I know that a lot of people reading/. hates copyrights and patents... but of these digital postmarks stand up in court, they can be of great benefit to individuals and small entrprenurs in their efforts to compete with 'the big guys'
People can publish their ideas, essays, music on the internet complete with a copy of the digital postmark, and should a big fish try to patent or claim copyright or patent on the material, the small-time individual can point at the digital postmask and prove their ownership.
I personally would support this... I would love to be able to share some of the ideas I have - but I do not want someone else to come along and try to patent them or claim that it was their's first. Such a digital postmark would give me the confidence to share... and possibly give others the confidence to share their creations.
The problem is not Linux's "hardware compatibility"... Or any other operating systems so called 'incompatibility' with hardware...
It is the hardware's incompatibility with open systems.
There were ideas to end the tyranny of platform specific hacks (they call them drivers)... There was an initutive around 1996 which called for platform independent drivers for hardware - I2O.
However, it was encouraged to die because companies like Microsoft know that by welding and tying things together is a excellent way to maximize profits.
What is really needed is an OSS approved driver which loads platform-independent drivers (which are permitted to be closed source).
The specifications for a electronic-voting machine should be open and publicised.
Vendors may design and build machines which must conform to the specification. Non-conforming machines fail testing and will not be used. Vendors may or may not choose to open the source code to their implementation.
In an election, no more than 49% of the machines may be from one vendor and/or share the same source code. How the machines are distributed is random.
After the election, the relative proportions of the votes from each vendor's machines must be similar - if any is particularly skewed, the implementation from that vendor's machine is then called into question for analysis.
These things should be open and public to reassure people that a fair and proper election has occurred.
Due to ancient laws of the land, there is one place in the whole of the UK where you cannot be sued or prosecuted for any spoken word.
That place is Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.
Just gather up the source for DeCSS and any other cracking algorithm and security vulnerability and read it out loud to the 'audience'. You may need to invest in a megaphone or PA system to be heard above all the other people there (which nowadays includes Taliban sympathizers, Pro Saddam activists, IRA/PLO/Islamic Jihad fundraisers, BNP/Neo-Nazi recruiters, Triad/Mafia/Organised Crime reps).
You cannot be prosecuted for saying something there, political or otherwise.
The only problem is trying to get someone to listen.
Look at project Everblue... on OS/2 Netlabs. Its not exactly news since it started around 1999. (There again, Slashdot doesn't report much on non-Linux news, especially in that era)
http://everblue.netlabs.org/
It has Xlib compatibility and maps it on to the OS/2 Presentation Manager UI.
It's quite possible for someone to pick up the code and do it for their favorite UI.
In the UK, US$3000 would buy about 660 US gallons of fuel... at 20 mp(US)g would be about 13000 miles.
However, many cars in the UK can do about 36mp(UK)g which would be about 43mp(US)g.
Conclusion:
If the average car in Europe were as inefficient as cars in the US, then the Electric car would be cheaper to operate within Europe.
or
If the average car in the US were as efficient as cars in Europe, emissions would be down greatly and much more research would be required to make Electric cars economical. Especilly if one conciders that electricity in California is much more expensive than Europe.
More research is required in fuel cells - my hopes are on methanol based fuel cells, since methanol can be manufactured cheaply by biological processes.
When using a FreeBSD box with IPFW as the external MTA, when it receives SPAM, blacklist that IP addresss by configuring the packet filter to drop 50+% of the data packets (but allow the connection to setup ok).
To make your computer truely secure, follow these simple steps:
Get a decent firewall
Configure it to deny everything except the ports you really need.
Unplug any conputer with really sensitive data from the network
In fact, unplug it from the wall power socket
Heck with it, it's still vulnerable from someone at the console - encase it in concrete
Cover the concrete block with copper sheeting to prevent against Echelon
Cover it with lead plate just to be safe from X-Rays.
Put it on a back of a trailer and tow it into a deep mine shaft. Salt mines go pretty deep.
More concrete please!
Use a tactical device to ensure that access to the bottom of the mine is difficult.
Should be truely secure... But for the overtly paranoid, concider dropping the planet into your local black hole. Please note that there may be information leakage as any entropy is represented on the black hole's event horizon.
I had successfully completely blocked MSN Messenger from working... And the same goes with OutLook Express to Hotmail.
Unfortunately, there are some consultants who can only talk to each other (even whilst in the same room) via MSN Messenger, so I had to reenable access to them.
