Would that apply to standard libraries as well? It's all a matter of degree, discussion, and most importantly attribution. If he/she clearly delineates what his contribution was and what code was recycled, I can't imagine a problem. What I can imagine is a problem is the conflict between the school's traditional right to own the copyright on all works produced for credit and the GPL.:)
Okay. So fine. Only people who witnessed the attacks can have an opinion. Good. Does that mean we shut up these flag-waving morons (the ones who didn't even own a flag two weeks ago-- I've been flying mine for years) who want to bomb the hell out of any Middle Eastern country that comes to mind? Or are they okay because they agree with you?
The ACLU HQ is in the same area as the WTC. "The Nation" is just down the street. Tom Tomorrow, noted critic of right-wing and left-wing erosion of freedom, has been running pictures he took hiself. Before you go casting aspersions on the free speech advocates because they didn't see the horror, make sure you know who those advocates are and where they were last Tuesday.
Or are you willing to overlook that even angry people can take a deep breath and remember why it is they're angry in the first place? Or maybe free speech just isn't worth much. Heck, they get by just fine without it in places like China and Afghanistan now don't they?
Well, I'd bother, but I've been waiting for a response to my Dmitry letter for something like two months now. Frankly, I've never received anything but double-talk and misdirection when I've written to people who are supposed to be running our government "of the people, by the people, for the people".
I think it would be better if we spared our representatives a bunch of repetitive letters that hit the same four or five buzzwords, and instead sent each of them a copy of a book like "Secrets & Lies" (by Bruce Schneier). That way they get a decent, in-depth analysis of computer security and why backdoors will actually make us more vulnerable.
As to the more important matter, should strong encryption be outlawed... how the hell are you going to tell if a message is "strong" encrypted or just weakly encrypted without decrypting it? Is a one time pad "strong" encryption? Considering it's supremely simple to implement (for one to one messages, where actors know each other and can share the pad securely beforehand), I can't imagine how it could be called "strong" anything. I'm guessing what most all of us would support is a law that makes it an offense to refuse to divulge keys when so ordered by a court under the same rules that govern search warrants for property.
I realize that physical search warrants can be effected without permission of the property owner, but if I'm facing 20 years in jail simply for refusing to divulge keys for data which would only get me 10. I'd pony up the keys in a hurry. Same as I'd open the door for the police if they had a warrant (as opposed to an armed standoff).
Why wait around? You can download GPG and a host of other open source applications right now. Until such time as the algorithms in that are broken, the main concern is implementation faults. The only way they could possibly ban these tools is to detect encrypted network traffic that doesn't contain some signal that indicates a compromised encryption client and then prosecute.
To whom it may concern: I want to apologize for the previous post. While I still think poor spelling reflects badly on Slashdot, I would like to say that I apologize for going off half-cocked about the other stuff. In my defense, I'll say that I've been programming in Visual Basic all morning and I hope that you will consider that sufficient reason to forgive my lapse in judgement.
If you had, you wouldn't be comparing the FSF to either of those. The comparison is weak because the FSF only looks at software development firms, whereas the SPA/BSA target their users/customers.
It's Kandinksy. N. Kandinksy. And while you're at it, why don't you remove the Clear Channel slander until such time as you've verified the list of banned songs with a representative of their corporation? Or are you all too busy patting yourselves on the back because your servers didn't crash last week?
Re:Iraq is a lot flatter than Afghanistan
on
A New Kind of War
·
· Score: 2
No, what? Another ten years where we fight a war against Iraq but make no real effort to win?
While I agree that most people buying Apple hardware are glad to have the Mac OS pre-installed (and even most of us zealots are going to expect them to include it), they do too charge for the OS. Otherwise, all upgrades would be free. They spend money developing the software and you can bet your ass they include this expense in their pricing models for hardware.
The terrorists wanted us to all become gullible twits who believe anything we read posted semi-anonymously on the internet? They were dead set on us all turning words like "questionable content" into "banned song list"? They were hoping and praying that large corporations would now become arbitrary and dull-witted? I don't think they needed to do a damn thing to achieve that.
First of all, even if this list was circulated and is being followed as a "banned" song list (which I tend to doubt since I just heard "Stairway" a day or two ago on a Clear Channel owned classic rock station), it's not like we need these songs on the radio-- most of them have gotten way too much airplay in the last 20 years.
