Interestingly enough, we discussed something very similar at usenix this last week.
First, I want to agree with those few people here who have pointed out that lawsuits are severely overrated. As stated, when you resort to them, only the lawyers benefit. As an additional negative, once you've done it once you become a liability to employ. Not a good position to be in.
My suggestion to you would be to take your managers part, to some extent. Get started on the project and start working the time. Make it plain that you are dedicated to meeting the clients needs.
Now that your manager understands you aren't trying to butt heads with him, and you've got some time on the project under you, start bringing small pieces of the problem to him. "We've been doing this time schedule for a week now, and I've been noticing a gradual decline in code quality" Have examples. Not made up ones, obviously. Morale is also a valid point to bring up (and obviously there are already problems here.)
But instead of making it an argument, make it supportive. Demonstrate how these problems are going to make it difficult to produce the desired end result and have alternative suggestions.
Yes it's politics, and yes it sucks, but it's reality.
Why would we ever need or care about a five-year product lifetime?
I'll tell you why. Because commercial software providers are generally incompetant. They are incapable of doing what Open Source applications do every day (that is, list their specific dependencies). Because of this, they list specific distributions and releases of linux they support.
With something like AS being offered with a 5 year lifetime commercial software companies will jump at the chance to require that. Then they only have to test their software with one distribution once every 5 or so years.
If you're not running commercial apps, no, you probably don't care. But if you want to run oracle, coldfusion, whatever, it's almost guaranteed you'll eventually need to go AS of some form or another.
I think there's a small amount of truth to the fact that people code viruses/etc for outlook/windows because it's the largest installed base of software, and thus it'll have the greatest impact. But I think it's a pretty small factor in the choice, and greatly overshadowed by laziness.
Coding a worm or virus that will have the maximum effect is easier than writing one with similar effect for *nix by several orders of magnitude. The users are (by-and-large) less educated, and less likely to be concerned about security. And the bugs are more prevelant. Plus, if someone's running windows, that's what they're running. Doing detection for vulnerabilities and such is much easier.
*nix systems by contrast could be solaris, hp-ux, one of many flavors of linux or bsd, etc. Each of them operating slightly differently. Also, applications vary much more widely. Which mail client are you going to try and hit on unix? Mutt? Pine? Elm? Kmail? Mozilla Mail? They're all very popular clients, and there's a fairly even distribution of usage. It's a much more difficult target to hit when you consider the majority of people using windows use what comes with it (outlook express) or the outlook client that came with office.
The equation of maximum damage for minimum time investment includes more than just the number of potential targets.
You're making a pretty big assumption there. That being that it's the admin that can't stand to have any downtime. Most of the time it's users/management that refuse to allow any downtime. I can't tell you the number of times we've sent out messages indicating we were going to take a server down for scheduled maintenance only to be told we can't. Even when it's scheduled maintenance and allowed for within our uptime committments you can't get people to let you take a server down sometimes unless the darn thing gets cracked, crashes, or otherwise spontaneously (oops, bumped the power button) goes down.
How is this different from Linux programs that aren't managed by apt that decide to spew their files across the entire directory tree without telling you, and certainly leaving behind crap?
Because we're talking about configuration data, and not the files that are part of the application itself.
AND, you can't just take one small piece of his argument, attack it, and somehow think you've supported your position. Even if your point is given to you, it doesn't change the fact that the windows registry gets bloated and more easily corrupted the longer you keep a windows install around.
As to "not managed by apt..." this is why we/have/ package management utilities...of all sorts of flavors. In response I ask you: "How is/that/ different from windows programs that aren't managed by add/remove programs that decide to spew their files across the entire directory tree without telling you and certainly leaving behind crap?"
The law does not require them to report every time their web page is defaced.
"Data" in this case is defined as the first name, last name, and any combination of the following: Social Security Number, driver's license number, account number, debit or credit card information. The caveat being that the data acquired has to be non-encrypted. Should a security breach occur to a database housing encrypted customer data, the law does not apply.
Defacing a webpage doesn't fall under this law. Nor does it fall under this law if hackers only look at proprietary information about the business, financial statements whatever.
This is purely notification for customers when customer information has been illegally accessed.
