That's pretty sad. I've known plenty of conservatives that didn't want religion pushed on everyone. Maybe they were actually moderates with conservative leanings, rather than the neocons we're seeing in politics today.
Abortion comes down to whether or not you feel that the fetus is a human being, deserving of all of the rights and privileges that all human beings have. If you believe this to be true, then abortion is murder, and should be treated as such. If you don't believe that the fetus is a human, then there is no good reason to ban abortion.
Don't think that all people who are against abortion want to take away the choices of other people. They have a fundamental difference in perception of the fetus, which leads them to this belief. To them, the assertion that "You're trying to take away a person's right to choose." is equivalent to saying, "You're trying to take away a person's right to randomly shoot people on the street." It's murder, to pro-lifers.
The title of the posting makes this clear. "Why Are Students Liable for School Insecurity?" They aren't. They are liable for their actions. I'm glad to see a few people in this thread have some freaking sense.
I don't think that the school is trying to pretend that they aren't blocking anything. I'm pretty sure that Websense throws up a big "YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE" if you try to access a 'bad' site.
Blacklists are actually a pretty decent compromise between free reign and highly restrictive whitelists. They are imperfect, but it's probably pretty likely that the same false positives they throw wouldn't be available on the whitelist anyway, and they do allow more potential sites to be accessed.
Example? Websense will probably block msexchange.com. Whitelists probably wouldn't think to add it in an educational setting. But there are probably plenty of websites that Websense doesn't block, but that whitelists still wouldn't access.
Ah, but here's the difference: when early colonial patriots were captured and punished, they didn't whine about it. They didn't somehow claim that the rules shouldn't apply to them. The knew the risks, took the chances, and lost.
Civil disobedience is important. Fighting injustice is important. But going against the rules and then whining about it, or somehow claiming that the rules shouldn't apply to you is just stupid. And there's no indication that these students were trying to make some stand or prove some point--their argument is that the school should have protected them from being able to break the rule. That'd be like saying there should be chips in our heads that force compliance with the PATRIOT act so that we can't break it.
This obviously interferes with performance at work Are you honestly suggesting that browsing the web at work doesn't affect performance? By definition, you aren't doing something useful to the company. If it is useful to the company, get an exemption.
If you want more precision, start with yourself.
In relation to this article Article? What article? I only saw a link to the school's website and a rant with some unsubstantiated claim on the part of the administrators.
students access proxies because of information censorship which they disapprove of. I'm so glad that the students disapproval is important here. Then again, it's probably less 'disapproving' and more 'I want to go to myspace, and I'll do anything I need to on the school's property in order to do so.'
Therefore an attempt to block access to proxies is NOT a security issue and is ONLY a censorship issue. There are NO specifics in this article, so who knows whether or not the students were bypassing security in order to access the proxies? We do know that one student (the poster, himself) admits to bypassing security by using a boot CD.
students should not be punished as if they committed a security violation, because they did not. Where did you get information that they didn't commit a security violation? The clearly bypassed a censorship policy, however nowhere in the "article" did they mention anything about how they got around these things, other than the vague "use of a proxy".
Though I just checked Websense's website, and one of the ways they promote their product is to help secure systems against spyware. Guess that probably counts for something.
That's a trick question. Of course they should secure their computers. Failing to do so, however, does not diminish his culpability. I don't think that failing to put a BIOS password on the computers constitutes an creating an attractive nuisance.
Let's look at it this way. If there was a rule that you weren't supposed to go to pornographic websites on school property, but there was no software in place that censored or prevented this behavior, would you expect someone who intentionally went to a porn site to be punished? Most people would say yes. There was a rule in place, they broke the rule, they get punished.
I was shocked reading the content of the slashdot posting!
I was punished for using a Linux LiveCD to login to their computers without using a password, even after I told the admins how to disable booting from CD-ROMs. Read that again. This person is blaming the administration for allowing him to do something that was against the rules. Perhaps he would like to be chained to his desk so that he cannot get up, move about, disturb the class, and get in trouble with the teacher?