Second, Clear Channel playlists don't affect my daily life at all. I have an extensive library of songs that no Clear Channel affiliate has ever played on air that I plan to continue listening to. I'd say the FCC helped two or three large radio conglomerates degrade the quality of our daily lives long before Sept. 11, 2001.
Good point. It could also be seen as a friendly reminder to do a quick security check on yourself, as in "Before you get on our plane, are you sure you haven't accidentally introduced an element of danger through your own negligence?" It's kind of like people who scoff at fire drills and the like, and then get caught with their pants down when they have an actual fire. Or worse, go running around like a lunatic when they catch their shirt in the flames (all the while that running is actually providing more oxygen to the fire).
Encourage it, and then let the Feds also participate and infiltrate the groups
As long as you can assure me that the Feds are strictly prevented from engaging in entrapment, are not participating in promoting the evil activity in order to prove that they are not Feds, and as long as there are strict penalties for the agents who cross the line. I dislike the idea of government dollars being used to promote or encourage terrorism or pedophilia, even if it is part of an attempt to eliminate that stuff.
I think my favorite fictional work related to this is "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick. I also recall a recent article in a local weekly related to the idea that cops, in their efforts to bust street prostitutes are engaging in unthinkable behavior in order to get to a point where they have evidence enough to convict the prostitute (e.g. the hookers usually have some test that the cops have to pass, like performing a light sex act, before they will discuss the actual transaction).
It is a dangerous area to tread, this infiltration stuff. And I would prefer that we rely on attempts to actually convert our enemies to our way of thinking than to simply deprive ourselves of our rights-- that way we'll have fewer enemies and a more attractive way of life.
Well, it will likely come with a Unix already installed. But, of course, it would be nice if they offered the box without an OS so we could all save $100 or whatever (how come no one ever calls it the "Apple Tax"?) if we're planning to install something like YDL.
Well, if you call beta-testing shipping, yeah. But keep in mind that with an open source development approach, one has to make the source and compiled versions of the applicatin available pretty much to the public. That way developers can obtain the needed source and testers can obtain the needed beta executables.
What we all need to do is get over this "well MS shipped a product with a zillion bugs in it" nonsense. Even well-designed and thoroughly tested projects are going to have bugs and at some point the testing cycle is going to have to be closed.
If you're a commercial software firm, this means burning a CD and shipping some boxes. If you're an open source project, this means putting a version number like 1.0.0 on the package. Either way, there will still be bugs left to find. The true test (especially for proprietary software firms) is how quickly reported bugs are found and repaired and users have available to them either the new software or the means to patch their existing software.
Don't forget that regular backups are done so that no mail is lost in an emergency situation. Most of these are incremental (in a good backup plan). The likelihood is high that AOL could reconstruct the state of a server on any given date with reasonable accuracy.
What surprises me is that anyone would bother with this. Encryption tools are readily available that would completely protect this information in transit. At best they can analyze who got mail from who and use that to obtain search warrants for newer, less certain suspects. Normally, you can't just use warrants to go on fishing expiditions like this, but then this is "war" so who knows...
Well, unless I'm mistaken, the patent applies to a licensing deal that can be gotten around by simply not paying them for the license. They allow free use of their patented whatever-it-is in GPL products, so I'm not certain I see the conflict with the GPL myself. Frankly the real issue here is whether or not the patent is even valid. So why not simply take the FSM code, use it as though it were completely GPL-compatible and force *them* to have to file the lawsuits, etc?
Re:And here comes Carnivore...
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 2
Last time I checked there were very few wars won recently on the basis of bloodthirtiness or berzerking. As far as I know, the United States military takes great pains to train soldiers to be careful and exacting. Right down to how they make their beds and organize their personal effects, the Army is all about discipline and self-control.
Besides, the hothead I was responding to wasn't a soldier in a battle, just an angry citizen mouthing off. It's his right to wax vitriolic, and it's mine to seek calmer discussions before we go killing all kinds of people.
