Before I start my main point, here are some telephone numbers:
Cabinet Office: +44 171 2701234 Martin Slater (MP for Reading, near London - my MP): +44 118 9546782
Please read on.
I have taken so much offence to this, words just cannot describe how I feel over this. As someone who uses extreme levels of security on a daily basis (mainly due to personal paranoia) I cannot believe that the government is trying to take the view "oh he uses security - he must be breaking the law". I have taken it upon myself to personally see to it that this law is stopped. I would appreciate anyone who feels about this in the same way that I do to mail
roip-bill@easypenguin.co.uk
and tell me that you agree with me. Please tell me if you don't mind your details being forwarded to government officials. I will take this to the European Court if the bill is passed and I _WILL_ stop it. Think about this:
I use the international crypto patches. I _COULD_ use the Stegonographic Filesystem being developed by Cambridge University - so that it is impossible to tell that the encryption even exists.
I believe in my right to use security, I will NOW OR EVER give up this right and will NEVER EVER give up the encryption keys to my data - I am not a criminal, why should I be treated like one?
We must stop this NOW! As I said to the Prime Minister's secretary a few minutes ago, I now think that the US and the UK are falling behind the Thrid World countries - they may be poor, they may have many problems, but they don't treat their citisens as covert spies hard bent on destroying the nation with their "top secret" encrypted data...
Hi, I just got off the 'phone with the BBC Information department, correcting them on their coverage of the DOS attacks on tonight's 6 O'clock news. Here are 4 mistakes that they made:
1). They did not correctly describe how a DOS attack of this nature occurs. They indirectly suggest that these DOS attacks were just ordinary web page requests of the type sent by an ordinary web browser, just on a larger scale.
2). They erroneously state that Yahoo (and others) contacted the FBI. In actual fact, the FBI contacted them.
3). They do not correctly describe how these "new" distributed attacks are undertaken - simplay saying that these people used systems without permission (very very vague)
4). They use the term "hacker":-( When will they learn what a "cracker" is?
Monitoring internet traffic is not a new idea and is certainly not a new practice. I believe that most governments conduct routine monitoring of internet traffic - perhaps not to this extent, perhaps to a greater extent. Consider that the Russian government has allowed knowledge of the monitoring to become public - in the US, such monitoring is kept secretely under wraps by the NSA - nobody knows to what extent the NSA is monitoring their connections to the outside world. I think, given the choice between telling and not telling the people, telling people is certainly better. This is not trouble because everyone knows that anyone who controls larger servers can monitor large amounts of traffic that flow through them (these people aren't in the government, just admins/etc. of corporate/educational networks). So monitoring is not a new thing, we all assume that it takes place and besides, we can encrypt anything that we don't want the government to know about, and even use anonymous secure proxies (such as anonymiser.com) which encrypt standard web browsing and ftp. In short there is no real problem.
If you want to run fdisk during rh install, simply nfs export a directory containing the required tools from another server and mount it on the box you are installing in. You're fussing, but I get your point.
Does this mean that someone could figure out how the system copes with the intricate details of Moderation and Meta Moderation, how it assigns karma points AND, most importantly, who gets to moderate? I realise that the code is released, but before anyonw flames me, CmdrTaco, is the code you released the exact same code that/. is running on now? It just occurs to me that some troll could figure out a way to get on the fast track to moderation...
I tried mailing you in private, however you don't even have a mail address listed so I'll post here. Minidisc is proprietry and linked to an actual hardware medium. MP3 is not "second-class" it is BY DEFINITION an audio compression codec so YES, it isn't as clear as a CD in quality. However, unlike you, I don't do around with a separates HI-FI system _strapped_ to my head. For all intents and purposes, the quality of headphones and of personal systems in general is not sufficient to warrent your remarks. WHEN I can go into my local HI-FI shop and buy a decent personal separates quality system, then I will worry about what you say. In the mean time, you can do what you want, if you're at home then you will have access to CDs anyway... If you're on the move, then any solid state system is OBVIOUSLY the answer. If you're a sad loner at home then stick with your "PC133 memory and an overclocked CPU". BTW, an overclocked CPU is not "the best" - obviously buying the real deal faster chip is better. Let's guess who you work for...
When will these people learn? They talk about keys to department stores, comparing a DVD key to the keys to a department store, saying that using the keys in DeCSS and other code is "no different than making and then distributing unauthorized keys to a department store. The keys have no real purpose except to circumvent the locks that stand between the thief and the goods he or she targets". They simply must think we are all stupid!
The DVD CSS algorithm only provides protection against those who may wish to use the algorithm to view the content, a bit-by-bit copy is possible without any keys.
