I don't want to spoil the open source pep rally here but there is ONE MS product that beats the equivalent OSS product, MS Office.
Please add Visual Studio to that. I've tried CodeWarrior, the Borland IDE, KDevelop, Project Builder, vi, emacs and Visual Studio. Visual Studio blows them ALL by a large factor in MY opinion.
(Apple's) Project Builder is getting there, and is extremely good for a version 1.0 (well, 1.1.1) but there is still some work left to do, especially on the debugging side. GDB is nice, but not being able to step into C++ templates classes majorly sucks, for instance, or not being able to set watches in the UI...
Why hide it at all? Why not mount another filesystem that uses this space exclusively
because on your other filesystem, you'd have to store the full address of the chunks where you write, which would actually be equivalent to making the normal file system not use 4K blocks in the first place.
Besides, maintaining consistency would be a mess, what if you delete a block on the "normal" partition and overwrite the whole block with content?
A driver that syncs your normal cluster space with your wasted cluster space would again be identical to not using block on the first FS.
At least that's what I think and I'll continue to think it until someone shows me my beliefs are wrong (it's the same for all of my beliefs actually;-) )
I usually listen to music in the car. Between road noise, wind noise (especially in summer when the windows are down), and engine noise the sound quality is never going to be that good anyway
Just because you listen to music in a noisy environment doesn't mean others do too.
Maybe you found audio casettes to be "Good Enough(TM)" but do you still listen to them now that there are CDs? How many people found their EGA cards to be good enough back in the days. maybe for you "low quality is good enough", but there are lots of people out there who want high quality stuff if they have a way to get it.
Can you imagine if people sent telco companies letters saying "no need to invest in DSL, I only read emails anyway so a 9600 modem is good enough". If there's a demand for it, then they should go for it and there IS a demand for high quality sound, if I am to judge only by the results of the last NAMM show.
your programs won't leave random bits behind, they leave program-droppings
I think you misunderstood my question (or I misunderstood your reply). I was talking about this: you have a program on the HDD, it's on a given block, you delete the program, create a 100 bytes file on that block, the remaining 3996 bytes would be filled with part of the code of the program. Now, how would a malicious person be able to figure out that the files you hide in the blank space are not leftovers from programs you deleted?
Thanks for your advice on steganography, I bookmarked it for later reading.
There are techniques. I remember a slashdot story about someone making a "stenography-classifier" of some sort: It uses statistics to determine "the possibility" of the picture being altered for stenography purposes
that's why I think sound files are better to hide information: If you have a RGBA picture of 800x600 pixels, that's 480000 floats where you can steal a bit or two. That's equivalent to a 44.1Khz 10 second wave file. So if you have something longer to hide, hiding it in sounds may sound (;-)) like a better idea, besides, you can do that in a way that the excessive data results in only unhearable data is added...
Well, That's another way of hiding data, the possibilities are endless
The problem is that to hide information that I would think important (such as pictures, blueprints, my new DeCSS2, the plans to bomb a MacDonald for providing the world with bad food for years,... ) take more than 4K. It would take more than one of such blank spaces left on the disk, which would make it very difficult to recover as I'd need to start mapping the different blocks. I think hiding data in images, movies or (way better) music would be better than putting files there or am I missing something (too)?
This is a question of security by obscurity. If everyone used exactly this technic to hide their data, everyone and their dog will be able to recover it.
Let's assume that if you want to hide something, you'll be clever enough to at least encrypt it before storing it (or even ROT13 it). How can one determine the different between that and random bits left over from old programs, pictures?
The article, while explaining rather well that there IS such a thing, fails to explain some things:
- what are the potential uses for such a thing?
- a hacker could hide some information somewhere, but what to hide?
- Is there any legitimate use for that?
- Does moving the file to another location suffices to prevent any use of such a thing? (after all, if the file is moved, the block is free for reuse).
I see a USian/rest of the world miscommunication going on here. The "SSN problems" have nothing to do with availability of admitance in a hospital. The SSN is (despite laws that supposedly make it illegal) the primary piece of banking information about someone in the US.
