...would an argument fly that journalists protecting employees violating their NDAs and journalists protecting whistleblowers are equivalent behaviors.
An employee violating their NDA is potentially disseminating trade secrets, and is potentially harming the company. A whistleblower is disseminating illegal actions performed by a company. Can illegal actions also be trade secrets (i.e. can a whistleblower be an employee violating their NDA)? Of course! IANAL, but I believe one can not, legally, profit from illegal actions.
As far as I know,
launching a sub-$500 computer isn't a crime,
Apple could have been injured by dissemination of their business plans,
and
Think Secret profited by publishing these rumors before the launch of the Mini.
Information wanting to be free seems to be a mantra around here, but how can anyone advocate that
a publication (The Washington Post) protecting a whistleblower (Deep Throat) exposing illegal activities by our government (Watergate)
is equivalent to
one company (Think Secret) making a profit from criminal activity (the employee disclosing trade secrets) against another company (Apple)?
Putting aside questions of wheither all employers offer the option of cash or stock options...
Could the spurning of stock options for cash send a message to the employer that this particular employee doesn't like the company's long-term perspectives (and/or their long-term prospects at said company)? "Gee, thanks for the 10,000 shares of Digitech stock in 3 years, but I really could use $1000 today..."
For those lucky enough to work for employers who understand money in hand today can be worth more to some people than future payment, good for them. However, I'm sure there's a number of employers who view stock options vs. cash as a no-brainer (i.e. the options), and view employees who want the former as potential un-loyal.
(Now when your employer views options vs. cash as a no-brainer to take the cash, you have to wonder about the future prospects of that company...)
...would you want to work at a company that allows employees doing interviews to reject potential candidates based on their personal opinions of the candidates' past employers, and, subsequently, on the candidates' moral fiber?
Unless the candidates had influence over their company's business deals, holding past employers against them is ludicrous:
- Would the interviewers who based their decisions on this criterion leave their current positions if the company they work for "took a direction" they disagreed with?
o If so, then either this employee is extremely strong-headed and/or already disgruntled with his current position. What does this say about the company that they allowed this employee to do interviews? Is this employee going accidentally drive candidates away?
o If not, then this employee is a hypocrite. And, again, what does this say about the company that they have this employee representing them. - Why would management want to hire someone who may quit as soon as they feel the company has "taken a direction" they disagree with? - Doesn't this line of reasoning by a interviewer implies that the candidates' ability and experience doesn't count much to the interviewer.
(Again, this only applies if the candidate had no influence at their previous employer.)
But it seems to me we should NOT ever underestimate the incredible skills of the men and women that create our wealth and keep our companies running.
*swings*
Do you mean investors and janitors?
*It's a long drive back-back-back-back-back.... gone!*
(To stretch the baseball analogy to death...)
I agree with your point, mwillems. There's definitely something to be said about the idea that successful companies require teamwork across the board. You can field an all-star team of ball players or engineers, but without skippers, CTOs, ticket punchers, sales, marketing, bobble-head doll resellers, and groupies, you're left with a bankrupted company moving to Sowasdositcalit, Montana, which has just built a new office park with stadium seating and state-of-the-art shower rooms.
... is a laudable goal, for sure but I don't see Simonyi's purposed solution as the end-all solution to eliminating complexity to software. If I understand this set of tools correctly, Simonyi is purposing a way to map software designs to actual code, which can be platform dependent.
Two lines in the article jumped out to me:
"When these tools are developed..."
Exactly, when these tools are fully developed, all will be milk and honey. I have to wonder how long is would take to develop a set of design tools that is encompasses both a wide range of design patterns and a wide range of platforms.
To what extend is there a limit to the set of possible software architectures based on the modeling tools' abstractions and UI paradigms? For example, does a traditional icon-based UI hinder diagramming designs that involve dynamically created classes and objects? (Just a hypothetical question; the answer is irrelevant to my point.)
