BFD. The US Constitution has provisions in it to be able to change the US Constitution.
It's the only way. You can't have a highest power that is malleable without that power giving you a way to change itself. If there was a way to change it that it didn't specify (yes, short of bloody revolution:-), then it wouldn't exactly be the "highest" power, would it?
heh.. I like this. Very interesting, if anything actually ever comes of it..
I am tired of seeing people whine, bitch, and complain about what does or does not belong on Slashdot. Frankly, I think you people do not belong on Slashdot. Shut the fuck up already.
Whether something belongs here or not is not for you to say. It is for Hemos, and CmdrTaco and JonKatz (yep, even Katz) and the people that run the site to say.
Have you nothing better to do with your pathetic little lives than to whine about the content of a NEWS site? Whether or not you think this (or any other story) is "Stuff that matters" is not the point. The point is that you are not the only one reading this site! If a story doesn't interest you, ignore it. Do not waste everyone's time bitching about how it shouldn't have been here in the first place. If the signal to noise ratio becomes too low, in your opinion, then are a quite free to stop reading Slashdot, setup your own site, turn to TV, become a crazy guy in the forest who likes to mail explosives to people, whatever.
The best way to exercise freedom of speech is to know when to speak and when to shutup. So shutup!
/me calms down /me grabs a water hose /me waits for the inevitable flames..
I first saw the movie about 3 months ago, when the VCD was floating around, and I liked it better on the little screen than on the big screen. Had more of a "amaturish" feel to it..
And yes, I did go see it in the theater this weekend, so "boooo!" to all you VCD nay-sayers..
Of course, there had been no promotion for it in the states at that time, so we had no idea what it was until we watched it. I think that added to it a bit, also..
In any case, the supa-hype kinda ruins the film a bit, since you know it's fake before you go into the theater. Admittedly, you'd have to be a bit of a complete idiot to think it was real once you saw the ending (where I was yelling "give me a break! that sucks!"), but still..
The movie was very predicable, except for those figures made out of the trees.. what the hell was that about? That was the one part I thought really really creepy. The rest was good, but not great.
Even so, it scared the hell out of my friends, who watched the VCD with me.. That was probably the best part of the flick.:-)
This is no news. All it really says is, "hey, we better enforce the laws we make, or they don't mean shit," basically. The Wassenar agreement puts restrictions on exporting crypto. If they don't enforce it, you are free to export to your heart's delight.
My problem isn't with the enforcement of the restrictions, rather, I have a problem with the restrictions themselves. Therefore this letter means nothing of any importance.
Short of someone completely taking their country off the internet, this kind of thing is utterly unenforcable anyway. Get over it people. It's just one more thing for them to nail you with if they ever catch you for something more important.:-)
Besides, everyone _already_ has the crypto. Banning export of high power crypto is like banning export of air. It just floats out of the country on it's own, and you can't stop it.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Look, this code is unoptimized. We all knew that. No news there. Now, they say they're not currently interested in optimizing it, probably for a couple of reasons. I mean they're having problems keeping up with the current load as is. What's wrong with them wanting to sort that out before they add in the problem of different code bases for various chipsets?
Look, these guys aren't experts in distributed technologies like the guys over at d.net.. Hell, no one's as expert as the guys over at d.net. You can't run d.net for as long as it's been going on and not be experts.
So the seti@home guys can't split the bits up fast enough to avoid duplicates? Well hell, there's hundreds of corporate sponsors falling all over each other to donate stuff, right? Use that!
Frankly, I thought seti@home should've teamed up with d.net from the beginning, instead of trying to setup an entirely new system. Why not use an existing infrastructure? Quite a hell of a lot of people (myself included) killed the rc5 client in order to run the seti@home client. I don't want to go back to rc5, but I don't want to duplicate work either.
Seti@home should just hand the codebase over to the d.net guys and see what they can make of it. If the setup is anything like d.net's, then they surely can help with getting more bits split, as it were. So you got too many people to help? Well, that's what you get for not doing your homework, no cookie for you. Now admit defeat, and get some FREE help.
Basically it was just a rubber bladder that had a hose attachment on it.. you screw it on, fill 'er up, let go of the little plastic clamp to close it, turn off the water..
Then to fire, you pushed the clamp, it released the pressure and bammo! 30 feet easy..