Given a name and SSN someone CAN pose as another individual. But not in official governmental matters. In banking/credit card matters. If a thief gets the name and SSN of someone with good credit they can open up credit card accounts and destroy the victims credit. Proof of identity may not actually be a credit card, but the way that things are done here in the US, it may as well be.
Think about it, if you had an ID card like we have here, one with your picture on it, that one would be mandatory instead of your SSN number.
If I want to create a bank account, I have to show it, and you can be certain the bank will check that the picture and the person match.
If it is possible to open a credit account through phone or through any other method that doesn't require you being physically there, you(collectively) had better sue these companies on the ground that they did not take enough steps to ensure that the person opening the account was who he/she claimed to be. The problem as it is now is that since you don't have any LEGITIMATE proof of identity, these companies have absolutely no way to make sure you're who you claim to be.
Aside from banking and a couple other things (voting,...) where it is mandatory (I mean, really mandatory) for the company/entity to make sure you're who you pretend to be, there shouldn't be too much abuse, and you can always refuse to deal with companies such as these ones.
Here in belgium (sorry to come back to it), there are few things where I am asked to show my ID card and I've never heard anyone talking of abuse.
I know my opinion on this topic is unpopular to the majority of the slashdot crowd, if the comments moderated UP are any judge but I'll try anyway.
Compulsory ID cards only make sense if it's requirement to always carry them, and *that* only makes sense if the Police can stop anyone and ask to see them at anytime - at which point you're perilously close to a police state[1].
I am a belgian citizen, I have a belgian ID card with my name, address, marital status, name of my kids, picture, signature, unique ID all written on it. I am required to carry it on me at all times and any police officer is mandated to ask it from me. Guess what? I'm HAPPY about that... And belgium, perilously close to being a police state? You're kidding, right?
First, only police officers can ask it from me. No other entity has ANY right to see it. Banks ask them. No problem with that, they'd better make sure nobody but me withdraws money from my bank account. I have to show it when I go in a night club if I'm suspected to be underage, no problem with that either. I have to show it when a cop controls me (as well as my driver's license, paper to say the car passed the last safety test, that I paid my insurance,...).
That's all, it is a proof of identity and I don't see any problem with that. You don't have a God given right to be anonymous or ability to pose as whoever you want. If you don't agree that whoever you're dealing with has any right you're who you claim you are, don't deal with them!
If you don't trust your government not to abuse that kind of information, vote for people you trust damnit. The problem in the american vision (sorry to generalize) is that you've been fux0red so often by your government that you (at least the slashdot crowd) don't trust them at all. But in my book, governments are NOT the problem, you elected them. The problem comes from corporations who could potentially abuse the system. There are solutions to that: don't deal with those companies and/or have your politicians create laws to protect your information! What? That credit card company wants information? Don't live off credit...
I think our government is preparing to use the smart cards also. I am not unhappy at all about this. In what way is it any different from what I have already? It's NOT any different.
What could someone do if they got my ID card? Pose as me? They better do it extremely fast because first thing I'd do if I get my smart ID card stolen is phone to invalidate it.
What if they could extract my information from it? Big deal, what's secret about me on that card, they could get the same information by looking up in a phone book, heh. Smart ID cards are NOT credit cards, they proof of identify. That's ALL...
What you all should be concerned about is not that there is a way to uniquely identify yourself, but making sure that that information is PROTECTED, that entities can't trade that information, can't request that information...
Now, of course, It would be different if people could actually do me harm with them cards (like if they included bank information), but that is not what smart ID Cards are about.
By the way, if you want to get rid of the SSN problems, implement social security for everyone like all European countries that I am aware of have. I've never seen anyone being refused admitance in a hospital in my life, and I sure hope never to live in a country that requires me to have a special insurance to benefit from health care.
If corporations can not make donations, what about sole owner or LLC?
Because sole owner are ALSO "natural people". Being the chairman of a big company does not make you less a citizen. So you can still contribute, but with your own cash, not the company's...