Now I'll admit that I don't always obtain explicit permission before scanning other networks. I don't believe (but IANAL) that a simple port/OS scan of a remote system is or should be illegal. Any machine connected to the Internet will be scanned so often that most admins ignore such "white noise" anyhow. But scan other networks often enough, and someone will eventually complain. So my advice would be:
I would have to agree. I see scans all the time, and I tend to ignore most of the alerts when they come on their own. Getting scanned is a reality of being connected.
However, if I get repeated scans from the same IP segment I know it's not a general scan. At that point they get dumped into the firewall drop table for awhile.
The other exception is when I get scan alerts together with alerts for IDS matches. But these two account for a small number of incidents. Probably 90% at least of the scans I see hit and move on. Most are pretty focused scans as well, and don't exhaustively probe my network.
I'm not sure I agree that a smaller focused scan will always draw less attention. For example, I always pay attention when I see probes across my network looking for open MS SQL Server ports.;-) But, yeah, that's probably one of the exceptions that proves the rule.
So he targets specific companies when he has a contract. So why does he have to hide with the -D option. I dunno, maybe he just wants to re-create a real attack scenario.
Because a scan is usually just one of the first stages of a penetration test. It's basic reconnaissance. If he makes it too easy for the company it's hardly worth what they're paying for.
Actually, I don't always blame the corporations. But in this case, they're apparently lobbying to prevent municipalities from doing FTTH. That's the downside of profit maximizing. Rather than creating "stuff" for the public good, they are spending money to control politics.
There have been some interesting economic studies of this phenomenon. To summarize, when companies start spending profits to secure more profits, rather than create new goods, the economy starts to go downhill.
Yup. And if we didn't have a government that had granted itself powers to make it worth the investment we wouldn't have that problem.
If government let the market handle everything, there'd be no point to bribing government officials, so that money would go somewhere else, namely, to trying to stay ahead of the competition.
One of the saddest aspects of my college life was meeting these people who were involved in MUDS who literally spent all their time online, in their dorm rooms or holed up in the library sleeping on cots. They would LIVE online, have relationships with people online, and let's just say their "real world" lives suffered.
Suffered how? I know people like that. I myself didn't get into it in college, but I've put more than 2 years of my life into a mud. probably close to 3. My "real life" as you call it, hasn't suffered.
Yes, some people don't know when to walk away. This is a problem with all kinds of things. I get equally involved in books. It's very difficult to walk away from a good book.
However, my main problem is your distinction between "real life" and online life. I understand and agree that personal relationships are important. But the people on the other end of that chat line are every bit as real. And relationships online can and do lead to (positive) relationships offline.
You mean like the democrats have been doing every 10 years for the last what, 50 years?
Every 10 years we go through this, and for a good reason. Yes, it tends to favor the incumbant party, but less so now than it used to.
I live south of dallas, and I can tell you that the areas around here desprately need redistricting. The population has exploded here and we are severely underrepresented.
Thing is, the democrats like things the way they are. They've largely divided up the state along racial lines and they like that. Personally, I find that reprehensible. The republicans at least mostly want to do it by population (fwict. Dont' think for a minute I trust them to be any more honest than teh dems are.) I'm more than a little bit pissed that it's looking like we're not going to get it this year. We've been stuck with a completely worthless representative in this area for years because of this, and on top of that should have much more representation than we do. Every single issue I've contacted my reps on in the last 3 years they've voted against me. And that includes the various copyright issues and such. And we just can't get rid of him. Hell, even another democrat would be better than this hosebag.
Anyway, the democrats have been screwing the republicans over this way for decades. Now all of a sudden the shoes on the other foot and they run off to another state, charge hotel bills/etc to the state (which means *I* have to pay for it) and call it a service to me!? *GROWL* If I had a chance I'd backhand every single one of them. They should all be flogged.
This is a no-brainer. The right to live in security can never be protected by allowing people to carry guns. If that right where upheld correctly, you wouldn't need guns in the first place. Selfdefence would theoretically not be needed in a secure society, at least not against fellow citizens.
Ah...a utopian. So what happens to criminals in your world? Or do you think that they are created by society? I'm guessing you think that given the chance all people would be good and work for their money?
Well, I've got a wake-up call for you. By default, people are "bad". Given the choice and a lack of upbringing to make them act otherwise a person will steal and cheat. Given a (to them) valid choice between getting something w/out working and getting something/with/ working people are going to choose the lazy way every time.