What is the scope of the type of platforms abstracted away by this tool? Can I design stand-alone, UI applications, embedded software, and n-tier J2EE systems with the same tools? How tractable is the problem of designing design tools flexible enough to encompass all possible development platforms?
"But Simonyi's colleagues and competitors have their own, often very different ideas about how to use modeling to save software from the burden of its increasing complexity..."
With a number of competitors in the same marketplace, wouldn't there be pressure to be first to market with a tool that isn't all-encompassing of either design patterns and/or platforms. More to the point, I suspect Simonyi's solution will involve a certain amount of lock-in from the end-users either in the design patterns and/or platforms used. Some of this lock-in could be from necessarily of keeping the scope of the tools manageable. (For example, only supporting Java-based applications and systems might abstract away all Java-supporting Operating Systems from Simonyi's tools.) However, some of this lock-in might be based on economic or philosophical reasons. (For example, the design tools might only support a VM that Simonyi's company happens to build, or design patterns people within Simonyi's company have a fetish for.)
The long and short is I suspect any set of design tools that come out of the wood work, whether from Simonyi or others, will have some lock-in built into them.
A final thought: I personally believe Newton's quote: "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants." aptly applies to all engineering endeavors. Technology makes strides and improves because of continuous efforts on humanity's part to build upon and improve on previous work. I think Simonyi's purposed work will, at best, abstract away the task of converting a particular software design to actual code. However, Simonyi has then only provided a platform for much more complex designs, instead of eliminating them. Software engineering may move farther away from platform-specific coding, but the design aspects still remind, and will be expanded upon.
All that being said, as a long time Macintosh user, I wish him the best of luck.;)
You know... it's a shame with all that wonderful holodeck technology that the command interriptor was reverse engineered from Scott Adam's Pirate Adventure.
...how does brokerage houses logging IM messages affect my (our) rights online? Aren't they allowed to cover their ass if Joe Stocktrader starts sharing insider information with MakeMoneyQuick6666 on AIM?
The white paper describing how they actually track when to fire off a "token payment" should be interesting to read, as far as how far RSA techonology is involved with the solution.
"We've all known forever that Gecko missed its 'small-and-lean' target by an area code, and we've been slogging back towards the goal, dragging our profilers and benchmarks behind us, for years... WE'RE DOOMED! WE'RE DOOMED! ALL IS LOST! APPLE DIDN'T GIVE US THE RECOGNITION WE DESERVE! WE'LL NEVER FIX ALL OF MOZILLA'S BUGS! SCREW YOU GUYS, I'M GOING HOME!"
Because, you know, Mozilla developers are in it for the fame, fortune, money, women, and beer.;)
...where the government censor websites they disagree with, we'll probablity have more pressing problems with the government at that point than just mere web site blocking.
We shouldn't worry about the slope. We should worry about the bastards who grease it.
Re:It's a great place..
on
Skydriving
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Question: Do you:
a) put your friend in the driver's seat and shake him awake violently, asking him to hit the brakes;
or
b) put your friend in the passenger's seat, nudge him awake, grinning like a madman, and tell him you've found a short cut and will have him home in, oh, 3 minutes?
...yes I can. I could (theoretically, 'cos I ain't no musician) learn to play my guitar, practice my favorite songs, memorize the lyrics, practice my singing, and, viola!, I can reproduce my favorite tunes for free (minus the cost of the guitar, of course.)
I can listen to myself play for free. I can (and often) change chord progressions and lyrics to the song. And I can strum a few chorus, chant some stupid sentence over and over ("I like pie."), and, viola!, I've made new music.
OH! You mean free music as in free copies of recording of your favorite artists. Oh well, that's an issue to be resolved between you and the artist, isn't it? (Or you and the recording company, if the artist decided to give the rights to the recordings to the company)
"We need the detection technology for single photons," said Dr Shields. "But most of the other elements are there. It uses standard telecoms cables.
