Thanks for asking. I'm not sure you'll like what I have to say, though.
Therefore my question to the slashdot community is what new legislation would you support which would make those who engage in online piracy easier to track?
There can be none to support, I'm afraid. Any laws that attempt to track file sharing will be ineffectual. Cryptography and Steganography would have to be stamped out first, which just isn't going to happen. Sorry.
Most internet users are familiar with the fact that someone with an intermediate amount of network knowledge can tap into data which is sent from one location to another.
It's not just that, my friend. Within any device capable of playing back digitized content, at some point that digitized content will be in pristine format - un-encrypted and just as it was recorded. Some smart person, a "hacker" if you will, is going to figure out where in the device it's in said format and how to extract it. Then it's in a file, converted to MP3(or DiVX or whatever) and on Kazaa, or sent through PGP encrypted e-mail. Very hard to police that, without resorting to totally draconian measures.
Vice President Al Gore was the first to link the internet to the idea of the 'information superhighway.' Since Americans are already used to this term, what would the effects of the creation of a kind of 'net traffic cops;' i.e. a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?
No offence intended, but you must be a newbie to/.
First of all, Mr. Gore isn't the best name to use around here, since he has lost all credibility by speaking "authoritatively" about things he didn't understand. Internet Traffic Cops? See my arguments about Crypto and Data Extraction above. They will simply not be of any appreciative benefit to consumers - only to corporations that are trying to protect outmoded business models with flawed laws. Plus, authoritarian organizations aren't embraced with open arms, unless they're restoring authority to "the little guy". Your Traffic Cops are the antithesis of that.
For good or ill, the world of computers and the Internet is ultimately controlled by hackers. You have to be a hacker, and think like one, in order to get along.
Work with us, not against us - give some and then take some is the only way.
LMAO. Good one! How 'bout the Swedish Chef: Isha here der kernela painc. BORK! BORK! BORK!
Tho, the best Muppet for a Kernel Panic, IMHO, would be Crazy Harry. He was the muppet who _always_ carried around an explosives detonation plunger and blew stuff up, laughing hysterically. Kinda self explanitory.
..on second thought, maybe he would be better at representing BSODs...;^D
Here's an OEM that shows the true cost of Windows 2000. Directly beneath the RedHat price is the price of Windows 2000 pre-loaded - $450, which means it's $200 more.
This is likely an off-the-shelf, non OEM price (since our Redmond frinds aren't too kind to PC makers who don't feature thier OS exclusively)
the always annoying, never clever CowboyNeal option
or this:
the always annoying, never clever CowboyNeal option
If it's the former, please, please apologise to Cowboy Neal. He has never appeared to be annoying and seems very clever indeed (since he helps wrangle Slashcode). I'm sure your hurt his widdle feewings.
If it's the latter, I'd agree, except I want one option to say "Rob, what the fuck is this poll about, anyways?" or "Cripes, Rob, another lame-ass poll subject - try again." Cowboy Neal has borne the brunt of these sentiments all too often, IMHO. Poor Cowboy Neal!!!
But then again, Rob is a bastard par-excellance, so he'll keep it up I'm sure. Until people stop bitching, and he finds something else to keep thier shorts in a knot. Like subscriptions.;-D
Soko
Review: A Movie Called "Revolution Website"
on
Revolution OS
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Two geeks create a community-based discussion website that turns into a militant geek site monster that goes out of control.
Yes, yes, a monster that feeds on massive bandwidth, huge servers and is able to use a death ray to obliterate other websites!! I like it!
The geeks try to take back control with underhanded moderation and editorial tactics.
So it's like "Pirates of Silicon Valley", too? With a Godzilla like monster? Where are you going with this?
The movie ends with the site being drowned out with advertisements and the geeks fired from their own company
...and a troll known as Goody modded down to -1:-P
Don't forget about THGSB !
Hunh? THGSB? This Has Gone South, Buddy? You got me with that one...
You're a lousy script writer, director and producer, bub. Two big thumbs way down.