In every society there will ALWAYS be criminals. People who would rather plunder you for waht you have than work to get their own. (Government today is basically a middle-man for this, a method for people to do this legally).
Police/govt CANNOT protect you from these people. The police come/after/ a crime has happened. They investgate after the fact. They rarely prevent as an action. Their prevention revolves entirely around the consequences for actions that they represent.
No, if you want safety and security you have to provide it for yourself.
Now, if we could get only one of you to admit that your country isn't the "best in the world" in each and every aspect, then hell would indeed freeze over.
Heh. Why should I lie? We are the best in the world. Course, that doesn't mean we don't suck. Like software, all countries suck. Ours just sucks less.
U.S. is a nation, which swears to the name of christian god, but has no idea of forgiving (personally, I'm an atheist, but i still like the christian idea of forgiving). Instead, your god-trusting fellow citizens are always speaking of revenge, security brought to you by weapons and WMDs (which you are of course perfectly allowed to have, although others are not).
So somehow, because our country was founded on certain principles, you got the impression that everyone here holds the exact same ideals? Does that mean everyone in the middle east is a follower of Islam? Is everyone in China a died in the wool communist?
Yes some people here are big on revenge, I'd say (or maybe hope) though that the majority here that do support retaliatory strikes do so as a means to discourage others from doing the same thing. If someone steals, you put them in Jail. Because they broke the law? On the surface, yes. But the greater reason is so that other people see there are consequences to such actions and thus you discourage others from following that path.
And yes, we are allowed to have WMDs that other countries are not. Our country is stable, and has no indicators that might suggest a willingness to use them against another country 'just because'. We came by the technology honestly, and generally have an appreciation for the destruction involved.
Note that this is not a defense of the Iraq situation, which is a recent and unfortunate development, and hardly destroys the great history that is the united states.
And oh so often you are speaking of war crimes and wanting criminals into court, although you yourself have refused to sign the treaty of International Crime Court.
You've got that right. And I rejoiced at that. Though it was muted happiness since that horrible thing already had enough signatures to get moving without us. Heh. They/think/ they're going to try all the citizens of the world there anyway. I sure hope they get the nasty surprise they deserve if they attempt that against an american citizen.
I can't imagine ANY country wanting to be a part of this abomination. It's a walking talking violation of a country's national sovereignty! They can pass any regulation they want and try you based on their laws regardless of what your country happens to feel on a particular situation. Hell, our american military personell can be tried for things they were ordered to do. I'm not talking about orders like "murder those women and children" I'm talking about "move out and capture this military target". Oops, the ICC didn't want you to do that, so now lets try the survivors.
Gee, I can't imagine why americans would be against/that/.
even better, just wait till their laws get really draconion regarding international propertly laws and they start dragging college kids into court. Maybe you people over there (wherever that is) are willing to basically subjugate yourselves to some world government but I'm not.
You are so often speaking about human rights, although your president has, by ordering death penalties, ended hundreds of lives - and a death penalty is a direct violation of human rights, whatever the crime happens to be.
Spend some time reading about our govt before you criticize it. Our president doesn't order executions. Executions are allowed or banned at the state level, and executions are usually ordered by a jury of 12 of the victims peers. Regardless, the order comes from the courts, and has the opportunity to be overturned by the courts, or by the governor of the state.
Re:The description is very vague
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Gentoo Games
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· Score: 1
Are they going to make it easier to install their operating system? Gamers aren't going to go through the mind numbing process of installing gentoo when they can install windows by pressing enter twice.
If mandrake works for you, why are you beating your head against the wall trying to install something you're obviously not ready for? That's not an insult, just an assessment based on your comments here and in your journal.
I mean, I can't fly an F-14, but you don't see me going around complaining that they should give it a nice simple interface for me to use so I can fly them too. I just recognize that I don't have the skills (right now) to fly it. If I really want to learn, I'll learn to fly other planes first and work my way up to it. If I'm happy driving to where I need to go then I won't bother and I'll stick with my car and never give it another thought.
Why are linux distributions so different? I mean, there's no "elite" sticker that goes with running a distro like LFS or slackware, or whatever. You don't get into special clubs. There's no prestige. It's just another distro aimed at a specific market of people. Why would you try to force yourself into that market?
If you use mandrake, and while not completely happy with it you find it usable, and easy to install and so on then use it.