I too had the ballon explode in my face, and cause me a pretty good injury (cut my chin when the clamp hit me).. nothing serious, but painful nonetheless.. I do believe that's why you can't find them anymore.:-)
In fact, we had this same problem when we wired our ethernet thru fiber to campus. Bunches of script kiddies started leeching off of us. Here's the fix.
In the TCP/IP properties, make sure file/printer sharing is not bound. That is, under the bindings tab in the TCP/IP properties, uncheck the box next to file/print sharing and then reboot. Bam. No more broadcasting your shares out to the whole TCP/IP world.
Of course, that assumes your DSL blocks NetBEUI, which makes sense since it's non-routable.
>I don't understand what you mean, if the data is on Universal's server, what are Universal claiming has been copied? The URL?
Not even that, really.
The link to the content (i.e. movie trailer) is put on Movie-List's site in such a way as to make it appear that the trailer is stored on Movie-List's site. Universal's pissed because nobody looks at their banner ads anymore.
I say if Universal can't make people want to come to their page, screw em. Either fix your server or shut the fuck up.
Look. If you don't want people "deep linking" into your site, design it so they can't.
Make every link that people might possibly want to "deep link" to have to go through a CGI script that checks referer in order to return the actual data, not a link to it.
Script would go something like this: if REFERER=our_site then return_data_hidden_from_normal_URLs else return_message_saying_to_piss_off_and_not_link_to_ our_stuff
simple. Then just make the actual URL of the file hidden in the script. Put those files in separate directories on the site, disallow directory browsing, and don't link to them directly. For security, make the CGI directory non-readable, just executable. Then they can't download the CGI Script to disassemble and find out the actual URL. The only way someone can get the actual URL now is by a lucky guess (which is usually pretty easy, considering most normal names for things) or hacking into your server.
Geez..
What an amazingly bad comeback
on
Beaming Money
·
· Score: 1
First off, you missed the point. I said it could be fixed with the right kind of encryption. I never denied it. I just seriously doubt it'll work first try.:-)
>The neat thing about this system is that it is viral; the enabling software can spread from Palm to Palm at the speed of gossip. I don't see anything that prevents the same scheme from being used to foster an anonymous e-Cash system in the future, and once Confinity's system is widespread enough for people to start getting annoyed with its lack of privacy, the stage is set for another viral system to replace it overnight. Getting people used to exchanging money with hand-helds is the big battle, selling them on a private system that's just as easy to use is child's play by comparison.
First off, who said people exchanging money with hand-helds is a good idea in the first place? But I'll leave that alone for now.
The simple fact is that if you are trying to get people used to the fact that interpersonal electronic exchange of funds (good phrase) is good, then it has to be absolutely unbreakable. If there is just ONE instance of someone losing $50 because of this thing, then the media will be on to it like a shot, a bunch of self-appointed "experts" will say it's a buggy piece of shit, and everyone who uses it will stop. Plus, anyone else with a device that's even REMOTELY similar can just kiss that goodbye because of the bad public image generated by the first device.
Also, the "viral"-ness of it will work against it. Confinity will be seen as a big brother of sorts, although not in as large a way. What person who doesn't have a Confinity account would accept the software from another person, along with a payment, without knowing that it would work when they tried to sync it. Sure, it would work, but our mythical guy with the new software don't know that..
Now, admittedly, the Palm is currently more of a hacker toy, so this is not likely to be a problem. But it is something to think about. The "smart card" concept extending to interpersonal exchange of funds would be nice. But the technology isn't secure enough yet, IMHO. Even with Public-Key. Why? People don't want security if they actually have to do anything to accomplish it, and public-key requires a bit of work.
Who really cares about the box? Where's the software? Where's the specs? Where's the Operating System?
Have we all turned into Mac enthusists, ladies and gentlemen? Since when did the box that the damn thing comes in mean anything?!?!?!!? argh.. I had to talk a friend down from buying an iMac "because it looked cool".. I dont care if it looks like the best thing ever made in all time, if it's only got the power of a calulator inside, who the hell would want it? (yes, i know calculators are getting quite powerful now, no need to go there:-) Argh... Looks are not only not everything, they are NOTHING. We need a new poll. How many people here would buy a computer based entirely on looks? And how many people here would buy a computer based entirely on power/price, and then buy a box to put it in that looks the same as the good looking box?
