>
Isn't that a nice thought? And let us just take it one step further... Hmm... also, 'it might be' is a reason, 'it might be used for illegal purposes' at least is a valid reason nowadays, unlike the days of Sony...
The death penalty on Timothy McVeigh surely hurt those people who might have read books he might have written later. They don't get to read these books anymore. Yes, definitely hurting them.
Now, not all of them are located in the U.S.A. - some of them are Europeans. Germans, for example. In Germany, the Death Penalty is illegal. Therefore, the death of Timothy McVerigh was a first degree murder according to German law. It had effects on German citizens. I sure hope the executioner doesn't have plans on visiting Germany in the next twenty years.;-)
Better yet, George Walker Bush jr., though it would have been possible for him to do so, explicitly denied him pardon. This definitely makes him at least an accessory in murder (according to German law), if not even complicity in and conspiring to commit.
When was the next time he intended to visit Germany again?;-)
So8unds like a place I worked for... And yes, the one doing it was a used-car salesman. Worked there for a grand total of 1.5 months.
Point was, I was hired to add to their programming crew. They even had someone ivn for a test on Monday... and on Wednesday, they told everyone that the programming was being closed down...
Next year, when the V.A.T. was raised, they took two and a half months before noticing that their billing software still used the old value. So, they re-employed a former employee (who I still talked to) to fix this. It took him quite a while - the V.A.T. had been hard-coded into the source - and he made much more money than he would have if he had continued working. And no, they didn't have him change it so that the V.A.T. was drawn from a file or database. So, a year later with the next change in V.A.T. - another programmer hired.
And shortly after that, the firm was bought by its biggest local competitor (whose name had been anathema when I worked there...). And the used-car-salesman was on the streets. I can't remember anyone crying over this.
Why move to paper? Aren't we supposed to be moving the other way, to a paperless era, anyway? We're supposed to be the most high-tech geeks on the planet and we're moving towards paper?
There are several reasons for a hardcopy version:
- read it where no computer is
- during electricity failures (I heard they were quite common in California recently;-) )
- for information needed at a time that you are at the computer but have no net access (boot problems? Installation issues?)
> But when it comes, we will have to QUICKLY design a better encryption system than our current public-key based one !
Well, I still believe that _a_ public system that relies on scrutiny by everyone will be more secure - just look at the last year and tha spate of security braks we've seen. At least with general scrutiny, these holes are likely to be found faster (which still can be a long tims, see the PGP alternate key situation
>Microsoft products are closed source, which means they are inspected by a proper management team.
Says who? The problem with closed source is that they often are not inspected at all. It is not an Urban Legend that there exists one MS product that was used as a prime example of how not to organize a programming task. We now know it as MS Word:-(
>Remember, they produce commercial software, people are going to pay for this stuff. That's why backdoors in Microsoft products do not exist.
Hmm...
Remember, Borland/Inprise produced Interbase as commercial software, people had to pay for this stuff. And still the backdoor existed.
If it had been open source from the start, the programmers would have thought twice about including a hard-coded backdoor - and probably decided against it. And if not, people would have known it and closed it themselves.
A backdoor you know about can be closed (usually). A backdoor you don't know is impossible to close...
What Microsoft is doing is telling Elias (moderator of Bugtraq) that he cannot *change* the content
Exactly the opposite, if you read Elias' statement: Microsoft says "You may not copy out bulletins and advisories". They (hopefully) know they haven't got a chance to prevent them from rephrasing and commenting...
"In my opinion, the reason that best explains why the patent has just been issued now is that back in 1933 when Friedman filed for the patent, the information was immediately classified for a set period of time as a matter of course. The FOIA and related executive orders have mandated automatic declassification after 50 years unless it can be demonstrated that disclosure would have a directly detrimental effected on national security."
Sorry, but 30 years after 1933 would be 1983, in which case the patent ought to haben been in the open for over 10 years now. Classification (in wartime no surprise) would not have held water then, as much more efficient algorithms existed then.
--
penI'In 'ej pechep
The Roach
(www.roach.demon.nl)
You're right - it wasn't microwaves that were measured at this speed... I don't have the URL on hand ATM, but what they measured was the behaviour of light when traversing a cesium-gas-filled chamber. It turned out the light came out the far end before it entered the near end. Microwaves so far haven't been measured at more than a scarce few percent above light speed...
Strangely, though I cannot find Mt Dew in neither NL nor Germany, I have right in front of me an (empty) can of Jolt, produced by "Jolt Germany, 50925 Köln" (www.jolt.de). Got it in a "Spar"in Germany. In the NL widespread is Dr. Pepper and an almond-taste thingit called "Dr. Foots" both of which I like very much. Just like Dew and Jolt, they make me feel nicely sleepy...
Well, if you look at the numbers involved. According to the quoted site, US customers over paid about 500 mio. on a total volume of 15 bio. - that translates to roughly 3.3 per cent.
Also, the prices have increased, there is no mistaking that. The artists, authors and everyone is paid more - they also have to pay more for their living. I don't begrudge them that.
Yet I cannot help but wonder how much of the money remains with the different steps of the channel - out of the, say, 40 DEM or NLG I pay for a CD, how much does the retailer retain, how much the other salespeople, how much the record company - and how much reaches the creative people? And 'creative' includes authors, cover designers etc....