For the record, I support a war on Afghanistan-- unless they immediately give up Osama bin Laden and any member of his group we might care to name. But I hope we can devise a good strategy and win with a minimum of bloodshed. We have to avoid making new enemies while we get rid of the existing ones. We will be putting a lot of innocent Afghani women and children at risk-- I'd hate for them to end up thinking that bin Laden was right. Otherwise we get to fight this same war over and over again.
Although I hate to get into partisan nonsense at a time like this, I feel it's important to note that half of the items on the request list appear to be licenses for expensive, proprietary software. Considering that MS made $7 billion in profit last fiscal year, I'd say $10 million is the least they could do. And there should be none of this having to ask for licenses-- that's ridiculous (and wouldn't be the case if the Red Cross was using Red Hat or most any other Linux, now would it?).
As for Sun, they had offices in the WTC and at least one executive on the plane that went into the building, so please have a little respect. Sun have bigger problems than how much they are donating to rescue efforts.
As for VA and RH? I dunno. Maybe just as soon as they have a monopoly on overpriced software and turn a profit, we can expect those companies to donate headline sums as well. In the meantime, consider that Slashdot provided news to a lot of people during this past week and a forum to discuss the events. Slashdot is a free service provided by VA at considerable expense in terms of hardware and bandwidth.
If you want to act three flavors of righteous, first do something yourself, and then take quiet pride in being a good person instead of bitching about what others haven't done. Sheesh.
No, tell them to use emacs as that will replace Outlook and Windows as well.;)
Joking aside, I think the article has the right of it. Playing catchup with Microsoft is only useful in some ways, so Linux should look at playing to its strengths and using its traditional ways of working in creative new ways. I don't know what all that might entail-- maybe it's just continuing to build user-friendly, intuitive interfaces to the already powerful toolset that already exists.
Re:And here comes Carnivore...
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 1
Please, we are all angry and upset... but now is the time to clear our heads and make sure we do the right thing. Now our nation has an opportunity to truly make an example of not only our enemies, but of ourselves.
Defend ourselves we must.
But to close our ears and eyes to the humanity of those we oppose, to howl for blood-- innocents be damned-- can we afford these things? When the billions of people in the world watch us solve this problem, what will we have taught them about freedom, democracy, and humanity?
Um, he/she said to give weapons to trained and responsible individuals on the plane-- e.g. the pilots and/or a security detail-- a far cry from "everybody on the plane". Considering the number of times in the last 24 hours I've heard the expression "bomb with wings" and how apparently easy it was in this case to overcome the flight crew, I'd say it is a reasonable suggestion to consider.
If the reports of the takeovers being accomplished with knives rather than firearms are correct, maybe there is something to the idea of arming flight crews with something (even if not projectile weapons). But the question to ask is, will future passenger flights be vulnerable to this (knife-takeovers) or will future groups of passengers be more likely to take personal and group risks in the face of hijackings? Will Americans be more prepared (realistically?) in the future? What would you do if you were on a flight where this occurred?
Acutally, retaliation is a huge part of our national security model. Prevention is incredibly difficult given the civil freedoms we all hold dear. Detection is obvious in this case. Next we move to investigation. Finally there will be some form of retribution or nullification. If we can manage a solid investigation, a response is mandatory.
Our situation here is no different than if a criminal breaks into your house and robs you while you are at work. Or if you are attacked on the street. The police cannot guard everything at once. Hence they investigate reported crimes and hopefully the perpetrators are punished (and presumably potential perpetrators are deterred due to the risk of punishment).
In our private lives, we can only hope that our liberties are preserved such that we have the means to defend ourselves. As a nation, we will have to examine some of our security policies, especially with regard to air travel.
Ironic that air travel is normally one of our safest methods of transport from a consumer safety standpoint, but apparently the aviation system creates a huge vulnerability for the rest of our defense/security system.
If you think that Nazi Germany enforced anti-semitic racism against the popular will of the German people, I'd like to hear how you came to that conclusion. Anti-semitism in continental Europe is centuries old and riddled with violent episodes (the Crusades' earliest victims were Jews). The only difference that occurred when Nazi Germany got into the racial hatred business was that the industrial revolution had occurred-- making it easier to collect information on, round up, and kill large groups of people. But the racism was very popular, especially in the miserable state of affairs following world war one.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm. So if an employer offers me $2/hr to work a job, and I accept the offer, the law has nothing to say about it?