Having said the above, using an algorithm such as DeCSS (and varients) can allow one to decode the VOB files and re-encode into an MPEG-1 file - which is much smaller and thus would fit on a couple of cheap CDs. This is the only situation in which I an sympathise with the MPAA. However, the quality loss is so great that a similar file would be obtained by encoding the video from a VHS cassette. Therefore they have no case!
Any judge that would rule in their favour is simply bowing to the corporate giants, without understanding what the "little guy" is on about.
Did everyone notice that the LiViD guys now have a booth at LinuxExpo? That should be a good forum for them to gather support and show the corporations why they do what they do and why we NEED DVD support in the OS(es) of the future. After all, once Linux has an opensource DVD player, every other OS will follow...
All this story says is that once a cracker has compromised a server, then they have a more easy way of locating the encryption keys that may be stored on it. No method has been found for breaking the encryption itself and this does not make e-commerce unsecure. All it actually means is that companies with insecure webservers will find that the keys stored on their servers are located slightly more quickly than by other means. Please note that posting this story was designed to cause a reaction because the guy who posted it (emmett) is reasonably new and wants to create a good impression (TM) amoungst readers. Unfortunately, what he fails to realise is that it is a load of scaremongering shite that he has posted. Anyone who thinks this changes anything is wrong.
Please people, actually read the stories that are posted and don't just accept some bloke interpretation. This story wasn't worth posting.
I know that it's MSNBC, however, even for them, I am surprised at this article. It is far too onesided towards geeky gadgets and ignores some of the key advances of our time.
Why is there no mention of medical imaging devices, genetically engineered viruses (which I would arguably say are gadgets of a different kind).
My point is that the list doesn't really seem worthy of being the top ten inventions of all time.
1). The telegraph. I agree that the telegraph served so many useful perposes. One of the key things which our friend over at MSNBC doesn't mention is the way in which the telegraph connected the corners of the world. For the first time, this little island that I live on called England was able to communicate with you guys over it the US and others in Europe.
2). The telephone was a great invention, however, had it not been for some of the advances in amplification technology and routing since then (the people behind these advances aren't at all well known) then the telephone wouldn't have gone very far. The invention of various amplification technologies took years and it was some time before someone on the East coast of the US could speak directly to someon on the West coast.
3). I can't argue with the vacuum tube - it's a great one.
4). The transistor - yep another good one. Am I wrong or does the article say:
"We must give thanks to Bell Labs for more than inventing Unix."
that's not like MSNBC:-)
On that subject, why don't they mention Unix or in fact _any_ OS. Modern computing is just about sophisticated hardware full of densly packed transistors, there is a hell of a lot of extremely advanced software driving this hardware. Perhaps they should have mentioned some of the first OS's, job scheduling, or Programmable machines that accepted _MACHINE CODE_, leading on to other great advances such as High level programming languages (ADA, FORTRAN, PASCAL, C, LISP, PROLOG, C++, etc.....)
6. Radio. Fine that is a good idea, however, let's not forget satellite technology. Satellite technology has allowed us to overcome the inability to broadcast radio signals (of sufficient frequency to carry comms traffic) right around the globe. It may be technically possible to get a signal from one part of the world to another (taking advantage of the ionosphere), however not without great signal loss. No, I would say the good old "eye's in the sky" rank as more important gadgets to us than radio. One could argue however that Microware "radio" signals are essential communications tools for personal and mass communications. I guess radio can stay.
7. Television - An excellent invention, now all I want is the invention of the next big form of entertainment - the hollodeck - coupled with the USS Enterprise and Judsia Dax all to myself - yum:-)
8. Computers. Yep, bug or not, they are damm useful things. The sheer fact that we got concerned over the Y2K effect shows how assimilated we have become by these machines. Not that I'm complaining as I type on one...
9. Electric Hand Dryers. Oh yeah, these things are desperately important. Did you know that the average hand dryer contains around 3 million germs? that's far far more than a handtowel or paper towels. I can live without an electronic dryer, my hands will dry with or without it.
Which brings me back to my original point that the story is far too one-sided and doesn't consider the larger picture.
What about the camera, the Compaact Disc, Mobile Telephone (gotta hate them), Medical Imaging Devices, Genetically Altered Viruses (see ealier/. article on these). There about a zillion things that I doubt he even considered when writing the article and should have ranked more important than an electric hand dryer!
I think that the money should go to the wonderful guys working on the Livid project.
Since September/October 1999, thanks to them, I have been able to watch DVDs on my Linux box. I can now watch almost all of the Matrix on my OS of choice and it is thanks to those wonderful people. If they had $30K, just think what they could do!