Slashdot Mirror
>
;-)
;-)
Isn't that a nice thought? And let us just take it one step further... Hmm... also, 'it might be' is a reason, 'it might be used for illegal purposes' at least is a valid reason nowadays, unlike the days of Sony...
The death penalty on Timothy McVeigh surely hurt those people who might have read books he might have written later. They don't get to read these books anymore. Yes, definitely hurting them.
Now, not all of them are located in the U.S.A. - some of them are Europeans. Germans, for example. In Germany, the Death Penalty is illegal. Therefore, the death of Timothy McVerigh was a first degree murder according to German law. It had effects on German citizens. I sure hope the executioner doesn't have plans on visiting Germany in the next twenty years.
Better yet, George Walker Bush jr., though it would have been possible for him to do so, explicitly denied him pardon. This definitely makes him at least an accessory in murder (according to German law), if not even complicity in and conspiring to commit.
When was the next time he intended to visit Germany again?
> Literally, some are former used car salesmen.
So8unds like a place I worked for... And yes, the one doing it was a used-car salesman. Worked there for a grand total of 1.5 months.
Point was, I was hired to add to their programming crew. They even had someone ivn for a test on Monday... and on Wednesday, they told everyone that the programming was being closed down...
Next year, when the V.A.T. was raised, they took two and a half months before noticing that their billing software still used the old value. So, they re-employed a former employee (who I still talked to) to fix this. It took him quite a while - the V.A.T. had been hard-coded into the source - and he made much more money than he would have if he had continued working. And no, they didn't have him change it so that the V.A.T. was drawn from a file or database. So, a year later with the next change in V.A.T. - another programmer hired.
And shortly after that, the firm was bought by its biggest local competitor (whose name had been anathema when I worked there...). And the used-car-salesman was on the streets. I can't remember anyone crying over this.
--
Why move to paper? Aren't we supposed to be moving the other way, to a paperless era, anyway? We're supposed to be the most high-tech geeks on the planet and we're moving towards paper?
;-) )
There are several reasons for a hardcopy version:
- read it where no computer is
- during electricity failures (I heard they were quite common in California recently
- for information needed at a time that you are at the computer but have no net access (boot problems? Installation issues?)
Just a few ideas
--
> But when it comes, we will have to QUICKLY design a better encryption system than our current public-key based one !
Well, I still believe that _a_ public system that relies on scrutiny by everyone will be more secure - just look at the last year and tha spate of security braks we've seen. At least with general scrutiny, these holes are likely to be found faster (which still can be a long tims, see the PGP alternate key situation
Says who? The problem with closed source is that they often are not inspected at all. It is not an Urban Legend that there exists one MS product that was used as a prime example of how not to organize a programming task. We now know it as MS Word :-(
>Remember, they produce commercial software, people are going to pay for this stuff. That's why backdoors in Microsoft products do not exist.
Hmm...
Remember, Borland/Inprise produced Interbase as commercial software, people had to pay for this stuff. And still the backdoor existed.
If it had been open source from the start, the programmers would have thought twice about including a hard-coded backdoor - and probably decided against it. And if not, people would have known it and closed it themselves.
A backdoor you know about can be closed (usually). A backdoor you don't know is impossible to close...
What Microsoft is doing is telling Elias (moderator of Bugtraq) that he cannot *change* the content
Exactly the opposite, if you read Elias' statement: Microsoft says "You may not copy out bulletins and advisories". They (hopefully) know they haven't got a chance to prevent them from rephrasing and commenting...
"In my opinion, the reason that best explains why the patent has just been issued now is that back in 1933 when Friedman filed for the patent, the information was immediately classified for a set period of time as a matter of course. The FOIA and related executive orders have mandated automatic declassification after 50 years unless it can be demonstrated that disclosure would have a directly detrimental effected on national security." Sorry, but 30 years after 1933 would be 1983, in which case the patent ought to haben been in the open for over 10 years now. Classification (in wartime no surprise) would not have held water then, as much more efficient algorithms existed then. -- penI'In 'ej pechep The Roach (www.roach.demon.nl)
You're right - it wasn't microwaves that were measured at this speed... I don't have the URL on hand ATM, but what they measured was the behaviour of light when traversing a cesium-gas-filled chamber. It turned out the light came out the far end before it entered the near end. Microwaves so far haven't been measured at more than a scarce few percent above light speed...
Strangely, though I cannot find Mt Dew in neither NL nor Germany, I have right in front of me an (empty) can of Jolt, produced by "Jolt Germany, 50925 Köln" (www.jolt.de). Got it in a "Spar"in Germany. In the NL widespread is Dr. Pepper and an almond-taste thingit called "Dr. Foots" both of which I like very much. Just like Dew and Jolt, they make me feel nicely sleepy...
Also, the prices have increased, there is no mistaking that. The artists, authors and everyone is paid more - they also have to pay more for their living. I don't begrudge them that.
Yet I cannot help but wonder how much of the money remains with the different steps of the channel - out of the, say, 40 DEM or NLG I pay for a CD, how much does the retailer retain, how much the other salespeople, how much the record company - and how much reaches the creative people? And 'creative' includes authors, cover designers etc....