Don't know about the Skipjack algorithm. I agree physical security is important, but I infer from the fact that he's using a laptop that the computer might find itself in less-than-ideal circumstances from time to time. Even Irwin Jacobs of Qualcomm had his data-laden laptop lifted in a roomful of people, to his considerable chagrin (and bad publicity). You have to plan for the worst-case scenario, and encrypting things at least protects your corporate data, whatever happens to the machine.
This would open whole new worlds of possibilities for the U.S. trial lawyers. Imagine having a universe of open-source contributors to sue into oblivion. ("Now tell the court, Mr. Fleenman, just why you decided not to unroll the loop at this point in the routine...").
If you had read the material on Freedom, you'd know that the serial number is used to purchase 'nyms', which cannot be traced back to you (read the white papers on the ZKS site for a description of the nym system.) All that anyone would know is that you'd purchased a Freedom serial number, nothing else. If you don't want even that on your record, I suspect that ZKS would even do a money-order transaction. Keep in mind that if "they" are watching you, then a sniffer on your internet access is going to show that you're running an encryption program, so "they" will already be suspicious.
Not true. It takes a surprisingly small number of people to exert a great deal of influence on a politician. At the Congressional level, they know that for every letter they get, there are thousands of other people who feel the same way. A friend of mine in the PR business orchestrated a campaign among friends and acquaintences to influence the city council of a major California city. With only a couple dozen people writing and faxing, she had the entire council discussing the matter within a couple of days. Do indeed write to your congressbeing, because even a single letter carries a tremendous amount of weight.
I'm not trying to be a wet blanket, but frequently, bills like this are used as 'incentivizers'. That is, they'll be advanced in order to get some well-heeled lobby group to part with some campaign cash. Once sufficient tribute has been extracted, it's quietly strangled in committee. In this case, it might be that the Republicans think the record industry can be shaken down. I don't know whether this is really the case (sometimes a bill is really a bill), but try not to be too disappointed if what seemed to be a sensible idea never sees the light of day.
Its nice to see that there is still a country not completely run by corperations. Perhaps it is time for me to learn to sprechen sie Deutsch.
Whatever virtues Germany possesses, being free of corporate dominance is not one of them. Barriers to entry are high, so it's tough to get a small startup going and compete with the giants. If you want a place closer to what seems to be your ideal, you might consider Taiwan or Hong Kong.
I got that too with Netscape, even though it should be able to handle frames fine. Using Internet Explorer worked, though. You're not missing much if you don't bother, though. Not a very informative site.
I went to the trouble of hooking up a second monitor so that I could spread my desktop across two screens. I have to say that it's turned out to be not so big a deal. It's generally more of a nuisance to have to swing my head around to find what I'm looking for. Except for those occasions when I really need the extra real estate (putting the Illustrator or Photoshop toolbars over on the other screen while leaving the other for the drawing is one example), I find it much more convenient to just put everything on a screen directly in my field of view. Now if I were running Flight Simulator or a game like Quake where peripheral vision and a wide field of view are beneficial, it might be a different story. But in my day-to-day work, it's a big ho-hum. For anyone contemplating a fancy screen setup, I'd say try to produce it with CRTs and see if you really like it before buying an expensive flat-panel system.
Even if the probability that conditions supporting life will arise is vanishingly small, the (multi | uni)verse is a big place, so even the very improbable is going to happen sooner or later and someplace or other. I go with the thinking that we're just the really really really fortunate beneficiaries. So how come with this luck I never win the lottery?
I don't usually waste my time arguing with rabid zealots, but I'll just take a moment to say that Whitewater, Travelgate, selling of access, perjury, etc. were the subjects of the (many) independent councils appointed by the Clinton Justice Department during this administration. Thank you.
I think what bugs you is that it's now happening to a candidate you favor
Yes, just like the Democrats loved the Independent Council law until their side started getting targeted. Suddenly, what looked great while a Republican President was sitting didn't look like such hot idea.
I love gripes like this. There's always some sorehead who's seen something before and therefore thinks the universe is now informed about it. What's the problem, you lost ten seconds out of your day reading this and felt compelled to post some disdain-tinged little bitch? The world isn't going to conform to your specs. Deal with it.
Every 3-letter.com has been registered. If nothing else, it's somebody's initials. So I'd say the answer is yes, there's someone who wants kam.com. The guy sueing, at a minimum.
This of course lead to our script idea, that would generate random crap, distribute a largish list to various clients, and have them all periodcally pick a random on every few mintues and try http://www.--- on it.
If someone would code this into a SETI-like distributed system, I'd run it in the background on every computer that I own.
