Oay, if they've been caught, and slapped in jail, they can't take part in this training scheme. Fine, I agree with that (assuming the Justice system screws up).
If they haven't done something wrong (and do we still assume that someone's innocent until proven guilty?), why not help them get themselves out of their current crappy situation. That's what I'm saying when Iask if you'd rather see them in pison. Here we have a potential solution to kids being criminals, perhaps?
Hey, I make no secret that I'm against the current military action, but that's beside the point in this case. Whatever happens, using cluster bombs is a Bad Thing. Okay, bomb the fuck out of whoever you perceive to be the baddies, but why make large areas of land into (in effect) minefields? Who are the US really trying to punish here?
Dropping cluster bombs is much alin to deploying land mines. This is inexcusable in a civilian area - yes, much like flying into a building. It's not right.
Tom.
Cluster bombs are well known to cause a particular problem. Think about how they work - they break up, drop large mounts of smaller bombs indistiminately over an area, many of which don't explode. What do you end up with? Landmines, in effect. Bad stuff.
Look at it a different way - you're telling children that even if they screw up, there's a chance they can make it. I don't know if you've heard of forgiveness....
However, being the sort of person I am, I believe it's right to give people the breaks they require (and deserve, if we can work out what that really means) to escape that sort of shitty situation and make something good of their lives.
Tom.
PS Why use the word gangbanger? Don't rely on the story title like that, anyone with an ounce if sense knows that a gangbanger is something entirely different. Read the article (what an idea!), do they use that term there at all?
Find out what happens to the unexploded ordinance. These weapons should never be used, and I'm ashamed my country (UK) is given tacit approval of the US's deploymenmt of them.
Slapping a cheap band-aid on a failing educational system ("The city has a 60% high-school dropout rate") won't fix anything permanently. It's nice that he's helped 72 lost youth find gainful employment, but what of the tens of thousands who haven't receieved aftermarket intervention?
How painfully painfully true this can be. It's not much, but it's something. Small things make a difference - each life is something worth fighting to improve, and let's face it,would you rather these 72 kids had no help at all?
I still have to agree with you though - it isn't much, and there are much wider issues to be dealt with. Let's be glad there's an occaisional ray of sunlight, all the same....
Maybe you aren't good enough? Hey, web dev still pays well, you just can't get away with being crap any more. Anyway, check out the article (if you can be bothered) to see how these kids are doing.
No, I see nothing wrong with this. I'd feel happy to know my taxes are being spent on something worthwhile (and yes, this is a worthwhile project - anything that gets people involved with education is worthwhile), rather than all the other shitty things my government does with my money.
Would you rather your taxes were spent keeping these kids in prison?
No inconvenience? Well it's no more inconvenient than having to patch all your NT/W2K boxes (actually very easy with a decent bit of scripting). The average user won't be affected that badly - all they have to do is apply a patch. The pain in the arse is when you have a whole load of machines (which may as it happens be running different flavours of Linux), and you spent a fair while ensuring that they all work ncely. Along comes a patch, and you have to start working out which machines tou can take off-line to test the patch, which machines are most vulnerable (when you have a fair few users with shell accounts...)
Anything like this, on NT or Linux or whatever OS you use is a pain, and a definite inconvenience.
Certainly, as it's a local exploit, the danger level is lower, but what if there's a Linux admin who hears about this a day after their users do? Think of the average student faced with the opportunity to become root. I'd have taken that chance!
The reason you shouldn't be smug is because people who care found this first, and this isn't a remote exploit.
Yes, it's open soyrce, where the fact that everyone can review it for themselves ensures that problems like this never occur. Yes, this is a cock-up....
Strangely, I think that this is a good thing. It will hopefully make Linux users a little less complacent (and smug) than before. Okay, the avaerage user isn't going to trawl through the kernal source (hell, I wouldn't!), but maybe they'll get more involved with the full develoment of Linux - that includes QA, bug-fixing, not just writing of crappy Tetris clones.
One thing I'm looking forward to is finding out how many lazy people there are out there who don't patch their systems..... much like with NT and the easily fixed holes that lead to Code Red.
I wasn't thinking about reverse engineering, rather that MS could simply encrypt all information sent by file-sharing systems (or whatever the service they want to keep exclusive rights to is).
When the movie's made in ten years time, he'll be portrayed as a gifted man, working to make the world better.
In twenty years time he'll be The Savior
I think that one thing that will convice many people to switch the MS systems is that they'll make as many services as possible run only on Windows.
Okay, we have the beautiful open-source coders, all out there trying to catch up and offer the same (or equivalent) stuff for other platforms, but it'll be a hard struggle. Picture a nice file-sharing system that all Windows users use. Nice. Along comes Mr Open-Source, who says "Hey, I'd like to get in on this action", but find that he can't because to do so would require him to illegally decrypt something. I don't know what, but if I was MS, I'd find a way to make using their services from a non-Windows platform illegal - and I don't think it'd be very hard to do so...