It's so absolutely outrageous that I don't know where to begin discussing how terrible it is. He's asking for a nanny state (most Slashdotters seem to think that a nanny state is bad). He's asking for stronger censorship on the part of the school (blocking access to proxies). He's asking for the admins to change the computer security settings so that he isn't capable of doing something that he knows will get him into trouble. It's truly insane, and honestly, it sounds like someone managed to troll Slashdot into fighting for these absurd things by appealing to the "OMG, highschool kids have no rights!" crowd.
I'm constantly posting here to explain why copyrights and patents are vital for continued innovation and creativity I agree with this, but only to a point. I don't believe that infinite copyright is vital for continued innovation, and I don't think that fair use should go out the window just because violating copyright got a little easier. I don't mind copyright one bit, but I want to be able to copy my DVDs to a central file server so that I not only have a backup, but I can watch them from anywhere in the world without carrying the DVD with me. I also don't think that copyright should enable companies to restrict content from being played in some regions in the world. When I buy a copy of a work, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, so long as I don't distribute unauthorized copies to other people.
All that said, I'm lessening in my stance that copyright is vital for continued innovation. Back when copyright was established, it was undeniably true. The barrier to entry was extraordinarily high. Having a hobby of creating a work and selling it was much, much harder. Nowadays, more and more people have the free time required to create very impressive works--the Internet and much of its content is a testament to that. Dead tree publishing is still expensive, but not nearly as much as it used to be. Distribution is the hardest part, now, simply because we've become so globalized.
And yet, despite copyright seemingly becoming less important, it has become more powerful. The DMCA increased the power of copyright. The Sonny Bono act (and similar laws through history) have extended the amount of time that copyrights are valid, and the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the laws legal (effectively creating an infinite copyright, as extensions are only a lobby away).
I think copyright is still useful, however most of the additions within the past 50 or so years are awful. They go against the spirit of a limited monopoly, and unreasonably restrict consumer's rights.
Right, but this isn't copyrighting. This is a number used in circumvention of "effective copy controls." Lots of people have made this mistake in web publications.
Of course, you can also argue that a DVD contains one really, really long number, and thus should not be copyrightable. I tell those people that they're full of shit and move on.
It's pretty crappy, because according to the DMCA, they only have to take down content which they are specifically notified of. There's no way that the MPAA is keeping up with the storm on Digg, so it's got to be the admins being proactive. When you start censoring, you start losing some of the protections that the DMCA affords you. I doubt this will be the end of Digg, but if the MPAA got ballsy enough, they might try to shut the site down, since it's clearly impossible to keep all that user-submitted content off of the front page.
Ug, are you saying that TPM is no longer shipped on the Intel Macs? That's pretty disappointing, as I was hoping that I'd eventually be able to play with the Trusted Grub project.
The easiest way to abuse the moderation system is simply social engineering, and no matter how good your algorithms are, it's going to be hard to prevent that kind of 'attack'.
Of course, I'll probably get modded down for saying this.
Quite possibly. I can't comment on the Linux side because I tend to prefer the command line and editing config files, as long as my edits don't munge the few GUI configuration utilities that I do like. I haven't explored how much Ubuntu lets you do through GUIs because 'sudo aptitude install wireshark' is just so much easier.
Really, the point of my post was that there are often very good reasons for telling someone to use the command-line. It often is faster and easier than trying to deal with the GUI, particularly for phone support, but also for support on forums, where screenshots may be bulky or significantly different depending upon your software version.
"Click 'my computer'. Ok, is it open? Click 'Control Panel'. Click 'Network Connections'. You don't see 'Network Connections'? Do you see 'Network and Internet Connections?' Ok, click that."
I've rarely had to make a registry edit to make Windows work.
I have used the command line, and when I worked technical support, I instructed users to use it, too. Why? Because it's easier to tell them to "Start->Run->cmd [pause] ipconfig/release [pause] ipconfig/renew" than to guide them through 5 menus which may have changed since the last release of Windows, tell them to right-click, and repair. Then to verify that things worked, guide them even further through menues and dialogs.