This sounds like a promising breakthough, although I can't help but wonder how far off in the future the detection technology is. I can claim that I have the key to teleporter technology, object decelerator technology (big, fluffy pillows), but I still need object accelerator technology (a large enough catapult).
Then again *yawn* this object decelerator technology is so comfy... maybe I'll just take a nap...
...is don't include references to Zero Wing in a post you'd like moderators to take seriously. (Of course, I assume this is why that post was modded down. Maybe they took offense to my excessive use of list tags.);)
True enough. My point was relying on VeriSign to keep keys uncompromised (which, as the article shows, they can't) without having a fallback plan is a potential flaw.
The FAQ on the Microsoft page claims this isn't a security vulnerability1 because it was a third party's fault (namely, VeriSign).
Okay, Microsoft can rightfully claim they didn't directly fuck up...
...but, looking over their definition of "security vulnerability" makes me pause
Since VeriSign's security software failed (in this case, through social hacking), because Microsoft software doesn't handle cases where VeriSign fails without patches, isn't this a design flaw, thus a security vulnerablity? (The "flaw" being heavily relying on third-party software to do the right thing in a critical task, like security... yes, I realize this is a nick-pick.)
If the whole propose of software, like "Windows Update" is to allow Microsoft to:
usurp privileges on the user's system (allow Microsoft to download and run new software and system patches)
regulate its operation (I hate having to
reset to finish installations!)
compromise data on it (Who replaced all these.dlls on my drive?)
assume ungranted trust.(Who said we ever trusted Microsoft...*cough* *cough*?)
isn't Windows Update a big old security flaw?
(Assuming Microsoft is an "attacker" of user's systems.)
Does Microsoft not assume it is an "attacker" when it downloads updates because...
...Users have to run "Windows Update" in the start menu?
...Microsoft would never run anything on user's machines that stole information about their machines, or caused their machines to crash frequently?
...All our Windows are now belong to them?
Time to hit play and get back to work...
1.A security vulnerability is a flaw in a product that makes it infeasible - even when using the product properly - to prevent an attacker from usurping privileges on the user's system, regulating its operation, compromising data on it, or assuming ungranted trust.
If PacMan had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to electronic music
Funny, that sort of describes young teeny-bopping ravers nowadays. Does the "Pac-Man effect" have a 15 year delay?:)
George Lee
Hurry Sys. Admins (was Re:I can just see it...)
on
Vulnerability In SSH1
·
· Score: 1
...only 23 days left until your server's destruction!
We're off to patch our code
We're keeping Kiddies off
To save our web servers.
Our Sys. Admins.
Searching for obsure bugs
Heading off new expliots
Leaving Quake games behind
Who knows what bugs we'll find
We must be smart and brave
And always be sure to save
If we don't, in just one year
Our website will disappear
Fighting with Script Kiddies
Who won't stop with the "ph3r m3s"
Then we'll reboot, and when we're done
More Quake for everyone with our Sys Admins!
I think you're neglecting one important fact: corporations are owned by *someone*, wheither by a small group of founders or by a large board of directors. Either way, those who own corporations end up funding the payroll and are effectively the bosses of these companies. And, of course, like most people in a capitalistic society, they're in it for the money.
It seems your worries about this "trend" in capitalism is a basic worry about the growth of the gap between the haves (the bosses) and the have nots (the employees), especially the "trend" of the "haves" using their positions of wealth to protect and acquire new wealth, such as influencing government policy, damn all others. Basic, naked greed.
Thus the "perils" of an capitalistic society. Well, more specific, American society. Political power comes either from the polling booth (sheer numbers of citizens for a certain cause), or, fail that, from the amount of wealth and influence one can use directly on those running the government (through both legal, quasi-legal, and illegal means.) And since most people don't have a large thong of followers, the other option is the more realistic one.
Hopefully, however, they will have sense enough to not specify file-types, leaving the door open for other formats like ogg, etc.