Lessee, a story about increasing bandwidth on a server/.ed to oblivion? That's not interestng, that's anti-climatic - I know what happens before I get to the story. Oh well...
Keep quiet, eh? We don't need 'merican Scientologists realizing that google.ca is exempt from the DCMA and all the other anti-free speech laws that come from the US, eh? Then they'll come up here and try to bug us with censorship, make inane threats and worst of all drink our beer, eh?
Soko (See the AC in this thread for the whys about the ehs, eh?)
Hardly. Infinera's thumbnail-size chip is the first integrated photonic circuit. Though Infinera won't reveal the chip's cost, when built with manufacturing techniques used by chip makers like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, it likely could be made very cheaply. The savings in manufacturing in turn would lower the cost of network equipment by half, perhaps even more. Beleaguered network carriers like Level 3 Communications and bankrupt Global Crossing could build networks for much less, and run them more efficiently and at a lower cost--maybe even profitably. For consumers, Infinera's chip could be instrumental in allowing communications companies to offer high-speed Internet access at affordable prices. And one day this technological breakthrough could lead to a device capable of projecting a holographic display, as on the TV series Star Trek.
Pretty much refutes your points.
The best thing about photonics is the absence of (photon) migration, which is a big problem with small trace size electronics (electron migration). (Aside: If a silicon engineer knows better, please correct me.) No migration happens because photons have 0 rest mass, and therefore don't have intertia. This means they are a lot less likely to over shoot the switching mechanism, and maintian signal. This is in addition to thier electrical interference resistance.
Commercial products may take a while to come to fruition since there will have to be some major re-tooling at the fabs, but with so many huge benefits, it'll come sooner than you think.
Why does everyone allways accuse the scriptkiddies of performing DOS attacks - or worse they call it hacking a server with a DOS attack?
I mean it takes some cunningness to 0wn a couple of hundred machines with a simple dail-up aol account..
Some one needs to brush up on thier definitions:
Script Kiddie n. (skript kiddee): A person who uses software tools written by someone else to exploit known security exploits in operating systems and/or server software. A person who poses as being knowlegeable about computers and how these exploits affect said computers. See JeffK.
And cunningness? To use Goolge? Come on. 3 pages into that search and I'd be in fear of my NT machines, were they not patched and behind an industrial strength firewall.
Some companies hire blackhat people to DOS their competitors once in a while, think of mail-servers. Other groups DOS certain sites because of their ethical/political/religious backgrounds.
So you want me to think that groups like these morons are capable of formulating a root exploit in order to DOS thier enemies? Right.I don't know of anyone who has half a brain that would help them do such a thing. Ergo, if they've zombied servers for DOS attacks, they're 5kr1p7 k1dd13z.
So now all of a sudden every "malicious" computer user is a scriptkiddie?
Not all, but most are. There are a few Black Hats out there who can pick apart any system they choose with tools of thier own creation. Those are the people who can strike terror into a network admin's heart - they find things that aren't known security holes, and are therefore almost impossible to stop.
The only scriptkiddies in these stories are the journalists that form their conclusions according to a certain script that's allways used when it's a story about something "evil" with computers.
That's where *nix has (or seems to, anyway) have it all over Windows in reference to secutity. I have several processes on my XP laptop that run with root privs, and do so by default unless I want to really do some hacking and change the privs they have. (I can do it, but have much better things to do) A buffer overflow later I can be hacked to death.
(Aside: To all "yuo skr1p7 k1d33z", I'm behind a good firewall. And patched to the 9s.:-P)
Only having tight, secure networking code does not good security make, though it is probably the most important. The whole must be designed to be secure or it all falls down.
I agree with you on almost every point in your post.
It's kind of a Catch22, isn't it? By helping to punish Microsoft, RedHat and other competitors are actually doing the same thing that they accuse Bill & Co. of doing - gaining un-fair advantage by means other than technical superiority and value to the consumer. Doing this could be construed as approving of Microsofts methods. However, by doing nothing, they would be giving tacit approval to Microsoft's methods even more blatantly. Neither is really acceptable IMHO.
