Umm.
The point is, they get an order to get JOHN SMITH's email. They then configure carnivore and set it up in such a way that they are reasonably confident that THAT IS WHO'S EMAIL THEY ARE RECORDING, and NOBODY ELSES.
Carnivore is not, and never was, intended to be a 'bad guy sniffer outter' for the internet.. all it is is a bloody piece of software/workstation taht is used when a court gets an order to snoop on email.
How is this not like a 'traditional' wiretap? It's a network man, you *have* to packet sniff. YOu sniff using the easiest method available.. a wiretap traditionally tapped the users phone line because that was easiest. If the dude says that Mr. Joe's email at location X is to be sniffed, then they bring in carnivore...
They aren't talking about deploying it by default at every ISP in America, are they?
I think that interception of information, in the form of telephone wiretaps, digital gathering of private email, etc... should be treated exactly like property seizure, no matter what the medium.
Even this has been taken out of context; cops can search for 'evidence'.
The original point of requiring a warrant was that the police (or whoever) would have to say 'Look, we firmly believe based on XX and XX ansd XX that Mr. So-and-so has the following items in his house. If we had these items, we could solve the crime; so the judge would order that they had permission to enter his home and search for and take away these items. Why does a judge need to do this? BEcause.. oroginall, and ideally, *NOBODY* has the right to take anything taht is yours. Nobody. THat's what a warrant is for.
But with copyright, it's somewhat different. THere is an identifiable body of people who are having their rights violated because of the software.
Regardless of what people feel, those artists, adn record companies, etc, *DO* have legal copyright over what napster is helping people pirate. Over what napster is *in business* to help people pirate. So obviously they have a beef with napster, the company.
The point is, it's not about the tool, it's about the company. The tool is irrelevant, the company is on trial because the company is trying to make money off other people's copyrights in a slightly roundabout way.
You missed the point completely. THe point is not whether or not the software has useful purposes...
The point is that the *company*, napster Inc, is *making money* (or attempting to do so) by facilitating piracy.
It's not the software that is on trial, it's the COMPANY.
Do I think software should be banned because it has potential illegal uses? of course. As I said, on technical grounds, the napster software is fine.
But as a COMPANY, napster is succeessfull only due to piracy.
Now, as for the comparison to bongs, etc... the fact is, these things all had original, legal uses, and the companies that make zigzags did not go into business sayhing 'hey, let's make these rolling papaers because people need somethign to smoke their grass in'.
Should bongs be illegal because they can be used to smoke dope? Nope.
Shoudl a company that goes into business selling just bongs because they know people will use it for somethign illegal? Yes. They are facilitating crime, knowingly. The only reason they don't get sued is because of today's lax attitudes towards marijuana.
'
Because, napster, the company, started and gained it's popularity (which translates to money eventually), based on the fact that people would use their service solely to pirate music, which is illegal.
THey knew that their service would become popular because people would use napster for illegal purposes. This is illegal.
And you know what? I agree with this.
On a purely technical level, though, napster should *not* be illegal... it's just software.
REmember, though. If napster gets smacked, lots of *cool* free napster-like things will spring up (look at gnotella now, it rocks). Napster was 'just enough' to pacify people, and only gained it's popularity through the network effect. Why be complacent with napster when we can do so much better?
I could be mistaken here.. but let me have a stab at this.
'Spread Spectrum' and 'CDMA' are not analogous. Yes, CDMA is a type of spread spectrum technology, but only one type.
CDMA is basically an extension of DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) in which various funky things happen to a signal so it is spread across the whole band at once.
What was invented back in the war was FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) which is where the carrier frequency is shifted around constantly so the signal jumps all over. This wa sthe first (I believe) type of spread radio ever used, and it is *very* different than CDMA/DSSS.(CDMA, for one, requires DSPs and much more digital technology not available during the great war)
Release whenever you want. It matters not.
What *does* matter is how you present it.
If you come out saying 'We are a great company! now we are open source!' and have crap that doesn't work and doesn't run...... well... you're asking for people to complain about you.
On the other hand, if you have a reasonably good product already out, and claim 'we're GOING to be open sourcing it soon' you make people groan... so? Who cares what you're GOING to do? What are you doing now?
Really, if you want to be 'open source', then when you start shipping a product, or delivering it somehow, make the source available under an OSS compliant license to those who you are selling/shipping to.
