Can you give me ONE example where that "very important difference"... made a difference?
No, I feel strangely compelled to give TWO:
1. Pharmaceuticals. They can't patent the actual drug, only the methods for manufacturing/synthezising/producing it. This makes it possible for other companies to come up with new ways of making the same drugs, creating competition and lowering prices.
2. Ohh, I'll just hop along and patent the concept of faster-than-light travel, shall I? No matter that I haven't actually figured out how to do it, I'll just patent the concept. That patent system would be even worse than the one we have now...
Um, yeah. In the pattern buffer interface right next to the impulse-stream modulator. Stick Berman in it and then transport the whole section into a nearby star. Kinda like the Beam-A-John 3000:
Enterprise Tech Manual, page 378:
The Galaxy-class starships are the first Federation-built space vessels built with only one conventional bathroom (in the Captain's private cabin). All other cabins come with a Beam-A-John 3000 personal transporter that will transport all human (or alien) waste products into space, well aft of the ship.
The model 3000 also has the newly implemented Waste-Away feature that gives the feces a relative speed to the ship corresponding to one quarter impulse power. This ensures that, even during heavy manoeuvering, the ship will never double-back and hit anything to spoil that beautiful off-white Federation paintjob. Should the inertial dampening field collapse, the Beam-A-John 3000's powerful sensor array can also cope with any kind of surprise vomit attack. The main and battle bridges are ofcourse equipped with enough transporter power to handle an elephant's excrement, should Q see fit to materialize one there.
Star Trek can't die. It can enter a state of suspended animation, however, and that's what it should do. Hibernate, if you will, to be revived when we have the technology to cure it. Put the whole thing in a time capsule and dig it up in five years, conveniently "forgetting" to pack any oxygen for Berman. That should do the trick nicely.
Whatever was on there outside of the 40MB was gone and I had to copy over the remaining images and format the disk.
That's happened to me a few times too. What I did was run Scandisk on the card (most of them are just FAT32 anyway) and hey presto, there was a bunch of files in FOUND.000 which, after I gave them.JPG extensions, turned out to be valid picture files. After I retrieved the files, I re-formatted the card and it was good to go.
My point was that it's on the way and in the roadmap. Since it seems there's some controversy about 2.6 really is stable or not, it makes a certain kind of sense to stay with 2.4 for now, but plan for 2.6. If you can't wait, use 2.4. For most server applications, this shouldn't be a problem. If you can wait - no problem.
And I don't think there'll be a karma bonfire in here.:-)
We will not release any new 2.4.22 versions (2.24.22-3 is last).
2.4.24 release is pending test and review.
2.4.26 release will be the last official openMosix release for 2.4 and after that, we'll move to 2.6.
Step 1: Discover Cold Fusion
Step 2: Generate heat
Step 3: Get slammed as a junk scientist as few others can reproduce your experiment
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Revenge!
My question is, has anyone seen an open, public hotspot that's meant to be used by anybody who wants, that isn't posted as such? I haven't.
Come on over. I run one from my home and have installed another with three D-Link APs in a theatre in town that services the conference rooms, lobby and town square. Public, open, meant to be used by the public who happens to notice them. The theatre one is good PR for the theatre and the bandwidth consumed by passers-by is negligible. Somehow, the tents with leeching masses of bandwidth-thirsty vampire geeks have failed to materialize there. Maybe it's got something to do with the bad summer weather we've had. You just haven't beenlooking, have you?
And what do you mean, "posted as such"? With.public in the SSID? Wardriving symbols on the pavement outside? On billboards? Mimes on the sidewalk gesturing for you to tune in, log on and geek out[1]? Neon-sign equipped blimps floating by, featuring husky female voices urging you to try out the new hotspot?
[1] )( Tune in, log on, geek out... Hey, that's practically a Cafepress license to print money! Gold! Thar's gold in them here hills! Gold I tell you!
First, the open wifi is intended to be used by the public and notices are posted in the library.
Yes? They put up notes after this incident detailing new opening hours for their open, public WiFi hotspot. You really didn't read the article, did you? It's OK, it seems almost no one else did either - after all, this is Slashdot.
The Nantucket library charges you $15 for a card if you're from outta town. That little fact right there pretty much kills your argument dead in the water. Not only is it perfectly legal for anyone, from any country in the world, to walk in, get a library card and check out a book, they can also use the library's toilet, read a book (even without a card) or magazine on the premises, talk to a friendly librarian and chat up the cute girl in the cafeteria. Hallmark terrorist activites, all of them! The illegal bit only comes in when someone tries to monitor someone elses activities in a public library. Perhaps you need to look up the word "public". Try going to the library and look it up. In another state. Go on, they won't arrest you. Trust me on this.
But I'll just have one more shot at this little error:
That's why you need a card (to prove you're from that area).