The catch is that they dont pay it directly into your bank account, but into your account with them.
It helps to think of them as a bank. They hold your money, and let you spend it. If someone transfers money to you, it goes into that account which you can then spend.
A bank spends your money to make more money. That's how banks survive, other than bank fees. For some savings accounts, you pay nothing, but earn interest on the money in that account. The reason for this is that they use your money to make more money than the interest they pay you.
I wouldn't be surprised to discover that this is actually a bank somewhere, and not just an internet company.
> I wonder how they plan on making $$ on this system.... The signup is free, the software's free, the transactions are free... what does that leave them?
Your money in your account, which they are holding.
It's just like a bank. They use your money to make more money, they they keep the profit. Simple. Normally banks pay you interest (Savings accounts), but they dont have to, because they're providing you a service. Could be very profitable for them, if they get enough users, and don't go belly up inside of 6 months, which is my prediction.:-)
What an amazingly bad idea
on
Beaming Money
·
· Score: 2
From what the site says, it basically allows you to take credit card payments. Probably goes like this:
You setup your Palm with the software. You setup an account with Confinity (free-ish). You can now take credit card payments with the software, OR beamed payments from other users. When you "sync" the Palm with Confinity, the data is sent to them, and they actually charge the credit cards, and send the money to you or your account with them, whichever.
Bad idea becauses there's at least three points at which to break in and subvert the system.
-On the IR level, such as copying someone's transaction from a distance.
-At the software level, such as getting a legit payment, then hacking the software on the Palm to up the amount by a large number.
-At the return the data to Confinity, such as sending them records of transactions that never actually occured in the first place.
Plus probably more. Admittedly, all these three can be fixed with the right kinds of encryption, but I doubt they worried about that too much when writing the software.
Just don't use this for anything important for about a year or two, giving them time to work out the bugs.. Probably vaporware anyway..
Shame, shame, shame on you for hardcoding a piece of a product that should be configurable. What if you want to add a new macro (let's call it that for now) to the system?
First off, take any of those definitions you say can't be removed and remove them.:-) Make the code read those definitions in from another file. Put 'em there. Easy.
Failing that, modularize them into procedures, put those procedures in another file, then #include it.
Failing even that, replace the important bits with keywords, use #defines to replace those bits, then #include the #defines in another file.
> It's interesting that the law against digital audio copiers doesn't apply to the Rio because it is viewed as an extension of the hard drive.
Umm.. Well.. Really, it is.
In the sense that you need a computer to use it, it is a perhipheral. Without a computer, it is useless. It does not record data from any source. It accepts data from a computer, then uses that data. That's it. Bam.
But, if you wish, you can define "peripheral" pretty loosely. Example: Multi-function printers.
A Multi-Function printer (usually) combines three things into one. Combine a printer, a scanner, and a modem. Now guess what you can do, without a computer at all: Copying Fax Send Fax Recieve
With a computer, you can do scanning, printing, and modem calls also (modem calls if it's wired right, which most aren't)..
Now, is this a perhipheral? I mean, it has a lot of functionality even if you lack a computer at all. But then again, who would buy this if they didn't have a computer?
Ahh, now there's the meat of the argument. Would anyone actually buy and use the device without owning a computer? Not could they, but would they? If the answer is no, then it's probably a perhipheral device. If it's yes, then it may not be.
Even so, The Rio still must be a perhipheral, since you absolutely cannot use it without a computer. You can't even transfer data from other Rio's.
Slashdot Mirror
BFD. The US Constitution has provisions in it to be able to change the US Constitution.
:-), then it wouldn't exactly be the "highest" power, would it?
It's the only way. You can't have a highest power that is malleable without that power giving you a way to change itself. If there was a way to change it that it didn't specify (yes, short of bloody revolution
heh.. I like this. Very interesting, if anything actually ever comes of it..
Probably the Offspring parody...
Well, I can't seem to get the actual file yet, but the link in the webpage is:
d al/media/itsthepentiums.mov
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/showcase/live/weir
Too bad those aren't direct links to actual downloadable files..
I hate websites that use a link to a link to a damn streaming file.. Streaming sucks for people who actually want a copy of the damn thing.