Where I live, I can make donations to parties, but companies can't. There's furthermore a strict limit, identical for everyone, on how much money one can spend on the advertisement for election process (this amount is dependant on the "scale" of the election).
I can't see anything wrong with this system, can you?
I just think you are hampering free speech by making limits.
There is not limit to speech here, but on advertisement. You can go wherever you want and speak to people, that's speech.
It does NOT restrict free speech, it just sets the rules for how that expression is to be done. That way there is no difference between whealthy and not, which is IMNSHO is how it should be.
my 0.02
Re:Obfuscated source code is not GPLable.....
on
Abusing the GPL?
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· Score: 1
A bit of an arse to litigate I would guess.
Especially since you have to prove they're not using that form to develop... Which is very hard to do if you're not someone from that company.
but when you have a high enough percentage of people disobeying the law, you have (1) a bad law, and (2) a lost cause
Isn't that what is happening just now? I'd be curious to see the exact figures of the number of people infringing copyright law. Does that mean the copyright law is going to be modified accordingly? No... On the contrary, they try to force in more laws to make what you're doing illegal. What they forget is that it's ALREADY illegal in the first place, thus making extra legislation more bothersome than useful. One readable copy of anything is all it takes...
foolishly adopted a national 55 mph speed limit. Did ANYONE slow down
do you get less fines even though the vast majority of people do'nt respect that law? I guessed so...
I'm no expert in CPUs whatsoever, but I don't think adressable memory is the only issue. There's computation also.
128 bits CPUs would allow for 128 bit operation computations faster than 32 or 64 bit processors, I think. And in fields where extreme precision is important and speed is also important, this might be an issue.
Then again, I'm no expert and Errare humanum est...
I would have sent my opinion, but even though this trial has an influence on me, I'm not a US citizen and thus not allowed to participate...
I'll wait for a trial in europe to get my voice heard (already contacted my representative in advance and made "personal" contact to make sure they hear me later on)...
>>"Hey baby...wanna f---ok, that's cool...hey you over THERE, wanna f---...no?...ok, how about you, then?"
Ummm, back when I used to drink, I actually did just that. Sort of a drunken pickup spam. Mostly I got smacked, but believe it or not, it actually worked!
As much as I like it, university work should not be put on GPL. Simply because even though you paid for the work as an individual, corporations have paid taxes too!!. Why should they release the derivative of that work, after all, they already paid for it (the initial one). That's what public domain means, free to use by everyone
You can say that the corps don't pay what they should, but attack the tax system then and not something else.
[quote]The universities should have the power to control how money is made of their work[unquote].
The darn thing got my location right within a 15 kilometers range (that's about 10 miles for people who have not switched yet). Sucks so much that I'm traceable... I guess proxies will be required in the future...
Did it ever occur to you that some people (like me) might have enjoyed the movie. Sure, it's not a masterpiece, but it was nice nonetheless.
Your statement that Mr Lucas is in it only for the money now is entirely based on the fact that you didn't like the movie. You had expectations, the movie didn't meet them, well, what's the problem with that, it met other people's expectations, even if not fully.
[quote]Lucas diserved the money he made from the 3 first star wars[unquote] and all the same, he deserves the money for the other things he makes, the games as well as the movies. Who are you to judge whether he deserves money or not? You don't like Ep. 1. Then don't go see Ep. 2.
[quote]I didn't have such a harsh judgment before seeing LOTR...[unquote] What a weird way to judge a movie. You judge a movie on its own merits, not based on ANOTHER movie's merits. If the Fellowship Of The Ring was a great movie, it's great, but why would FOTR being great make all previous CGI movies suck. If FOTR sucked, would that have made SWEP1 being great? I'm sorry to be flamebaiting here, but you sound like the "I'm never happy" kind of person. You're just taking that as an argument to flame SWEP1 because you didn't like it. But come on, man, don't say Lucas sold his soul to the Evil Cult Of Money Above All because you didn't like it.
All your rant about NSYNC is unjustified, read the facts before complaining, they'll make a SHORT appearance amidst a large CROWD and get KILLED SHORTLY afterwards. It's not like Lucas decided to make them the troop of "Bards" following the heroes or make them the heroes of Ep.2.