They would have enough money to buy in to the DVD specs, they may have to relase some partially clsed source code in the form of codecs (like xanim does with its codecs - still keeping everything else free/open/whatever-you-call-it).
It's not an ideal situation to release closed code, but it would allow an absolute top notch job to be done on the Linux DVD front and would give them enough funds to continue to have access to future changes to the DVD specification - changes which may make it much more difficult to view DVDs otherwise (the DVD CCA may use crap copyright protection, but that doesn't mean that the Motion Picture Industry in America won't bring in something much stronger that can't be broken so easily).
How many of you are still keeping a windows box around simply to watch DVDs (I don't BTW)? How many of you would finally be able to say good riddence to Microsoft if Linux DVD were as "good" as it is on certain other platforms?
Before _you_ vote, head on over to http://www.linuxvideo.org and check out the great work being done there.
Remember, open sourced, free software is the future, but we still live in a capitalist world which is driven by money.
This would give some great blokes a fighting chance at top quality support for DVD on Linux, without the user requiring a dual PII 500 to run the software (windows boxes running licensed code from the DVD forum need a much lower spec).
Just something for you to all think about before you vote.
It's now well into the first day of the new Millennium for those of us in 'lil old England. We haven't had any major problems (yet), however, remember that most people are not working today so there could be problems around the corner. Did anyone else notice how badly the BBC covered the Millennium "Bug". They were plain wrong in most cases, trying to create public histeria. Anyway, I'm off to finish my lunch, have a great Y2K all, Jonathan.
Hello World, Well, we survived the GMT rollover (so far)! I know this is off topic, but please moderators, just for once, can't I say "have a great new Millennium" to everyone on/. from those of us over the ocean in England without be penalised?
OK. IANAL, however, as I said yesturday in response to the MP3 linking case on slashdot, here is my opinion:
(Remember to read throught the article on MP3 linking yesturday as that was very relevent to this too)
By uploading some code of some kind, be it mp3 instructions or whatever, I am "creating" content. When someone links to that content they are citing anothers creation or IP. However, it is widely accepted that I can write an article in a journal or newspaper (or whatever) that rerences another persons' work as a "link" - the kind that you would have in an appendix or footnote.
Surely linking is similar to this, I am citing a reference to another's work, just like I would in a book or other similar medium. It is rediculous to not allow *linking*.
Furthermore, if I reverse engineer some code, I am using my own computer and using my legal right to do whatever I want with my own computer. Surely since I bought the computer, it is perfectly acceptable for me to examine its inner functioning to see how it is working. If during this process I learn how a program works, well then that is just a side affect of me using my computer (my property) in a legal manner. This rediculous industry tactic of patenting and squashing all of the good ideas out of existance in favour of the "corporate way" is stifling growth and chocking a once much more open community. If the judge is reading this, for God's sake, have some sense and do the decent thing - don't let the "big boys" with the money take the candy away from the smaller boys just because they want to.
I fail to understand why he should have been charged since he was linking to anothers' work. OK, IANAL, however, as I understand it, by uploading an mp3, a user is "creating" material. Someone linking to that material is citing a reference to an existing work, the intellectual property of another person. If I write an article, it is perfectly legal for me to cite a reference to "further reading" in an appedix or footnote. Is it not therefore equivalent to create a hyperlink on a web page?
Yes, that is my point, however, let me point out that in your repetition of my original comment you failed to grasp that trilogy means 3, not 6. By the time the "trilogy" is finished, there will be six parts in total.
If you're going to copy what I say, at least get the figures right.
What I believe you fail to realise is that there is a difference between DVD and VHS. They are different formats, VHS won't "die" anytime soon if not for legacy reasons, then for the ease of use, widespread implementation and cheap media. DVD or something similar is as obvious a progression as cassettes -> CDs was. We already had laser discs and it won't take many years before a DVD-like medium becomes very popular and widespread.
Lucas has good reason to not like DVD. We all know that the format itself is far superior to tape (twice the number of lines, digital format, etc.) but we also know that any digital format makes copying a _hell_ of a lot easier. You can bet if SW DVDs come out, Lucas will be hiring yet another major law firm to scour the internet looking for mpeg-1 lower quality versions available for download. The current SW releases on tape must be captured on to a computer system and then encoded, but any digital format can be resampled with tremendous ease (any idiot can use a freely downloadable "tool" to do it with only one button press). DVD isn't widespread enough either. Lucas is waiting for DVD to be more common than VHS (at least for new releases), then he will have another of his "special edition" SW release campaigns.
Here's a question: What kind of quality were the original SW master tapes? Remember that the original Star Wars was released quite some time ago and that a DVD (or any similar) release can only be of the same (or less) quality as the original recording.
