As we progress into the future of computing at an ever-expanding rapid rate,
it is imperative that we occasionally take time to reflect on how these
unprecendented advances will impact our daily life structure. The recent
backlash to Scott McCloud's micropayments proposal shows how controversy can touch upon many aspects of a new
payment paradigm. On one hand, we have enthusiastic "early adopters" who represent
the perennial quest for new ways of doing business. On the other hand,
we have the more traditional viewpoint of many Internet users and "old-ecomony" leaders - who view micropayments as confusing, unintuitive, or in some cases downright dangerous.
Who is correct? At this point, it's difficult to tell. Some detractors would
argue that micropayment technology presents an undue intrusion into existing content distribution model.
Micropayment technology is a revolutionary alterance in the existing capacity of authors to receive payment; it alters the capacity for content distribution in ways that our current economic structure
and techonological understanding may not be prepared to accomodate. Perhaps
glitches in this untested process may condemn the concept of micropayments to a footnote in computing
history.
Supporters, on the other hand, say that micropayments are an important step forward for
computing and publishing. With previous payment schemes, users could not take
advantage of the most important technological benefits gained from modern-day
information research. Micropayments, they say, opens the proverbial floodgates by allowing the every-day users to pick and choose what they pay for.
There is some probably some merit to both viewpoints. Certainly, commerce as
a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the capacity and
access provided by micropayments. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural
shifts; existing payment schemes may not be as structurally capable as their newer cousin.
Will micropayments sink or swim? The question is still up in the air; with many unique
forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and
confrontations for the pioneers in the online content field. Whatever the final result is,
it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
Probably due to the general "oh no! hackers!" scare, honeypots have recently become pretty popular security tactics. Unfortunately, they really do almost as much -- if not more -- harm than good.
The problem with honeypots and honeynets is that, in the end, they end up simply encouraging crackers. When systems are put online for the specific purpose of being hacked, crackers are more than happy to ablige by comprosing them. And the more boxes they can crack, the more likely they are to get caught up in the whole "blackhat" mythos. Honeypots/nets also give crackers a chance to practice their skills -- which can then be used against real targets -- with little repercussion.
Furthermore, putting a honeypot or honeynet up is almost asking for people to become blackhats. Most crackers / blackhats have huge egos, hence their need to deface web pages with their 1337 group names. These kind of people would love to be the subject of a honeypot study, if for no other reason then getting the chance to see that their childish actions have had an effect on somebody. Crackers want to be perceived as disruptive and a threat; they want to look "cool" and dangerous and mysterious. Why encourage these people by giving them the kind of attention they're looking for?
And of course, there's also the fact that a honeypot is a waste of resources. It seems pretty silly to set up a system specifically to be cracked? There's plenty of better uses for a spare box; why not set up a distributed-processing unit or an open- source FTP server if you don't know what else to do with an old computer?
I understand the need to find out cracking techniques. But this kind of stuff is hardly secret by now; I don't see any reason to continue useless navel-gazing "studies" of cracker behavior. How much more can we really learn from the drooling 13-year-old script kiddies of the world?
As we progress into the future of computing at an ever-expanding rapid rate,
it is imperative that we occasionally take time to ensure that these unprecedented advances will function as these advances continue to filter to the rest of the society. The recent IP exhaustion problem shows how easily a system believed infallible can encounter problems in the long run.
On one hand, the enthusiastic "early adopters" will simply say that there's no way to predict where technological progression will take us and that we should simply "play it by ear", adapting to each problem as it occurs. After all, who would have believed that the Internet could take off in the way it has? On the other hand, the
more experienced, but possibly flawed, viewpoint states that we should research the possibilities of each new venture before jumping in.
Who is correct? At this point, it's difficult to tell. Some detractors would
argue that flaws in systems such as IPv4 will end up presenting a major problem in the long run. Networking technology is a revolutionary step forward; it alters the capacity for communication in ways that our current economic structure
and techonological understanding may not be prepared to predict. Perhaps glitches in this untested process may condemn these systems to a footnote in computing
history.