No, you need the card to check out a book. So they can keep track of the book. Not you. The book. Again, it's actually illegal in the US to keep track of you and your reading habits unless you're the FBI. The library card is not proof that you're from a specific area. In Soviet Russia, travel documents tracked you! In the rest of the world, you actually don't need to stay in your state-appointed region to use the local library.
BTW, do you get a lot of that where you live? People coming in from the other town and using up your services? Maybe walking on your sidewalks, driving on your roads? Possibly even going for a walk in your park? Jail is too good for that kind of criminal mastermind - kill them I say! Teach the commie bastards a lesson! Leeching off your public property... Sheesh, the nerve of some people. Better stay at home and stack up on shotgun shells, you never know when one of Them might come wandering by, wilfully admiring Your personal hard-earned view of the bestest trailer park in the world.
It therefore stands to reason that the wifi network is an internal system not intended for the public, and therefore not a public wifi point.
Nope. The internal terminals are all wired, but even if they had been wireless, surely they would have been hooked up to the encrypted AP that the library operates side-by-side with the open AP? It stands to reason that the encrypted AP is the internal network while the unencrypted AP is a public hotspot.
That brings us back to the argument of whether a open but private wifi point can be used by anyone.
Not really. It brings us to the argument of whether an open wifi point can be considered private. I claim that established protocol says it's public. Reason being is that it's impossible for a casual observer to distinguish between a public hotspot knowingly offered as a service to the public and a "private" AP that just hasn't been secured, especially if distance from the AP becomes a factor (ie "this AP is public up to this point, but private if you cross this line/wall/door/road/imaginary boundary in the air"). If you make it theft of signal to use an unencrypted AP you are making criminals out of regular Joes which is a bad idea for any law, rule or protocol. I applaud efforts to rename public hotspots to name.public, but until that becomes established protocol, we'd better go with the flow. The jails are already full.
What if he'd been using the WiFi inside the building, placed his still running TiBook in his bag and walked out? Would he become a criminal at the door? It just doesn't wash.
This is probably true that the library did not inform the police officer that someone was using their open wifi outside, but clearly the officer knew of this rule before the "incident".
He couldn't have known about the rule since it didn't exist. Read the Internet Access Policy on the library's website. Ain't there.
Furthermore, the cop cited a federal law, not a library rule.
Doesn't mean there aren't restrictions on its use.
Oh, there are. You're not allowed to crack restricted networks, and the like. It's in their Internet Access Policy, on their website. No mention about not being able to sit outside and use their open, public AP, though. And no mention of a federal law making it illegal either. Odd, that.
Hrmm... library is closed? Means the services they provide are as well I believe.
You would believe wrong.
4. I don't get into town much. How can I take advantage of the Atheneum?
If you are homebound, the Atheneum offers free delivery of books, CDs, tapes and videos. For all cardholders, there is also direct access to the online databases of the Atheneum's reference services. Also, reference librarians are happy to respond to your questions by e-mail.
YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME.
And, viewing their website isn't limited to office hours, is it? You're just being difficult.
Because
libraries offer free access to all, they bring opportunity to all.
Intellectual Freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction.
The E-rate has played a pivotal role in helping libraries connect their users to the Internet. Today more than 95% of our nation's libraries offer Internet access to the public.
Research shows that for people without Internet access at home, school or work, public libraries are the number one point of access.
Sure, you can read a book inside the library without checking it out and that goes beyond the discussion (because you are still following protocol).
And accessing an open AP is also following protocol. You may wish it wasn't so, but it is.
How can you say that being in close proximity of the library is being a patron?
Because it's protocol. Anyone using the library's services is, by definition, a patron. He had a library card, he sat on their bench, leaned against the library wall and accessed their open public AP (not their closed, encrypted one, mind you). He's a patron. Read their web, they specify how to use the library's resources, request books and search their databases from your home, hundreds or thousands of miles away. Being a patron of a library is demonstrably not a geographic function.
Library staff may limit use of computer equipment which has been purchased from grant funds, according to the terms or intent of the grant agreement.
Users will not make any attempt to gain unauthorized access to restricted files or networks, or to damage or modify computer equipment or software.
The library staff did not limit use of the computer equipment, it was an open AP, hence by definition unlimited. A cop came along and cited a non-existant federal law and rousted him from a public area.
The priest did not make any attempts to gain unauthorized access to any restricted file or network. It was unrestricted. None of these rules apply and I suspect you just added them to look like you read their website. Maybe you did read it, but you obviously didn't understand a word.
How can you even say that has anything to do with it?
It doesn't. And neither did your analogy. "You can not compare apples and bandwidth." I'm quite sure I wrote that in the post you replied to. Mine was just another example of the futility to try and construct analogies between tangibles and intangibles.