Oh, and I've/never/ had a windows installation that consisted of "hitting enter twice" and to my mind the real nightmare of windows comes/after/ you get it installed. But that's me.
I can agree. My Desktop machine is an AMD K62 300Mhz. It's got 128M ram in it. I have a relatively new drive...I think it's 5400 rpm though, I can't be bothered to look. I run enlightenment, 5 or so desktops, phoenix (usually somewhere between 10-20 windows) and somewhere around 15-20 X-terms. In addition, I usually have a copy of moneydance open (java application). The video card is a Matrox G450, and I'm using it in xinerama mode. The other desktop has various monitoring software (gkrellm2, a browser window with ntop running on it, some other stuff)
I get a little bit of delay switching desktops, but no more than a second or two. And that's with large (1024x768) pixmaps in the background on every desktop. Oh, and I also run qmail, apache (for local stuff only), and qmail's popper (for a couple other machines here) tinydns, dnscache, and 6-8 copies of mutt in a screen session. (One of hte other xterms usually has 4-5 screen sessions as well, and I use zorn as my shell)
That's pretty darn good. I get snappy response to nearly everything. I have an AMD Athlon XP system at work that's really well built. It builds my applications a lot faster, and certainly builds a kernel in a lot less time, but since I can nice it and get other work done it's not that big a deal at home. It is annoying sometimes, cause you want that application to be done building/now/. Or that new development kernel to be done/now/, and at this point I'm ready to upgrade. (After I build my wife a new machine, I'm next) However, I'm in no rush, as my system is perfectly usable as is.
I'm not against another windowing system per-se, competition/choice are good things. I just don't think the X bashing is justified, and I don't think it's necessary to make X out to be a dog to justify having another windowing system.
And I still can't understand why the Christian right touts "The Lord of the Rings" as a brilliantly disguised retelling of the Gospels (which it wasn't) while the "Harry Potter" books are vilified for encouraging witchcraft and occult interests (which they aren't).
Easy. Because most of *them haven't read any of those books. Same goes for C.S. Lewis. All that matters to them is that they professed Christianity and wrote books. *They've never bothered to read them to see their own hypocrisy. Not that it would really make a difference.
*They/Them being that portion of the christian community that acts this way. They're sizeable, but they don't constitute the whole. In fact, many "mainstream" christian voices have decried the villification of the HP novels, and not through trying to 'christianize' them. Rather just recognizing the generally positive messages portrayed in a series of good fantasy books.
In *your* opinion, the risk of death to people you don't know (probably) is low enough to justify letting them volunteer for a mission. Their spouses may think an almost 2% chance of death is far too high.
That's just it. These people volunteer. We aren't/ordering/ them to do this. They aren't conscripted. They volunteer to do it. Nobody lies to them about the risk. Hell, you/can't/ lie to them about the risk, it's all right there in our history.
Why should we tell people they can't if they're willing to take on the risk? I would be willing to bet that this is more motivated by the cost of replacing shuttles and crew than it is the potential loss of life. Cynical yes, but sadly enough, probalby true.
Re:DeCSS was much more dangerous
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Linus on DRM
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Yeah, yeah, yeah...but decoding DeCSS and making an OS aren't the same thing. Right or wrong (I agree, probably wrong), DMCA is law and DeCSS is a blatant violation. Shitty law, but don't act surprised that somebody got busted for reverse engineering copy/decode protection, because DeCSS is exactly the kind of thing that law was written for, and you know it.;)
I'm not surprised, but it doesn't make it right to harass him just because the law is passed. If the law is bad, then his harassment is still wrong, even though it's legal.
And Phil was never really nailed. And as long as he doesn't sell PGP internationally he'll be fine.
Yes, but you said prosecuted OR persecuted. Phil was persecuted...a lot.
So far, I can't see where anybody got convicted in this country for something where the law was rudely twisted in ways that weren't predictable (though I'd love to see examples). That's not to say that I agree with the laws themselves - but if you flaunt them, expect to be a martyr.
They don't have to twist them, all they have to do is pass a new one to let them do what they want, or just pretend they already have the power as long as you don't have the finances to fight the govt. (Few people do). Hell, they can just drive a tank through your house if it comes to that. (See Branch Davidian)
Seriously, no one will go after Linus. If they do, they will be laughed out of court. That is, unless Linus decides to become a bit of a radical and start doing things he's not now.