My hopes exactly. It seems silly to lock technology into certain standards and not make technology as flexible as possible, but, then again, different standards got us into the problem... somehow, preposing new standards to standardize those standards isn't going to give a clean, standard solution to the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
...would an argument fly that journalists protecting employees violating their NDAs and journalists protecting whistleblowers are equivalent behaviors.
An employee violating their NDA is potentially disseminating trade secrets, and is potentially harming the company. A whistleblower is disseminating illegal actions performed by a company. Can illegal actions also be trade secrets (i.e. can a whistleblower be an employee violating their NDA)? Of course! IANAL, but I believe one can not, legally, profit from illegal actions.
As far as I know,
and
Information wanting to be free seems to be a mantra around here, but how can anyone advocate that
is equivalent to
Putting aside questions of wheither all employers offer the option of cash or stock options...
Could the spurning of stock options for cash send a message to the employer that this particular employee doesn't like the company's long-term perspectives (and/or their long-term prospects at said company)? "Gee, thanks for the 10,000 shares of Digitech stock in 3 years, but I really could use $1000 today..."
For those lucky enough to work for employers who understand money in hand today can be worth more to some people than future payment, good for them. However, I'm sure there's a number of employers who view stock options vs. cash as a no-brainer (i.e. the options), and view employees who want the former as potential un-loyal.
(Now when your employer views options vs. cash as a no-brainer to take the cash, you have to wonder about the future prospects of that company...)
Try pre-1480 levels, before newpapers, books, and the the first printing press.
Oh, before I forget...
Jon, the grits are heated. Please send Natalie's pants.
...would you want to work at a company that allows employees doing interviews to reject potential candidates based on their personal opinions of the candidates' past employers, and, subsequently, on the candidates' moral fiber?
Unless the candidates had influence over their company's business deals, holding past employers against them is ludicrous:
- Would the interviewers who based their decisions on this criterion leave their current positions if the company they work for "took a direction" they disagreed with?
o If so, then either this employee is extremely strong-headed and/or already disgruntled with his current position. What does this say about the company that they allowed this employee to do interviews? Is this employee going accidentally drive candidates away?
o If not, then this employee is a hypocrite. And, again, what does this say about the company that they have this employee representing them.
- Why would management want to hire someone who may quit as soon as they feel the company has "taken a direction" they disagree with?
- Doesn't this line of reasoning by a interviewer implies that the candidates' ability and experience doesn't count much to the interviewer.
(Again, this only applies if the candidate had no influence at their previous employer.)
*mwillems winds up and delivers*
But it seems to me we should NOT ever underestimate the incredible skills of the men and women that create our wealth and keep our companies running.
*swings*
Do you mean investors and janitors?
*It's a long drive back-back-back-back-back.... gone!*
(To stretch the baseball analogy to death...)
I agree with your point, mwillems. There's definitely something to be said about the idea that successful companies require teamwork across the board. You can field an all-star team of ball players or engineers, but without skippers, CTOs, ticket punchers, sales, marketing, bobble-head doll resellers, and groupies, you're left with a bankrupted company moving to Sowasdositcalit, Montana, which has just built a new office park with stadium seating and state-of-the-art shower rooms.
(Sorry, the groupies sidetracked me...)
Go team!
Messing with upstream DNS entries to re-map filter.belkin.com to goatse.cx...
... is a laudable goal, for sure but I don't see Simonyi's purposed solution as the end-all solution to eliminating complexity to software. If I understand this set of tools correctly, Simonyi is purposing a way to map software designs to actual code, which can be platform dependent.
Two lines in the article jumped out to me:
"When these tools are developed..."
Exactly, when these tools are fully developed, all will be milk and honey. I have to wonder how long is would take to develop a set of design tools that is encompasses both a wide range of design patterns and a wide range of platforms.
"But Simonyi's colleagues and competitors have their own, often very different ideas about how to use modeling to save software from the burden of its increasing complexity..."