I'm sure that the library doesn't have a sign saying: "please connect to the Internet, other people inside aren't doing the same"
7. What does it cost me to use Atheneum services?
Your Atheneum card provides access to virtually all of our services and is issued to residents at no cost. The card is available to out of state residents for fifteen dollars.
BTW, the library was closed so it's not as if he was consuming anyone else's bandwidth - he had the pipe to himself.
At least he should have went inside and asked a librarian
At least you should have read the article. THE LIBRARY WAS CLOSED.
We need to stop the idea that any "hotspot" without a WEP key or WPA is free for anyone to use.
No we don't. We need to make sure all AP operators know to secure them if they don't want them used. Otherwise there will be tons of laws and people will go to jail and their lives will be ruined, because they followed the prevailing protocol - an open AP is a free AP. We can't reverse that protocol more than we can reverse the protocol that says that you can sit on a public bench outside the library or the protocol that says that you shouldn't take apples from outside the grocery story.
But we can educate the owners of access points on the protocol.
Let me quote a bit of the library's FAQ for your education:
4. I don't get into town much. How can I take advantage of the Atheneum?
If you are homebound, the Atheneum offers free delivery of books, CDs, tapes and videos. For all cardholders, there is also direct access to the online databases of the Atheneum's reference services. Also, reference librarians are happy to respond to your questions by e-mail.
Alas, you do not have to be sitting inside the building to be a patron of the Nantucket Atheneum. In fact, you can be thousands of miles away and still receive helpful responses from the library's trained staff. So why, pray tell, would the bench right outside be off-limits for card-carrying patron priests?
Slashdot Mirror
The defense rests, your Honorificness.
No, I feel strangely compelled to give TWO:
1. Pharmaceuticals. They can't patent the actual drug, only the methods for manufacturing/synthezising/producing it. This makes it possible for other companies to come up with new ways of making the same drugs, creating competition and lowering prices.
2. Ohh, I'll just hop along and patent the concept of faster-than-light travel, shall I? No matter that I haven't actually figured out how to do it, I'll just patent the concept. That patent system would be even worse than the one we have now...
A right-honoured reverend from the Church of Emacs will shortly pay you a small correctional visit, heretic.
Star Trek - Savek Potter and the Vulcan's stone? Hm.
*groan* :-D
And if Microsoft would die, we'd be all out of topics.
(From the Netcraft-confirms,-yada,-yada,-yada-dept.)
Star Trek can't die. It can enter a state of suspended animation, however, and that's what it should do. Hibernate, if you will, to be revived when we have the technology to cure it. Put the whole thing in a time capsule and dig it up in five years, conveniently "forgetting" to pack any oxygen for Berman. That should do the trick nicely.
That's happened to me a few times too. What I did was run Scandisk on the card (most of them are just FAT32 anyway) and hey presto, there was a bunch of files in FOUND.000 which, after I gave them .JPG extensions, turned out to be valid picture files. After I retrieved the files, I re-formatted the card and it was good to go.
And I don't think there'll be a karma bonfire in here. :-)
Step 1: Discover Cold Fusion
Step 2: Generate heat
Step 3: Get slammed as a junk scientist as few others can reproduce your experiment
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Revenge!
There it was hiding, I was looking in the Browse Games menu. Thanks. It says "just released" too. But they're just teasing. :-/
You really should have done it first oportunity you got.
That was like half an hour after the previous Slashdot article. I couldn't even connect to Steam then, much less begin pre-loading.
I got the prompt to pre-load before, denied it to let the server load subside a bit and now I can't get it to ask me again. Now what?
Come on over. I run one from my home and have installed another with three D-Link APs in a theatre in town that services the conference rooms, lobby and town square. Public, open, meant to be used by the public who happens to notice them. The theatre one is good PR for the theatre and the bandwidth consumed by passers-by is negligible. Somehow, the tents with leeching masses of bandwidth-thirsty vampire geeks have failed to materialize there. Maybe it's got something to do with the bad summer weather we've had. You just haven't been looking, have you?
And what do you mean, "posted as such"? With .public in the SSID? Wardriving symbols on the pavement outside? On billboards? Mimes on the sidewalk gesturing for you to tune in, log on and geek out[1]? Neon-sign equipped blimps floating by, featuring husky female voices urging you to try out the new hotspot?
[1] )( Tune in, log on, geek out... Hey, that's practically a Cafepress license to print money! Gold! Thar's gold in them here hills! Gold I tell you!
Yes? They put up notes after this incident detailing new opening hours for their open, public WiFi hotspot. You really didn't read the article, did you? It's OK, it seems almost no one else did either - after all, this is Slashdot.
+12 Insightful. Damn, I'm running out of virtual modpoints here!
+10 Insightful. 'Nuff said.
But I'll just have one more shot at this little error:
That's why you need a card (to prove you're from that area).