4 minutes.. that took not long at all.. :-)
I am tired of seeing people whine, bitch, and complain about what does or does not belong on Slashdot. Frankly, I think you people do not belong on Slashdot. Shut the fuck up already.
Whether something belongs here or not is not for you to say. It is for Hemos, and CmdrTaco and JonKatz (yep, even Katz) and the people that run the site to say.
Have you nothing better to do with your pathetic little lives than to whine about the content of a NEWS site? Whether or not you think this (or any other story) is "Stuff that matters" is not the point. The point is that you are not the only one reading this site! If a story doesn't interest you, ignore it. Do not waste everyone's time bitching about how it shouldn't have been here in the first place. If the signal to noise ratio becomes too low, in your opinion, then are a quite free to stop reading Slashdot, setup your own site, turn to TV, become a crazy guy in the forest who likes to mail explosives to people, whatever.
The best way to exercise freedom of speech is to know when to speak and when to shutup. So shutup!
/me calms down
/me grabs a water hose
/me waits for the inevitable flames..
**************
:-)
***SPOILER***
**************
I first saw the movie about 3 months ago, when the VCD was floating around, and I liked it better on the little screen than on the big screen. Had more of a "amaturish" feel to it..
And yes, I did go see it in the theater this weekend, so "boooo!" to all you VCD nay-sayers..
Of course, there had been no promotion for it in the states at that time, so we had no idea what it was until we watched it. I think that added to it a bit, also..
In any case, the supa-hype kinda ruins the film a bit, since you know it's fake before you go into the theater. Admittedly, you'd have to be a bit of a complete idiot to think it was real once you saw the ending (where I was yelling "give me a break! that sucks!"), but still..
The movie was very predicable, except for those figures made out of the trees.. what the hell was that about? That was the one part I thought really really creepy. The rest was good, but not great.
Even so, it scared the hell out of my friends, who watched the VCD with me.. That was probably the best part of the flick.
They're refering only to the software. As in, Apache is a web server.
They say it needs only 750 bytes of ROM and 28 of RAM which astounds me, but whatever..
Yeah, that was shown several times on Comedy Central.. It was a special held during some awards show in Colorado.
Looks fake to me, but let's assume it's real..
:-)
This is no news. All it really says is, "hey, we better enforce the laws we make, or they don't mean shit," basically. The Wassenar agreement puts restrictions on exporting crypto. If they don't enforce it, you are free to export to your heart's delight.
My problem isn't with the enforcement of the restrictions, rather, I have a problem with the restrictions themselves. Therefore this letter means nothing of any importance.
Short of someone completely taking their country off the internet, this kind of thing is utterly unenforcable anyway. Get over it people. It's just one more thing for them to nail you with if they ever catch you for something more important.
Besides, everyone _already_ has the crypto. Banning export of high power crypto is like banning export of air. It just floats out of the country on it's own, and you can't stop it.
BTW, unless this seems normal, it seems the client may have already been hacked:
62) polle 3975 1193 hr 28 min 43.0 sec 0 hr 18 min 00.9 sec
straight off the top 100 lists just now..
Notice, 18 MINUTES to complete a work unit.. Umm.. no.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Look, this code is unoptimized. We all knew that. No news there. Now, they say they're not currently interested in optimizing it, probably for a couple of reasons. I mean they're having problems keeping up with the current load as is. What's wrong with them wanting to sort that out before they add in the problem of different code bases for various chipsets?
Look, these guys aren't experts in distributed technologies like the guys over at d.net.. Hell, no one's as expert as the guys over at d.net. You can't run d.net for as long as it's been going on and not be experts.
So the seti@home guys can't split the bits up fast enough to avoid duplicates? Well hell, there's hundreds of corporate sponsors falling all over each other to donate stuff, right? Use that!
Frankly, I thought seti@home should've teamed up with d.net from the beginning, instead of trying to setup an entirely new system. Why not use an existing infrastructure? Quite a hell of a lot of people (myself included) killed the rc5 client in order to run the seti@home client. I don't want to go back to rc5, but I don't want to duplicate work either.
Seti@home should just hand the codebase over to the d.net guys and see what they can make of it. If the setup is anything like d.net's, then they surely can help with getting more bits split, as it were. So you got too many people to help? Well, that's what you get for not doing your homework, no cookie for you. Now admit defeat, and get some FREE help.