They don't have to take him to court. They can just make his life miserable. Search him every time he tries to go anywhere, tap his phones, nail him on every piddly charge they can think of, whatever.
I say, Joss, kill the entire cast and keep them dead, just to show you have the balls to do it.
That would be interesting. Though I think it'd
be tough to do at this point unless he's been planning it all along.
And it wouldn't be new. In fact, there was a show when I was a kid..."sledgehammer"? I can't remember for sure what the name was...anyway, the finale was him trying to disarm a nuclear bomb, but he screwed up and killed everyone. Show ended with a broad shot of a barren wasteland, all the buildings levelled, etc.
The statement by NASA administrator O'Keefe that "We will find out what is wrong, fix the problem, and continue flying" particularly saccharin. Is everybody's eyes so glassed over with the idea of a man in space that they are willing to go forward until this tragedy repeats itself for a third time, and another seven astronauts die??
That's a completely vacuous argument. The astronauts sign up for this fully knowing the risks involved. Do you get this upset when planes crash and/hundreds/ of people die? Do you go to forums and announce that we should cease all flights?
I'd say that NASA's safety record speaks pretty well for it, considering the extreme risks and lack of margin for error that these missions have. I feel for the families of those that were lost, but this was a choice they made. Nobody forced them to sign up to be astronauts, and no-one told them it was going to be all sunshine and roses. There was no deception as to the risks or dangers involved.
While I'd like to see NASA do more than it currently does, I think what it/is/ doing is still valuable. But for them to do/more/ they are going to have to actually have funding and support. Personally, my ideal would be for NASA to become a private enterprise, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
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Interestingly enough, we discussed something very similar at usenix this last week. First, I want to agree with those few people here who have pointed out that lawsuits are severely overrated. As stated, when you resort to them, only the lawyers benefit. As an additional negative, once you've done it once you become a liability to employ. Not a good position to be in. My suggestion to you would be to take your managers part, to some extent. Get started on the project and start working the time. Make it plain that you are dedicated to meeting the clients needs. Now that your manager understands you aren't trying to butt heads with him, and you've got some time on the project under you, start bringing small pieces of the problem to him. "We've been doing this time schedule for a week now, and I've been noticing a gradual decline in code quality" Have examples. Not made up ones, obviously. Morale is also a valid point to bring up (and obviously there are already problems here.) But instead of making it an argument, make it supportive. Demonstrate how these problems are going to make it difficult to produce the desired end result and have alternative suggestions. Yes it's politics, and yes it sucks, but it's reality.
I'll tell you why. Because commercial software providers are generally incompetant. They are incapable of doing what Open Source applications do every day (that is, list their specific dependencies). Because of this, they list specific distributions and releases of linux they support.
With something like AS being offered with a 5 year lifetime commercial software companies will jump at the chance to require that. Then they only have to test their software with one distribution once every 5 or so years.
If you're not running commercial apps, no, you probably don't care. But if you want to run oracle, coldfusion, whatever, it's almost guaranteed you'll eventually need to go AS of some form or another.
Coding a worm or virus that will have the maximum effect is easier than writing one with similar effect for *nix by several orders of magnitude. The users are (by-and-large) less educated, and less likely to be concerned about security. And the bugs are more prevelant. Plus, if someone's running windows, that's what they're running. Doing detection for vulnerabilities and such is much easier.
*nix systems by contrast could be solaris, hp-ux, one of many flavors of linux or bsd, etc. Each of them operating slightly differently. Also, applications vary much more widely. Which mail client are you going to try and hit on unix? Mutt? Pine? Elm? Kmail? Mozilla Mail? They're all very popular clients, and there's a fairly even distribution of usage. It's a much more difficult target to hit when you consider the majority of people using windows use what comes with it (outlook express) or the outlook client that came with office.
The equation of maximum damage for minimum time investment includes more than just the number of potential targets.
You're making a pretty big assumption there. That being that it's the admin that can't stand to have any downtime. Most of the time it's users/management that refuse to allow any downtime. I can't tell you the number of times we've sent out messages indicating we were going to take a server down for scheduled maintenance only to be told we can't. Even when it's scheduled maintenance and allowed for within our uptime committments you can't get people to let you take a server down sometimes unless the darn thing gets cracked, crashes, or otherwise spontaneously (oops, bumped the power button) goes down.