With a number of competitors in the same marketplace, wouldn't there be pressure to be first to market with a tool that isn't all-encompassing of either design patterns and/or platforms. More to the point, I suspect Simonyi's solution will involve a certain amount of lock-in from the end-users either in the design patterns and/or platforms used. Some of this lock-in could be from necessarily of keeping the scope of the tools manageable. (For example, only supporting Java-based applications and systems might abstract away all Java-supporting Operating Systems from Simonyi's tools.) However, some of this lock-in might be based on economic or philosophical reasons. (For example, the design tools might only support a VM that Simonyi's company happens to build, or design patterns people within Simonyi's company have a fetish for.)
The long and short is I suspect any set of design tools that come out of the wood work, whether from Simonyi or others, will have some lock-in built into them.
A final thought: I personally believe Newton's quote: "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants." aptly applies to all engineering endeavors. Technology makes strides and improves because of continuous efforts on humanity's part to build upon and improve on previous work. I think Simonyi's purposed work will, at best, abstract away the task of converting a particular software design to actual code. However, Simonyi has then only provided a platform for much more complex designs, instead of eliminating them. Software engineering may move farther away from platform-specific coding, but the design aspects still remind, and will be expanded upon.
All that being said, as a long time Macintosh user, I wish him the best of luck. ;)
You know... it's a shame with all that wonderful holodeck technology that the command interriptor was reverse engineered from Scott Adam's Pirate Adventure.
Try standing on the window sill and saying yo-ho.
No one will need more than 40 giga of dollars for a future of their making?
:)
Maybe I can't have my future totally in my hands, but I could live with %1 of it.
*starts counting pennies in penny jar*
...the DMA has the judge in its pocket.
You know, like a shiny penny you can take out, examine, play with, overturn popular laws with, and then put back in your pocket.
"Is that a judge in your pocket, or are you just happy to sue me?"
...how does brokerage houses logging IM messages affect my (our) rights online? Aren't they allowed to cover their ass if Joe Stocktrader starts sharing insider information with MakeMoneyQuick6666 on AIM?
Just wondering...
...Ron find an use for his "Hot Geeks of Course 6" collection.
The white paper describing how they actually track when to fire off a "token payment" should be interesting to read, as far as how far RSA techonology is involved with the solution.
They edited down Mike Shaver's posting:
;)
"We've all known forever that Gecko missed its 'small-and-lean' target by an area code, and we've been slogging back towards the goal, dragging our profilers and benchmarks behind us, for years... WE'RE DOOMED! WE'RE DOOMED! ALL IS LOST! APPLE DIDN'T GIVE US THE RECOGNITION WE DESERVE! WE'LL NEVER FIX ALL OF MOZILLA'S BUGS! SCREW YOU GUYS, I'M GOING HOME!"
Because, you know, Mozilla developers are in it for the fame, fortune, money, women, and beer.
...where the government censor websites they disagree with, we'll probablity have more pressing problems with the government at that point than just mere web site blocking.
We shouldn't worry about the slope. We should worry about the bastards who grease it.
Question: Do you:
a) put your friend in the driver's seat and shake him awake violently, asking him to hit the brakes;
or
b) put your friend in the passenger's seat, nudge him awake, grinning like a madman, and tell him you've found a short cut and will have him home in, oh, 3 minutes?
Decisions, decisions...
...yes I can. I could (theoretically, 'cos I ain't no musician) learn to play my guitar, practice my favorite songs, memorize the lyrics, practice my singing, and, viola!, I can reproduce my favorite tunes for free (minus the cost of the guitar, of course.)
I can listen to myself play for free. I can (and often) change chord progressions and lyrics to the song. And I can strum a few chorus, chant some stupid sentence over and over ("I like pie."), and, viola!, I've made new music.