No contract law can take away certain rights, and software licensing is a (unproven) form of contract.
Would that apply to standard libraries as well? It's all a matter of degree, discussion, and most importantly attribution. If he/she clearly delineates what his contribution was and what code was recycled, I can't imagine a problem. What I can imagine is a problem is the conflict between the school's traditional right to own the copyright on all works produced for credit and the GPL. :)
Okay. So fine. Only people who witnessed the attacks can have an opinion. Good. Does that mean we shut up these flag-waving morons (the ones who didn't even own a flag two weeks ago-- I've been flying mine for years) who want to bomb the hell out of any Middle Eastern country that comes to mind? Or are they okay because they agree with you?
The ACLU HQ is in the same area as the WTC. "The Nation" is just down the street. Tom Tomorrow, noted critic of right-wing and left-wing erosion of freedom, has been running pictures he took hiself. Before you go casting aspersions on the free speech advocates because they didn't see the horror, make sure you know who those advocates are and where they were last Tuesday.
Or are you willing to overlook that even angry people can take a deep breath and remember why it is they're angry in the first place? Or maybe free speech just isn't worth much. Heck, they get by just fine without it in places like China and Afghanistan now don't they?
How do we know the Security Focus story wasn't actually the hacker-planted story, and that anything happened over at Yahoo at all?
Well, I'd bother, but I've been waiting for a response to my Dmitry letter for something like two months now. Frankly, I've never received anything but double-talk and misdirection when I've written to people who are supposed to be running our government "of the people, by the people, for the people".
I think it would be better if we spared our representatives a bunch of repetitive letters that hit the same four or five buzzwords, and instead sent each of them a copy of a book like "Secrets & Lies" (by Bruce Schneier). That way they get a decent, in-depth analysis of computer security and why backdoors will actually make us more vulnerable.
As to the more important matter, should strong encryption be outlawed... how the hell are you going to tell if a message is "strong" encrypted or just weakly encrypted without decrypting it? Is a one time pad "strong" encryption? Considering it's supremely simple to implement (for one to one messages, where actors know each other and can share the pad securely beforehand), I can't imagine how it could be called "strong" anything. I'm guessing what most all of us would support is a law that makes it an offense to refuse to divulge keys when so ordered by a court under the same rules that govern search warrants for property.
I realize that physical search warrants can be effected without permission of the property owner, but if I'm facing 20 years in jail simply for refusing to divulge keys for data which would only get me 10. I'd pony up the keys in a hurry. Same as I'd open the door for the police if they had a warrant (as opposed to an armed standoff).
Why wait around? You can download GPG and a host of other open source applications right now. Until such time as the algorithms in that are broken, the main concern is implementation faults. The only way they could possibly ban these tools is to detect encrypted network traffic that doesn't contain some signal that indicates a compromised encryption client and then prosecute.
To whom it may concern: I want to apologize for the previous post. While I still think poor spelling reflects badly on Slashdot, I would like to say that I apologize for going off half-cocked about the other stuff. In my defense, I'll say that I've been programming in Visual Basic all morning and I hope that you will consider that sufficient reason to forgive my lapse in judgement.
If you had, you wouldn't be comparing the FSF to either of those. The comparison is weak because the FSF only looks at software development firms, whereas the SPA/BSA target their users/customers.
It's Kandinksy. N. Kandinksy. And while you're at it, why don't you remove the Clear Channel slander until such time as you've verified the list of banned songs with a representative of their corporation? Or are you all too busy patting yourselves on the back because your servers didn't crash last week?
No, what? Another ten years where we fight a war against Iraq but make no real effort to win?
While I agree that most people buying Apple hardware are glad to have the Mac OS pre-installed (and even most of us zealots are going to expect them to include it), they do too charge for the OS. Otherwise, all upgrades would be free. They spend money developing the software and you can bet your ass they include this expense in their pricing models for hardware.
The terrorists wanted us to all become gullible twits who believe anything we read posted semi-anonymously on the internet? They were dead set on us all turning words like "questionable content" into "banned song list"? They were hoping and praying that large corporations would now become arbitrary and dull-witted? I don't think they needed to do a damn thing to achieve that.
