All of the big players have backed themselves into a corner with these patent disputes. It would help if the patents being fought over were actually certified as valid before they started suing each other but they seem to have skipped that step in favor of wasting a lot of money creating uncertainty which is slowing down the implementation of new technology. I am still having a hard time understanding how all of these java related patents were even declared patents in the first place. The majority of the Java related tech isn't anymore cutting edge and ground breaking now than it was 10 years ago. I am expecting to see a patent dispute any day now that involves BASIC. I am sure if you look hard enough you can find a couple of ideas used in BASIC that have percolated up into something recently. Android/Linux are both descendants of UNIX variants and while the developers did not clone or violate any licensing requirements by using any of the UNIX baseline libraries they did create alternative implementations to provide the same basic functionality in the end. Any of these big companies holding patents (valid or not) are being forced to defend them or lose them. Entire companies are being bought and sold just to gain hold of patent rights and the employees are the ones getting screwed. I am approaching this argument from a developer perspective so if the "end users" end up with a price increase but I can still have a job then I can live with that. I thought a few years ago that the industry was going to be sensible and build their patent libraries for use in negotiating cross licensing deals which would help ensure the tech would be out and everyone would get a share of the profits.
Besides breathing war has been the only constant in human behavior. War has been waged in one form or another since there have been enough people to take up sides and hit each other over the head with clubs to get a bigger cave. National and international governments are built by the stacking marbles in a corner principle. Sooner or later no matter how carefully you stack the marbles they fall down and the process starts all over again. I have seen no indication this pattern will be broken anytime soon. We tend to judge our society by our technology advancements not our advancements in basic human behavior. Take away the technology and we are no different then the people who lived in the Roman Empire.
The threat from Iran is not that they would launch an attack against Israel or anyone else with the capability to strike back but they would have no problems with threatening to provide the nuclear capable weapons to non-state actors. Their threat has never been that they would use the weapons it's the threat of being able to provide these weapons to 3rd parties. And the first non-state actor that gets their hands on a nuke will detonate it somewhere in the world with no cares about retaliation. MADD would not be in play. By the time the source of the weapon can be traced back to it's manufacturer what are the chances the responsible country would be hit back multiple times without people pissing and moaning about collective punishment not being fair? In other words they would get away with launching a nuclear weapon with little fear of the retaliation which is the only thing that has kept the other world powers from launching nukes at each over in 65 years.
Take it easy Francis. The CIA is either the largest collection of incompetents on the planet or the smartest depending on who you talk too. It's probably a mixture because they have to get lucky once and awhile. The KGB has always been better at infiltrating the US then the CIA efforts of infiltrating Russia. Russia's tightly controlled society was always harder to infiltrate when compared against the relatively open US society. But claiming a handful of Americans can carry out the amount of manipulation needed to bring down an entire country is an exaggeration supported with shallow inferences with a touch of conspiracy theory added for flavor. Their large scale operations would never succeed if the countries leadership and political leaders they were trying to manipulate did not acquiesce and carry out the actual policies supported by the CIA. Forcing country wide changes would have to come down the CIA "do it this way or ELSE" with the "ELSE" usually meaning the money tap gets turned off.
On the original qeustion I think any security service is capable of infiltrating any of these groups. It would not even be that hard to do. However I think the government security services will more likely just keep an eye on these groups because they have not really caused to much trouble. I'm sure the government has their hands full with other more important cyber based attacks that require more than SQL Injection or negligent system admins several security patches behind.
"determining the chemical formula of a new drug is trivial" Do you mean after the formula is created it is then easy for any one to take the finished product and figure out the formula? Or are you saying coming up with the formula in the first place is trivial? It is trivial to reverse engineer most products and formulas and while the current patent system is creating chaos there still needs to be some way to ensure that in some circumstances and product types the originator has the ability to at least recoup the R&D expense. These silly software patents being granted and fought over today are a perversion of the original intent of the patent system but that should just mean making changes to the patent process instead of eliminating it totally. The first change should be a rule that says the person or company holding the patent has to actually implement the patent. This should help knock out all of the patent trolls who hold patents that they never plan on actually implementing. Hoarding ideas and basically ransoming them to those capable of actually doing something with them should be deemed illegal with substantial financial penalties for anyone trying to do this.