I have heard from anonymous (trusted sources) that Lucasfilm is actually not planning on releasing TPM or any of the other star wars titles at least until episode 3 is out. Apparently they plan on releasing all _SIX_ star wars parts in very rapid succession once the entire story has been completed. One guy recons that this wont be until about 2008 or 2009!
Hi, I just got of the phone with M$ support in the UK (Reading HQ). Unfortunately for M$, the instructions don't actually work anyway. If you read through the instructions that they've given and follow them precisely, you'd have an unusable machine at the end of it (maybe that's what M$ want you to have?). There are several mistakes e.g.:
they instruct you to boot from a Linux boot disk and then "run fdisk/mbr from the command prompt".
Unfortunately, they want you to run this command under one of their crappy OS's. Instead they tell you to run it from the Linux command prompt. They don't tell you to login, they don't tell you who to login as, etc. Linux fdisk won't do what the above intends and you'll be fscked.
Futhermore, they suggest that partition types for Linux and Windows are "incompatible" ????? er?? I've never known this to be true - maybe windows won't be able to read the data stored on a Linux partition (there are tools available I'm told though), but I'd hardly go as far as to imply that the two can't function on the same machine. I guess all those people dual-booting their machines are just seeing things and that Linux will never be advanced enough to co-exist with the wonderous (please somebody make me sick) M$ products:-)
The sheer fact that nobody has previously mentioned this to M$$ would suggest that nobody has previously tried to "fix" their machine in this manner.
To contact me over any M$ related matter, mail me at my Microsoft sponsored mail account on hotmail:
wincrap2000@hotmail.com
Message to M$: If you're going to write a "HOWTO Delete Linux HOWTO" then check it over first and then submit it to www.linuxdoc.org and see what happens:-)
maybe, but that someone isn't who you think it is.
They do in fact perform operations on the date because the various control systems usually operate on a "do this until" such a date/time combo. Read my main post to this article for details of a real problem that _could_ occur due to this.
Hi all, I would like to point out that this warning that is being cited is not new. There were several press articles in the UK computing arena about 6 months ago concerning Millennium compliance problems with UK water treatment and sewage treatment plants. In particular, I live in a large village (Tilehurst) in Reading (very near London). Both Reading and a large chunk of the London area fall under the control of Thames Water for their water and sewage treatment. The Thames Water computer system apparently had a date problem inside the system which controls the release of raw sewage into the sea. The system operates via a cut-off date/time combo, after which it will stop pouring sewage into the sea. Unfortunately, last I heard, the system date will "overflow" to 1900 (or something similar) and will thus never reach the stop time. A word of advice: don't go swimming in the sea anywhere in Britain (or anywhere) very soon after the Millennium, let them clarify the situation first. Surfers beware!:-) Furthermore though, things like this aren't a major problem as one would expect somebody to notice the potentially "damaging" YK2 side-effects like these, and manually interrupt them - hopefully before long term ecological damage is done. disclaimer: I'm not a YK2 nut, I don't expect to be let down by such fundamental services. Most of these stories are excessively overstated and, whilst I would consider their potential implications, I believe that it's the more subtle things that we should "worry" about. E.G. I'm more concerned that the cash machine will have run out of money from all the party goers than that the bank has lost all my money.
Hi, As a barclays customer, I was very disturbed when I first visited their online banking site 6 months ago (www.ibank.barclays.co.uk). They refused me access, citing that UN*X was "less secure than windows"!!! They seem to have finally come round to their senses and I am now happily using their online banking services which are quite good. Before anyone says anything, yes, I *did* reconfigure junkbuster to lie about my OS and got past their "intro page", but unfortunately, they had a second level of OS/browser detection which exploited various java "features" to determine that I wasn't a patron of Microsoft. I would like to know if anyone has any other Linux vs. online banking stories?
The question that needs to be raised really is is there such a thing as anonymity? I would argue that there is and there is not. True, I can come on to a news site like/. and submit anonymous stories, etc. However, you need to remember that whilst Joe Public doesn't know who you are, the government, law enforcement agencies and large corporations can find out that kind of information with the *click* of some fingers. I have accepted the fact that it is not possible for me to be anonymous on the internet, isn't it time we all just lived up to that fact? There's no extreamist paranoia here, just the plain simple truth that the internet doesn't function in an anonymous manner, so it's users cannot either.
Slashdot Mirror
Before I start my main point, here are some telephone numbers:
Cabinet Office: +44 171 2701234
Martin Slater (MP for Reading, near London - my MP): +44 118 9546782
Please read on.