Supporters, on the other hand, say that Internet is an important step forward for
computing and society, and that we should jump in as soon as possible. With previous information distribution systems, users could not take
advantage of the most important technological benefits gained from modern-day
information research. The Internet, they say, just opened the proverbial floodgates by bringing the
technology out of the laboratories and into the homes of the every-day user.
There is some probably some merit to both viewpoints. Certainly, commerce as
a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the wide use and acceptance of the Internet. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural
shifts; existing network systems may not be as structurally capable as new plans such as IPv6.
Will our network infrastructure sink or swim? The question is still up in the air; with many unique
forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and
confrontations for the pioneers in the CS field. Whatever the final result is,
it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
I know that this is an infamous hoax, but it's unfair to trash the candidates for not knowing about it -- remember, most Slashdot readers tend to specialize in technology, but for politicians, that's just one of dozens of areas they have to worry about. There's also foreign policy, health care, crime, education, the environment, and a lot of other fields, each with their own history and rumors. We can't expect them to know about every piece of legislation that does -- or in this case, does not -- exist.
I think we should be more glad about the fact that both candidates were enthusiastially against this bill. Even the idea of an e-mail tax is ridiculous; it's good to sea that both Clinton and Lazio oppose it not just in politics but in principle.
It's all a matter of trust. Trusting no politicians is not an option and will hurt you economically if others do take the risk -- nor is trusting every fool with a gavel. The truth is in the middle. I'm grateful to be living in a country where I think I can (mostly) trust the government to provide me this kind of services. So, whether you trust Clinton and Lazio or not is not very relevant. The major advancement here is the clear and present danger that e-mail taxes present.
Of course Red Hat 7 is going to have a lot of bugs in it -- it's a brand new version of Red Hat with a lot of new software in it. While it would be wonderful if everything magically worked perfectly the first time, it's totally unrealistic to actually expect that. As usual, we'll see a wide range of bugs; a lot of them will be stomped out soon after they're discovered, and then Red Hat will work on fixing up some of the more persistent problems. It happens all the time. And for those of you who have to have bug-free software, there's plenty of older versions out there to downloa.
Remember, Windows ME is probably even buggier than Red Hat 7; it's just that it's not open-source, so that the yellow-journalist media has a harder time witchhunting bugs. Give Red Hat a fair shake here. They're doing the best they can here, and throwing accusations at them because their software doesn't work perfectly 100% of them is counter-productive.
Is this kind of security needed for IRC?
on
IRC Improvements
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· Score: 2
While security is always great to have, wouldn't sending encrypted data be terribly inefficient for this kind of task? Encrypted communications usually uses up more bandwidth per sentence than unencrypted communications, and given the decentralized nature of IRC, it seems like you'd have a lot of extra text shooting back and forth from computer to comptuer. This could really slow a lot of networks down -- believe me, I've seen plenty of channels where the text flies fast and furiously.
It's impossible to ever obtain absolute security, and the more security we have, the less convenient and powerful our programs are -- remember, the scripting in Outlook may be a security hole, but it's also a honestly useful feature for a lot of dumb secretarys. IRC doesn't seem like a medium where a lot of security is really necessary; I don't see any reason to sacrifice speed to keep A/S/L checks and MP3 begging encrypted.
...because if he was, he'd probably be suing Bokler under the DMCA. After all, cracking his cipher is obviously circumventing Poe's access-control device!
And the point of all this is...?
on
Geocaching
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· Score: 2
You know what's bound to happen: some twit who wants to spoil everyone else's fun reads the coordinates off the web, goes to the place, and walks off with the bucket. End of experiment.
Obviously, any patent suit is just going to hurt both parties, but it seems like Akamai is the "good guys" in this case. According to Digital Forecast, Akamai was in business a long time before Digital Island, so it seems they have a pretty legitimate claim to the concept here. After all, they were first...
Since you're a little child, you hear over and over that you're never, ever to look at the sun or you might lose your eyesight. But I've looked directly at the sun a couple times, and my eyes didn't hurt in the least. I didn't even see spots.
Is there any truth to the "never look directly at the sun" maxim? Or is this just another old wives' tale, like eating carrots to improve your vision or not watching TV while the lights are off?