I seem to recall that Energis had a look into doing this in the UK, in that particular case, using the National Grid to carry data as well as power. AFAIK they also looked at providing data link to the home via the mains power but decided that it would be too expensive to fit repeaters at every electrical substation.
Although they did have a few public 'beta' testers...
I have an amazing encryption and compression method - it encrypts and compresses any message into a single binary bit! No one else can decipher the message... not even the recipient... unless they have the decryption key...
Which is unfortunately 2x the size of the original message.
Then we can make it financially unviable for stores to carry those products by going to the stores, ripping open the packaging and then returning it because the "EULA was unacceptable".
Whoot! It'd be great fun opening the boxes.... It would be like Christmas except that it won't cost a bean and the software vendor gets to foot the bill! (Eventually... Imagine PC World trying to return to MSFT 20000 boxes of XP Pro because they were opened then returned)
Yeah right. I bet ZD had a sample size of 1 and he was suffering multiple-personality disorders (hence only the 80% support)
In other news...
Average A-Level and GCSE pass rates exceed 100%.
80% of university students want to pay for their own tution fees.
Less than 0% of the population of the UK are pro-hunting (therefore all of the participants of those hunts are a figment of your imagination)
And 80% of the population support Tony Blair and his role with the Anti-Iraqi jihad.
And 105% of the population think that Tony Blair and George Bush are both really cool and clever guys... And that they make a really nice couple. Really. Nice.
Of course, there is no possibility of vote-rigging, cooking and/or stuffing the ballot. These are actual genuine results of surveys.
No wonder I have lost all faith in ZD's publications. Their reseach is shoddy at best and their conclusions are highly dubious and always seem to be sweyed by the movement of money.
Maybe every electron-hole combination generates a photon of light but IIRC the direction in which the photon of light travels is random.
That means that at least 50% of the photons are travelling the wrong direction... Perhaps the most optimistic view is that 40% are travelling forwards from the OLED screen, the remainder are absorbed back into the substrate and turned into heat.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that a lot of people reading /. hates copyrights and patents... but of these digital postmarks stand up in court, they can be of great benefit to individuals and small entrprenurs in their efforts to compete with 'the big guys'
... and possibly give others the confidence to share their creations.
People can publish their ideas, essays, music on the internet complete with a copy of the digital postmark, and should a big fish try to patent or claim copyright or patent on the material, the small-time individual can point at the digital postmask and prove their ownership.
I personally would support this... I would love to be able to share some of the ideas I have - but I do not want someone else to come along and try to patent them or claim that it was their's first. Such a digital postmark would give me the confidence to share
Just my 2cents worth.
JFS2 wa first written for OS/2, and then was ported to AIX and Linux using the OS/2 code as reference.
So that makes SCO's argument that it is a UNIX derivived code pretty much moot.
And I think IBM followed a similar path woth RCU...
Mix in equal portions Politics, Religion and Science.
Ho hum...
The problem is not Linux's "hardware compatibility"... Or any other operating systems so called 'incompatibility' with hardware...
It is the hardware's incompatibility with open systems.
There were ideas to end the tyranny of platform specific hacks (they call them drivers)
There was an initutive around 1996 which called for platform independent drivers for hardware - I2O.
However, it was encouraged to die because companies like Microsoft know that by welding and tying things together is a excellent way to maximize profits.
What is really needed is an OSS approved driver which loads platform-independent drivers (which are permitted to be closed source).
End the lock-in tyranny!
The specifications for a electronic-voting machine should be open and publicised.
Vendors may design and build machines which must conform to the specification. Non-conforming machines fail testing and will not be used. Vendors may or may not choose to open the source code to their implementation.
In an election, no more than 49% of the machines may be from one vendor and/or share the same source code. How the machines are distributed is random.
After the election, the relative proportions of the votes from each vendor's machines must be similar - if any is particularly skewed, the implementation from that vendor's machine is then called into question for analysis.
These things should be open and public to reassure people that a fair and proper election has occurred.
Just my 2cents worth.
Due to ancient laws of the land, there is one place in the whole of the UK where you cannot be sued or prosecuted for any spoken word.
That place is Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.
Just gather up the source for DeCSS and any other cracking algorithm and security vulnerability and read it out loud to the 'audience'. You may need to invest in a megaphone or PA system to be heard above all the other people there (which nowadays includes Taliban sympathizers, Pro Saddam activists, IRA/PLO/Islamic Jihad fundraisers, BNP/Neo-Nazi recruiters, Triad/Mafia/Organised Crime reps).