I tell you what, make a movie and make it better than Ep.1 and we'll talk about it later on because I'm getting tired of the mindless Lucas bashers. You didn't like it, fine, you liked it, like I did, fine too but you have no unalienable right to judge Lucas' work?
I just finished reading the thing, and frankly, it sounds like hoax...
First, he mentions the "previous" email leak [quote]Now that the whole world knows we are taking Linux seriously based on the leak of my last email... [unquote] Now, this is the first mail he sends to the guys and he right out says "someone leaked my mail". I think not...
[quote]then do the simple exercise of walking through you accounts data centers and when you see a Sun or IBM machine, ask what it's used for, if you see some strange servers you don't what they are doing -- ask what is running on them and take notes.[unquote]. He already said that last time, and considering how the slashdot crowd reacted at this comment, I don't see any other reason to mention this than raise the voices once more...
How would anyone be careless twice in a row (if the first one wasn't a hoax too).
If you at least read the article, you might have an idea, but considering the time it took you to post this (one minute after the article was posted), you obviously haven't. What makes you post so fast, man? Easy Karma?
actually, even pécéèmcéia (I don't know on this one) is better that their feeble attempt to replace "chewing-gum" by "machouillon", "week-end" by "dominique", "freeware" by "partagiciel", "script kiddie" by "ado du script", "spam" by "poluriel", "spammer" by "innondeur", the list goes on...
for example, the official translation for "email" in France is "mél"
actually, and only for the sake of accuracy, the term adopted by the french academy for "email" is "couriel", and some people actually use it, like magasines who are forced, by law, not to use the english word if a french word exists to replace it. (same applies for CDROM(cédérome), DVD(dévédé), and so on).
Slashdot Mirror
Please add Visual Studio to that. I've tried CodeWarrior, the Borland IDE, KDevelop, Project Builder, vi, emacs and Visual Studio. Visual Studio blows them ALL by a large factor in MY opinion.
(Apple's) Project Builder is getting there, and is extremely good for a version 1.0 (well, 1.1.1) but there is still some work left to do, especially on the debugging side. GDB is nice, but not being able to step into C++ templates classes majorly sucks, for instance, or not being able to set watches in the UI...
because on your other filesystem, you'd have to store the full address of the chunks where you write, which would actually be equivalent to making the normal file system not use 4K blocks in the first place.
Besides, maintaining consistency would be a mess, what if you delete a block on the "normal" partition and overwrite the whole block with content?
A driver that syncs your normal cluster space with your wasted cluster space would again be identical to not using block on the first FS.
At least that's what I think and I'll continue to think it until someone shows me my beliefs are wrong (it's the same for all of my beliefs actually ;-) )
Maybe you found audio casettes to be "Good Enough(TM)" but do you still listen to them now that there are CDs?
How many people found their EGA cards to be good enough back in the days. maybe for you "low quality is good enough", but there are lots of people out there who want high quality stuff if they have a way to get it.
Can you imagine if people sent telco companies letters saying "no need to invest in DSL, I only read emails anyway so a 9600 modem is good enough". If there's a demand for it, then they should go for it and there IS a demand for high quality sound, if I am to judge only by the results of the last NAMM show.
Thanks for your advice on steganography, I bookmarked it for later reading.
Well, That's another way of hiding data, the possibilities are endless
The problem is that to hide information that I would think important (such as pictures, blueprints, my new DeCSS2, the plans to bomb a MacDonald for providing the world with bad food for years, ... ) take more than 4K.
It would take more than one of such blank spaces left on the disk, which would make it very difficult to recover as I'd need to start mapping the different blocks. I think hiding data in images, movies or (way better) music would be better than putting files there or am I missing something (too)?
Let's assume that if you want to hide something, you'll be clever enough to at least encrypt it before storing it (or even ROT13 it). How can one determine the different between that and random bits left over from old programs, pictures?
- what are the potential uses for such a thing?