No, you need the card to check out a book. So they can keep track of the book. Not you. The book. Again, it's actually illegal in the US to keep track of you and your reading habits unless you're the FBI. The library card is not proof that you're from a specific area. In Soviet Russia, travel documents tracked you! In the rest of the world, you actually don't need to stay in your state-appointed region to use the local library.
BTW, do you get a lot of that where you live? People coming in from the other town and using up your services? Maybe walking on your sidewalks, driving on your roads? Possibly even going for a walk in your park? Jail is too good for that kind of criminal mastermind - kill them I say! Teach the commie bastards a lesson! Leeching off your public property... Sheesh, the nerve of some people. Better stay at home and stack up on shotgun shells, you never know when one of Them might come wandering by, wilfully admiring Your personal hard-earned view of the bestest trailer park in the world.
Nope. The internal terminals are all wired, but even if they had been wireless, surely they would have been hooked up to the encrypted AP that the library operates side-by-side with the open AP? It stands to reason that the encrypted AP is the internal network while the unencrypted AP is a public hotspot.
That brings us back to the argument of whether a open but private wifi point can be used by anyone.
Not really. It brings us to the argument of whether an open wifi point can be considered private. I claim that established protocol says it's public. Reason being is that it's impossible for a casual observer to distinguish between a public hotspot knowingly offered as a service to the public and a "private" AP that just hasn't been secured, especially if distance from the AP becomes a factor (ie "this AP is public up to this point, but private if you cross this line/wall/door/road/imaginary boundary in the air"). If you make it theft of signal to use an unencrypted AP you are making criminals out of regular Joes which is a bad idea for any law, rule or protocol. I applaud efforts to rename public hotspots to name.public, but until that becomes established protocol, we'd better go with the flow. The jails are already full.
What if he'd been using the WiFi inside the building, placed his still running TiBook in his bag and walked out? Would he become a criminal at the door? It just doesn't wash.
He couldn't have known about the rule since it didn't exist. Read the Internet Access Policy on the library's website. Ain't there.
Furthermore, the cop cited a federal law, not a library rule.
Oh, there are. You're not allowed to crack restricted networks, and the like. It's in their Internet Access Policy, on their website. No mention about not being able to sit outside and use their open, public AP, though. And no mention of a federal law making it illegal either. Odd, that.
You would believe wrong.
And, viewing their website isn't limited to office hours, is it? You're just being difficult.Furthermore, the ALA has this to say:
But no, let's lock down the library!
And accessing an open AP is also following protocol. You may wish it wasn't so, but it is.
How can you say that being in close proximity of the library is being a patron?
Because it's protocol. Anyone using the library's services is, by definition, a patron. He had a library card, he sat on their bench, leaned against the library wall and accessed their open public AP (not their closed, encrypted one, mind you). He's a patron. Read their web, they specify how to use the library's resources, request books and search their databases from your home, hundreds or thousands of miles away. Being a patron of a library is demonstrably not a geographic function.
Library staff may limit use of computer equipment which has been purchased from grant funds, according to the terms or intent of the grant agreement.
Users will not make any attempt to gain unauthorized access to restricted files or networks, or to damage or modify computer equipment or software.
The library staff did not limit use of the computer equipment, it was an open AP, hence by definition unlimited. A cop came along and cited a non-existant federal law and rousted him from a public area.
The priest did not make any attempts to gain unauthorized access to any restricted file or network. It was unrestricted. None of these rules apply and I suspect you just added them to look like you read their website. Maybe you did read it, but you obviously didn't understand a word.
How can you even say that has anything to do with it?
It doesn't. And neither did your analogy. "You can not compare apples and bandwidth." I'm quite sure I wrote that in the post you replied to. Mine was just another example of the futility to try and construct analogies between tangibles and intangibles.
I'm sure that the library doesn't have a sign saying: "please connect to the Internet, other people inside aren't doing the same"
BTW, the library was closed so it's not as if he was consuming anyone else's bandwidth - he had the pipe to himself.
At least he should have went inside and asked a librarian
At least you should have read the article. THE LIBRARY WAS CLOSED.
We need to stop the idea that any "hotspot" without a WEP key or WPA is free for anyone to use.
No we don't. We need to make sure all AP operators know to secure them if they don't want them used. Otherwise there will be tons of laws and people will go to jail and their lives will be ruined, because they followed the prevailing protocol - an open AP is a free AP. We can't reverse that protocol more than we can reverse the protocol that says that you can sit on a public bench outside the library or the protocol that says that you shouldn't take apples from outside the grocery story.
But we can educate the owners of access points on the protocol.
Alas, you do not have to be sitting inside the building to be a patron of the Nantucket Atheneum. In fact, you can be thousands of miles away and still receive helpful responses from the library's trained staff. So why, pray tell, would the bench right outside be off-limits for card-carrying patron priests?