One way around this is to declare that standards, and any extentions to accepted standards, should be documented, no matter the IP involved, no matter who's doing the extending. If it's a standard, it's a standard, period, full stop. If you want to keep your IP that extends that standard, don't use the word standard, or don't call it "standard". (This is the same equalising effect that the GPL has.) Fairness to all that way.
From what I've seen, most of the industry is mad at Microsoft for their arrogant attitude and failure to not "play nice" with others. I remeber Ballmer saying he couldn't believe that the rest of the industry didn't rally around Microsoft when the DOJ went after them - and I thought "You're either a liar, an idiot, or think that I'm an idiot, Monkey Boy. Fuck you."
When Microsoft drops that huge lever (with significant mechanical advantage) attached to Windows, other industry players may actually accept their role in the industry.
I support newsrooms that use nothing but Macs. Hundreds of them. You've given me horrendous thoughts about supporting them in teh future. Adobe Photoshop on AppleOnLine? (GAK) QPS (Quark Publishing System) on a system by the same people that do (Yek) AIM?(GAAAKKK)
-( == *cheery_voice*"You've got a Sad Mac."
Sorry, but I don't know whether to laugh or run out of my office screaming.:-P
Soko (PS - I think you're talking more about a business partnership, not a merger. That might actually be good for both companies, IMHO.)
I can think of one instance where this would be very useful.
There are instances where a DRM plan calls for mirrored FibreChannel RAID sets at very remote locations via Dark Fibre. With the advent of the IP based FibreChannel spec 2048 bit encryption (or better) would be de-rigeure, I'd suspect. IP based FC is supposed to be cheaper and more cross platform since it uses a known, standard protocol that is the basis for the Internet. So, companies may want to send entire machine images through thier OC3 Internet pipe. Now, if you sent that essentially raw data through such hostile territory poorly protected, well, the rest is obvious.
For the masses - no. For the massive, yes.
Soko
Re:why not set up a /. poll to help collect data?
on
IBM 120GXP Revisited
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
2 reasons to not use a poll:
-Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
-This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
Besides, the poll title would have to be "Rant about your stupid fucking DeskStar HDD that ate your term paper here". The trolls would have a field day.
I've had no trouble with DeskStars myself, as long as they're kept cool and not put in a situation where thier duty cycle exceeds 40% or so. Anything above that means SCSI to me, anyway. Right tool for the job and all that, y'know?
Yes, removing the IE executeable would go a long way to rectifying the situation - all 89K (IE6.0) of it - since the average user wouldn't see the "Web Browser", and leave the door open for others. Don't forget how Windows is built tho - iexplore.exe is just a COM containter. MSHTML.DLL is doing the real work.That's used by pervasively throughout the OS, and would mean eviscerating the whole OS in order to remove it. Not allowing IE to render HTML these days is counter-productive from the end-users point of view, anyway. They want HTML based help, since it's a simple click 'n go interface.
Your last suggestion is pretty close, I'd say. IE on the Mac uses the Quartz HTML redering engine, I think, so Microsoft is actually depandant on Apple there. Having IE use Konq's HTML rendering engine seems redundant - just use Konq. Having them port COM or COM+ (or making a CORBA bridge of some sort) to Linux/*BSD/*NIX would make a lot more sense, to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for asking. I'm not sure you'll like what I have to say, though.
/.
Therefore my question to the slashdot community is what new legislation would you support which would make those who engage in online piracy easier to track?
There can be none to support, I'm afraid. Any laws that attempt to track file sharing will be ineffectual. Cryptography and Steganography would have to be stamped out first, which just isn't going to happen. Sorry.
Most internet users are familiar with the fact that someone with an intermediate amount of network knowledge can tap into data which is sent from one location to another.
It's not just that, my friend. Within any device capable of playing back digitized content, at some point that digitized content will be in pristine format - un-encrypted and just as it was recorded. Some smart person, a "hacker" if you will, is going to figure out where in the device it's in said format and how to extract it. Then it's in a file, converted to MP3(or DiVX or whatever) and on Kazaa, or sent through PGP encrypted e-mail. Very hard to police that, without resorting to totally draconian measures.