- a hacker could hide some information somewhere, but what to hide?
- Is there any legitimate use for that?
- Does moving the file to another location suffices to prevent any use of such a thing? (after all, if the file is moved, the block is free for reuse).
Just my 0.01 worth questions...
If I want to create a bank account, I have to show it, and you can be certain the bank will check that the picture and the person match.
If it is possible to open a credit account through phone or through any other method that doesn't require you being physically there, you(collectively) had better sue these companies on the ground that they did not take enough steps to ensure that the person opening the account was who he/she claimed to be. The problem as it is now is that since you don't have any LEGITIMATE proof of identity, these companies have absolutely no way to make sure you're who you claim to be.
Aside from banking and a couple other things (voting, ...) where it is mandatory (I mean, really mandatory) for the company/entity to make sure you're who you pretend to be, there shouldn't be too much abuse, and you can always refuse to deal with companies such as these ones.
Here in belgium (sorry to come back to it), there are few things where I am asked to show my ID card and I've never heard anyone talking of abuse.
I am a belgian citizen, I have a belgian ID card with my name, address, marital status, name of my kids, picture, signature, unique ID all written on it. I am required to carry it on me at all times and any police officer is mandated to ask it from me. Guess what? I'm HAPPY about that... And belgium, perilously close to being a police state? You're kidding, right?
First, only police officers can ask it from me. No other entity has ANY right to see it. ...).
Banks ask them. No problem with that, they'd better make sure nobody but me withdraws money from my bank account.
I have to show it when I go in a night club if I'm suspected to be underage, no problem with that either.
I have to show it when a cop controls me (as well as my driver's license, paper to say the car passed the last safety test, that I paid my insurance,
That's all, it is a proof of identity and I don't see any problem with that. You don't have a God given right to be anonymous or ability to pose as whoever you want. If you don't agree that whoever you're dealing with has any right you're who you claim you are, don't deal with them!
If you don't trust your government not to abuse that kind of information, vote for people you trust damnit. The problem in the american vision (sorry to generalize) is that you've been fux0red so often by your government that you (at least the slashdot crowd) don't trust them at all. But in my book, governments are NOT the problem, you elected them. The problem comes from corporations who could potentially abuse the system. There are solutions to that: don't deal with those companies and/or have your politicians create laws to protect your information! What? That credit card company wants information? Don't live off credit...
I think our government is preparing to use the smart cards also. I am not unhappy at all about this. In what way is it any different from what I have already? It's NOT any different.
What could someone do if they got my ID card? Pose as me? They better do it extremely fast because first thing I'd do if I get my smart ID card stolen is phone to invalidate it.
What if they could extract my information from it? Big deal, what's secret about me on that card, they could get the same information by looking up in a phone book, heh. Smart ID cards are NOT credit cards, they proof of identify. That's ALL...
What you all should be concerned about is not that there is a way to uniquely identify yourself, but making sure that that information is PROTECTED, that entities can't trade that information, can't request that information...
Now, of course, It would be different if people could actually do me harm with them cards (like if they included bank information), but that is not what smart ID Cards are about.
By the way, if you want to get rid of the SSN problems, implement social security for everyone like all European countries that I am aware of have. I've never seen anyone being refused admitance in a hospital in my life, and I sure hope never to live in a country that requires me to have a special insurance to benefit from health care.
My 0.02 (damn these small coins)
Because sole owner are ALSO "natural people". Being the chairman of a big company does not make you less a citizen. So you can still contribute, but with your own cash, not the company's...
Where I live, I can make donations to parties, but companies can't. There's furthermore a strict limit, identical for everyone, on how much money one can spend on the advertisement for election process (this amount is dependant on the "scale" of the election).
I can't see anything wrong with this system, can you?
There is not limit to speech here, but on advertisement. You can go wherever you want and speak to people, that's speech. It does NOT restrict free speech, it just sets the rules for how that expression is to be done. That way there is no difference between whealthy and not, which is IMNSHO is how it should be.my 0.02
Especially since you have to prove they're not using that form to develop... Which is very hard to do if you're not someone from that company.