First of all, even if this list was circulated and is being followed as a "banned" song list (which I tend to doubt since I just heard "Stairway" a day or two ago on a Clear Channel owned classic rock station), it's not like we need these songs on the radio-- most of them have gotten way too much airplay in the last 20 years.
Second, Clear Channel playlists don't affect my daily life at all. I have an extensive library of songs that no Clear Channel affiliate has ever played on air that I plan to continue listening to. I'd say the FCC helped two or three large radio conglomerates degrade the quality of our daily lives long before Sept. 11, 2001.
Good point. It could also be seen as a friendly reminder to do a quick security check on yourself, as in "Before you get on our plane, are you sure you haven't accidentally introduced an element of danger through your own negligence?" It's kind of like people who scoff at fire drills and the like, and then get caught with their pants down when they have an actual fire. Or worse, go running around like a lunatic when they catch their shirt in the flames (all the while that running is actually providing more oxygen to the fire).
Encourage it, and then let the Feds also participate and infiltrate the groups
As long as you can assure me that the Feds are strictly prevented from engaging in entrapment, are not participating in promoting the evil activity in order to prove that they are not Feds, and as long as there are strict penalties for the agents who cross the line. I dislike the idea of government dollars being used to promote or encourage terrorism or pedophilia, even if it is part of an attempt to eliminate that stuff.
I think my favorite fictional work related to this is "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick. I also recall a recent article in a local weekly related to the idea that cops, in their efforts to bust street prostitutes are engaging in unthinkable behavior in order to get to a point where they have evidence enough to convict the prostitute (e.g. the hookers usually have some test that the cops have to pass, like performing a light sex act, before they will discuss the actual transaction).
It is a dangerous area to tread, this infiltration stuff. And I would prefer that we rely on attempts to actually convert our enemies to our way of thinking than to simply deprive ourselves of our rights-- that way we'll have fewer enemies and a more attractive way of life.
Well, it will likely come with a Unix already installed. But, of course, it would be nice if they offered the box without an OS so we could all save $100 or whatever (how come no one ever calls it the "Apple Tax"?) if we're planning to install something like YDL.
Well, if you call beta-testing shipping, yeah. But keep in mind that with an open source development approach, one has to make the source and compiled versions of the applicatin available pretty much to the public. That way developers can obtain the needed source and testers can obtain the needed beta executables.
What we all need to do is get over this "well MS shipped a product with a zillion bugs in it" nonsense. Even well-designed and thoroughly tested projects are going to have bugs and at some point the testing cycle is going to have to be closed.
If you're a commercial software firm, this means burning a CD and shipping some boxes. If you're an open source project, this means putting a version number like 1.0.0 on the package. Either way, there will still be bugs left to find. The true test (especially for proprietary software firms) is how quickly reported bugs are found and repaired and users have available to them either the new software or the means to patch their existing software.
Don't forget that regular backups are done so that no mail is lost in an emergency situation. Most of these are incremental (in a good backup plan). The likelihood is high that AOL could reconstruct the state of a server on any given date with reasonable accuracy.
What surprises me is that anyone would bother with this. Encryption tools are readily available that would completely protect this information in transit. At best they can analyze who got mail from who and use that to obtain search warrants for newer, less certain suspects. Normally, you can't just use warrants to go on fishing expiditions like this, but then this is "war" so who knows...
use Standard::Disclaimer qw(IANAL);
Well, unless I'm mistaken, the patent applies to a licensing deal that can be gotten around by simply not paying them for the license. They allow free use of their patented whatever-it-is in GPL products, so I'm not certain I see the conflict with the GPL myself. Frankly the real issue here is whether or not the patent is even valid. So why not simply take the FSM code, use it as though it were completely GPL-compatible and force *them* to have to file the lawsuits, etc?
Last time I checked there were very few wars won recently on the basis of bloodthirtiness or berzerking. As far as I know, the United States military takes great pains to train soldiers to be careful and exacting. Right down to how they make their beds and organize their personal effects, the Army is all about discipline and self-control.
Besides, the hothead I was responding to wasn't a soldier in a battle, just an angry citizen mouthing off. It's his right to wax vitriolic, and it's mine to seek calmer discussions before we go killing all kinds of people.