You cannot be prosecuted for saying something there, political or otherwise.
The only problem is trying to get someone to listen.
Look at project Everblue... on OS/2 Netlabs. Its not exactly news since it started around 1999. (There again, Slashdot doesn't report much on non-Linux news, especially in that era)
http://everblue.netlabs.org/
It has Xlib compatibility and maps it on to the OS/2 Presentation Manager UI.
It's quite possible for someone to pick up the code and do it for their favorite UI.
And I thought it was mentioned a couple of years ago that a big-screen debut of Good Omens was being planned...
Oops, got that one the wrong way around.
In the UK, US$3000 would buy about 660 US gallons of fuel... at 20 mp(US)g would be about 13000 miles.
However, many cars in the UK can do about 36mp(UK)g which would be about 43mp(US)g.
Conclusion:
If the average car in Europe were as inefficient as cars in the US, then the Electric car would be cheaper to operate within Europe.
or
If the average car in the US were as efficient as cars in Europe, emissions would be down greatly and much more research would be required to make Electric cars economical. Especilly if one conciders that electricity in California is much more expensive than Europe.
More research is required in fuel cells - my hopes are on methanol based fuel cells, since methanol can be manufactured cheaply by biological processes.
Where will it end?
That should tie up their spam servers a bit...
I would like it if the ATA/ATAPI driver was implemented to use CAM...
The big advantage of that would be all disk storage is accessed through da0... etc.
I just think it would be much tidier...
To make your computer truely secure, follow these simple steps:
Should be truely secure... But for the overtly paranoid, concider dropping the planet into your local black hole. Please note that there may be information leakage as any entropy is represented on the black hole's event horizon.
Not practical... But fun.
I had successfully completely blocked MSN Messenger from working... And the same goes with OutLook Express to Hotmail.
Unfortunately, there are some consultants who can only talk to each other (even whilst in the same room) via MSN Messenger, so I had to reenable access to them.
C'est la vie.
It would be funny if the disputed code in question was part of BSD-Lites and ended up everywhere.
Because BSD-Lites and it's derivatives are protected by a prior court case.
Weren't the 2.88MB floppy discs perpendicular recording also?
I distinctly remember reading that somewhere.
I had a rant about this in 1998 on my homepage... It's preserved in all it's glory on the Internet Archive.
. org/comment.html
http://web.archive.org/web/19980419075203/nuts.ml
Whats next? NEWERCARD? REALLYNEWCARD? NEWERTHANLAST-CARD?
I seem to recall that Energis had a look into doing this in the UK, in that particular case, using the National Grid to carry data as well as power.
AFAIK they also looked at providing data link to the home via the mains power but decided that it would be too expensive to fit repeaters at every electrical substation.
Although they did have a few public 'beta' testers...
Which is unfortunately 2x the size of the original message.
Ho hum...
Then we can make it financially unviable for stores to carry those products by going to the stores, ripping open the packaging and then returning it because the "EULA was unacceptable".
Whoot! It'd be great fun opening the boxes.... It would be like Christmas except that it won't cost a bean and the software vendor gets to foot the bill! (Eventually ... Imagine PC World trying to return to MSFT 20000 boxes of XP Pro because they were opened then returned)
In other news...
- Average A-Level and GCSE pass rates exceed 100%.
- 80% of university students want to pay for their own tution fees.
- Less than 0% of the population of the UK are pro-hunting (therefore all of the participants of those hunts are a figment of your imagination)
- And 80% of the population support Tony Blair and his role with the Anti-Iraqi jihad.
- And 105% of the population think that Tony Blair and George Bush are both really cool and clever guys... And that they make a really nice couple. Really. Nice.
Of course, there is no possibility of vote-rigging, cooking and/or stuffing the ballot. These are actual genuine results of surveys.No wonder I have lost all faith in ZD's publications. Their reseach is shoddy at best and their conclusions are highly dubious and always seem to be sweyed by the movement of money.
NetREXX came available while Java was still in it's 1.1 iterations... Developed by Mike Colinshaw (spelling probably very wrong) at IBM.
Maybe every electron-hole combination generates a photon of light but IIRC the direction in which the photon of light travels is random.
That means that at least 50% of the photons are travelling the wrong direction... Perhaps the most optimistic view is that 40% are travelling forwards from the OLED screen, the remainder are absorbed back into the substrate and turned into heat.
Maybe someone would like to correct me...
ttfn