ALso, there is another question. Are you looking for everyone to help develop (as in OSS project) or are you simply saying you are going to OSS the software?
Not to be negative.. but It seems to me that the churn rate on cellphones is huge. Poeple just don't keep their phones for years and years.
So.. if people have single band phones now, so what... they will have n-band phones that take advantage of the current architectures available.
I dunno about the US, I always assumed it was this way, but in Canada, tri-band phones are not uncommon.
The point you bring up, stated differently, is that this situation *only* arises if you are part of MS Select scheme... this does *not* necessarily apply to everyone.
If I were to buy 10 HP vectras, I am not required to go out and buy 10 more NT licenses simply because I want to ghost it.
If I am part of MS Select, which involves support and other things for every machine in the organization, and across many MS products, not just windows, then there is a reason for this.
This is all fine and dandy for joe average at home, or small business....
but how is this supposed to work when you have
a) 1000 workstations with office installed, and
b) a network not attached to the internet? Do I have to actually phone in to MS and repeat hex license codes for all 1000 users when I upgrade? I don't bloody think that'll happen..
I think one thing that should be clarified (both on MS part and the consumer's part) is this:
Are they buying a license to use a specified version of software, standardized ie: Windows 2000, windows 2000 pro, etc, or are they purchasing an individual copy of a particular instance of each software, each with it's own license.
If the copy from the company images is the same version of windows as the one that came with the HP, what's the difference?
What I'm saying is, it should work like this:
When you buy your HP, you are also buying a license to a single copy of windows 2000. For convenience, we are providing you with this pre-installed, as well as providing a rescue media disk.
In other words, the license should be separate from the instance of software, so to speak.
Companies exist so people can have jobs so people can make money. This is fine and dandy, and capitalism at it's best.
There is also the LAW. The LAW exists so that society can function properly. The LAW dictates the rules we all live by.
It is not permitted to violate the LAW in order to make money. A successful company must make it's money while still obeying the LAW.
Microsoft crossed this line. THAT is why they are taking so much crap.
The EU has even stronger antitrust laws than the US.
MS doesn't have to listen to EU laws. They have the option of simply pulling out of europe and not doing business there, of course.
And it's very strange to hear an (I assume) American talk about how 'foreign laws shouldn't apply', when the US tries to impose it's laws on every other country in the world.
I'm not bashing you here, but pointing something out...
Simply because one as a) MCSE and b) a fairly good technical knowledge of the underlying concepts, this does not make them an authority on why MS is better. It *DOES* mean that they have a good solid understanding of how MS likes to do things.
Do I think you probably have a solid understanding of windows and VB, and of how MS likes to build a network? Absolutely. Probably much better than my own undersanding.
Do I think you understand a lot of the core concepts? Sure.
Do I think you have a more impartial outside view that contains a knowledge of unix, Windows, as well as other systems, and enough technical background to make a nice, impartial decision as to what is a better solution in the long run? I'm not so sure.
MS may occupy a *lot* of desktops, the vast majority, but this does not mean they define computing science, enterprise computing, technology, or anything else. It simply means people currently are using it.
They do not use it because it is 'safe and tested for huge installations'. They use it because everyoen else uses it. They use it because there is no viable alternative at the moment, due to MS monopolistic practices.
The reason many/. readers (*ix users) bash MS so much is because...
- in learning unix, you generally do not learn vendor-specific realities. You learn hard technical facts about systems. In learning linux, for instance, you learn a great many hard facts about how computers work, how software works, how networks function. Nothing is abstracted off to some dialog box with an 'ok' button.
- in learning NT, for instance... you do not have this impartiality. You learn about how the OS works, not how the computer works. You are shielded from the underlying technology. Sure.. youlearn about newtworking and such in MCSE... but it's not the same thing!
MCSE teaches you how to build solutions using MS products.
Unix teaches you how to build large systems out of *anything*, even non-unix.
Are you saying that people who violate non-disclosure agreements should not be sued?
Or are you saying that Apple does not have the right to do anything in secret?
Re:Bzzzt. Wrong. Company's mistake for allowing it
on
Full Frontal Quickies
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· Score: 2
Perhaps I assumed that, because he was a former program manager at Microsoft, that he had a somewhat managerial position at this company. I figured perhaps he was a piece of that.
And if they weren't paying him, that's HIS fault for running it, or his fault for not asking.
I'm not saying that the company screwed up or he screwed up, or that one is guilty and one is not, merely that the situation should not have arisen, and both parties should realize that.