I have taken so much offence to this, words just cannot describe how I feel over this. As someone who uses extreme levels of security on a daily basis (mainly due to personal paranoia) I cannot believe that the government is trying to take the view "oh he uses security - he must be breaking the law". I have taken it upon myself to personally see to it that this law is stopped. I would appreciate anyone who feels about this in the same way that I do to mail
roip-bill@easypenguin.co.uk
and tell me that you agree with me. Please tell me if you don't mind your details being forwarded to government officials. I will take this to the European Court if the bill is passed and I _WILL_ stop it. Think about this:
I use the international crypto patches. I _COULD_ use the Stegonographic Filesystem being developed by Cambridge University - so that it is impossible to tell that the encryption even exists.
I believe in my right to use security, I will NOW OR EVER give up this right and will NEVER EVER give up the encryption keys to my data - I am not a criminal, why should I be treated like one?
We must stop this NOW! As I said to the Prime Minister's secretary a few minutes ago, I now think that the US and the UK are falling behind the Thrid World countries - they may be poor, they may have many problems, but they don't treat their citisens as covert spies hard bent on destroying the nation with their "top secret" encrypted data...
Hi,
:-( When will they learn what a "cracker" is?
I just got off the 'phone with the BBC
Information department, correcting them on their
coverage of the DOS attacks on tonight's 6 O'clock
news. Here are 4 mistakes that they made:
1). They did not correctly describe how a DOS
attack of this nature occurs. They indirectly
suggest that these DOS attacks were just ordinary
web page requests of the type sent by an ordinary
web browser, just on a larger scale.
2). They erroneously state that Yahoo (and others)
contacted the FBI. In actual fact, the FBI contacted them.
3). They do not correctly describe how these "new"
distributed attacks are undertaken - simplay saying that these people used systems without permission (very very vague)
4). They use the term "hacker"
Jonathan.
Monitoring internet traffic is not a new idea and is certainly not a new practice. I believe that most governments conduct routine monitoring of internet traffic - perhaps not to this extent, perhaps to a greater extent. Consider that the Russian government has allowed knowledge of the monitoring to become public - in the US, such monitoring is kept secretely under wraps by the NSA - nobody knows to what extent the NSA is monitoring their connections to the outside world. I think, given the choice between telling and not telling the people, telling people is certainly better. This is not trouble because everyone knows that anyone who controls larger servers can monitor large amounts of traffic that flow through them (these people aren't in the government, just admins/etc. of corporate/educational networks). So monitoring is not a new thing, we all assume that it takes place and besides, we can encrypt anything that we don't want the government to know about, and even use anonymous secure proxies (such as anonymiser.com) which encrypt standard web browsing and ftp. In short there is no real problem.
If you want to run fdisk during rh install, simply nfs export a directory containing the required tools from another server and mount it on the box you are installing in. You're fussing, but I get your point.
yeah but then you'd be claiming that linking without express permission wasn't allowed. This would make YOU just as bad as the DVD CCA.
Does this mean that someone could figure out how the system copes with the intricate details of Moderation and Meta Moderation, how it assigns karma points AND, most importantly, who gets to moderate? I realise that the code is released, but before anyonw flames me, CmdrTaco, is the code you released the exact same code that /. is running on now? It just occurs to me that some troll could figure out a way to get on the fast track to moderation...
I tried mailing you in private, however you don't even have a mail address listed so I'll post here. Minidisc is proprietry and linked to an actual hardware medium. MP3 is not "second-class" it is BY DEFINITION an audio compression codec so YES, it isn't as clear as a CD in quality. However, unlike you, I don't do around with a separates HI-FI system _strapped_ to my head. For all intents and purposes, the quality of headphones and of personal systems in general is not sufficient to warrent your remarks. WHEN I can go into my local HI-FI shop and buy a decent personal separates quality system, then I will worry about what you say. In the mean time, you can do what you want, if you're at home then you will have access to CDs anyway... If you're on the move, then any solid state system is OBVIOUSLY the answer. If you're a sad loner at home then stick with your "PC133 memory and an overclocked CPU". BTW, an overclocked CPU is not "the best" - obviously buying the real deal faster chip is better. Let's guess who you work for...
When will these people learn? They talk about keys to department stores, comparing a DVD key to the keys to a department store, saying that using the keys in DeCSS and other code is "no different than making and then distributing unauthorized keys to a department store. The keys have no real purpose except to circumvent the locks that stand between the thief and the goods he or she targets". They simply must think we are all stupid!
The DVD CSS algorithm only provides protection against those who may wish to use the algorithm to view the content, a bit-by-bit copy is possible without any keys.