"Just wait for your competitor to do it for you, burning billions in the process, then manufacture it yourself at a cheaper price - you don't have R&D money to recoup - and undercut them to death." This accurately describes China's approach to saving R&D expenses.
I have never implied that the laws or justice system are always correct and just. I believe the system is constantly evolving, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. There are times when someone technically breaks a law but committed no crime due to the circumstances of the situation. There have been innocent people wrongly convicted. The legislature may create the laws of the land but the judicial branch has the final word on whether the law gets applied. There have been many cases of the court system ruling in favor of the accused because of a problem with the law being applied to them. There has also been jury nullification when the situation warranted it. Like every thing else in the world it is not a pefect system but it is a hell of a lot better than lawless anarchy.
It's the terrorist who are killing random civilians on purpose and somehow I have a feeling that doesn't seem to raise your rightous indignation level very. And they kill more of their own citizens than any outsiders. What do you think about that little fact ?
Poor baby did someone hurt your feelings and treat you badly? Chances are you probably deserved it. Equality is an ongoing process not a static result.
Oh well since this produced what you consider favorable results lets just let the criminals decide if their cause is righteous enough to justify breaking the law. Debating the righteousness of a cause and using the results of that debate on an ad-hoc basis after a crime has been committed will just ensure that the laws will not be applied equally.
The major international security services, terrorist networks, and major criminal organizations already know a great deal about US capabilities and take precautions to defend themselves. So not using the capabilities for this reason doesn't make much sense. The most effective defense against the US electronic surveillance capabilities is to not use the Internet, cell phones, or any other device capable of being tracked. Anonymous and similar groups are doing just the opposite. They are playing their silly games in the one place where they are most vulnerable while believing they are to smart to get caught. These guys are not a serious enough threat to justify diverting any advanced resources to hunt them down but the security agencies do have all sorts of ways of passing on information "off the record" if they discover something that would assist another agency. The most practical method is using anonymous tips. After all "information should be free" is the mantra of the oppressed and inconvenienced.
"Name a platform that doesn't have problems"
I never claimed this.
MS still maintains a large market share for the desktop and a significant number of other products tied to their infrastrure platforms. Although I have it on good advice that next year the Linux desktop will finally claim the top position. It should also not be surprising that they have lost market share because there are more alternatives available but each company is not only competing solely with MS but also with everyone else which means everyone gets a smaller piece of the pie. Personally I really don't give a shit about any of this because because as I originally stated I have never judged a particular technology on who produced it. I have earned a good living using IBM, Borland, Sun, Oracle, Redhat, MS, Apple, Motorola, AT&T, and a host of other companies technologies to build systems and applications over the past 25 years.
"Thank you for your opinion. We can move on now." I'm sorry for offering an opinion on a forum built for that specific purpose.
"Are you responding to me or just making up a nice straw-man to knock down. I never "counted MS out". No
Android is currently dealing with it's own problems with ever increasing competing versions and code forks, security issues introduced by dodgy integration with company specific add-on modules, and of course the ever growing anxiety caused by patent trolls. MS has already successfully obtained their tax using their patent holdings and I seriously doubt they will be the last company to do so. Apple is in the best position since they still remain in control of their platform and can provide consistency. At one time Apples hardware and software control strategy almost destroyed them when MS targeted cheap commodity hardware for their product offerings. Now things are different and the tables have turned. However don't be surprised when MS starts modifying their product control measures to improve their position. Too many people are counting them out and I think that is a mistake. I am not a MS fanboy by any means. I have never judged a platform by the company who produced it. My sole criteria has always been defining the best tool for the job I am working on. This is really off topic but how come nobody every mentions the fact that MS invested millions of dollars in Apple when they were on the verge of collapsing? Apple re-payed the investment but who has ever heard of a company investing money to keep their primary competitor in business?
"The tools of the NSA are not at the disposal of the FBI for domestic surveillance."
What world do you live in where the FBI couldn't wrangle some information out of the NSA if they needed it? Information and tips can be released by anyone today. Wouldn't it be amusing in the extreme if some whistle blower from within the NSA just happened to post enough information for the FBI to identify these guys on Wiki-leaks?