Though I sympathize with Mr. Coder Scorned, I would say that, by setting up such a service on his own personal site without compensation, and by not setting such a service up as part of the company's own infrastructure (which it is his job to build), he failed in his duties, and didn't do his job right.
We can all look at it and say 'This guy was being nice, running it himselef!'.. but... your duty to the company is to design systems that protect the companies interests from everyone else, includeing YOURSELF.
Not that I disagree, but why do you assume that because something is 15-20 years old that it is 'outdated'? Certainly, hardware may go this way, but software does not.
The theory of relativity is dated.. but do we consider it 'ancient'? No. Certainly, we have found some small variations in it.. but it's still extremely important and valid.
What impressed me was that what mindspring did was extremely logical. They simply said 'Look, if a court orders (or a judge issues a warrant, etc) data to be obtained from our systems, then we will comply and help do this. If a court orders that Mr. Smiths email be sniffed, we will assist in doing this. '
They simply refused to allow a box to be added to their network to allow the FBI to sniff whenever they wanted. And I wouldn't either... it's my network.. what reason do they have to dictate how I will build my network?
And how are you supposed to run multiple virtual copoies of Windows or Linux on a SunPCI card? You can't..... you can run *one* at a time.
One large reason for using VMWare in development is the ability to have images of multiple computer setups; to load them concurrently if you like; the ability to have VMWare ask you if you want to permanently write changes to the virtual disk since last startup (great for tech support! you can duplicate people's problems without thrashing a machine)
As for the SunPCI card.. never heard of a project to work under linux. I suppose that would be neat.. but why not just get another cheap PC?
And for what you get with VMWare, it's dirt cheap. They did jack the price up lately though... but $299 for VMWare is *not* 'costly' considering what they've done. Nobody else has a competing product; plex86 will be the first alternative, when it works.
VMWare works well.
Also.. plex86 was originally called 'FreeMWare', but changed it's name due to (regardless of what they say on the site) people angered at the obvious confusion with VMWare.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm.
The point is, they get an order to get JOHN SMITH's email. They then configure carnivore and set it up in such a way that they are reasonably confident that THAT IS WHO'S EMAIL THEY ARE RECORDING, and NOBODY ELSES.
Carnivore is not, and never was, intended to be a 'bad guy sniffer outter' for the internet.. all it is is a bloody piece of software/workstation taht is used when a court gets an order to snoop on email.
How is this not like a 'traditional' wiretap? It's a network man, you *have* to packet sniff. YOu sniff using the easiest method available.. a wiretap traditionally tapped the users phone line because that was easiest. If the dude says that Mr. Joe's email at location X is to be sniffed, then they bring in carnivore...
They aren't talking about deploying it by default at every ISP in America, are they?
I think that interception of information, in the form of telephone wiretaps, digital gathering of private email, etc... should be treated exactly like property seizure, no matter what the medium.
Even this has been taken out of context; cops can search for 'evidence'.
The original point of requiring a warrant was that the police (or whoever) would have to say 'Look, we firmly believe based on XX and XX ansd XX that Mr. So-and-so has the following items in his house. If we had these items, we could solve the crime; so the judge would order that they had permission to enter his home and search for and take away these items. Why does a judge need to do this? BEcause.. oroginall, and ideally, *NOBODY* has the right to take anything taht is yours. Nobody. THat's what a warrant is for.
Nowadays, i'ts abused beyond belief.
But with copyright, it's somewhat different. THere is an identifiable body of people who are having their rights violated because of the software.
Regardless of what people feel, those artists, adn record companies, etc, *DO* have legal copyright over what napster is helping people pirate. Over what napster is *in business* to help people pirate. So obviously they have a beef with napster, the company.
The point is, it's not about the tool, it's about the company. The tool is irrelevant, the company is on trial because the company is trying to make money off other people's copyrights in a slightly roundabout way.
You missed the point completely. THe point is not whether or not the software has useful purposes...
The point is that the *company*, napster Inc, is *making money* (or attempting to do so) by facilitating piracy.
It's not the software that is on trial, it's the COMPANY.
Do I think software should be banned because it has potential illegal uses? of course. As I said, on technical grounds, the napster software is fine.
But as a COMPANY, napster is succeessfull only due to piracy.
Now, as for the comparison to bongs, etc... the fact is, these things all had original, legal uses, and the companies that make zigzags did not go into business sayhing 'hey, let's make these rolling papaers because people need somethign to smoke their grass in'.