The command line is quick, but there are usually GUI options available for these types of tasks in Windows.
I don't follow the kernel releases anywhere but on Slashdot, honestly. Though I'm typically interested in the new features, Slashdot usually has more information that I care about, rather than the detailed changelog that has extremely low-level changes. Generally, I'm interested in stability, security, and feature enhancements, and the summary+comments tends to hit all of the important ones in any given release.
She bought a new computer. If she'd kept her reinstallation CDs (an actual copy of 98, not an image) she could have transferred it, had she wanted to, and gotten a small, token refund from HP for the OEM copy of Windows XP that she wasn't going to use. However, as she hadn't kept her reinstall media, she had the option of keeping XP or buying a potentially illicit copy on eBay. Since she was going to be spending the money anyway, what's the point? She kept XP.
So.. what was your point? Are you about to argue that HP should have offered Windows 98 on her computer purchased in 2003?
Microsoft will offer a minimum of 10 years of support for Business and Developer products. Mainstream support for Business and Developer products will be provided for 5 years or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Microsoft will also provide Extended support for the 5 years following Mainstream support or for 2 years after the second successor product (N+2) is released, whichever is longer. Finally, most Business and Developer products will receive at least 10 years of online self-help support.
Consumers get a little less time:
Microsoft will offer Mainstream support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Extended support is not offered for Consumer, Hardware, Multimedia, and Microsoft Dynamics products. Products that release new versions annually, such as Microsoft Money, Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft Picture It!, and Microsoft Streets & Trips, will receive a minimum of 3 years of Mainstream support from the product's date of availability. Most products will also receive at least 8 years of online self-help support. Microsoft Xbox games are currently not included in the Support Lifecycle policy.
Ok. Minimum of 5 years. Seems kinda short, I guess. What's Ubuntu's policy?
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop or server, with a fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can imagine available from the network, a commitment to security updates for 18 months after each release and professional technical support from many companies around the world.
18 months. Now for the price, that's exceptional, but your argument had nothing to do with price, and everything to do with version upgrades. If updates are your metric for determining whether users are "forced" to upgrade, look no further than the announced support cycle for Ubuntu 5.10.
They looked like they'd gotten better, no doubt. With 6.06, you get 5 years of upgrades--the same minimum guaranteed by Microsoft http://www.ubuntu.com/news/606released:
Ubuntu is freely available, including security updates for five years on servers, with no restrictions on usage and no requirement to purchase support contracts or subscriptions per deployment.
Ubuntu 7.04 will be supported for 18 months on both desktops and servers. Note that 6.06 LTS is a long-term support release, and so users requiring a longer support lifetime may choose to continue using that version rather than upgrade to or install 7.04.
So we're back to 18 months. Microsoft's stated support minimum is more than 3 times longer than Ubuntu's, except for the aberration of Ubuntu 6.06.
So who's 'forced' to upgrade in order to keep support?
I mainly focused on Ubuntu because that's what the person you replied to was talking about. Redhat, arguably the best known Linux vendor, gives their cycle here: http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ They give you 7 years of
The upgrade path is crappy, but expected if they're actually dropping functionality.
Anyway, yes, I'm capable of looking up the differences myself, but I didn't ask for the differences; I asked for what made Ultimate the only one worth a damn (which is obviously subjective). I'm pretty sure that they're referring to an application for scanning images in rather than an API for scanning. I'm sure I can still scan photos into Photoshop or whatever paint program that supports grabbing images from the scanner with Home Premium. I'd also imagine that the same is true for Fax, and incidentally, I think that XP Pro has a fax application built in. Imagine buying an "upgrade" and actually losing a bit of functionality!
Aside from Fax and Scan, I don't think there's anything on there that I care for. The media center stuff isn't that useful unless I'm making it a dedicated media center. I wouldn't trust BitLocker farther than I could throw it. Backups might be nice for the home user, and I'm surprised that it's not in all versions of Vista, considering OS 10.5's much touted Time Machine. And remote access? Please, I consider it a feature that it's NOT included!