Didn't read enough of the page, I suppose.. It has this link on there, where you can download it.
..
http://members.primary.net/~cholowa t/utility.html
Not illegal, if you ever legally owned (and did not sell) a copy of Windows 1.0
Basically it was just a rubber bladder that had a hose attachment on it.. you screw it on, fill 'er up, let go of the little plastic clamp to close it, turn off the water..
:-)
Then to fire, you pushed the clamp, it released the pressure and bammo! 30 feet easy..
I too had the ballon explode in my face, and cause me a pretty good injury (cut my chin when the clamp hit me).. nothing serious, but painful nonetheless.. I do believe that's why you can't find them anymore.
Still, great fun, and cheap too.
True.
In fact, we had this same problem when we wired our ethernet thru fiber to campus. Bunches of script kiddies started leeching off of us. Here's the fix.
In the TCP/IP properties, make sure file/printer sharing is not bound. That is, under the bindings tab in the TCP/IP properties, uncheck the box next to file/print sharing and then reboot. Bam. No more broadcasting your shares out to the whole TCP/IP world.
Of course, that assumes your DSL blocks NetBEUI, which makes sense since it's non-routable.
so where's the link? argh..
well, here's a starting link I found real quick...
http://www.ornl.gov/TechReso urces/Human_Genome/home.html
>I don't understand what you mean, if the data is on Universal's server, what are Universal claiming has been copied? The URL?
Not even that, really.
The link to the content (i.e. movie trailer) is put on Movie-List's site in such a way as to make it appear that the trailer is stored on Movie-List's site. Universal's pissed because nobody looks at their banner ads anymore.
I say if Universal can't make people want to come to their page, screw em. Either fix your server or shut the fuck up.
Look. If you don't want people "deep linking" into your site, design it so they can't.
_ our_stuff
Make every link that people might possibly want to "deep link" to have to go through a CGI script that checks referer in order to return the actual data, not a link to it.
Script would go something like this:
if REFERER=our_site then return_data_hidden_from_normal_URLs
else return_message_saying_to_piss_off_and_not_link_to
simple. Then just make the actual URL of the file hidden in the script. Put those files in separate directories on the site, disallow directory browsing, and don't link to them directly. For security, make the CGI directory non-readable, just executable. Then they can't download the CGI Script to disassemble and find out the actual URL. The only way someone can get the actual URL now is by a lucky guess (which is usually pretty easy, considering most normal names for things) or hacking into your server.
Geez..
First off, you missed the point. I said it could be fixed with the right kind of encryption. I never denied it. I just seriously doubt it'll work first try. :-)
:-)
>The neat thing about this system is that it is viral; the enabling software can spread from Palm to Palm at the speed of gossip. I don't see anything that prevents the same scheme from being used to foster an anonymous e-Cash system in the future, and once Confinity's system is widespread enough for people to start getting annoyed with its lack of privacy, the stage is set for another viral system to replace it overnight. Getting people used to exchanging money with hand-helds is the big battle, selling them on a private system that's just as easy to use is child's play by comparison.
First off, who said people exchanging money with hand-helds is a good idea in the first place? But I'll leave that alone for now.
The simple fact is that if you are trying to get people used to the fact that interpersonal electronic exchange of funds (good phrase) is good, then it has to be absolutely unbreakable. If there is just ONE instance of someone losing $50 because of this thing, then the media will be on to it like a shot, a bunch of self-appointed "experts" will say it's a buggy piece of shit, and everyone who uses it will stop. Plus, anyone else with a device that's even REMOTELY similar can just kiss that goodbye because of the bad public image generated by the first device.
Also, the "viral"-ness of it will work against it. Confinity will be seen as a big brother of sorts, although not in as large a way. What person who doesn't have a Confinity account would accept the software from another person, along with a payment, without knowing that it would work when they tried to sync it. Sure, it would work, but our mythical guy with the new software don't know that..
Now, admittedly, the Palm is currently more of a hacker toy, so this is not likely to be a problem. But it is something to think about. The "smart card" concept extending to interpersonal exchange of funds would be nice. But the technology isn't secure enough yet, IMHO. Even with Public-Key. Why? People don't want security if they actually have to do anything to accomplish it, and public-key requires a bit of work.