The thing I think is lacking is any sort of delineation of NSI's responsibilities and limitations as a registrar. When the U.S. initially gave them monopoly registrar status, they were evidently not given adequate restrictions on how they could conduct business. Seems to me that the international community (ICANN?) needs to come up with a set of rules for registrars and impose them. The current situation reminds me of the free rein and large land tracts the railroads were given in order to induce them to build the U.S. rail system. Once that had happened, laws were finally imposed to reduce their depredations (read the novel "The Octopus" for a flavor of what it meant to have your community under the thumb of a railroad). I think we've reached that stage now with the internet.
If you want to keep kids away from political sites, I think the best approach is to insist that they browse them, preferably for a couple of hours a day. Ask them questions about issues at the dinner table, have them tell you what sites they visited and why, get them to summarize candidate positions. After a week of this, they'll never want to visit a political site again. Ya just gotta know how to handle them...
Since I'm busy earning a living in order to pay my tribute to my lords (Gov. Davis and the legislature) here in the Tax Hell of California, I don't have the time to do a point-by-point refutation of this. I can sum up Mr. Brin's polemic as "they have it, we want it, we have the power to take it, and besides, they're jerks so they have it coming". In terms of the party of ideas, that would be the Republicans. In the past 30 years, the Dems have become the reactionaries, defending the status quo with their dying breath. Look to 1993-1994 when the Dems had complete control of the Federal government. What did they do with it? Did they institute universal health care? Did they reform welfare? Did they fix the campaign finance system they now decry as corrupt? Did they balance the budget? Did they do one single thing about all of the problems they are now griping about? No. Welfare reform and a balanced budget were forced on the Clinton administration by a Republican congress.
As far as inheritance taxes, I'm willing to try a system that doesn't confiscate (and yes, that's exactly what it amounts to) the accumulated wealth of a lifetime. Capital in excess of one's needs is what is invested, fueling the engine of innovation that Mr. Brin celebrates. Taking it away or forcing it to be given away under threat of loss strikes me as anti-capitalistic. I'm tired of hearing dire predictions backed up by no facts. When we passed the property tax relief bill, Proposition 13, here in California, the political establishment predicted a shutdown of government. Didn't happen. In fact, government is several times larger than before, as a percentage of state GDP, and continues to take in enormous sums. When we passed a proposition that abolished bilingual education, the education establishment predicted nothing less than the establishment of a permanent subclass of Hispanic kids who'd never become educated. Guess what? They're now rising in their education test scores. It's time for some new ideas all right, and they aren't coming from the left side of the political spectrum.
And check out Absolute Value Software: Mark's working on a simple router/gateway (that runs Linux) and looks extremely promising.
Maybe my brain fell out of calibration this morning, but I can't find what you're talking about there under 'products' or 'projects'. As far as inexpensive routers go, if someone can use one that isn't wireless, I really like my Linksys . It works great as a router/firewall and lets me connect all of my home computers to the internet via a single cable modem.
You might try using a special add-on to the cell phone that makes it look like a landline (gives dialtone, allows tone dialing, etc.). I know such things exist (I know someone who had one for a Motorola phone, but don't know where he got it), but haven't personally tried it. However, since the phone call is daily and lasts up to 15 minutes, this may end up being more expensive than a phone line.
Huh? While I'm no left-wing zealot, you certainly have to admit that the republicans are the party constantly talking about moral character (and later being arrested for masturbating in public, etc).
In my observation, the general rule is that Democrats get into hot water over sex, while Republicans get into trouble over money.
And, I'm curious why being against the death penalty isn't a legitimate reason to vote for/against someone? I'm personally all for it, but it's no less a devisive issue than abortion, and people should consider a person's view on both topics when considering who to vote for.
What I find hypocritical is that the present administration made a big deal about having increased the number of Federal crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. Now that it's expedient to do so, it's trying to make Bush out as some sort of 'Maximum George' for letting prisoners be executed for their crimes. Of course, no one has been executed for a Federal crime since 1964, but hey, we've gotten the laws on the books, so I guess that's all that counts.
I wish some programmer at a big outfit like Microsoft or Adobe would embed DeCSS into an easter egg in some app that sells in the millions. Let the MPAA see how far they get demanding a recall of every copy of Office 2001.
Yes, that could be a real boost for expansion of open-source products. Get some master software artists working on them. (I realize that there already are, but I suspect the number would expand greatly if really good ones actually got paid for it.)
I phrased it badly, but I was thinking of an adult whose DNA showed a likelihood of his children developing Tay-Sachs. I'm sure an employer would prefer not to have to deal with an employee who was constantly out tending to a dying child, plus the increased insurance costs imposed by the rather expensive medical bills involved. I once had a dentist who told me that he was only going to hire office asistants who were beyond their child-rearing years for exactly these sorts of reasons.
And speaking of insurance, I envision that the day will come when the genetically-flawed find it tough to get. I don't see an easy way out of it through laws forbidding discrimination, since the result would be people getting themselves tested and then loading up on insurance if they find that they're at high risk for something. Sort of a real-life version of the old 'insuring a burning building'.