Having said the above, using an algorithm such as DeCSS (and varients) can allow one to decode the VOB files and re-encode into an MPEG-1 file - which is much smaller and thus would fit on a couple of cheap CDs. This is the only situation in which I an sympathise with the MPAA. However, the quality loss is so great that a similar file would be obtained by encoding the video from a VHS cassette. Therefore they have no case!
Any judge that would rule in their favour is simply bowing to the corporate giants, without understanding what the "little guy" is on about.
Did everyone notice that the LiViD guys now have a booth at LinuxExpo? That should be a good forum for them to gather support and show the corporations why they do what they do and why we NEED DVD support in the OS(es) of the future. After all, once Linux has an opensource DVD player, every other OS will follow...
All this story says is that once a cracker has compromised a server, then they have a more easy way of locating the encryption keys that may be stored on it. No method has been found for breaking the encryption itself and this does not make e-commerce unsecure. All it actually means is that companies with insecure webservers will find that the keys stored on their servers are located slightly more quickly than by other means. Please note that posting this story was designed to cause a reaction because the guy who posted it (emmett) is reasonably new and wants to create a good impression (TM) amoungst readers. Unfortunately, what he fails to realise is that it is a load of scaremongering shite that he has posted. Anyone who thinks this changes anything is wrong.
Please people, actually read the stories that are posted and don't just accept some bloke interpretation. This story wasn't worth posting.
Thank you.
Jonathan.
I know that it's MSNBC, however, even for them, I am surprised at this article. It is far too onesided towards geeky gadgets and ignores some of the key advances of our time.
:-)
:-)
/. article on these). There about a zillion things that I doubt he even considered when writing the article and should have ranked more important than an electric hand dryer!
Why is there no mention of medical imaging devices, genetically engineered viruses (which I would arguably say are gadgets of a different kind).
My point is that the list doesn't really seem worthy of being the top ten inventions of all time.
1). The telegraph. I agree that the telegraph served so many useful perposes. One of the key things which our friend over at MSNBC doesn't mention is the way in which the telegraph connected the corners of the world. For the first time, this little island that I live on called England was able to communicate with you guys over it the US and others in Europe.
2). The telephone was a great invention, however, had it not been for some of the advances in amplification technology and routing since then (the people behind these advances aren't at all well known) then the telephone wouldn't have gone very far. The invention of various amplification technologies took years and it was some time before someone on the East coast of the US could speak directly to someon on the West coast.
3). I can't argue with the vacuum tube - it's a great one.
4). The transistor - yep another good one. Am I wrong or does the article say:
"We must give thanks to Bell Labs for more than inventing Unix."
that's not like MSNBC
On that subject, why don't they mention Unix or in fact _any_ OS. Modern computing is just about sophisticated hardware full of densly packed transistors, there is a hell of a lot of extremely advanced software driving this hardware. Perhaps they should have mentioned some of the first OS's, job scheduling, or Programmable machines that accepted _MACHINE CODE_, leading on to other great advances such as High level programming languages (ADA, FORTRAN, PASCAL, C, LISP, PROLOG, C++, etc.....)
6. Radio. Fine that is a good idea, however, let's not forget satellite technology. Satellite technology has allowed us to overcome the inability to broadcast radio signals (of sufficient frequency to carry comms traffic) right around the globe. It may be technically possible to get a signal from one part of the world to another (taking advantage of the ionosphere), however not without great signal loss. No, I would say the good old "eye's in the sky" rank as more important gadgets to us than radio. One could argue however that Microware "radio" signals are essential communications tools for personal and mass communications. I guess radio can stay.
7. Television - An excellent invention, now all I want is the invention of the next big form of entertainment - the hollodeck - coupled with the USS Enterprise and Judsia Dax all to myself - yum
8. Computers. Yep, bug or not, they are damm useful things. The sheer fact that we got concerned over the Y2K effect shows how assimilated we have become by these machines. Not that I'm complaining as I type on one...
9. Electric Hand Dryers. Oh yeah, these things are desperately important. Did you know that the average hand dryer contains around 3 million germs? that's far far more than a handtowel or paper towels. I can live without an electronic dryer, my hands will dry with or without it.
Which brings me back to my original point that the story is far too one-sided and doesn't consider the larger picture.
What about the camera, the Compaact Disc, Mobile Telephone (gotta hate them), Medical Imaging Devices, Genetically Altered Viruses (see ealier
Jonathan.
I think that the money should go to the wonderful guys working on the Livid project.
Since September/October 1999, thanks to them, I have been able to watch DVDs on my Linux box. I can now watch almost all of the Matrix on my OS of choice and it is thanks to those wonderful people. If they had $30K, just think what they could do!