Plus people are stupid.
Who really cares about the box?
:-)
Where's the software?
Where's the specs?
Where's the Operating System?
Have we all turned into Mac enthusists, ladies and gentlemen?
Since when did the box that the damn thing comes in mean anything?!?!?!!?
argh.. I had to talk a friend down from buying an iMac "because it looked cool"..
I dont care if it looks like the best thing ever made in all time, if it's only got the power of a calulator inside, who the hell would want it?
(yes, i know calculators are getting quite powerful now, no need to go there
Argh... Looks are not only not everything, they are NOTHING.
We need a new poll. How many people here would buy a computer based entirely on looks?
And how many people here would buy a computer based entirely on power/price, and then buy a box to put it in that looks the same as the good looking box?
Honestly... sheesh..
The catch is that they dont pay it directly into your bank account, but into your account with them.
It helps to think of them as a bank. They hold your money, and let you spend it. If someone transfers money to you, it goes into that account which you can then spend.
A bank spends your money to make more money. That's how banks survive, other than bank fees. For some savings accounts, you pay nothing, but earn interest on the money in that account. The reason for this is that they use your money to make more money than the interest they pay you.
I wouldn't be surprised to discover that this is actually a bank somewhere, and not just an internet company.
> I wonder how they plan on making $$ on this system.... The signup is free, the software's free, the transactions are free... what does that leave them?
:-)
Your money in your account, which they are holding.
It's just like a bank. They use your money to make more money, they they keep the profit. Simple. Normally banks pay you interest (Savings accounts), but they dont have to, because they're providing you a service. Could be very profitable for them, if they get enough users, and don't go belly up inside of 6 months, which is my prediction.
From what the site says, it basically allows you to take credit card payments. Probably goes like this:
You setup your Palm with the software.
You setup an account with Confinity (free-ish).
You can now take credit card payments with the software, OR beamed payments from other users.
When you "sync" the Palm with Confinity, the data is sent to them, and they actually charge the credit cards, and send the money to you or your account with them, whichever.
Bad idea becauses there's at least three points at which to break in and subvert the system.
-On the IR level, such as copying someone's transaction from a distance.
-At the software level, such as getting a legit payment, then hacking the software on the Palm to up the amount by a large number.
-At the return the data to Confinity, such as sending them records of transactions that never actually occured in the first place.
Plus probably more. Admittedly, all these three can be fixed with the right kinds of encryption, but I doubt they worried about that too much when writing the software.
Just don't use this for anything important for about a year or two, giving them time to work out the bugs.. Probably vaporware anyway..
Shame, shame, shame on you for hardcoding a piece of a product that should be configurable. What if you want to add a new macro (let's call it that for now) to the system?
:-) Make the code read those definitions in from another file. Put 'em there. Easy.
First off, take any of those definitions you say can't be removed and remove them.
Failing that, modularize them into procedures, put those procedures in another file, then #include it.
Failing even that, replace the important bits with keywords, use #defines to replace those bits, then #include the #defines in another file.
There is ALWAYS a way.
May the force be with you.
> It's interesting that the law against digital audio copiers doesn't apply to the Rio because it is viewed as an extension of the hard drive.
Umm.. Well.. Really, it is.
In the sense that you need a computer to use it, it is a perhipheral. Without a computer, it is useless. It does not record data from any source. It accepts data from a computer, then uses that data. That's it. Bam.
But, if you wish, you can define "peripheral" pretty loosely. Example: Multi-function printers.
A Multi-Function printer (usually) combines three things into one. Combine a printer, a scanner, and a modem. Now guess what you can do, without a computer at all:
Copying
Fax Send
Fax Recieve
With a computer, you can do scanning, printing, and modem calls also (modem calls if it's wired right, which most aren't)..
Now, is this a perhipheral? I mean, it has a lot of functionality even if you lack a computer at all. But then again, who would buy this if they didn't have a computer?
Ahh, now there's the meat of the argument. Would anyone actually buy and use the device without owning a computer? Not could they, but would they? If the answer is no, then it's probably a perhipheral device. If it's yes, then it may not be.
Even so, The Rio still must be a perhipheral, since you absolutely cannot use it without a computer. You can't even transfer data from other Rio's.
Good call, judges.