Vice President Al Gore was the first to link the internet to the idea of the 'information superhighway.' Since Americans are already used to this term, what would the effects of the creation of a kind of 'net traffic cops;' i.e. a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?
No offence intended, but you must be a newbie to
First of all, Mr. Gore isn't the best name to use around here, since he has lost all credibility by speaking "authoritatively" about things he didn't understand. Internet Traffic Cops? See my arguments about Crypto and Data Extraction above. They will simply not be of any appreciative benefit to consumers - only to corporations that are trying to protect outmoded business models with flawed laws. Plus, authoritarian organizations aren't embraced with open arms, unless they're restoring authority to "the little guy". Your Traffic Cops are the antithesis of that.
For good or ill, the world of computers and the Internet is ultimately controlled by hackers. You have to be a hacker, and think like one, in order to get along.
Work with us, not against us - give some and then take some is the only way.
Soko
LMAO. Good one!
;^D
How 'bout the Swedish Chef: Isha here der kernela painc. BORK! BORK! BORK!
Tho, the best Muppet for a Kernel Panic, IMHO, would be Crazy Harry. He was the muppet who _always_ carried around an explosives detonation plunger and blew stuff up, laughing hysterically. Kinda self explanitory.
..on second thought, maybe he would be better at representing BSODs...
Soko
Yup, already gone. To wit:
/home/virtual/site1/fst/var/www/html/boards/adm in/db_mysql.php on line 38
;^)
Warning: Too many connections in
There seems to have been a slight problem with the database.
Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser.
To add insult to injury, we have beome what we hate most:
An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, who you can also contact if the problem persists.
We apologise for any inconvenience.
This guy's getting the "Slashdot-SPAMed-my-Mailbox-to-Death" effect, I would imagine. Stop SPAM! Read the karma whore's version here!
Soko
I wanna see a duck-billed platapus as a logo!
OK. Here ya go.
Soko
Here's an OEM that shows the true cost of Windows 2000. Directly beneath the RedHat price is the price of Windows 2000 pre-loaded - $450, which means it's $200 more.
This is likely an off-the-shelf, non OEM price (since our Redmond frinds aren't too kind to PC makers who don't feature thier OS exclusively)
Nice to see.
Soko
Ummmm... do you mean this:
;-D
the always annoying, never clever CowboyNeal option
or this:
the always annoying, never clever CowboyNeal option
If it's the former, please, please apologise to Cowboy Neal. He has never appeared to be annoying and seems very clever indeed (since he helps wrangle Slashcode). I'm sure your hurt his widdle feewings.
If it's the latter, I'd agree, except I want one option to say "Rob, what the fuck is this poll about, anyways?" or "Cripes, Rob, another lame-ass poll subject - try again." Cowboy Neal has borne the brunt of these sentiments all too often, IMHO. Poor Cowboy Neal!!!
But then again, Rob is a bastard par-excellance, so he'll keep it up I'm sure. Until people stop bitching, and he finds something else to keep thier shorts in a knot. Like subscriptions.
Soko
Two geeks create a community-based discussion website that turns into a militant geek site monster that goes out of control.
:-P
Yes, yes, a monster that feeds on massive bandwidth, huge servers and is able to use a death ray to obliterate other websites!! I like it!
The geeks try to take back control with underhanded moderation and editorial tactics.
So it's like "Pirates of Silicon Valley", too? With a Godzilla like monster? Where are you going with this?
The movie ends with the site being drowned out with advertisements and the geeks fired from their own company
...and a troll known as Goody modded down to -1
Don't forget about THGSB !
Hunh? THGSB? This Has Gone South, Buddy? You got me with that one...
You're a lousy script writer, director and producer, bub. Two big thumbs way down.
Soko
What about this well known book?
...(insert diatribe about scientific discovery and education here)...
Any author can stay in at the Holiday Inn and get a *gasp* free complimentary copy of an equivelent from the Gideons.
This is info hoarding at its worst, IMHO.
It's enough to make the Baby Jes...ummm, nevermind.
Soko
How'd they fare?