The organizational method of using "cells" is hardly something new. Ask yourself how these people were identified in the first place. Any action launched by group consisting of more than 1 person needs at least some communication or how would they organize and initiate any attacks? These communication links may be few but all it takes is one thread to lead from one user to another. These geniuses also suffer from the belief that their superior skills can prevent them from being identified and that is their achilles heel. Relying on multiple proxy servers as the first line of defense can be rendered useless by those with unfettered access to the Internet backbone and ISP data centers.
Off Topic but related: Look up a NSA project called ThinThread developed by Thomas Drake. The NSAâ(TM)s capabilities are breathtaking. Using programs such as this the agency reportedly has the server and processing capacity to intercept and download electronic communications equivalent in size to the contents of the Library of Congress every 6 hours. This project ended up being too successful and he actually issued an apology to the US citizens and resigned over how the NSA used his work. Of course he has been indicted under the electronic-espioange act becuase he supposedly leaked this information to a reporter.
Yea I'm sure the Wiki-leaks information just magically appeared. People have been referring this latest episode as "phone hacking" which is bullshit and anyone who considers this "hacking" should turn in their geek card in immediately. People just didn't change their default voicemail passwords and got owned. This is also pretty common on luggage locks so you better get to changing them in case the someone short stops your baggage looking for juicy info to post on the front page. This type of illegal access falls into the same category as someone with a security clearance downloading gigs of classified data to a USB and walking out the door with it and sending it to Wiki-leaks during in the midst of a mental meltdown. In both cases the law was broken so you can't defend one and support the other and expect anyone to take you seriously. Selective outrage and glaring hypocrisy is what drives today's society not any search for truth and justice. And payback can be a bitch however the moron script kiddie avengers may find the consequences of their actions more than they bargained for.
I am not sure where they got their original machine but at the time it was being used by the Germans to secure their business communications. The military started using the machine after it was proven effective. At the time Germany was not yet at war and their security precautions were weak compared to their war time security precautions and I believe that made it easier for someone to get hold of.
What makes you think the US would have had any problems getting other countries to provide all the access they wanted? Those countries would also have their own reasons for accessing the same data.
I know you are trolling but it was not the US or England who made the biggest contributions to understanding enigma. It was 3 Polish scientists who had gotten hold of an Enigma machine when Germany was only using it for securing business activities. The scientists were able to get the machine and their research results into English hands just days before they were conquered. England rightfully deserves credit for their work but the Polish were responsible for giving them a substantial head start.
Dream on brother. Your best security precaution is in not doing anything monumentally stupid and attracting attention to yourself. Things like bragging about lame script kiddie attacks on twitter. Try investigating the capabilities of the NSA. Believe it or not all governmental agencies are staffed by morons. These guys use some of the most advanced technology in the world and are more than adequately funded to insure they can continue their work. Also, relying on ISP's or backbone providers to deny the government anything they ask for is foolish.
The 64K segment size on the 8088 did permit addressing of multiple segments which required you to work within the 640K boundary when using multiple segments. At least that is what I recall after 24 years. I started with BASIC, C, and assembly on the 8088 architecture but the bulk of my work included C development on IBM's System 5 and the AIX operating systems.
Capitalism depends on the societal belief known as survival of the fittest. This belief tends to irritate those who believe "Everyone Is Equal" when it is obviously not so. I am NOT talking about race, culture, religion, or gender when trying to define equality. I am talking about the equality of contributions to the entire human race as a whole. Capitalism may not be an ideal or even a particularly fair system but it does exist and we need to deal with that. Communism and Socialism are marketed as systems that provide equality and fairness amongst the general population however even these systems have privileged classes and the lack of equality that rivals any found in the US. The world is filling up with people who consume more than they contribute while those who do contribute and succeed are required to make more and more sacrifices in order to provide equality and support to those who contribute little or nothing for various reasons. Any system that tries to create a system like this only ends up creating a race to the bottom where in the end where everyone suffers. I know my opinion sounds heartless and uncaring in the extreme but it in the end it is only the opinion of one person who does not consider himself a member of the elite or the downtrodden only someone who believes we endlessly argue and debate issues today that never really address the true problems and challenges we face. Flame away!