Because we're talking about configuration data, and not the files that are part of the application itself.
AND, you can't just take one small piece of his argument, attack it, and somehow think you've supported your position. Even if your point is given to you, it doesn't change the fact that the windows registry gets bloated and more easily corrupted the longer you keep a windows install around.
As to "not managed by apt..." this is why we /have/ package management utilities...of all sorts of flavors. In response I ask you: "How is /that/ different from windows programs that aren't managed by add/remove programs that decide to spew their files across the entire directory tree without telling you and certainly leaving behind crap?"
Imagine a beowolf cluster of these...
Defacing a webpage doesn't fall under this law. Nor does it fall under this law if hackers only look at proprietary information about the business, financial statements whatever.
This is purely notification for customers when customer information has been illegally accessed.
I would have to agree. I see scans all the time, and I tend to ignore most of the alerts when they come on their own. Getting scanned is a reality of being connected.
However, if I get repeated scans from the same IP segment I know it's not a general scan. At that point they get dumped into the firewall drop table for awhile.
The other exception is when I get scan alerts together with alerts for IDS matches. But these two account for a small number of incidents. Probably 90% at least of the scans I see hit and move on. Most are pretty focused scans as well, and don't exhaustively probe my network.
I'm not sure I agree that a smaller focused scan will always draw less attention. For example, I always pay attention when I see probes across my network looking for open MS SQL Server ports. ;-) But, yeah, that's probably one of the exceptions that proves the rule.
Because a scan is usually just one of the first stages of a penetration test. It's basic reconnaissance. If he makes it too easy for the company it's hardly worth what they're paying for.
Ok, so what do you put on that proxy server? hrm....maybe...a kernel???
There have been some interesting economic studies of this phenomenon. To summarize, when companies start spending profits to secure more profits, rather than create new goods, the economy starts to go downhill.
Yup. And if we didn't have a government that had granted itself powers to make it worth the investment we wouldn't have that problem.
If government let the market handle everything, there'd be no point to bribing government officials, so that money would go somewhere else, namely, to trying to stay ahead of the competition.
Suffered how? I know people like that. I myself didn't get into it in college, but I've put more than 2 years of my life into a mud. probably close to 3. My "real life" as you call it, hasn't suffered.
Yes, some people don't know when to walk away. This is a problem with all kinds of things. I get equally involved in books. It's very difficult to walk away from a good book.
However, my main problem is your distinction between "real life" and online life. I understand and agree that personal relationships are important. But the people on the other end of that chat line are every bit as real. And relationships online can and do lead to (positive) relationships offline.
Every 10 years we go through this, and for a good reason. Yes, it tends to favor the incumbant party, but less so now than it used to.
I live south of dallas, and I can tell you that the areas around here desprately need redistricting. The population has exploded here and we are severely underrepresented.
Thing is, the democrats like things the way they are. They've largely divided up the state along racial lines and they like that. Personally, I find that reprehensible. The republicans at least mostly want to do it by population (fwict. Dont' think for a minute I trust them to be any more honest than teh dems are.) I'm more than a little bit pissed that it's looking like we're not going to get it this year. We've been stuck with a completely worthless representative in this area for years because of this, and on top of that should have much more representation than we do. Every single issue I've contacted my reps on in the last 3 years they've voted against me. And that includes the various copyright issues and such. And we just can't get rid of him. Hell, even another democrat would be better than this hosebag.
Anyway, the democrats have been screwing the republicans over this way for decades. Now all of a sudden the shoes on the other foot and they run off to another state, charge hotel bills/etc to the state (which means *I* have to pay for it) and call it a service to me!? *GROWL* If I had a chance I'd backhand every single one of them. They should all be flogged.
Ah...a utopian. So what happens to criminals in your world? Or do you think that they are created by society? I'm guessing you think that given the chance all people would be good and work for their money?
Well, I've got a wake-up call for you. By default, people are "bad". Given the choice and a lack of upbringing to make them act otherwise a person will steal and cheat. Given a (to them) valid choice between getting something w/out working and getting something /with/ working people are going to choose the lazy way every time.
In every society there will ALWAYS be criminals. People who would rather plunder you for waht you have than work to get their own. (Government today is basically a middle-man for this, a method for people to do this legally).