A 1.66GHz chip in a desktop? Who in their right mind would need that kind of computing power? Desktops have only a limited number of functions: word processing, web browsing, some graphics editing, MP3 playing, instant messaging, e-mail, and PowerPoint. None of these applications would benefit from a 1.66GHz chip -- there's a point (the "absolute processing point") where the speed of a program is dependent solely on the algorithm used, and not on how fast the microprocessor is chugging along.
It's unfortunate that companies can hoodwink the mainstream market into buying these useless "upgrades" that won't improve their computer. Remember, Joe Sixpack probably thinks that this will speed up their downloads. Does this constitue false advertising? These people are being sold products that they don't need.
What we really need is a better portable storage medium -- floppy disks are obviously useless in an era of 10MB+ files, and the Zip drive just never caught on. Bigger hard drives and faster bandwidth would be nice, too:)
Been a while since I've had German, but this should get the meaning across:
The board of directors of the European Patent Office voted to allow the unrestricted patenting of software. The authority recommends the cancellation of the current clause of the European patent convention which states that computer programs "as such" are not patentable.
In doing so, the EPA placed itself in the same boat as the proponents of software patents -- mostly international corporations that want a change in the European legal situation towards one more similar to the United States and Japan, where where software is practically patentable without restriction. The German delegation in the 19-member EPA committee voted against the raid in 10-to-9 decision.
Programmers of free software as well as smaller software houses stand against software patents, since the potential danger of patent suits from larger corporations makes their work practically impossible. Already today large American companies protect themselves with numerous patents on minor developments - a move which also allows them to resist by counter suits if another enterprise files a patent infringement suit against them. However, free programmers and small companies do not have the financial means in order to be able to exact such a strategy and therefore formed an alliance against software patents.
The endorsement of software patents by the EPA modifies nothing in the existing legal situation,
but serves as a preliminary decision for a conference in November, where the nations that have taken part in the EPA want to finally rule on the batter. At the beginning of of July, leaks from the European Union indicated that the organization did not want to permit American-style software patents in Europe. However, organizations, like the EuroLinux alliance and the Linux federation LIVE, pointed out that the commission had, at the time, already ruled itself as being basically unopposed to software patents.
It's nice to keep on signing petitions and drumming up publicity, but sometimes I really begin to doubt if the governments of the world will ever get a clue that the current patent system doesn't work at all. The anti-EU-software patent petition received plenty of media attention (I think I even heard about it on CNN!), and it still hasn't proved successful.
What kind of contingency plans do we have should software patents to be approved? If we can't get the governments to listen to us, what do we do? Keep on trying to draw support, or simply take Thoreau's advice to "Do what thou wilst will be the whole of the law" and ignore all this patent crap. We can't let the future of technology be placed into the hands of a few corrupt individuals, and it looks like we're going to fight them at every turn.
...domain names are and aren't considered property, contrary to popular belief. Network Solutions' contract and numerous international court decisions have established as fact in the eyes of the law. You don't own the combination of letters that makes up your DNS entry, just the priviledge of using it exclusively -- otherwise, how could your registration expire after two years? If you really owned a domain name, you'd keep it forever.
While I'm sure eBay would like to offer as many auctions as they can (= more $), they certainly wouldn't want to piss off NSI -- after all, NSI could always revoke ebay.com and auction it off!
We need a better place where web users can sell^H^H^H^H exchange the priviledges of domain names without harassment from the registars -- there's probably a huge untapped market for "used" domain names. (Have a popular site that you don't want anymore? Sell the domain name to a dotcom upstart and let them coast off your popularity!) After all, if people are willing to buy used cars...
I hate to say it, but this could well weaken 2600's case. 2600 argued that DeCSS couldn't hurt the movie industry because nobody could use it to pirate DVDs -- the statistic that DVD-ROMs cost more than an actual DVD movie was often brought up. But now, it's actually possible to rip and copy a DVD to a CD, which means that DeCSS really could be used for piracy.
Wouldn't it be wise to keep a lid on this until the 2600 / DeCSS affair concludes? The last thing we want is the MPAA being able to easily shoot down one of our key arguments by simply pointing to an article on tomshardware.com. I'm all for cool new technology, but what ever happened to journalistic responsibility? You're either for free speech or you're against it, and Mr. Pabst unfortunately seems to be taking the latter position.