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All of the big players have backed themselves into a corner with these patent disputes. It would help if the patents being fought over were actually certified as valid before they started suing each other but they seem to have skipped that step in favor of wasting a lot of money creating uncertainty which is slowing down the implementation of new technology. I am still having a hard time understanding how all of these java related patents were even declared patents in the first place. The majority of the Java related tech isn't anymore cutting edge and ground breaking now than it was 10 years ago. I am expecting to see a patent dispute any day now that involves BASIC. I am sure if you look hard enough you can find a couple of ideas used in BASIC that have percolated up into something recently. Android/Linux are both descendants of UNIX variants and while the developers did not clone or violate any licensing requirements by using any of the UNIX baseline libraries they did create alternative implementations to provide the same basic functionality in the end. Any of these big companies holding patents (valid or not) are being forced to defend them or lose them. Entire companies are being bought and sold just to gain hold of patent rights and the employees are the ones getting screwed. I am approaching this argument from a developer perspective so if the "end users" end up with a price increase but I can still have a job then I can live with that. I thought a few years ago that the industry was going to be sensible and build their patent libraries for use in negotiating cross licensing deals which would help ensure the tech would be out and everyone would get a share of the profits.
Besides breathing war has been the only constant in human behavior. War has been waged in one form or another since there have been enough people to take up sides and hit each other over the head with clubs to get a bigger cave. National and international governments are built by the stacking marbles in a corner principle. Sooner or later no matter how carefully you stack the marbles they fall down and the process starts all over again. I have seen no indication this pattern will be broken anytime soon. We tend to judge our society by our technology advancements not our advancements in basic human behavior. Take away the technology and we are no different then the people who lived in the Roman Empire.
The threat from Iran is not that they would launch an attack against Israel or anyone else with the capability to strike back but they would have no problems with threatening to provide the nuclear capable weapons to non-state actors. Their threat has never been that they would use the weapons it's the threat of being able to provide these weapons to 3rd parties. And the first non-state actor that gets their hands on a nuke will detonate it somewhere in the world with no cares about retaliation. MADD would not be in play. By the time the source of the weapon can be traced back to it's manufacturer what are the chances the responsible country would be hit back multiple times without people pissing and moaning about collective punishment not being fair? In other words they would get away with launching a nuclear weapon with little fear of the retaliation which is the only thing that has kept the other world powers from launching nukes at each over in 65 years.
Take it easy Francis. The CIA is either the largest collection of incompetents on the planet or the smartest depending on who you talk too. It's probably a mixture because they have to get lucky once and awhile. The KGB has always been better at infiltrating the US then the CIA efforts of infiltrating Russia. Russia's tightly controlled society was always harder to infiltrate when compared against the relatively open US society. But claiming a handful of Americans can carry out the amount of manipulation needed to bring down an entire country is an exaggeration supported with shallow inferences with a touch of conspiracy theory added for flavor. Their large scale operations would never succeed if the countries leadership and political leaders they were trying to manipulate did not acquiesce and carry out the actual policies supported by the CIA. Forcing country wide changes would have to come down the CIA "do it this way or ELSE" with the "ELSE" usually meaning the money tap gets turned off. On the original qeustion I think any security service is capable of infiltrating any of these groups. It would not even be that hard to do. However I think the government security services will more likely just keep an eye on these groups because they have not really caused to much trouble. I'm sure the government has their hands full with other more important cyber based attacks that require more than SQL Injection or negligent system admins several security patches behind.
"determining the chemical formula of a new drug is trivial" Do you mean after the formula is created it is then easy for any one to take the finished product and figure out the formula? Or are you saying coming up with the formula in the first place is trivial? It is trivial to reverse engineer most products and formulas and while the current patent system is creating chaos there still needs to be some way to ensure that in some circumstances and product types the originator has the ability to at least recoup the R&D expense. These silly software patents being granted and fought over today are a perversion of the original intent of the patent system but that should just mean making changes to the patent process instead of eliminating it totally. The first change should be a rule that says the person or company holding the patent has to actually implement the patent. This should help knock out all of the patent trolls who hold patents that they never plan on actually implementing. Hoarding ideas and basically ransoming them to those capable of actually doing something with them should be deemed illegal with substantial financial penalties for anyone trying to do this.
So companies should work towards creating advancements and innovations and rely on improved efficiency to cover R&D budget shortfalls?
