Used to be? I guess you young whippersnappers wouldn't remember the George Michael debarkle and the MTV video with him wearing headsets with the 'FONY' logo.
Sony have been a pack of pricks for a very, very long time.
The problem with these 'higher' programming languages is that they are the house built upon the sand.
The folks that build the microprocessors have everyone else by the balls, and we don't even know it.
Introduce true multi-core processors, and where is your VB? Where is your Python? Your Java? Your Eclipse?
Introduce Quantum computing, and all the high level languages need to be thrown out because they will be incapable of expressing a functional solution to a problem on these new platforms.
All that this is doing is breeding a generation of programmers who are too lazy to manage their typecasting properly because the auto-completion does it for them.
To me, this is about the distinction between 'business programming' and 'computer science'. In business, you want your development platform to compensate for the McDonald's grade programmers you hire (because they're cheap). In science, you want freedom to innovate and explore.
This technology has its place, and it is at the boring end of the spectrum.
This appears to be more of the 'nanny state' mentality that Microsoft is shoving down our throats.
When a coder (or more accurately a DBA) puts dates in a string field, they usually have a good reason to do so. Preventing them from doing a date range query on their string field reduces their ability to function efficiently. Sure, it is elegant, but elegant usually means bigger, fatter and slower.
This is the old case of narrowing the band of opportunity so that the lowest performers can't make the obvious mistakes. When will they realise that they are also stifling the highest performers? Give us some credit folks. We're not all first year out of college./rant
This act will only encourage patent trolling. It will increase the rates of industrial espionage in a country that is already struggling with cyber-crime.
The original inventors will have to become legal wizards in addition to their existing skillset.
Still, why should I care? I'm not American, and anything that stifles American invention can only be good for my country.... sooooo.... thanks America! Good job there!
Sad to hear that it didn't work for them. It scared the crap out of me.
That and the sign showing a stickman figure falling off a cliff at their snowfields. The subcaption said something like 'You will die on the other side of this fence'.
Having come from an incredibly politically correct country, it was refreshing and disturbing all at the same time.
I did a presentation with a slightly older group where the task was to replace a flat tyre.
Same kind of thing. It was hilarious. I actually had to intervene to stop their 'program' from dropping the car on my foot - which triggered off a whole new stream of conversation that I had not been anticipating.
Yes and no. NZ is famous for eliminating political correctness. If you ever visit their hot mud springs, you will see signs that say things like 'If you cross this line, you will die in a pit of boiling mud'.
Having said that, there is impetus for laws that are based on the concept that 'you can be held accountable for the actions of others'. For example, speed cameras. If your car is recorded speeding through a camera, you are legally accountable. It is your responsibility to demonstrate that you were not behind the wheel at the time.
For many, this is a breach of some of the fundamental principles of law (innocent until proven guilty, etc) - but it allows for the crimes to be prosecuted easily - AND it has the added bonus of people becoming very responsible about who gets to drive their car.
Translate to broadband = "Be very careful about how you secure your broadband. You are accountable for it."
Now, whilst there are a large number of people out there who don't know how to secure their broadband, its actually not that hard, and they'll learn. I don't see their ignorance as a justifiable reason to throw out this kind of law.
The real problem I think is going to be mobile broadband - or free broadband hotspots. Companies that offer those services will be in big trouble when they find out what people are using their broadband for...
At the moment, my company is aggressively encouraging our customers to avoid the Cloud at all costs. Let me explain why.
Whilst the technology exists for the cloud to deliver fault tolerant distributed storage, when you choose to put data in the cloud, you are choosing to relinquish control of the data. You are placing it in the hands of someone else. Quite probably an organisation that you do not know intimately. Quite probably an organisation that is based in a different legislative region - probably another country.
You have little to no capacity to audit their system. You have little to no capacity to test their fault tolerance. And here's the sucker punch - you have little to no legal comeback for the consequences if something bad happens.
If your data contains any personal information about another person, you are placing the privacy of that person in the hands of an organisation you do not control, and upon whom you cannot enforce any legislative restrictions.
So, unless you are seriously geared up to investigate and audit your prospective cloud provider - and they are willing for you to do so, the only data you can safely put in the cloud is data that would be basically irrelevant to your core business anyway. Until the fundamental issues of privacy, security and accountability are resolved - or dramatically improved - placing core business data in the Cloud is a massive corporate risk.
They should not have called it the 'Cloud'. They should have called it the 'Arse' - because if your management are planning to stick their heads in one, they may as well stick their heads up the other. I don't imagine that 'Arse Computing' would be as popular though.
The Internet is currently a little bit like the American Wild West.