It's already illegal to discriminate on these bases in America. As an employer, you should know about the Equal Employment act that is required by law to be posted in the place of work, no?
Sarcasm, sir or madam, sarcasm. I was using hyperbole to make a point. Actually I'm self-employed for the very reason that these days you have to continuously tread the minefield of the law when you have employees. That said, you're deluding yourself if you think that there aren't ways around these pesky anti-discrimination laws, particularly for smaller employers. As long as you don't come right out and say "I'm not hiring you because I don't like gay people," it's very difficult to prove discrimination. You can use the excuse that you don't like their credit history, or their personality wouldn't mesh well with your customers, etc. There's always a plausible excuse that can be employed. So if an employer finds something bad in the DNA of a potential hire, s/he doesn't have to say that that's the reason for not hiring the person. No anti-discrimination laws are going to prevent that.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't know about the Skipjack algorithm. I agree physical security is important, but I infer from the fact that he's using a laptop that the computer might find itself in less-than-ideal circumstances from time to time. Even Irwin Jacobs of Qualcomm had his data-laden laptop lifted in a roomful of people, to his considerable chagrin (and bad publicity). You have to plan for the worst-case scenario, and encrypting things at least protects your corporate data, whatever happens to the machine.
This would open whole new worlds of possibilities for the U.S. trial lawyers. Imagine having a universe of open-source contributors to sue into oblivion. ("Now tell the court, Mr. Fleenman, just why you decided not to unroll the loop at this point in the routine ...").
If you had read the material on Freedom, you'd know that the serial number is used to purchase 'nyms', which cannot be traced back to you (read the white papers on the ZKS site for a description of the nym system.) All that anyone would know is that you'd purchased a Freedom serial number, nothing else. If you don't want even that on your record, I suspect that ZKS would even do a money-order transaction. Keep in mind that if "they" are watching you, then a sniffer on your internet access is going to show that you're running an encryption program, so "they" will already be suspicious.
Not true. It takes a surprisingly small number of people to exert a great deal of influence on a politician. At the Congressional level, they know that for every letter they get, there are thousands of other people who feel the same way. A friend of mine in the PR business orchestrated a campaign among friends and acquaintences to influence the city council of a major California city. With only a couple dozen people writing and faxing, she had the entire council discussing the matter within a couple of days. Do indeed write to your congressbeing, because even a single letter carries a tremendous amount of weight.
I'm not trying to be a wet blanket, but frequently, bills like this are used as 'incentivizers'. That is, they'll be advanced in order to get some well-heeled lobby group to part with some campaign cash. Once sufficient tribute has been extracted, it's quietly strangled in committee. In this case, it might be that the Republicans think the record industry can be shaken down. I don't know whether this is really the case (sometimes a bill is really a bill), but try not to be too disappointed if what seemed to be a sensible idea never sees the light of day.
Whatever virtues Germany possesses, being free of corporate dominance is not one of them. Barriers to entry are high, so it's tough to get a small startup going and compete with the giants. If you want a place closer to what seems to be your ideal, you might consider Taiwan or Hong Kong.
I got that too with Netscape, even though it should be able to handle frames fine. Using Internet Explorer worked, though. You're not missing much if you don't bother, though. Not a very informative site.
And here's a link to intelligent jacket that actually works (unless SlashDot has fixed it by the time you read this).
I went to the trouble of hooking up a second monitor so that I could spread my desktop across two screens. I have to say that it's turned out to be not so big a deal. It's generally more of a nuisance to have to swing my head around to find what I'm looking for. Except for those occasions when I really need the extra real estate (putting the Illustrator or Photoshop toolbars over on the other screen while leaving the other for the drawing is one example), I find it much more convenient to just put everything on a screen directly in my field of view. Now if I were running Flight Simulator or a game like Quake where peripheral vision and a wide field of view are beneficial, it might be a different story. But in my day-to-day work, it's a big ho-hum. For anyone contemplating a fancy screen setup, I'd say try to produce it with CRTs and see if you really like it before buying an expensive flat-panel system.
Even if the probability that conditions supporting life will arise is vanishingly small, the (multi | uni)verse is a big place, so even the very improbable is going to happen sooner or later and someplace or other. I go with the thinking that we're just the really really really fortunate beneficiaries. So how come with this luck I never win the lottery?
I don't usually waste my time arguing with rabid zealots, but I'll just take a moment to say that Whitewater, Travelgate, selling of access, perjury, etc. were the subjects of the (many) independent councils appointed by the Clinton Justice Department during this administration. Thank you.
Yes, just like the Democrats loved the Independent Council law until their side started getting targeted. Suddenly, what looked great while a Republican President was sitting didn't look like such hot idea.