"Just wait for your competitor to do it for you, burning billions in the process, then manufacture it yourself at a cheaper price - you don't have R&D money to recoup - and undercut them to death." This accurately describes China's approach to saving R&D expenses.
I have never implied that the laws or justice system are always correct and just. I believe the system is constantly evolving, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. There are times when someone technically breaks a law but committed no crime due to the circumstances of the situation. There have been innocent people wrongly convicted. The legislature may create the laws of the land but the judicial branch has the final word on whether the law gets applied. There have been many cases of the court system ruling in favor of the accused because of a problem with the law being applied to them. There has also been jury nullification when the situation warranted it. Like every thing else in the world it is not a pefect system but it is a hell of a lot better than lawless anarchy.
It's the terrorist who are killing random civilians on purpose and somehow I have a feeling that doesn't seem to raise your rightous indignation level very. And they kill more of their own citizens than any outsiders. What do you think about that little fact ?
Poor baby did someone hurt your feelings and treat you badly? Chances are you probably deserved it. Equality is an ongoing process not a static result.
Oh well since this produced what you consider favorable results lets just let the criminals decide if their cause is righteous enough to justify breaking the law. Debating the righteousness of a cause and using the results of that debate on an ad-hoc basis after a crime has been committed will just ensure that the laws will not be applied equally.
The major international security services, terrorist networks, and major criminal organizations already know a great deal about US capabilities and take precautions to defend themselves. So not using the capabilities for this reason doesn't make much sense. The most effective defense against the US electronic surveillance capabilities is to not use the Internet, cell phones, or any other device capable of being tracked. Anonymous and similar groups are doing just the opposite. They are playing their silly games in the one place where they are most vulnerable while believing they are to smart to get caught. These guys are not a serious enough threat to justify diverting any advanced resources to hunt them down but the security agencies do have all sorts of ways of passing on information "off the record" if they discover something that would assist another agency. The most practical method is using anonymous tips. After all "information should be free" is the mantra of the oppressed and inconvenienced.
"Name a platform that doesn't have problems" I never claimed this. MS still maintains a large market share for the desktop and a significant number of other products tied to their infrastrure platforms. Although I have it on good advice that next year the Linux desktop will finally claim the top position. It should also not be surprising that they have lost market share because there are more alternatives available but each company is not only competing solely with MS but also with everyone else which means everyone gets a smaller piece of the pie. Personally I really don't give a shit about any of this because because as I originally stated I have never judged a particular technology on who produced it. I have earned a good living using IBM, Borland, Sun, Oracle, Redhat, MS, Apple, Motorola, AT&T, and a host of other companies technologies to build systems and applications over the past 25 years. "Thank you for your opinion. We can move on now." I'm sorry for offering an opinion on a forum built for that specific purpose. "Are you responding to me or just making up a nice straw-man to knock down. I never "counted MS out". No
Android is currently dealing with it's own problems with ever increasing competing versions and code forks, security issues introduced by dodgy integration with company specific add-on modules, and of course the ever growing anxiety caused by patent trolls. MS has already successfully obtained their tax using their patent holdings and I seriously doubt they will be the last company to do so. Apple is in the best position since they still remain in control of their platform and can provide consistency. At one time Apples hardware and software control strategy almost destroyed them when MS targeted cheap commodity hardware for their product offerings. Now things are different and the tables have turned. However don't be surprised when MS starts modifying their product control measures to improve their position. Too many people are counting them out and I think that is a mistake. I am not a MS fanboy by any means. I have never judged a platform by the company who produced it. My sole criteria has always been defining the best tool for the job I am working on. This is really off topic but how come nobody every mentions the fact that MS invested millions of dollars in Apple when they were on the verge of collapsing? Apple re-payed the investment but who has ever heard of a company investing money to keep their primary competitor in business?
"The tools of the NSA are not at the disposal of the FBI for domestic surveillance." What world do you live in where the FBI couldn't wrangle some information out of the NSA if they needed it? Information and tips can be released by anyone today. Wouldn't it be amusing in the extreme if some whistle blower from within the NSA just happened to post enough information for the FBI to identify these guys on Wiki-leaks?