Have we reached an 'accuracy limit'? Not for now, at least. While search engines have been improving, there's still a long way to go before they can serve up the correct page 100% of the time. Obviously, it's impossible for the search engine code to emulate the human brain; there's no way to tell exactly what the searcher wanted. Instead, search engines can only "guess", which is why you always end up with a few oddball results.
The only way to achieve true search engine accuracy is to have an actual person search for pages on request. Why no company has thought of this, I'm not sure, as this could certainly be an explosive business opportunity here. The difficulty of finding trustworthy information on the Internet is legendary, and I'm a sure plenty of clueless newbies would pay a monthly fee to get better search results.
I wouldn't be so quick to hail this as some sort of victory for the open source movement over its archrival. Microsoft may be greedy and pigheaded, but they're not stupid enough to think that releasing the code its IPv6 implementation wouldn't benefit competing OSes as well. While I'm sure part of this decision is related to Microsoft trying to improve its public image in light of a possible break-up, the company's business plan still isn't going to change drastically overnight. Remember, open source can confer an economic advantage -- the old "many eyes" principles is just one of the reason that Microsoft might want be releasing the source.
So before you start proclaiming that Microsoft has seen the light, remember that MSFT is obviously acting its own self-interest here. For whatever reasons, some PHBs decided that it would be to Microsoft's advantage to open-source this baby (and it is a neat little project, I'll admit). It's certainly likely that we'll benefit from it too, but at the end of the day, Microsoft is a publically-held corporation and is legally obligated to maximize its profits. Don't think for a minute that they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts -- they're just trying to make money, whether it be through closed-source software or now open-source software.
Geoff is the main maintainer and innovator behind Linux-Mandrake. False. Geoff is the main maintainer and innovator behind GNU/Linux-Mandrake.
A new distribution is soon to be released: Linux-Slashdot. False. Its actual title is GNU/Linux-Slashdot.
KDE 2.0 to be included in Debian Potato. True. Other additions planned for Debian Potato include the 2.0 kernel, GNOME, and that wacky new "bash" thing.
Python to be removed from Debian Potato. True. This is required under federal food safety guidelines.
RMS to be called a Potato. True. However, those who call RMS a Potato must eventually seek his forgiveness if they are to ascend into heaven during the Rapture.
Geeks in Space strives to make Napster legal. <slashbot>False! Napster is already legal!</slashbot>
A 3-bedrooms/2-baths apartment in the San Francisco Bay area costs around $2400. True. ("San Francisco Bay area" is believed to be an euphemism for the bay that many San Franciscans enter through.)
A 1-room/no-bath apartment in the San Francisco Bay area also costs around $2400, but then it is because you have a T3 connection hooked to it. False. No no-bath apartments are available in the San Francisco Bay Area because ESR owns them all.
An Anonymous Speaker presented the amazing theory that PGP contains 66% of the letters of GPG. True. The Anonymous Speaker then received three Informative moderations, two Redundants, a Troll, and an Underrated.
Malda got $7500 in referral fee from Paypal this week. False. Malda got the $7500 from fucking the Paypal staff in their San Francisco Bay areas.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is soon going to get an extra $75 donation. True. Malda spent the other $7425 on a new laptop that, sadly, he has to reboot to watch DVDs in. Bob Dole feels his pain.
The Michigan country has seceded from the United States. False. Michigan seceded from Canada, not the United States.
"Sleeping with CoboyNeal" should be in the constitution. No answer possible. This is an opinion, not a fact. Furthermore, "CowboyNeal" is spelled incorrectly, "Constitution" should have been capitalized, and the statement did not specify whether or not access to CowboyNeal's San Francisco Bay area would be included as well. You flunk.
I would assume that it uses a FireWire based system, as the iMac has been notorious for its poor support of MFS fibres. Not only are EIDE devices limited to 100 Mbit/s, Apple has cast its usual legal evil eye towards community attempts to hack in a better FireWire stack -- remember Devin Schmidt? Judging from past attempts to build a POSIX-complaint cluster like this, the iMac cluster will most likely use a front-port hyperoptic coaxial run through a 100 meg NAP peering link.