That's not to say that I think that the whole Vista version mess isn't ridiculous to begin with, but coming from the standpoint of the features they chose to include in the various versions, I'm not at all surprised at how their upgrade matrix worked out.
Fantastic point. If you have to retrain anyway (Vista+Office 2007), why not retrain to Linux+OpenOffice?
Mostly, it's because people think that money buys you something. They don't really know what it is (if you buy Windows without volume licensing or contracts, you're not getting much in the way of support). There's also the idea that the company will have some longevity, whereas with FOSS, there's the idea that if the main developer quits, the project is over, and you're screwed.
Basically, people buy MS for peace of mind. It's hard to put a price on that, even if it's misplaced.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. The vocal ones tend to be the extremists, and they tend to make the whole group look bad.
Neither political party is for the people. They're all for themselves, and they use the people in order to get and maintain their elected positions.
That's pretty sad. I've known plenty of conservatives that didn't want religion pushed on everyone. Maybe they were actually moderates with conservative leanings, rather than the neocons we're seeing in politics today.
Abortion comes down to whether or not you feel that the fetus is a human being, deserving of all of the rights and privileges that all human beings have. If you believe this to be true, then abortion is murder, and should be treated as such. If you don't believe that the fetus is a human, then there is no good reason to ban abortion.
Don't think that all people who are against abortion want to take away the choices of other people. They have a fundamental difference in perception of the fetus, which leads them to this belief. To them, the assertion that "You're trying to take away a person's right to choose." is equivalent to saying, "You're trying to take away a person's right to randomly shoot people on the street." It's murder, to pro-lifers.
Troooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oollllllllllllllll!
The title of the posting makes this clear. "Why Are Students Liable for School Insecurity?" They aren't. They are liable for their actions. I'm glad to see a few people in this thread have some freaking sense.
I don't think that the school is trying to pretend that they aren't blocking anything. I'm pretty sure that Websense throws up a big "YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE" if you try to access a 'bad' site.
Blacklists are actually a pretty decent compromise between free reign and highly restrictive whitelists. They are imperfect, but it's probably pretty likely that the same false positives they throw wouldn't be available on the whitelist anyway, and they do allow more potential sites to be accessed.
Example? Websense will probably block msexchange.com. Whitelists probably wouldn't think to add it in an educational setting. But there are probably plenty of websites that Websense doesn't block, but that whitelists still wouldn't access.
Ah, but here's the difference: when early colonial patriots were captured and punished, they didn't whine about it. They didn't somehow claim that the rules shouldn't apply to them. The knew the risks, took the chances, and lost.
Civil disobedience is important. Fighting injustice is important. But going against the rules and then whining about it, or somehow claiming that the rules shouldn't apply to you is just stupid. And there's no indication that these students were trying to make some stand or prove some point--their argument is that the school should have protected them from being able to break the rule. That'd be like saying there should be chips in our heads that force compliance with the PATRIOT act so that we can't break it.
Though I just checked Websense's website, and one of the ways they promote their product is to help secure systems against spyware. Guess that probably counts for something.
http://www.websense.com/global/en/ResourceCenter/
That's a trick question. Of course they should secure their computers. Failing to do so, however, does not diminish his culpability. I don't think that failing to put a BIOS password on the computers constitutes an creating an attractive nuisance.
I was shocked reading the content of the slashdot posting! I was punished for using a Linux LiveCD to login to their computers without using a password, even after I told the admins how to disable booting from CD-ROMs. Read that again. This person is blaming the administration for allowing him to do something that was against the rules. Perhaps he would like to be chained to his desk so that he cannot get up, move about, disturb the class, and get in trouble with the teacher?
It's so absolutely outrageous that I don't know where to begin discussing how terrible it is. He's asking for a nanny state (most Slashdotters seem to think that a nanny state is bad). He's asking for stronger censorship on the part of the school (blocking access to proxies). He's asking for the admins to change the computer security settings so that he isn't capable of doing something that he knows will get him into trouble. It's truly insane, and honestly, it sounds like someone managed to troll Slashdot into fighting for these absurd things by appealing to the "OMG, highschool kids have no rights!" crowd.