I'm afraid I just don't agree with you. Peple are used to security breaches, they happen all the time. I'm not just talking about the Swiss-cheese IIS, but other companies who aren't able to run their own systems securely, from banks which make data avaiable to the wrong people, to online retailers which leave sensitive data on unsecure webservers.
Okay, a breach would damage their rep a little, and some people would stop using the service, but I think the majorty would just accept the failure as a temporary glitch and continue to use their services.
Well, it's (probably) within my lifetime. Hey, if trekkies can insist that real full replication is just round the corner because someone fabbed a wrench in space, I think saying 40 years is the pretty near future. I say "pretty near", not "near", you'll note.
...after all, why else would they be planning on having one in the pretty near future?. This is interesting becasue Japan's not really afraid (it seems) to use nuclear power, and the satellite power is considerebly more expensive per kilowatt hour.
My perfect car would look a lot like a 4-wheeled motorbike
Sound's like you're after the typical fat man's motorbike - the Honda Goldwing. Put on the sidecar and trailer - hey then you have five wheels! An extra one for luck.....
Slashdot Mirror
If they haven't done something wrong (and do we still assume that someone's innocent until proven guilty?), why not help them get themselves out of their current crappy situation. That's what I'm saying when Iask if you'd rather see them in pison. Here we have a potential solution to kids being criminals, perhaps?
Tom.
Dropping cluster bombs is much alin to deploying land mines. This is inexcusable in a civilian area - yes, much like flying into a building. It's not right. Tom.
Tom.
Tom.
However, being the sort of person I am, I believe it's right to give people the breaks they require (and deserve, if we can work out what that really means) to escape that sort of shitty situation and make something good of their lives.
Tom.
PS Why use the word gangbanger? Don't rely on the story title like that, anyone with an ounce if sense knows that a gangbanger is something entirely different. Read the article (what an idea!), do they use that term there at all?
--
I call the use of cluster bombs evil.
Find out what happens to the unexploded ordinance. These weapons should never be used, and I'm ashamed my country (UK) is given tacit approval of the US's deploymenmt of them.
Tom.
How painfully painfully true this can be. It's not much, but it's something. Small things make a difference - each life is something worth fighting to improve, and let's face it,would you rather these 72 kids had no help at all?
I still have to agree with you though - it isn't much, and there are much wider issues to be dealt with. Let's be glad there's an occaisional ray of sunlight, all the same....
Tom.
Tom.
Tom.
Would you rather your taxes were spent keeping these kids in prison?
Tom.
What a narrowminded, and let's face it stupid thing to say. Crawl back under your rock.
Tom.
Anything like this, on NT or Linux or whatever OS you use is a pain, and a definite inconvenience.
Certainly, as it's a local exploit, the danger level is lower, but what if there's a Linux admin who hears about this a day after their users do? Think of the average student faced with the opportunity to become root. I'd have taken that chance!
The reason you shouldn't be smug is because people who care found this first, and this isn't a remote exploit.
Tom.
What the hell is this invalid formkeys crap??
Strangely, I think that this is a good thing. It will hopefully make Linux users a little less complacent (and smug) than before. Okay, the avaerage user isn't going to trawl through the kernal source (hell, I wouldn't!), but maybe they'll get more involved with the full develoment of Linux - that includes QA, bug-fixing, not just writing of crappy Tetris clones.
One thing I'm looking forward to is finding out how many lazy people there are out there who don't patch their systems..... much like with NT and the easily fixed holes that lead to Code Red.
Tom.
Having said that couldn't MS just put copyright info into each file transmitted using its services?
Hey, I'm may just be trying to defend a point shown not to be entirely valid, but I'm also paranoid enough to believe that MS may be able to do it....
(5 minutes till 5:30, and home, free of this sodding office! Hmm... I hope my boss isn't reading this.....)
Tom.
Only if the BS mentioned comes from the rear of a bovine, not from a university.
Tom.
Tom.
In twenty years time he'll be The Savior
Tom.
Are the majority of the MS shares in (direct or indirect) ownership of one person/entity?
If so, who, or what?
Tom.
Okay, we have the beautiful open-source coders, all out there trying to catch up and offer the same (or equivalent) stuff for other platforms, but it'll be a hard struggle. Picture a nice file-sharing system that all Windows users use. Nice. Along comes Mr Open-Source, who says "Hey, I'd like to get in on this action", but find that he can't because to do so would require him to illegally decrypt something. I don't know what, but if I was MS, I'd find a way to make using their services from a non-Windows platform illegal - and I don't think it'd be very hard to do so...
Tom.
Okay, a breach would damage their rep a little, and some people would stop using the service, but I think the majorty would just accept the failure as a temporary glitch and continue to use their services.
Tom.
Tom.
Tom.
Tom.
Sound's like you're after the typical fat man's motorbike - the Honda Goldwing. Put on the sidecar and trailer - hey then you have five wheels! An extra one for luck.....
Tom.
Tom.