On the other hand, it won't be long before FTTC technology becomes cheap -- and stable -- enough to be used in small, CAT5-based RCN clusters. I'd expect this kind of cluster to break the $18k price point mentioned in the article by the end of the first half of 2001.
It seems like everyone on Slashdots is so quick to jump over any company that collects any data on them, but let's face the facts here: targetted advertising is helpful. It provides ads that are relevant to you and your lifestyle, not irrelevant tampon promos or job opportunities. Come on, you've seen those kind of pointless ads all over the web. Wouldn't you rather have some banners advertising useful computer products that you'd actually be interesting in hearing of and learning more about? And, honestly, why should I care that anyone else knows my television viewing habits? What harmful thing could they do with it?
TiVO is providing its customers with a useful service, and people react whining and throwing a fit just because TiVO's real-world policies don't fit in with certain ultra-libertarian ideals. Look, it's one thing to track information about your personal life. But setting up a targetted advertising scheme based on your TiVO viewing preferences isn't a crime -- hell, TiVO is doing you a favor. They could just throw random commercials on the screen like every other TV network; instead, they're trying to cater to each user individually.
Stop whining and give TiVO the respect they deserve for bringing new life to the dusty old idiot box.
Many of these alternative 'religions' draw a lot of their appeal from the fact that they're not mainstream. Linux and the open source movement have the same sort of appeal -- they're a different way of doing things, which can attract a lot of people who feel shunned by or who are disinterested in average society. Remember, a lot of people think it's hip to be oppressed.
Of course, correlation does not imply confirmation. While a lot of Wiccan or other pagan groups may use the Internet to try to draw in new recruits, it's unlikely that there's much of a direct link between hacking and getting interested in mysticism, or being a mystic and getting interested in hacking. It's just that few of the mystics happen to be interested in many of the principles that power the open source movement.
Slashdot Mirror
Who is correct? At this point, it's difficult to tell. Some detractors would argue that micropayment technology presents an undue intrusion into existing content distribution model. Micropayment technology is a revolutionary alterance in the existing capacity of authors to receive payment; it alters the capacity for content distribution in ways that our current economic structure and techonological understanding may not be prepared to accomodate. Perhaps glitches in this untested process may condemn the concept of micropayments to a footnote in computing history.
Supporters, on the other hand, say that micropayments are an important step forward for computing and publishing. With previous payment schemes, users could not take advantage of the most important technological benefits gained from modern-day information research. Micropayments, they say, opens the proverbial floodgates by allowing the every-day users to pick and choose what they pay for.
There is some probably some merit to both viewpoints. Certainly, commerce as a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the capacity and access provided by micropayments. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural shifts; existing payment schemes may not be as structurally capable as their newer cousin.
Will micropayments sink or swim? The question is still up in the air; with many unique forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and confrontations for the pioneers in the online content field. Whatever the final result is, it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
The problem with honeypots and honeynets is that, in the end, they end up simply encouraging crackers. When systems are put online for the specific purpose of being hacked, crackers are more than happy to ablige by comprosing them. And the more boxes they can crack, the more likely they are to get caught up in the whole "blackhat" mythos. Honeypots/nets also give crackers a chance to practice their skills -- which can then be used against real targets -- with little repercussion.
Furthermore, putting a honeypot or honeynet up is almost asking for people to become blackhats. Most crackers / blackhats have huge egos, hence their need to deface web pages with their 1337 group names. These kind of people would love to be the subject of a honeypot study, if for no other reason then getting the chance to see that their childish actions have had an effect on somebody. Crackers want to be perceived as disruptive and a threat; they want to look "cool" and dangerous and mysterious. Why encourage these people by giving them the kind of attention they're looking for?
And of course, there's also the fact that a honeypot is a waste of resources. It seems pretty silly to set up a system specifically to be cracked? There's plenty of better uses for a spare box; why not set up a distributed-processing unit or an open- source FTP server if you don't know what else to do with an old computer?
I understand the need to find out cracking techniques. But this kind of stuff is hardly secret by now; I don't see any reason to continue useless navel-gazing "studies" of cracker behavior. How much more can we really learn from the drooling 13-year-old script kiddies of the world?