All that said, I'm lessening in my stance that copyright is vital for continued innovation. Back when copyright was established, it was undeniably true. The barrier to entry was extraordinarily high. Having a hobby of creating a work and selling it was much, much harder. Nowadays, more and more people have the free time required to create very impressive works--the Internet and much of its content is a testament to that. Dead tree publishing is still expensive, but not nearly as much as it used to be. Distribution is the hardest part, now, simply because we've become so globalized.
And yet, despite copyright seemingly becoming less important, it has become more powerful. The DMCA increased the power of copyright. The Sonny Bono act (and similar laws through history) have extended the amount of time that copyrights are valid, and the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the laws legal (effectively creating an infinite copyright, as extensions are only a lobby away).
I think copyright is still useful, however most of the additions within the past 50 or so years are awful. They go against the spirit of a limited monopoly, and unreasonably restrict consumer's rights.
Right, but this isn't copyrighting. This is a number used in circumvention of "effective copy controls." Lots of people have made this mistake in web publications.
Of course, you can also argue that a DVD contains one really, really long number, and thus should not be copyrightable. I tell those people that they're full of shit and move on.
It's pretty crappy, because according to the DMCA, they only have to take down content which they are specifically notified of. There's no way that the MPAA is keeping up with the storm on Digg, so it's got to be the admins being proactive. When you start censoring, you start losing some of the protections that the DMCA affords you. I doubt this will be the end of Digg, but if the MPAA got ballsy enough, they might try to shut the site down, since it's clearly impossible to keep all that user-submitted content off of the front page.
Ug, are you saying that TPM is no longer shipped on the Intel Macs? That's pretty disappointing, as I was hoping that I'd eventually be able to play with the Trusted Grub project.
The easiest way to abuse the moderation system is simply social engineering, and no matter how good your algorithms are, it's going to be hard to prevent that kind of 'attack'.
Of course, I'll probably get modded down for saying this.
(hint: that was an example)
Quite possibly. I can't comment on the Linux side because I tend to prefer the command line and editing config files, as long as my edits don't munge the few GUI configuration utilities that I do like. I haven't explored how much Ubuntu lets you do through GUIs because 'sudo aptitude install wireshark' is just so much easier.
Really, the point of my post was that there are often very good reasons for telling someone to use the command-line. It often is faster and easier than trying to deal with the GUI, particularly for phone support, but also for support on forums, where screenshots may be bulky or significantly different depending upon your software version.
"Click 'my computer'. Ok, is it open? Click 'Control Panel'. Click 'Network Connections'. You don't see 'Network Connections'? Do you see 'Network and Internet Connections?' Ok, click that."
And so on.
I've rarely had to make a registry edit to make Windows work.
/release [pause] ipconfig /renew" than to guide them through 5 menus which may have changed since the last release of Windows, tell them to right-click, and repair. Then to verify that things worked, guide them even further through menues and dialogs.
I have used the command line, and when I worked technical support, I instructed users to use it, too. Why? Because it's easier to tell them to "Start->Run->cmd [pause] ipconfig
The command line is quick, but there are usually GUI options available for these types of tasks in Windows.
I don't follow the kernel releases anywhere but on Slashdot, honestly. Though I'm typically interested in the new features, Slashdot usually has more information that I care about, rather than the detailed changelog that has extremely low-level changes. Generally, I'm interested in stability, security, and feature enhancements, and the summary+comments tends to hit all of the important ones in any given release.
I did miss that, thanks for pointing it out!
She bought a new computer. If she'd kept her reinstallation CDs (an actual copy of 98, not an image) she could have transferred it, had she wanted to, and gotten a small, token refund from HP for the OEM copy of Windows XP that she wasn't going to use. However, as she hadn't kept her reinstall media, she had the option of keeping XP or buying a potentially illicit copy on eBay. Since she was going to be spending the money anyway, what's the point? She kept XP.
So.. what was your point? Are you about to argue that HP should have offered Windows 98 on her computer purchased in 2003?