/. effect.
/.ed to oblivion? That's not interestng, that's anti-climatic - I know what happens before I get to the story. Oh well...
Not terribly well against the
Interesting results to say the least.
Lessee, a story about increasing bandwidth on a server
Soko
SHHH!!!!
Keep quiet, eh? We don't need 'merican Scientologists realizing that google.ca is exempt from the DCMA and all the other anti-free speech laws that come from the US, eh? Then they'll come up here and try to bug us with censorship, make inane threats and worst of all drink our beer, eh?
Soko
(See the AC in this thread for the whys about the ehs, eh?)
So, you used a link to Yahoo - in order to prevent the NYT from having info to market - on Yahoo changing thier policy on selling user info?
Gah. The irony is quite literally killing me. Stop it.
Soko
Pretty much refutes your points.
The best thing about photonics is the absence of (photon) migration, which is a big problem with small trace size electronics (electron migration). (Aside: If a silicon engineer knows better, please correct me.) No migration happens because photons have 0 rest mass, and therefore don't have intertia. This means they are a lot less likely to over shoot the switching mechanism, and maintian signal. This is in addition to thier electrical interference resistance.
Commercial products may take a while to come to fruition since there will have to be some major re-tooling at the fabs, but with so many huge benefits, it'll come sooner than you think.
Now, where to put that Holodeck....
Soko
Why does everyone allways accuse the scriptkiddies of performing DOS attacks - or worse they call it hacking a server with a DOS attack?
I mean it takes some cunningness to 0wn a couple of hundred machines with a simple dail-up aol account..
Some one needs to brush up on thier definitions:
Script Kiddie n. (skript kiddee): A person who uses software tools written by someone else to exploit known security exploits in operating systems and/or server software. A person who poses as being knowlegeable about computers and how these exploits affect said computers. See JeffK.
And cunningness? To use Goolge? Come on. 3 pages into that search and I'd be in fear of my NT machines, were they not patched and behind an industrial strength firewall.
Some companies hire blackhat people to DOS their competitors once in a while, think of mail-servers. Other groups DOS certain sites because of their ethical/political/religious backgrounds.
So you want me to think that groups like these morons are capable of formulating a root exploit in order to DOS thier enemies? Right.I don't know of anyone who has half a brain that would help them do such a thing. Ergo, if they've zombied servers for DOS attacks, they're 5kr1p7 k1dd13z.
So now all of a sudden every "malicious" computer user is a scriptkiddie?
Not all, but most are. There are a few Black Hats out there who can pick apart any system they choose with tools of thier own creation. Those are the people who can strike terror into a network admin's heart - they find things that aren't known security holes, and are therefore almost impossible to stop.
The only scriptkiddies in these stories are the journalists that form their conclusions according to a certain script that's allways used when it's a story about something "evil" with computers.
See the definition above.
Geez, you're defensive. Wonder why....
Soko
OK. You know the one about the chain, don't you?
:-P)
"A chain is only..."
That's where *nix has (or seems to, anyway) have it all over Windows in reference to secutity. I have several processes on my XP laptop that run with root privs, and do so by default unless I want to really do some hacking and change the privs they have. (I can do it, but have much better things to do) A buffer overflow later I can be hacked to death.
(Aside: To all "yuo skr1p7 k1d33z", I'm behind a good firewall. And patched to the 9s.
Only having tight, secure networking code does not good security make, though it is probably the most important. The whole must be designed to be secure or it all falls down.
Soko
Especially considering Hemos is in Japan this week, and probably sleeping right now!
Which makes this perfect. You really, truly are a bastard, Rob.
My heartiest congradulations, and welcome to the club.
Soko
Founder and President, Professional Bastards of Ontario
(All of you bitching an moaning about the Anonymous Posting thing are only providing more laughs. Keep 'em coming!!)
How about Colonel Saunders? ^_^
:-P
Whooops, you meant preparing meals for the pidgeons didn't you, not preparing the pidgeons as meals? My bad.
Soko
Ummm... did your socks have Penguins on them? ;-)
Soko
... Oh man, never work on software design when you need to take a dump...