They're spying on us, people, how else could he know our money spending habits?
(Note to Troll-Button-Happy-Moderators: yes, this is a joke)
Isn't that what is happening just now? I'd be curious to see the exact figures of the number of people infringing copyright law. Does that mean the copyright law is going to be modified accordingly? No... On the contrary, they try to force in more laws to make what you're doing illegal. What they forget is that it's ALREADY illegal in the first place, thus making extra legislation more bothersome than useful. One readable copy of anything is all it takes...
do you get less fines even though the vast majority of people do'nt respect that law? I guessed so...128 bits CPUs would allow for 128 bit operation computations faster than 32 or 64 bit processors, I think. And in fields where extreme precision is important and speed is also important, this might be an issue.
Then again, I'm no expert and Errare humanum est...
Just my 0.02
I'll wait for a trial in europe to get my voice heard (already contacted my representative in advance and made "personal" contact to make sure they hear me later on)...
This was just my contribution to this guy's education... No I'm not a troll...
The good question is: was it good?
You can say that the corps don't pay what they should, but attack the tax system then and not something else.
[quote]The universities should have the power to control how money is made of their work[unquote].
Most certainly not. Why should they have that?
The darn thing got my location right within a 15 kilometers range (that's about 10 miles for people who have not switched yet). Sucks so much that I'm traceable... I guess proxies will be required in the future...
Your statement that Mr Lucas is in it only for the money now is entirely based on the fact that you didn't like the movie. You had expectations, the movie didn't meet them, well, what's the problem with that, it met other people's expectations, even if not fully.
[quote]Lucas diserved the money he made from the 3 first star wars[unquote] and all the same, he deserves the money for the other things he makes, the games as well as the movies. Who are you to judge whether he deserves money or not? You don't like Ep. 1. Then don't go see Ep. 2.
[quote]I didn't have such a harsh judgment before seeing LOTR...[unquote] What a weird way to judge a movie. You judge a movie on its own merits, not based on ANOTHER movie's merits. If the Fellowship Of The Ring was a great movie, it's great, but why would FOTR being great make all previous CGI movies suck. If FOTR sucked, would that have made SWEP1 being great? I'm sorry to be flamebaiting here, but you sound like the "I'm never happy" kind of person. You're just taking that as an argument to flame SWEP1 because you didn't like it. But come on, man, don't say Lucas sold his soul to the Evil Cult Of Money Above All because you didn't like it.
All your rant about NSYNC is unjustified, read the facts before complaining, they'll make a SHORT appearance amidst a large CROWD and get KILLED SHORTLY afterwards. It's not like Lucas decided to make them the troop of "Bards" following the heroes or make them the heroes of Ep.2.
I tell you what, make a movie and make it better than Ep.1 and we'll talk about it later on because I'm getting tired of the mindless Lucas bashers. You didn't like it, fine, you liked it, like I did, fine too but you have no unalienable right to judge Lucas' work?
First, he mentions the "previous" email leak [quote]Now that the whole world knows we are taking Linux seriously based on the leak of my last email... [unquote] Now, this is the first mail he sends to the guys and he right out says "someone leaked my mail". I think not...
[quote]then do the simple exercise of walking through you accounts data centers and when you see a Sun or IBM machine, ask what it's used for, if you see some strange servers you don't what they are doing -- ask what is running on them and take notes.[unquote]. He already said that last time, and considering how the slashdot crowd reacted at this comment, I don't see any other reason to mention this than raise the voices once more...
How would anyone be careless twice in a row (if the first one wasn't a hoax too).
If you at least read the article, you might have an idea, but considering the time it took you to post this (one minute after the article was posted), you obviously haven't. What makes you post so fast, man? Easy Karma?
You can find the english/french correspondance for some things at http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/index.html
actually, and only for the sake of accuracy, the term adopted by the french academy for "email" is "couriel", and some people actually use it, like magasines who are forced, by law, not to use the english word if a french word exists to replace it. (same applies for CDROM(cédérome), DVD(dévédé), and so on).