XP came out Dec 31, 2001. From Microsoft's website http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy:
Microsoft will offer a minimum of 10 years of support for Business and Developer products. Mainstream support for Business and Developer products will be provided for 5 years or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Microsoft will also provide Extended support for the 5 years following Mainstream support or for 2 years after the second successor product (N+2) is released, whichever is longer. Finally, most Business and Developer products will receive at least 10 years of online self-help support.
Consumers get a little less time:
Microsoft will offer Mainstream support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Extended support is not offered for Consumer, Hardware, Multimedia, and Microsoft Dynamics products. Products that release new versions annually, such as Microsoft Money, Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft Picture It!, and Microsoft Streets & Trips, will receive a minimum of 3 years of Mainstream support from the product's date of availability. Most products will also receive at least 8 years of online self-help support. Microsoft Xbox games are currently not included in the Support Lifecycle policy.
Ok. Minimum of 5 years. Seems kinda short, I guess. What's Ubuntu's policy?
From their announcement https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2005-October/000038.html:
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop or server, with a
fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of
excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can
imagine available from the network, a commitment to security updates
for 18 months after each release and professional technical support
from many companies around the world.
18 months. Now for the price, that's exceptional, but your argument had nothing to do with price, and everything to do with version upgrades. If updates are your metric for determining whether users are "forced" to upgrade, look no further than the announced support cycle for Ubuntu 5.10.
They looked like they'd gotten better, no doubt. With 6.06, you get 5 years of upgrades--the same minimum guaranteed by Microsoft http://www.ubuntu.com/news/606released:
Ubuntu is freely available, including security updates for five years on servers, with no restrictions on usage and no requirement to purchase support contracts or subscriptions per deployment.
But wait. The 7.04 release of Ubuntu reverts back to 18 months--they say that the 6.06 series was a "long term support release" https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2007-April/000102.html.
Ubuntu 7.04 will be supported for 18 months on both desktops and servers. Note that 6.06 LTS is a long-term support release, and so users requiring a longer support lifetime may choose to continue using that version rather than upgrade to or install 7.04.
So we're back to 18 months. Microsoft's stated support minimum is more than 3 times longer than Ubuntu's, except for the aberration of Ubuntu 6.06.
So who's 'forced' to upgrade in order to keep support?
I mainly focused on Ubuntu because that's what the person you replied to was talking about. Redhat, arguably the best known Linux vendor, gives their cycle here: http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ They give you 7 years of
The upgrade path is crappy, but expected if they're actually dropping functionality.
Anyway, yes, I'm capable of looking up the differences myself, but I didn't ask for the differences; I asked for what made Ultimate the only one worth a damn (which is obviously subjective). I'm pretty sure that they're referring to an application for scanning images in rather than an API for scanning. I'm sure I can still scan photos into Photoshop or whatever paint program that supports grabbing images from the scanner with Home Premium. I'd also imagine that the same is true for Fax, and incidentally, I think that XP Pro has a fax application built in. Imagine buying an "upgrade" and actually losing a bit of functionality!
Aside from Fax and Scan, I don't think there's anything on there that I care for. The media center stuff isn't that useful unless I'm making it a dedicated media center. I wouldn't trust BitLocker farther than I could throw it. Backups might be nice for the home user, and I'm surprised that it's not in all versions of Vista, considering OS 10.5's much touted Time Machine. And remote access? Please, I consider it a feature that it's NOT included!
That's not to say that I think that the whole Vista version mess isn't ridiculous to begin with, but coming from the standpoint of the features they chose to include in the various versions, I'm not at all surprised at how their upgrade matrix worked out.
Fantastic point. If you have to retrain anyway (Vista+Office 2007), why not retrain to Linux+OpenOffice?
Mostly, it's because people think that money buys you something. They don't really know what it is (if you buy Windows without volume licensing or contracts, you're not getting much in the way of support). There's also the idea that the company will have some longevity, whereas with FOSS, there's the idea that if the main developer quits, the project is over, and you're screwed.
Basically, people buy MS for peace of mind. It's hard to put a price on that, even if it's misplaced.