They would have enough money to buy in to the DVD specs, they may have to relase some partially clsed source code in the form of codecs (like xanim does with its codecs - still keeping everything else free/open/whatever-you-call-it).
It's not an ideal situation to release closed code, but it would allow an absolute top notch job to be done on the Linux DVD front and would give them enough funds to continue to have access to future changes to the DVD specification - changes which may make it much more difficult to view DVDs otherwise (the DVD CCA may use crap copyright protection, but that doesn't mean that the Motion Picture Industry in America won't bring in something much stronger that can't be broken so easily).
How many of you are still keeping a windows box around simply to watch DVDs (I don't BTW)? How many of you would finally be able to say good riddence to Microsoft if Linux DVD were as "good" as it is on certain other platforms?
Before _you_ vote, head on over to http://www.linuxvideo.org and check out the great work being done there.
Remember, open sourced, free software is the future, but we still live in a capitalist world which is driven by money.
This would give some great blokes a fighting chance at top quality support for DVD on Linux, without the user requiring a dual PII 500 to run the software (windows boxes running licensed code from the DVD forum need a much lower spec).
Just something for you to all think about before you vote.
Jonathan.
It's now well into the first day of the new Millennium for those of us in 'lil old England. We haven't had any major problems (yet), however, remember that most people are not working today so there could be problems around the corner. Did anyone else notice how badly the BBC covered the Millennium "Bug". They were plain wrong in most cases, trying to create public histeria. Anyway, I'm off to finish my lunch, have a great Y2K all, Jonathan.
Hello World, /. from those of us over the ocean in England without be penalised?
Well, we survived the GMT rollover (so far)! I know this is off topic, but please moderators, just for once, can't I say "have a great new Millennium" to everyone on
Jonathan.
OK. IANAL, however, as I said yesturday in response to the MP3 linking case on slashdot, here is my opinion:
(Remember to read throught the article on MP3 linking yesturday as that was very relevent to this too)
By uploading some code of some kind, be it mp3 instructions or whatever, I am "creating" content. When someone links to that content they are citing anothers creation or IP. However, it is widely accepted that I can write an article in a journal or newspaper (or whatever) that rerences another persons' work as a "link" - the kind that you would have in an appendix or footnote.
Surely linking is similar to this, I am citing a reference to another's work, just like I would in a book or other similar medium. It is rediculous to not allow *linking*.
Furthermore, if I reverse engineer some code, I am using my own computer and using my legal right to do whatever I want with my own computer. Surely since I bought the computer, it is perfectly acceptable for me to examine its inner functioning to see how it is working. If during this process I learn how a program works, well then that is just a side affect of me using my computer (my property) in a legal manner. This rediculous industry tactic of patenting and squashing all of the good ideas out of existance in favour of the "corporate way" is stifling growth and chocking a once much more open community. If the judge is reading this, for God's sake, have some sense and do the decent thing - don't let the "big boys" with the money take the candy away from the smaller boys just because they want to.
Jon.
any mirrors?
I fail to understand why he should have been charged since he was linking to anothers' work. OK, IANAL, however, as I understand it, by uploading an mp3, a user is "creating" material. Someone linking to that material is citing a reference to an existing work, the intellectual property of another person. If I write an article, it is perfectly legal for me to cite a reference to "further reading" in an appedix or footnote. Is it not therefore equivalent to create a hyperlink on a web page?
Jonathan.
Yes, that is my point, however, let me point out that in your repetition of my original comment you failed to grasp that trilogy means 3, not 6. By the time the "trilogy" is finished, there will be six parts in total.
If you're going to copy what I say, at least get the figures right.
Thanks,
Jonathan.
What I believe you fail to realise is that there is a difference between DVD and VHS. They are different formats, VHS won't "die" anytime soon if not for legacy reasons, then for the ease of use, widespread implementation and cheap media. DVD or something similar is as obvious a progression as cassettes -> CDs was. We already had laser discs and it won't take many years before a DVD-like medium becomes very popular and widespread.
Lucas has good reason to not like DVD. We all know that the format itself is far superior to tape (twice the number of lines, digital format, etc.) but we also know that any digital format makes copying a _hell_ of a lot easier. You can bet if SW DVDs come out, Lucas will be hiring yet another major law firm to scour the internet looking for mpeg-1 lower quality versions available for download. The current SW releases on tape must be captured on to a computer system and then encoded, but any digital format can be resampled with tremendous ease (any idiot can use a freely downloadable "tool" to do it with only one button press). DVD isn't widespread enough either. Lucas is waiting for DVD to be more common than VHS (at least for new releases), then he will have another of his "special edition" SW release campaigns.