Police/govt CANNOT protect you from these people. The police come /after/ a crime has happened. They investgate after the fact. They rarely prevent as an action. Their prevention revolves entirely around the consequences for actions that they represent.
No, if you want safety and security you have to provide it for yourself.
Heh. Why should I lie? We are the best in the world. Course, that doesn't mean we don't suck. Like software, all countries suck. Ours just sucks less.
So somehow, because our country was founded on certain principles, you got the impression that everyone here holds the exact same ideals? Does that mean everyone in the middle east is a follower of Islam? Is everyone in China a died in the wool communist?
Yes some people here are big on revenge, I'd say (or maybe hope) though that the majority here that do support retaliatory strikes do so as a means to discourage others from doing the same thing. If someone steals, you put them in Jail. Because they broke the law? On the surface, yes. But the greater reason is so that other people see there are consequences to such actions and thus you discourage others from following that path.
And yes, we are allowed to have WMDs that other countries are not. Our country is stable, and has no indicators that might suggest a willingness to use them against another country 'just because'. We came by the technology honestly, and generally have an appreciation for the destruction involved.
Note that this is not a defense of the Iraq situation, which is a recent and unfortunate development, and hardly destroys the great history that is the united states.
And oh so often you are speaking of war crimes and wanting criminals into court, although you yourself have refused to sign the treaty of International Crime Court.
You've got that right. And I rejoiced at that. Though it was muted happiness since that horrible thing already had enough signatures to get moving without us. Heh. They /think/ they're going to try all the citizens of the world there anyway. I sure hope they get the nasty surprise they deserve if they attempt that against an american citizen.
I can't imagine ANY country wanting to be a part of this abomination. It's a walking talking violation of a country's national sovereignty! They can pass any regulation they want and try you based on their laws regardless of what your country happens to feel on a particular situation. Hell, our american military personell can be tried for things they were ordered to do. I'm not talking about orders like "murder those women and children" I'm talking about "move out and capture this military target". Oops, the ICC didn't want you to do that, so now lets try the survivors.
Gee, I can't imagine why americans would be against /that/.
even better, just wait till their laws get really draconion regarding international propertly laws and they start dragging college kids into court. Maybe you people over there (wherever that is) are willing to basically subjugate yourselves to some world government but I'm not.
You are so often speaking about human rights, although your president has, by ordering death penalties, ended hundreds of lives - and a death penalty is a direct violation of human rights, whatever the crime happens to be.
Spend some time reading about our govt before you criticize it. Our president doesn't order executions. Executions are allowed or banned at the state level, and executions are usually ordered by a jury of 12 of the victims peers. Regardless, the order comes from the courts, and has the opportunity to be overturned by the courts, or by the governor of the state.
If mandrake works for you, why are you beating your head against the wall trying to install something you're obviously not ready for? That's not an insult, just an assessment based on your comments here and in your journal.
I mean, I can't fly an F-14, but you don't see me going around complaining that they should give it a nice simple interface for me to use so I can fly them too. I just recognize that I don't have the skills (right now) to fly it. If I really want to learn, I'll learn to fly other planes first and work my way up to it. If I'm happy driving to where I need to go then I won't bother and I'll stick with my car and never give it another thought.
Why are linux distributions so different? I mean, there's no "elite" sticker that goes with running a distro like LFS or slackware, or whatever. You don't get into special clubs. There's no prestige. It's just another distro aimed at a specific market of people. Why would you try to force yourself into that market?
If you use mandrake, and while not completely happy with it you find it usable, and easy to install and so on then use it.
Oh, and I've /never/ had a windows installation that consisted of "hitting enter twice" and to my mind the real nightmare of windows comes /after/ you get it installed. But that's me.
I can agree. My Desktop machine is an AMD K62 300Mhz. It's got 128M ram in it. I have a relatively new drive...I think it's 5400 rpm though, I can't be bothered to look. I run enlightenment, 5 or so desktops, phoenix (usually somewhere between 10-20 windows) and somewhere around 15-20 X-terms. In addition, I usually have a copy of moneydance open (java application). The video card is a Matrox G450, and I'm using it in xinerama mode. The other desktop has various monitoring software (gkrellm2, a browser window with ntop running on it, some other stuff)
/now/. Or that new development kernel to be done /now/, and at this point I'm ready to upgrade. (After I build my wife a new machine, I'm next) However, I'm in no rush, as my system is perfectly usable as is.