On one hand, the enthusiastic "early adopters" will simply say that there's no way to predict where technological progression will take us and that we should simply "play it by ear", adapting to each problem as it occurs. After all, who would have believed that the Internet could take off in the way it has? On the other hand, the more experienced, but possibly flawed, viewpoint states that we should research the possibilities of each new venture before jumping in.
Who is correct? At this point, it's difficult to tell. Some detractors would argue that flaws in systems such as IPv4 will end up presenting a major problem in the long run. Networking technology is a revolutionary step forward; it alters the capacity for communication in ways that our current economic structure and techonological understanding may not be prepared to predict. Perhaps glitches in this untested process may condemn these systems to a footnote in computing history.
Supporters, on the other hand, say that Internet is an important step forward for computing and society, and that we should jump in as soon as possible. With previous information distribution systems, users could not take advantage of the most important technological benefits gained from modern-day information research. The Internet, they say, just opened the proverbial floodgates by bringing the technology out of the laboratories and into the homes of the every-day user.
There is some probably some merit to both viewpoints. Certainly, commerce as a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the wide use and acceptance of the Internet. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural shifts; existing network systems may not be as structurally capable as new plans such as IPv6.
Will our network infrastructure sink or swim? The question is still up in the air; with many unique forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and confrontations for the pioneers in the CS field. Whatever the final result is, it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
I think we should be more glad about the fact that both candidates were enthusiastially against this bill. Even the idea of an e-mail tax is ridiculous; it's good to sea that both Clinton and Lazio oppose it not just in politics but in principle.
It's all a matter of trust. Trusting no politicians is not an option and will hurt you economically if others do take the risk -- nor is trusting every fool with a gavel. The truth is in the middle. I'm grateful to be living in a country where I think I can (mostly) trust the government to provide me this kind of services. So, whether you trust Clinton and Lazio or not is not very relevant. The major advancement here is the clear and present danger that e-mail taxes present.
Remember, Windows ME is probably even buggier than Red Hat 7; it's just that it's not open-source, so that the yellow-journalist media has a harder time witchhunting bugs. Give Red Hat a fair shake here. They're doing the best they can here, and throwing accusations at them because their software doesn't work perfectly 100% of them is counter-productive.
It's impossible to ever obtain absolute security, and the more security we have, the less convenient and powerful our programs are -- remember, the scripting in Outlook may be a security hole, but it's also a honestly useful feature for a lot of dumb secretarys. IRC doesn't seem like a medium where a lot of security is really necessary; I don't see any reason to sacrifice speed to keep A/S/L checks and MP3 begging encrypted.
...because if he was, he'd probably be suing Bokler under the DMCA. After all, cracking his cipher is obviously circumventing Poe's access-control device!
I guess there's a bad apple in ever bunch.
Obviously, any patent suit is just going to hurt both parties, but it seems like Akamai is the "good guys" in this case. According to Digital Forecast, Akamai was in business a long time before Digital Island, so it seems they have a pretty legitimate claim to the concept here. After all, they were first...
Is there any truth to the "never look directly at the sun" maxim? Or is this just another old wives' tale, like eating carrots to improve your vision or not watching TV while the lights are off?
It's unfortunate that companies can hoodwink the mainstream market into buying these useless "upgrades" that won't improve their computer. Remember, Joe Sixpack probably thinks that this will speed up their downloads. Does this constitue false advertising? These people are being sold products that they don't need.
What we really need is a better portable storage medium -- floppy disks are obviously useless in an era of 10MB+ files, and the Zip drive just never caught on. Bigger hard drives and faster bandwidth would be nice, too :)
I believe that Digital Forecast posted them; check the "New Software Releases" category.
The board of directors of the European Patent Office voted to allow the unrestricted patenting of software. The authority recommends the cancellation of the current clause of the European patent convention which states that computer programs "as such" are not patentable.
In doing so, the EPA placed itself in the same boat as the proponents of software patents -- mostly international corporations that want a change in the European legal situation towards one more similar to the United States and Japan, where where software is practically patentable without restriction. The German delegation in the 19-member EPA committee voted against the raid in 10-to-9 decision.