Its filled with various folk, some lawful, some lawless, and many hiding in obscurity and anonymity either for self protection, a general sense of freedom, or to escape prosecution or persecution.
It will get regulated. In the same way that the Wild West become controlled. It is just a matter of time.
Arguing about the rightness or wrongness of the loss of anonymity is roughly equivalent to complaining that our sun will eventually expand to a red giant and consume the earth.
For those of you who wish to delay it, good luck to you. Personally, I welcome our new digital overlords.
is the reason I do not own a Mac. It is the reason I do not own an iPod or an iPad or an iPhone. And am unlikely to ever do so.
The patent system may be broken, but it is not the patent system that is killing technology, it is Apple. If they can't make all the money from it, then no-one can. I believe that is Mr Jobs' philosophy.
Well, Mr Jobs, you can stick your technology where the sun don't shine.
There's a lot of anti-BSA whargarbl going on in this thread.
Try to remember that whilst the BSA have over-reached their mandate at times, they are fundamentally not the bad guy. Regardless of whether you agree with software licensing concepts, it is currently the way that our law works - and the BSA are the group that take civil action to uphold that law.
I don't know anything about your business except that it is quite young, and that it is quite small. It is time for you to start treating your business like a business. Every asset held by your business should be in a register. That register should cross reference the purchasing proof, and any subsequent maintenance expenses associated with the purchase. This extends way beyond mere software purchases. It should also cover off all your hardware, and even your office furniture.
Now, you might be thinking 'That sounds like a whole lot of hard work.' It is. Welcome to the business world. If you ever intend to sell your business, either privately or via an IPO, you will need these kinds of things. The good news is that the devil is in the setup. Once you have this register, it is easy to keep it up to date. You simply add another line every time you purchase an asset, or spend money on it. The even better news is that you can reverse engineer the asset register from your known purchases.
When the BSA come a-knocking, you simply hand them your asset register, and tell them that you are willing to participate in any audit they wish to undertake, as long as they fund it. It would also help if you can hand them the employment contract that all new staff signed when they joined. You know the one... it has the clause about them being personally liable for any civil or criminal case resulting from their actions. If you don't have that contract in place now, time to start.
Oh... and one last thing. You might be thinking about going through your workstations, servers and backups and deleting every illegal piece of software you can find. Not only is this a really good idea right now, it should be standard practice for your business. You should do this exact activity regularly.
Good luck with it. You may face some tough times in the immediate future, but you will come out the other end with a clean nose, and a much more professional business model than before.
This is quite possibly the most succinct and intelligent post I have seen on this subject in a long time.
Sadly, I believe that there is a scientific debate going on about this subject - but we never get to see it, as the meaningful content is drowned out by the media noise.
There will certainly be a number of ways to encrypt transmissions on the sly, and the Pakistani Govt will eventually be forced to allow a certain level of encryption to banks and/or military suppliers (maybe licensed encryption?). However, for the vast majority of punters, it will make subversive activities much harder.
As I follow it through, it seems to be consistent with the ongoing push (in some parts of the world) to de-anonymise (is that a word?) the Internet. And that's a whole debate in its own right.
I'm not going to try to get into the rightness or wrongness of it (though I do hold a fairly strong opinion) - but it seems that it lays the battle ground for the upcoming Internet war of freedom. The Pakistani govt will have to establish a cyber-crime unit specifically to catch/prosecute Internet Encrypters. Opponents will release steganographic based torrent tools, and so forth. The majority of punters will probably comply with their governments' wishes - either because they elected them, or are fearful of them. I imagine that a fair amount of 'abuse of power' will occur.
IMHO - the history of mankind has seen a progressive form of regulation, particularly in the last 50 years. Our identities have gradually become less and less private, and our rights to 'dance around the border of what is legal' have become more tightly controlled. That journey has been littered with foolhardy govt mandates that are largely impractical - but that define useful perimeters around more useful regulation that will come later.
Slashdot Mirror
Used to be? I guess you young whippersnappers wouldn't remember the George Michael debarkle and the MTV video with him wearing headsets with the 'FONY' logo.
Sony have been a pack of pricks for a very, very long time.
Now, get off my lawn!
Why not? Just about everything else in the Australian outback is deadly to humans.
The problem with these 'higher' programming languages is that they are the house built upon the sand.
The folks that build the microprocessors have everyone else by the balls, and we don't even know it.
Introduce true multi-core processors, and where is your VB? Where is your Python? Your Java? Your Eclipse?
Introduce Quantum computing, and all the high level languages need to be thrown out because they will be incapable of expressing a functional solution to a problem on these new platforms.
All that this is doing is breeding a generation of programmers who are too lazy to manage their typecasting properly because the auto-completion does it for them.