Here's a question: What kind of quality were the original SW master tapes? Remember that the original Star Wars was released quite some time ago and that a DVD (or any similar) release can only be of the same (or less) quality as the original recording.
I have heard from anonymous (trusted sources) that Lucasfilm is actually not planning on releasing TPM or any of the other star wars titles at least until episode 3 is out. Apparently they plan on releasing all _SIX_ star wars parts in very rapid succession once the entire story has been completed. One guy recons that this wont be until about 2008 or 2009!
Hi,
/mbr from the command prompt".
:-)
:-)
I just got of the phone with M$ support in the UK (Reading HQ). Unfortunately for M$, the instructions don't actually work anyway. If you read through the instructions that they've given and follow them precisely, you'd have an unusable machine at the end of it (maybe that's what M$ want you to have?). There are several mistakes e.g.:
they instruct you to boot from a Linux boot disk and then "run fdisk
Unfortunately, they want you to run this command under one of their crappy OS's. Instead they tell you to run it from the Linux command prompt. They don't tell you to login, they don't tell you who to login as, etc. Linux fdisk won't do what the above intends and you'll be fscked.
Futhermore, they suggest that partition types for Linux and Windows are "incompatible" ????? er?? I've never known this to be true - maybe windows won't be able to read the data stored on a Linux partition (there are tools available I'm told though), but I'd hardly go as far as to imply that the two can't function on the same machine. I guess all those people dual-booting their machines are just seeing things and that Linux will never be advanced enough to co-exist with the wonderous (please somebody make me sick) M$ products
The sheer fact that nobody has previously mentioned this to M$$ would suggest that nobody has previously tried to "fix" their machine in this manner.
To contact me over any M$ related matter, mail me at my Microsoft sponsored mail account on hotmail:
wincrap2000@hotmail.com
Message to M$: If you're going to write a "HOWTO Delete Linux HOWTO" then check it over first and then submit it to www.linuxdoc.org and see what happens
maybe, but that someone isn't who you think it is.
They do in fact perform operations on the date because the various control systems usually operate on a "do this until" such a date/time combo. Read my main post to this article for details of a real problem that _could_ occur due to this.
Jon.
Hi all, I would like to point out that this warning that is being cited is not new. There were several press articles in the UK computing arena about 6 months ago concerning Millennium compliance problems with UK water treatment and sewage treatment plants. In particular, I live in a large village (Tilehurst) in Reading (very near London). Both Reading and a large chunk of the London area fall under the control of Thames Water for their water and sewage treatment. The Thames Water computer system apparently had a date problem inside the system which controls the release of raw sewage into the sea. The system operates via a cut-off date/time combo, after which it will stop pouring sewage into the sea. Unfortunately, last I heard, the system date will "overflow" to 1900 (or something similar) and will thus never reach the stop time. A word of advice: don't go swimming in the sea anywhere in Britain (or anywhere) very soon after the Millennium, let them clarify the situation first. Surfers beware! :-) Furthermore though, things like this aren't a major problem as one would expect somebody to notice the potentially "damaging" YK2 side-effects like these, and manually interrupt them - hopefully before long term ecological damage is done. disclaimer: I'm not a YK2 nut, I don't expect to be let down by such fundamental services. Most of these stories are excessively overstated and, whilst I would consider their potential implications, I believe that it's the more subtle things that we should "worry" about. E.G. I'm more concerned that the cash machine will have run out of money from all the party goers than that the bank has lost all my money.
Hi, As a barclays customer, I was very disturbed when I first visited their online banking site 6 months ago (www.ibank.barclays.co.uk). They refused me access, citing that UN*X was "less secure than windows"!!! They seem to have finally come round to their senses and I am now happily using their online banking services which are quite good. Before anyone says anything, yes, I *did* reconfigure junkbuster to lie about my OS and got past their "intro page", but unfortunately, they had a second level of OS/browser detection which exploited various java "features" to determine that I wasn't a patron of Microsoft. I would like to know if anyone has any other Linux vs. online banking stories?
please see my previous post which details why even black and white copiers aren't "safe": IDs in color copies
The question that needs to be raised really is is there such a thing as anonymity? I would argue that there is and there is not. True, I can come on to a news site like /. and submit anonymous stories, etc. However, you need to remember that whilst Joe Public doesn't know who you are, the government, law enforcement agencies and large corporations can find out that kind of information with the *click* of some fingers. I have accepted the fact that it is not possible for me to be anonymous on the internet, isn't it time we all just lived up to that fact? There's no extreamist paranoia here, just the plain simple truth that the internet doesn't function in an anonymous manner, so it's users cannot either.