Should bongs be illegal because they can be used to smoke dope? Nope.
Shoudl a company that goes into business selling just bongs because they know people will use it for somethign illegal? Yes. They are facilitating crime, knowingly. The only reason they don't get sued is because of today's lax attitudes towards marijuana.
'
Because, napster, the company, started and gained it's popularity (which translates to money eventually), based on the fact that people would use their service solely to pirate music, which is illegal.
THey knew that their service would become popular because people would use napster for illegal purposes. This is illegal.
And you know what? I agree with this.
On a purely technical level, though, napster should *not* be illegal... it's just software.
REmember, though. If napster gets smacked, lots of *cool* free napster-like things will spring up (look at gnotella now, it rocks). Napster was 'just enough' to pacify people, and only gained it's popularity through the network effect. Why be complacent with napster when we can do so much better?
I could be mistaken here.. but let me have a stab at this. 'Spread Spectrum' and 'CDMA' are not analogous. Yes, CDMA is a type of spread spectrum technology, but only one type. CDMA is basically an extension of DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) in which various funky things happen to a signal so it is spread across the whole band at once. What was invented back in the war was FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) which is where the carrier frequency is shifted around constantly so the signal jumps all over. This wa sthe first (I believe) type of spread radio ever used, and it is *very* different than CDMA/DSSS.(CDMA, for one, requires DSPs and much more digital technology not available during the great war)
Please explain, how does Free BeOS run under linux? Or are you propagating marketing bullshit.
Release whenever you want. It matters not.
What *does* matter is how you present it.
If you come out saying 'We are a great company! now we are open source!' and have crap that doesn't work and doesn't run...... well... you're asking for people to complain about you.
On the other hand, if you have a reasonably good product already out, and claim 'we're GOING to be open sourcing it soon' you make people groan... so? Who cares what you're GOING to do? What are you doing now?
Really, if you want to be 'open source', then when you start shipping a product, or delivering it somehow, make the source available under an OSS compliant license to those who you are selling/shipping to.
ALso, there is another question. Are you looking for everyone to help develop (as in OSS project) or are you simply saying you are going to OSS the software?
Not to be negative.. but It seems to me that the churn rate on cellphones is huge. Poeple just don't keep their phones for years and years.
So.. if people have single band phones now, so what... they will have n-band phones that take advantage of the current architectures available.
I dunno about the US, I always assumed it was this way, but in Canada, tri-band phones are not uncommon.
The point you bring up, stated differently, is that this situation *only* arises if you are part of MS Select scheme... this does *not* necessarily apply to everyone.
If I were to buy 10 HP vectras, I am not required to go out and buy 10 more NT licenses simply because I want to ghost it.
If I am part of MS Select, which involves support and other things for every machine in the organization, and across many MS products, not just windows, then there is a reason for this.
This is all fine and dandy for joe average at home, or small business....
but how is this supposed to work when you have
a) 1000 workstations with office installed, and
b) a network not attached to the internet? Do I have to actually phone in to MS and repeat hex license codes for all 1000 users when I upgrade? I don't bloody think that'll happen..
I think one thing that should be clarified (both on MS part and the consumer's part) is this:
Are they buying a license to use a specified version of software, standardized ie: Windows 2000, windows 2000 pro, etc, or are they purchasing an individual copy of a particular instance of each software, each with it's own license.
If the copy from the company images is the same version of windows as the one that came with the HP, what's the difference?
What I'm saying is, it should work like this:
When you buy your HP, you are also buying a license to a single copy of windows 2000. For convenience, we are providing you with this pre-installed, as well as providing a rescue media disk.
In other words, the license should be separate from the instance of software, so to speak.
Companies exist so people can have jobs so people can make money. This is fine and dandy, and capitalism at it's best.
There is also the LAW. The LAW exists so that society can function properly. The LAW dictates the rules we all live by.
It is not permitted to violate the LAW in order to make money. A successful company must make it's money while still obeying the LAW.
Microsoft crossed this line. THAT is why they are taking so much crap.
The EU has even stronger antitrust laws than the US.
MS doesn't have to listen to EU laws. They have the option of simply pulling out of europe and not doing business there, of course.
And it's very strange to hear an (I assume) American talk about how 'foreign laws shouldn't apply', when the US tries to impose it's laws on every other country in the world.