To me, this is about the distinction between 'business programming' and 'computer science'. In business, you want your development platform to compensate for the McDonald's grade programmers you hire (because they're cheap). In science, you want freedom to innovate and explore.
This technology has its place, and it is at the boring end of the spectrum.
This appears to be more of the 'nanny state' mentality that Microsoft is shoving down our throats.
/rant
When a coder (or more accurately a DBA) puts dates in a string field, they usually have a good reason to do so. Preventing them from doing a date range query on their string field reduces their ability to function efficiently. Sure, it is elegant, but elegant usually means bigger, fatter and slower.
This is the old case of narrowing the band of opportunity so that the lowest performers can't make the obvious mistakes. When will they realise that they are also stifling the highest performers? Give us some credit folks. We're not all first year out of college.
This is reform?
Strongly resisting the temptation to whargarbl.
This act will only encourage patent trolling. It will increase the rates of industrial espionage in a country that is already struggling with cyber-crime.
The original inventors will have to become legal wizards in addition to their existing skillset.
Still, why should I care? I'm not American, and anything that stifles American invention can only be good for my country.... sooooo.... thanks America! Good job there!
Well, I think Iran's Nuclear development program might perceive that cyber security and nuclear power have something in common.
Having said that, industry is always going to have a big gripe when government regulates them about anything - or even threatens to do so.
Clearly, the companies have no perception of the monetary risks they are taking by failing to secure their intellectual assets.
For me, it is just more evidence regarding how completely out-of-touch our corporate leaders are with the capabilites/threats of the Internet.
Sad to hear that it didn't work for them. It scared the crap out of me.
That and the sign showing a stickman figure falling off a cliff at their snowfields. The subcaption said something like 'You will die on the other side of this fence'.
Having come from an incredibly politically correct country, it was refreshing and disturbing all at the same time.
I did a presentation with a slightly older group where the task was to replace a flat tyre.
Same kind of thing. It was hilarious. I actually had to intervene to stop their 'program' from dropping the car on my foot - which triggered off a whole new stream of conversation that I had not been anticipating.
Nice.
+1 Internets to you, sir.
In principle, I agree with you, but the cold hard reality is that your argument will not stand up in a court.
Try it some time. I'm sure the judge will have a lot of patience for your moral outrage.
Yes and no. NZ is famous for eliminating political correctness. If you ever visit their hot mud springs, you will see signs that say things like 'If you cross this line, you will die in a pit of boiling mud'.
Having said that, there is impetus for laws that are based on the concept that 'you can be held accountable for the actions of others'. For example, speed cameras. If your car is recorded speeding through a camera, you are legally accountable. It is your responsibility to demonstrate that you were not behind the wheel at the time.
For many, this is a breach of some of the fundamental principles of law (innocent until proven guilty, etc) - but it allows for the crimes to be prosecuted easily - AND it has the added bonus of people becoming very responsible about who gets to drive their car.
Translate to broadband = "Be very careful about how you secure your broadband. You are accountable for it."
Now, whilst there are a large number of people out there who don't know how to secure their broadband, its actually not that hard, and they'll learn. I don't see their ignorance as a justifiable reason to throw out this kind of law.
The real problem I think is going to be mobile broadband - or free broadband hotspots. Companies that offer those services will be in big trouble when they find out what people are using their broadband for...
I don't care about the regulatory authorities. There is no way I'm letting a baggage handler anywhere near my vintage Les Paul. link related
Ah, yes. There is that.
At the moment, my company is aggressively encouraging our customers to avoid the Cloud at all costs. Let me explain why.
Whilst the technology exists for the cloud to deliver fault tolerant distributed storage, when you choose to put data in the cloud, you are choosing to relinquish control of the data. You are placing it in the hands of someone else. Quite probably an organisation that you do not know intimately. Quite probably an organisation that is based in a different legislative region - probably another country.
You have little to no capacity to audit their system. You have little to no capacity to test their fault tolerance. And here's the sucker punch - you have little to no legal comeback for the consequences if something bad happens.
If your data contains any personal information about another person, you are placing the privacy of that person in the hands of an organisation you do not control, and upon whom you cannot enforce any legislative restrictions.
So, unless you are seriously geared up to investigate and audit your prospective cloud provider - and they are willing for you to do so, the only data you can safely put in the cloud is data that would be basically irrelevant to your core business anyway. Until the fundamental issues of privacy, security and accountability are resolved - or dramatically improved - placing core business data in the Cloud is a massive corporate risk.
They should not have called it the 'Cloud'. They should have called it the 'Arse' - because if your management are planning to stick their heads in one, they may as well stick their heads up the other. I don't imagine that 'Arse Computing' would be as popular though.