OH! You mean free music as in free copies of recording of your favorite artists. Oh well, that's an issue to be resolved between you and the artist, isn't it? (Or you and the recording company, if the artist decided to give the rights to the recordings to the company)
"We need the detection technology for single photons," said Dr Shields. "But most of the other elements are there. It uses standard telecoms cables.
This sounds like a promising breakthough, although I can't help but wonder how far off in the future the detection technology is. I can claim that I have the key to teleporter technology, object decelerator technology (big, fluffy pillows), but I still need object accelerator technology (a large enough catapult).
Then again *yawn* this object decelerator technology is so comfy... maybe I'll just take a nap...
...is don't include references to Zero Wing in a post you'd like moderators to take seriously. (Of course, I assume this is why that post was modded down. Maybe they took offense to my excessive use of list tags.) ;)
George Lee
The same could be said about RPM, aptget, etc.
True enough. My point was relying on VeriSign to keep keys uncompromised (which, as the article shows, they can't) without having a fallback plan is a potential flaw.
George Lee
Let's see...
The FAQ on the Microsoft page claims this isn't a security vulnerability 1 because it was a third party's fault (namely, VeriSign).
Okay, Microsoft can rightfully claim they didn't directly fuck up...
...but, looking over their definition of "security vulnerability" makes me pause
- usurp privileges on the user's system (allow Microsoft to download and run new software and system patches)
- regulate its operation (I hate having to
reset to finish installations!)
- compromise data on it (Who replaced all these
.dlls on my drive?)
- assume ungranted trust.(Who said we ever trusted Microsoft...*cough* *cough*?)
isn't Windows Update a big old security flaw? (Assuming Microsoft is an "attacker" of user's systems.)Time to hit play and get back to work...
1.A security vulnerability is a flaw in a product that makes it infeasible - even when using the product properly - to prevent an attacker from usurping privileges on the user's system, regulating its operation, compromising data on it, or assuming ungranted trust.
George Lee
If PacMan had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to electronic music
Funny, that sort of describes young teeny-bopping ravers nowadays. Does the "Pac-Man effect" have a 15 year delay? :)
George Lee
We're off to patch our code
We're keeping Kiddies off
To save our web servers.
Our Sys. Admins.
Searching for obsure bugs
Heading off new expliots
Leaving Quake games behind
Who knows what bugs we'll find
We must be smart and brave
And always be sure to save
If we don't, in just one year
Our website will disappear
Fighting with Script Kiddies
Who won't stop with the "ph3r m3s"
Then we'll reboot, and when we're done
More Quake for everyone with our Sys Admins!
George Lee
Good to see bugs getting shaken out.
George Lee
I think you're neglecting one important fact: corporations are owned by *someone*, wheither by a small group of founders or by a large board of directors. Either way, those who own corporations end up funding the payroll and are effectively the bosses of these companies. And, of course, like most people in a capitalistic society, they're in it for the money.
It seems your worries about this "trend" in capitalism is a basic worry about the growth of the gap between the haves (the bosses) and the have nots (the employees), especially the "trend" of the "haves" using their positions of wealth to protect and acquire new wealth, such as influencing government policy, damn all others. Basic, naked greed.
Thus the "perils" of an capitalistic society. Well, more specific, American society. Political power comes either from the polling booth (sheer numbers of citizens for a certain cause), or, fail that, from the amount of wealth and influence one can use directly on those running the government (through both legal, quasi-legal, and illegal means.) And since most people don't have a large thong of followers, the other option is the more realistic one.
My two dull, dirty pennies.
George Lee
Hopefully, however, they will have sense enough to not specify file-types, leaving the door open for other formats like ogg, etc.
My hopes exactly. It seems silly to lock technology into certain standards and not make technology as flexible as possible, but, then again, different standards got us into the problem... somehow, preposing new standards to standardize those standards isn't going to give a clean, standard solution to the problem.
God, I need another cup of coffee...
Thanks for the information. :)
George Lee