I love gripes like this. There's always some sorehead who's seen something before and therefore thinks the universe is now informed about it. What's the problem, you lost ten seconds out of your day reading this and felt compelled to post some disdain-tinged little bitch? The world isn't going to conform to your specs. Deal with it.
Every 3-letter .com has been registered. If nothing else, it's somebody's initials. So I'd say the answer is yes, there's someone who wants kam.com. The guy sueing, at a minimum.
If someone would code this into a SETI-like distributed system, I'd run it in the background on every computer that I own.
The thing I think is lacking is any sort of delineation of NSI's responsibilities and limitations as a registrar. When the U.S. initially gave them monopoly registrar status, they were evidently not given adequate restrictions on how they could conduct business. Seems to me that the international community (ICANN?) needs to come up with a set of rules for registrars and impose them. The current situation reminds me of the free rein and large land tracts the railroads were given in order to induce them to build the U.S. rail system. Once that had happened, laws were finally imposed to reduce their depredations (read the novel "The Octopus" for a flavor of what it meant to have your community under the thumb of a railroad). I think we've reached that stage now with the internet.
If you want to keep kids away from political sites, I think the best approach is to insist that they browse them, preferably for a couple of hours a day. Ask them questions about issues at the dinner table, have them tell you what sites they visited and why, get them to summarize candidate positions. After a week of this, they'll never want to visit a political site again. Ya just gotta know how to handle them ...
As far as inheritance taxes, I'm willing to try a system that doesn't confiscate (and yes, that's exactly what it amounts to) the accumulated wealth of a lifetime. Capital in excess of one's needs is what is invested, fueling the engine of innovation that Mr. Brin celebrates. Taking it away or forcing it to be given away under threat of loss strikes me as anti-capitalistic. I'm tired of hearing dire predictions backed up by no facts. When we passed the property tax relief bill, Proposition 13, here in California, the political establishment predicted a shutdown of government. Didn't happen. In fact, government is several times larger than before, as a percentage of state GDP, and continues to take in enormous sums. When we passed a proposition that abolished bilingual education, the education establishment predicted nothing less than the establishment of a permanent subclass of Hispanic kids who'd never become educated. Guess what? They're now rising in their education test scores. It's time for some new ideas all right, and they aren't coming from the left side of the political spectrum.
Maybe my brain fell out of calibration this morning, but I can't find what you're talking about there under 'products' or 'projects'. As far as inexpensive routers go, if someone can use one that isn't wireless, I really like my Linksys . It works great as a router/firewall and lets me connect all of my home computers to the internet via a single cable modem.
You might try using a special add-on to the cell phone that makes it look like a landline (gives dialtone, allows tone dialing, etc.). I know such things exist (I know someone who had one for a Motorola phone, but don't know where he got it), but haven't personally tried it. However, since the phone call is daily and lasts up to 15 minutes, this may end up being more expensive than a phone line.
In my observation, the general rule is that Democrats get into hot water over sex, while Republicans get into trouble over money.
And, I'm curious why being against the death penalty isn't a legitimate reason to vote for/against someone? I'm personally all for it, but it's no less a devisive issue than abortion, and people should consider a person's view on both topics when considering who to vote for.
What I find hypocritical is that the present administration made a big deal about having increased the number of Federal crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. Now that it's expedient to do so, it's trying to make Bush out as some sort of 'Maximum George' for letting prisoners be executed for their crimes. Of course, no one has been executed for a Federal crime since 1964, but hey, we've gotten the laws on the books, so I guess that's all that counts.
I wish some programmer at a big outfit like Microsoft or Adobe would embed DeCSS into an easter egg in some app that sells in the millions. Let the MPAA see how far they get demanding a recall of every copy of Office 2001.
Yes, that could be a real boost for expansion of open-source products. Get some master software artists working on them. (I realize that there already are, but I suspect the number would expand greatly if really good ones actually got paid for it.)
And speaking of insurance, I envision that the day will come when the genetically-flawed find it tough to get. I don't see an easy way out of it through laws forbidding discrimination, since the result would be people getting themselves tested and then loading up on insurance if they find that they're at high risk for something. Sort of a real-life version of the old 'insuring a burning building'.
Sarcasm, sir or madam, sarcasm. I was using hyperbole to make a point. Actually I'm self-employed for the very reason that these days you have to continuously tread the minefield of the law when you have employees. That said, you're deluding yourself if you think that there aren't ways around these pesky anti-discrimination laws, particularly for smaller employers. As long as you don't come right out and say "I'm not hiring you because I don't like gay people," it's very difficult to prove discrimination. You can use the excuse that you don't like their credit history, or their personality wouldn't mesh well with your customers, etc. There's always a plausible excuse that can be employed. So if an employer finds something bad in the DNA of a potential hire, s/he doesn't have to say that that's the reason for not hiring the person. No anti-discrimination laws are going to prevent that.