Programmers of free software as well as smaller software houses stand against software patents, since the potential danger of patent suits from larger corporations makes their work practically impossible. Already today large American companies protect themselves with numerous patents on minor developments - a move which also allows them to resist by counter suits if another enterprise files a patent infringement suit against them. However, free programmers and small companies do not have the financial means in order to be able to exact such a strategy and therefore formed an alliance against software patents.
The endorsement of software patents by the EPA modifies nothing in the existing legal situation, but serves as a preliminary decision for a conference in November, where the nations that have taken part in the EPA want to finally rule on the batter. At the beginning of of July, leaks from the European Union indicated that the organization did not want to permit American-style software patents in Europe. However, organizations, like the EuroLinux alliance and the Linux federation LIVE, pointed out that the commission had, at the time, already ruled itself as being basically unopposed to software patents.
What kind of contingency plans do we have should software patents to be approved? If we can't get the governments to listen to us, what do we do? Keep on trying to draw support, or simply take Thoreau's advice to "Do what thou wilst will be the whole of the law" and ignore all this patent crap. We can't let the future of technology be placed into the hands of a few corrupt individuals, and it looks like we're going to fight them at every turn.
While I'm sure eBay would like to offer as many auctions as they can (= more $), they certainly wouldn't want to piss off NSI -- after all, NSI could always revoke ebay.com and auction it off! We need a better place where web users can sell^H^H^H^H exchange the priviledges of domain names without harassment from the registars -- there's probably a huge untapped market for "used" domain names. (Have a popular site that you don't want anymore? Sell the domain name to a dotcom upstart and let them coast off your popularity!) After all, if people are willing to buy used cars...
Wouldn't it be wise to keep a lid on this until the 2600 / DeCSS affair concludes? The last thing we want is the MPAA being able to easily shoot down one of our key arguments by simply pointing to an article on tomshardware.com. I'm all for cool new technology, but what ever happened to journalistic responsibility? You're either for free speech or you're against it, and Mr. Pabst unfortunately seems to be taking the latter position.
The only way to achieve true search engine accuracy is to have an actual person search for pages on request. Why no company has thought of this, I'm not sure, as this could certainly be an explosive business opportunity here. The difficulty of finding trustworthy information on the Internet is legendary, and I'm a sure plenty of clueless newbies would pay a monthly fee to get better search results.
So before you start proclaiming that Microsoft has seen the light, remember that MSFT is obviously acting its own self-interest here. For whatever reasons, some PHBs decided that it would be to Microsoft's advantage to open-source this baby (and it is a neat little project, I'll admit). It's certainly likely that we'll benefit from it too, but at the end of the day, Microsoft is a publically-held corporation and is legally obligated to maximize its profits. Don't think for a minute that they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts -- they're just trying to make money, whether it be through closed-source software or now open-source software.
CeBit banned MP3-related devices, and Creative willingly pulled itself from the show in response.
...that Mattel is my friend?
Thank you for playing; see you next game!
On the other hand, it won't be long before FTTC technology becomes cheap -- and stable -- enough to be used in small, CAT5-based RCN clusters. I'd expect this kind of cluster to break the $18k price point mentioned in the article by the end of the first half of 2001.
TiVO is providing its customers with a useful service, and people react whining and throwing a fit just because TiVO's real-world policies don't fit in with certain ultra-libertarian ideals. Look, it's one thing to track information about your personal life. But setting up a targetted advertising scheme based on your TiVO viewing preferences isn't a crime -- hell, TiVO is doing you a favor. They could just throw random commercials on the screen like every other TV network; instead, they're trying to cater to each user individually.
Stop whining and give TiVO the respect they deserve for bringing new life to the dusty old idiot box.
"Just wait until you see the GNOSTICISM vs. KDE flame wars"
Of course, correlation does not imply confirmation. While a lot of Wiccan or other pagan groups may use the Internet to try to draw in new recruits, it's unlikely that there's much of a direct link between hacking and getting interested in mysticism, or being a mystic and getting interested in hacking. It's just that few of the mystics happen to be interested in many of the principles that power the open source movement.