How is a tautology even vaguely newsworthy?
The Internet is currently a little bit like the American Wild West.
Its filled with various folk, some lawful, some lawless, and many hiding in obscurity and anonymity either for self protection, a general sense of freedom, or to escape prosecution or persecution.
It will get regulated. In the same way that the Wild West become controlled. It is just a matter of time.
Arguing about the rightness or wrongness of the loss of anonymity is roughly equivalent to complaining that our sun will eventually expand to a red giant and consume the earth.
For those of you who wish to delay it, good luck to you. Personally, I welcome our new digital overlords.
'unreasonably hate Apple' is an oxymoron.
A bit like 'Military Intelligence' or 'Journalistic Integrity'.
is the reason I do not own a Mac. It is the reason I do not own an iPod or an iPad or an iPhone. And am unlikely to ever do so.
The patent system may be broken, but it is not the patent system that is killing technology, it is Apple. If they can't make all the money from it, then no-one can. I believe that is Mr Jobs' philosophy.
Well, Mr Jobs, you can stick your technology where the sun don't shine.
Agreed.
/. moderators?
Can we have an IQ test for
There's a lot of anti-BSA whargarbl going on in this thread.
Try to remember that whilst the BSA have over-reached their mandate at times, they are fundamentally not the bad guy. Regardless of whether you agree with software licensing concepts, it is currently the way that our law works - and the BSA are the group that take civil action to uphold that law.
I don't know anything about your business except that it is quite young, and that it is quite small. It is time for you to start treating your business like a business. Every asset held by your business should be in a register. That register should cross reference the purchasing proof, and any subsequent maintenance expenses associated with the purchase. This extends way beyond mere software purchases. It should also cover off all your hardware, and even your office furniture.
Now, you might be thinking 'That sounds like a whole lot of hard work.' It is. Welcome to the business world. If you ever intend to sell your business, either privately or via an IPO, you will need these kinds of things. The good news is that the devil is in the setup. Once you have this register, it is easy to keep it up to date. You simply add another line every time you purchase an asset, or spend money on it. The even better news is that you can reverse engineer the asset register from your known purchases.
When the BSA come a-knocking, you simply hand them your asset register, and tell them that you are willing to participate in any audit they wish to undertake, as long as they fund it. It would also help if you can hand them the employment contract that all new staff signed when they joined. You know the one... it has the clause about them being personally liable for any civil or criminal case resulting from their actions. If you don't have that contract in place now, time to start.
Oh... and one last thing. You might be thinking about going through your workstations, servers and backups and deleting every illegal piece of software you can find. Not only is this a really good idea right now, it should be standard practice for your business. You should do this exact activity regularly.
Good luck with it. You may face some tough times in the immediate future, but you will come out the other end with a clean nose, and a much more professional business model than before.
This is quite possibly the most succinct and intelligent post I have seen on this subject in a long time.
Sadly, I believe that there is a scientific debate going on about this subject - but we never get to see it, as the meaningful content is drowned out by the media noise.
There will certainly be a number of ways to encrypt transmissions on the sly, and the Pakistani Govt will eventually be forced to allow a certain level of encryption to banks and/or military suppliers (maybe licensed encryption?). However, for the vast majority of punters, it will make subversive activities much harder.
As I follow it through, it seems to be consistent with the ongoing push (in some parts of the world) to de-anonymise (is that a word?) the Internet. And that's a whole debate in its own right.
I'm not going to try to get into the rightness or wrongness of it (though I do hold a fairly strong opinion) - but it seems that it lays the battle ground for the upcoming Internet war of freedom. The Pakistani govt will have to establish a cyber-crime unit specifically to catch/prosecute Internet Encrypters. Opponents will release steganographic based torrent tools, and so forth. The majority of punters will probably comply with their governments' wishes - either because they elected them, or are fearful of them. I imagine that a fair amount of 'abuse of power' will occur.
IMHO - the history of mankind has seen a progressive form of regulation, particularly in the last 50 years. Our identities have gradually become less and less private, and our rights to 'dance around the border of what is legal' have become more tightly controlled. That journey has been littered with foolhardy govt mandates that are largely impractical - but that define useful perimeters around more useful regulation that will come later.
Wouldn't it be the other way around? People tend to use more extreme, inflammatory and aggressive dialogues when they are losing the debate.
The people who tend to remain calm and balanced are usually more credible.
I cant believe this god modded 'troll'... some /. folks are complete heathens.
No mod points, but +1 funny anyway...
There you go, talking about things making sense again...
And in a M$ thread no less.
Get with the program!
Now, there's a term you don't see every day. "Sisyphean task". I was so intrigued, I had to look it up.
Thank you. I'm a little bit smarter today.