.02
I get a little bit of delay switching desktops, but no more than a second or two. And that's with large (1024x768) pixmaps in the background on every desktop. Oh, and I also run qmail, apache (for local stuff only), and qmail's popper (for a couple other machines here) tinydns, dnscache, and 6-8 copies of mutt in a screen session. (One of hte other xterms usually has 4-5 screen sessions as well, and I use zorn as my shell)
That's pretty darn good. I get snappy response to nearly everything. I have an AMD Athlon XP system at work that's really well built. It builds my applications a lot faster, and certainly builds a kernel in a lot less time, but since I can nice it and get other work done it's not that big a deal at home. It is annoying sometimes, cause you want that application to be done building
I'm not against another windowing system per-se, competition/choice are good things. I just don't think the X bashing is justified, and I don't think it's necessary to make X out to be a dog to justify having another windowing system.
Just my
Easy. Because most of *them haven't read any of those books. Same goes for C.S. Lewis. All that matters to them is that they professed Christianity and wrote books. *They've never bothered to read them to see their own hypocrisy. Not that it would really make a difference.
*They/Them being that portion of the christian community that acts this way. They're sizeable, but they don't constitute the whole. In fact, many "mainstream" christian voices have decried the villification of the HP novels, and not through trying to 'christianize' them. Rather just recognizing the generally positive messages portrayed in a series of good fantasy books.
That's just it. These people volunteer. We aren't /ordering/ them to do this. They aren't conscripted. They volunteer to do it. Nobody lies to them about the risk. Hell, you /can't/ lie to them about the risk, it's all right there in our history.
Why should we tell people they can't if they're willing to take on the risk? I would be willing to bet that this is more motivated by the cost of replacing shuttles and crew than it is the potential loss of life. Cynical yes, but sadly enough, probalby true.
I'm not surprised, but it doesn't make it right to harass him just because the law is passed. If the law is bad, then his harassment is still wrong, even though it's legal.
And Phil was never really nailed. And as long as he doesn't sell PGP internationally he'll be fine.
Yes, but you said prosecuted OR persecuted. Phil was persecuted...a lot.
So far, I can't see where anybody got convicted in this country for something where the law was rudely twisted in ways that weren't predictable (though I'd love to see examples). That's not to say that I agree with the laws themselves - but if you flaunt them, expect to be a martyr.
They don't have to twist them, all they have to do is pass a new one to let them do what they want, or just pretend they already have the power as long as you don't have the finances to fight the govt. (Few people do). Hell, they can just drive a tank through your house if it comes to that. (See Branch Davidian)
Seriously, no one will go after Linus. If they do, they will be laughed out of court. That is, unless Linus decides to become a bit of a radical and start doing things he's not now.
They don't have to take him to court. They can just make his life miserable. Search him every time he tries to go anywhere, tap his phones, nail him on every piddly charge they can think of, whatever.
Your question is based on the flawed premise that because a thing is a law, it's also right.
Yes, incredibly unlikely.
*cough*Skylarove*cough*
*cough*Johansen*cough*
It's not like anyone's ever been persecuted for developing software before.
*cough*zimmerman*cough*
That would be interesting. Though I think it'd be tough to do at this point unless he's been planning it all along.
And it wouldn't be new. In fact, there was a show when I was a kid..."sledgehammer"? I can't remember for sure what the name was...anyway, the finale was him trying to disarm a nuclear bomb, but he screwed up and killed everyone. Show ended with a broad shot of a barren wasteland, all the buildings levelled, etc.
That's a completely vacuous argument. The astronauts sign up for this fully knowing the risks involved. Do you get this upset when planes crash and /hundreds/ of people die? Do you go to forums and announce that we should cease all flights?
I'd say that NASA's safety record speaks pretty well for it, considering the extreme risks and lack of margin for error that these missions have. I feel for the families of those that were lost, but this was a choice they made. Nobody forced them to sign up to be astronauts, and no-one told them it was going to be all sunshine and roses. There was no deception as to the risks or dangers involved.
While I'd like to see NASA do more than it currently does, I think what it /is/ doing is still valuable. But for them to do /more/ they are going to have to actually have funding and support. Personally, my ideal would be for NASA to become a private enterprise, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.