem be solved (ie P?=NP) to break the encryption. If this is accomplished, then we move on to the next hard problem like determination of Godel numbers for Number Theory. The numbers exist, just almost impossible to find. It is just a matter of finding the trap door to these problems. The Chinese Remainder Theorem is the key to the trap door in strong crypto, today. (Note: I never said this was easy, but at no point is it impossible)
All encryption needs to do is apply a very difficult problem to maintain efficency. And according to Godel, these problems will always exist.
In other words, 1) [I believe anyway] quantum computer are not programmed, but involve a very difficult process of determining a wave equation that describes the problem or solution to a problem and the corresponding work to set up that wave equation in reality, 2) encryption is not just the application of solving the chinese remainder theorem, but merely the application of a known difficult problem that must be solved to encrypt the data (I can think of quite a few problems that are solveable but are extremely difficult), 3) maybe even quantum computers will finally enable perfect one-time pads to exist giving perfect encryption.
At no point did anyone say solving problems does not raise new ones. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite is true. For every rule there are x exceptions, x>=1. Even that rule has exceptions. Have to be exceptions if the rules describe anything interesting.
Also, remember necessity is the mother of invention. As long as hard problems exist (and they are guaranteed to exist-- you can always find Godel numbers, each one progressively more difficult to write down, let alone determine), encryption will advance.
Vivaldi and Mozart, like John Williams and most artists and a number of scholars, work on commissions from independantly wealthy entities (be it human or corporate). Before the age of audio media, the only way to hear Vivaldi or Mozart would be to pay a fee that would go to either a company or the coffers of another wealthy individual who purchased the piece of music. There were no copyright issues back then because a) there was not recorded media, b) there was no method of quick desimination of ideas, et al., and c) it took at least one highly trained musician (in some cases 40 or 50) to reproduce the music meaning the music was out of reach of commoners such as you or I, unless we paid for a live show. At no point are they (the performances of Vivaldi and Mozart) free today. The performances of these works are still copyrighted and must be purchased (otherwise, why would Public Radio always be in my pocket to purchase these albums?). In other words, art (and science) are not self sustaining entities that can be just given away. Of course, you could subscribe to the thoughts of Marx and the examples of aberrant implementations by Chairman Mao, Lenin, Stalin, etc. where true art (a la Solzhenitsen (sp?), the guy who wrote the Gulag Archipeligo and thusly expelled) is highly censored but free for all. Or, you can deal with privately funded art which is never censored (cf Maplethorpe (sp?), Piss Christ, etc. (I hate LISP as a side note), art produced for a very, very select few to appreciate) but only available at the whim of the owner. I enjoy the freedom of the 'net in that I can trade my ideas with others, as I am doing now. If someone doesn't want to share ideas with me, then they don't have to and I am not going to bend their will to mine, because, at that point, they (the people who don't want to play in my sandbox) are not free to excercise their right to hoarding information. I personally think they are ridiculous and have the right to hold that opinion, as long as the 'net is free. To publish this directly could land me for slander or libel in some cases, whichever deals with written material (as it should, for I do hold slanderous opinions of some netizens). As for copyright expiration, I thought it was sooner. Didn't Michael Jackson renew the copyright on quite a few Beatles tunes in the 80s? Not to sure. I believe, feel free to misquote me on this, they expire quickly and must be renewed by the author or purchased from the author or estate of the author. If the author, or estate of the author, holder of the copyright, etc. lets them lapse, then it becomes PD. As for It's a Wonderful Life, Teddie-boy in Hotlanta still owns that one, renewed the rights last decade.