For the record, I support a war on Afghanistan-- unless they immediately give up Osama bin Laden and any member of his group we might care to name. But I hope we can devise a good strategy and win with a minimum of bloodshed. We have to avoid making new enemies while we get rid of the existing ones. We will be putting a lot of innocent Afghani women and children at risk-- I'd hate for them to end up thinking that bin Laden was right. Otherwise we get to fight this same war over and over again.
Although I hate to get into partisan nonsense at a time like this, I feel it's important to note that half of the items on the request list appear to be licenses for expensive, proprietary software. Considering that MS made $7 billion in profit last fiscal year, I'd say $10 million is the least they could do. And there should be none of this having to ask for licenses-- that's ridiculous (and wouldn't be the case if the Red Cross was using Red Hat or most any other Linux, now would it?).
As for Sun, they had offices in the WTC and at least one executive on the plane that went into the building, so please have a little respect. Sun have bigger problems than how much they are donating to rescue efforts.
As for VA and RH? I dunno. Maybe just as soon as they have a monopoly on overpriced software and turn a profit, we can expect those companies to donate headline sums as well. In the meantime, consider that Slashdot provided news to a lot of people during this past week and a forum to discuss the events. Slashdot is a free service provided by VA at considerable expense in terms of hardware and bandwidth.
If you want to act three flavors of righteous, first do something yourself, and then take quiet pride in being a good person instead of bitching about what others haven't done. Sheesh.
No, tell them to use emacs as that will replace Outlook and Windows as well. ;)
Joking aside, I think the article has the right of it. Playing catchup with Microsoft is only useful in some ways, so Linux should look at playing to its strengths and using its traditional ways of working in creative new ways. I don't know what all that might entail-- maybe it's just continuing to build user-friendly, intuitive interfaces to the already powerful toolset that already exists.
Please, we are all angry and upset... but now is the time to clear our heads and make sure we do the right thing. Now our nation has an opportunity to truly make an example of not only our enemies, but of ourselves.
Defend ourselves we must.
But to close our ears and eyes to the humanity of those we oppose, to howl for blood-- innocents be damned-- can we afford these things? When the billions of people in the world watch us solve this problem, what will we have taught them about freedom, democracy, and humanity?
Um, he/she said to give weapons to trained and responsible individuals on the plane-- e.g. the pilots and/or a security detail-- a far cry from "everybody on the plane". Considering the number of times in the last 24 hours I've heard the expression "bomb with wings" and how apparently easy it was in this case to overcome the flight crew, I'd say it is a reasonable suggestion to consider.
If the reports of the takeovers being accomplished with knives rather than firearms are correct, maybe there is something to the idea of arming flight crews with something (even if not projectile weapons). But the question to ask is, will future passenger flights be vulnerable to this (knife-takeovers) or will future groups of passengers be more likely to take personal and group risks in the face of hijackings? Will Americans be more prepared (realistically?) in the future? What would you do if you were on a flight where this occurred?
Acutally, retaliation is a huge part of our national security model. Prevention is incredibly difficult given the civil freedoms we all hold dear. Detection is obvious in this case. Next we move to investigation. Finally there will be some form of retribution or nullification. If we can manage a solid investigation, a response is mandatory.
Our situation here is no different than if a criminal breaks into your house and robs you while you are at work. Or if you are attacked on the street. The police cannot guard everything at once. Hence they investigate reported crimes and hopefully the perpetrators are punished (and presumably potential perpetrators are deterred due to the risk of punishment).
In our private lives, we can only hope that our liberties are preserved such that we have the means to defend ourselves. As a nation, we will have to examine some of our security policies, especially with regard to air travel.
Ironic that air travel is normally one of our safest methods of transport from a consumer safety standpoint, but apparently the aviation system creates a huge vulnerability for the rest of our defense/security system.
If you think that Nazi Germany enforced anti-semitic racism against the popular will of the German people, I'd like to hear how you came to that conclusion. Anti-semitism in continental Europe is centuries old and riddled with violent episodes (the Crusades' earliest victims were Jews). The only difference that occurred when Nazi Germany got into the racial hatred business was that the industrial revolution had occurred-- making it easier to collect information on, round up, and kill large groups of people. But the racism was very popular, especially in the miserable state of affairs following world war one.