/slaps_forehead: That's why they're so productive at One Microsoft Way - no toiltes in the whole campus. Now I get it!
:^D
Soko
I agree with you on almost every point in your post.
It's kind of a Catch22, isn't it? By helping to punish Microsoft, RedHat and other competitors are actually doing the same thing that they accuse Bill & Co. of doing - gaining un-fair advantage by means other than technical superiority and value to the consumer. Doing this could be construed as approving of Microsofts methods. However, by doing nothing, they would be giving tacit approval to Microsoft's methods even more blatantly. Neither is really acceptable IMHO.
One way around this is to declare that standards, and any extentions to accepted standards, should be documented, no matter the IP involved, no matter who's doing the extending. If it's a standard, it's a standard, period, full stop. If you want to keep your IP that extends that standard, don't use the word standard, or don't call it "standard". (This is the same equalising effect that the GPL has.) Fairness to all that way.
From what I've seen, most of the industry is mad at Microsoft for their arrogant attitude and failure to not "play nice" with others. I remeber Ballmer saying he couldn't believe that the rest of the industry didn't rally around Microsoft when the DOJ went after them - and I thought "You're either a liar, an idiot, or think that I'm an idiot, Monkey Boy. Fuck you."
When Microsoft drops that huge lever (with significant mechanical advantage) attached to Windows, other industry players may actually accept their role in the industry.
Soko
Put down the crack pipe. Now. Please.
:-P
I support newsrooms that use nothing but Macs. Hundreds of them. You've given me horrendous thoughts about supporting them in teh future. Adobe Photoshop on AppleOnLine? (GAK) QPS (Quark Publishing System) on a system by the same people that do (Yek) AIM?(GAAAKKK)
-( == *cheery_voice*"You've got a Sad Mac."
Sorry, but I don't know whether to laugh or run out of my office screaming.
Soko
(PS - I think you're talking more about a business partnership, not a merger. That might actually be good for both companies, IMHO.)
I can think of one instance where this would be very useful.
There are instances where a DRM plan calls for mirrored FibreChannel RAID sets at very remote locations via Dark Fibre. With the advent of the IP based FibreChannel spec 2048 bit encryption (or better) would be de-rigeure, I'd suspect. IP based FC is supposed to be cheaper and more cross platform since it uses a known, standard protocol that is the basis for the Internet. So, companies may want to send entire machine images through thier OC3 Internet pipe. Now, if you sent that essentially raw data through such hostile territory poorly protected, well, the rest is obvious.
For the masses - no. For the massive, yes.
Soko
Besides, the poll title would have to be "Rant about your stupid fucking DeskStar HDD that ate your term paper here". The trolls would have a field day.
I've had no trouble with DeskStars myself, as long as they're kept cool and not put in a situation where thier duty cycle exceeds 40% or so. Anything above that means SCSI to me, anyway. Right tool for the job and all that, y'know?
Soko
One of their Sun boxes is running sendmail 8.8.8. Isn't that a bit out-of-date/insecure?
Hmmmm....Can you say honeypot ?
Soko
Look out your window, bud. Do you see the black car? That's the FBI. They'd like to speak to you.
Soko
Yes, removing the IE executeable would go a long way to rectifying the situation - all 89K (IE6.0) of it - since the average user wouldn't see the "Web Browser", and leave the door open for others. Don't forget how Windows is built tho - iexplore.exe is just a COM containter. MSHTML.DLL is doing the real work.That's used by pervasively throughout the OS, and would mean eviscerating the whole OS in order to remove it. Not allowing IE to render HTML these days is counter-productive from the end-users point of view, anyway. They want HTML based help, since it's a simple click 'n go interface.
Your last suggestion is pretty close, I'd say. IE on the Mac uses the Quartz HTML redering engine, I think, so Microsoft is actually depandant on Apple there. Having IE use Konq's HTML rendering engine seems redundant - just use Konq. Having them port COM or COM+ (or making a CORBA bridge of some sort) to Linux/*BSD/*NIX would make a lot more sense, to me.
Soko