The organizational method of using "cells" is hardly something new. Ask yourself how these people were identified in the first place. Any action launched by group consisting of more than 1 person needs at least some communication or how would they organize and initiate any attacks? These communication links may be few but all it takes is one thread to lead from one user to another. These geniuses also suffer from the belief that their superior skills can prevent them from being identified and that is their achilles heel. Relying on multiple proxy servers as the first line of defense can be rendered useless by those with unfettered access to the Internet backbone and ISP data centers. Off Topic but related: Look up a NSA project called ThinThread developed by Thomas Drake. The NSAâ(TM)s capabilities are breathtaking. Using programs such as this the agency reportedly has the server and processing capacity to intercept and download electronic communications equivalent in size to the contents of the Library of Congress every 6 hours. This project ended up being too successful and he actually issued an apology to the US citizens and resigned over how the NSA used his work. Of course he has been indicted under the electronic-espioange act becuase he supposedly leaked this information to a reporter.
Yea I'm sure the Wiki-leaks information just magically appeared. People have been referring this latest episode as "phone hacking" which is bullshit and anyone who considers this "hacking" should turn in their geek card in immediately. People just didn't change their default voicemail passwords and got owned. This is also pretty common on luggage locks so you better get to changing them in case the someone short stops your baggage looking for juicy info to post on the front page. This type of illegal access falls into the same category as someone with a security clearance downloading gigs of classified data to a USB and walking out the door with it and sending it to Wiki-leaks during in the midst of a mental meltdown. In both cases the law was broken so you can't defend one and support the other and expect anyone to take you seriously. Selective outrage and glaring hypocrisy is what drives today's society not any search for truth and justice. And payback can be a bitch however the moron script kiddie avengers may find the consequences of their actions more than they bargained for.
I am not sure where they got their original machine but at the time it was being used by the Germans to secure their business communications. The military started using the machine after it was proven effective. At the time Germany was not yet at war and their security precautions were weak compared to their war time security precautions and I believe that made it easier for someone to get hold of.
You are totally correct I forgot all about this option.
What makes you think the US would have had any problems getting other countries to provide all the access they wanted? Those countries would also have their own reasons for accessing the same data.
I know you are trolling but it was not the US or England who made the biggest contributions to understanding enigma. It was 3 Polish scientists who had gotten hold of an Enigma machine when Germany was only using it for securing business activities. The scientists were able to get the machine and their research results into English hands just days before they were conquered. England rightfully deserves credit for their work but the Polish were responsible for giving them a substantial head start.
Dream on brother. Your best security precaution is in not doing anything monumentally stupid and attracting attention to yourself. Things like bragging about lame script kiddie attacks on twitter. Try investigating the capabilities of the NSA. Believe it or not all governmental agencies are staffed by morons. These guys use some of the most advanced technology in the world and are more than adequately funded to insure they can continue their work. Also, relying on ISP's or backbone providers to deny the government anything they ask for is foolish.
Why not save the rope expense and just chuck them overboard?
The 64K segment size on the 8088 did permit addressing of multiple segments which required you to work within the 640K boundary when using multiple segments. At least that is what I recall after 24 years. I started with BASIC, C, and assembly on the 8088 architecture but the bulk of my work included C development on IBM's System 5 and the AIX operating systems.
Capitalism depends on the societal belief known as survival of the fittest. This belief tends to irritate those who believe "Everyone Is Equal" when it is obviously not so. I am NOT talking about race, culture, religion, or gender when trying to define equality. I am talking about the equality of contributions to the entire human race as a whole. Capitalism may not be an ideal or even a particularly fair system but it does exist and we need to deal with that. Communism and Socialism are marketed as systems that provide equality and fairness amongst the general population however even these systems have privileged classes and the lack of equality that rivals any found in the US. The world is filling up with people who consume more than they contribute while those who do contribute and succeed are required to make more and more sacrifices in order to provide equality and support to those who contribute little or nothing for various reasons. Any system that tries to create a system like this only ends up creating a race to the bottom where in the end where everyone suffers. I know my opinion sounds heartless and uncaring in the extreme but it in the end it is only the opinion of one person who does not consider himself a member of the elite or the downtrodden only someone who believes we endlessly argue and debate issues today that never really address the true problems and challenges we face. Flame away!