I'm not bashing you here, but pointing something out...
/. readers (*ix users) bash MS so much is because...
Simply because one as a) MCSE and b) a fairly good technical knowledge of the underlying concepts, this does not make them an authority on why MS is better. It *DOES* mean that they have a good solid understanding of how MS likes to do things.
Do I think you probably have a solid understanding of windows and VB, and of how MS likes to build a network? Absolutely. Probably much better than my own undersanding.
Do I think you understand a lot of the core concepts? Sure.
Do I think you have a more impartial outside view that contains a knowledge of unix, Windows, as well as other systems, and enough technical background to make a nice, impartial decision as to what is a better solution in the long run? I'm not so sure.
MS may occupy a *lot* of desktops, the vast majority, but this does not mean they define computing science, enterprise computing, technology, or anything else. It simply means people currently are using it.
They do not use it because it is 'safe and tested for huge installations'. They use it because everyoen else uses it. They use it because there is no viable alternative at the moment, due to MS monopolistic practices.
The reason many
- in learning unix, you generally do not learn vendor-specific realities. You learn hard technical facts about systems. In learning linux, for instance, you learn a great many hard facts about how computers work, how software works, how networks function. Nothing is abstracted off to some dialog box with an 'ok' button.
- in learning NT, for instance... you do not have this impartiality. You learn about how the OS works, not how the computer works. You are shielded from the underlying technology. Sure.. youlearn about newtworking and such in MCSE... but it's not the same thing!
MCSE teaches you how to build solutions using MS products.
Unix teaches you how to build large systems out of *anything*, even non-unix.
I bet that's what all you karmaless bums say...
Are you saying that people who violate non-disclosure agreements should not be sued?
Or are you saying that Apple does not have the right to do anything in secret?
Perhaps I assumed that, because he was a former program manager at Microsoft, that he had a somewhat managerial position at this company. I figured perhaps he was a piece of that.
And if they weren't paying him, that's HIS fault for running it, or his fault for not asking.
I'm not saying that the company screwed up or he screwed up, or that one is guilty and one is not, merely that the situation should not have arisen, and both parties should realize that.
Without the full story, who can say?
Isn't that the same symphony for dot matrix printers that was posted to /. 2 other times before?
Though I sympathize with Mr. Coder Scorned, I would say that, by setting up such a service on his own personal site without compensation, and by not setting such a service up as part of the company's own infrastructure (which it is his job to build), he failed in his duties, and didn't do his job right.
We can all look at it and say 'This guy was being nice, running it himselef!'.. but... your duty to the company is to design systems that protect the companies interests from everyone else, includeing YOURSELF.
Actually, your 386 is probably significantly more powerful than a motorola pager...
Not that I disagree, but why do you assume that because something is 15-20 years old that it is 'outdated'?
Certainly, hardware may go this way, but software does not.
The theory of relativity is dated.. but do we consider it 'ancient'? No. Certainly, we have found some small variations in it.. but it's still extremely important and valid.
Why should software be any different?
X has done nothing but improve for 15 years.
What impressed me was that what mindspring did was extremely logical.
They simply said 'Look, if a court orders (or a judge issues a warrant, etc) data to be obtained from our systems, then we will comply and help do this. If a court orders that Mr. Smiths email be sniffed, we will assist in doing this. '
They simply refused to allow a box to be added to their network to allow the FBI to sniff whenever they wanted. And I wouldn't either... it's my network.. what reason do they have to dictate how I will build my network?
Because if you can't make DOS work, you sure as hell aren't going to get win98 to work.
And how are you supposed to run multiple virtual copoies of Windows or Linux on a SunPCI card? You can't..... you can run *one* at a time.
One large reason for using VMWare in development is the ability to have images of multiple computer setups; to load them concurrently if you like; the ability to have VMWare ask you if you want to permanently write changes to the virtual disk since last startup (great for tech support! you can duplicate people's problems without thrashing a machine)
As for the SunPCI card.. never heard of a project to work under linux. I suppose that would be neat.. but why not just get another cheap PC?
And for what you get with VMWare, it's dirt cheap.
They did jack the price up lately though...
but $299 for VMWare is *not* 'costly' considering what they've done. Nobody else has a competing product; plex86 will be the first alternative, when it works.
VMWare works well.
Also.. plex86 was originally called 'FreeMWare', but changed it's name due to (regardless of what they say on the site) people angered at the obvious confusion with VMWare.