This story and most comments seem to equate 'privacy' with 'anonymity'. That is not the case, however. In fact, the distinction between them is a true measure of privacy. In the US, companies are using your personal information for their own purposes and it is hard to stop them sometimes. With all the credit cards, SSN, taxpayer ID number, drivers license etc etc information out there leaving a trail of you, Americans should be more concerned about how that information is used. The companies or the govn't have little trouble identifying you uniquely as it is, it just takes them some time. Having a single unique ID#, would facilitate this necessary process. Americans should concentrate on legislation on how personal information can be used and accessed.
For instance, like mentioned elsewhere, Sweden has had a unique ID for quite some time (50+ years). But there is also a very strict legislation on how this data can be used. You can always request to see your own records from all databases, save the security police (CIA). The government cannot use the data to find out who lives on social welfare but still drives expensive cars and boats, and thus might be receiving welfare on the wrong basis.
I'm certain that it is more crucial that legislation regarding our personal data is crucial for privacy, rather than obstructing a single unique ID over the plethora of IDs we now have in America.
Yeah right, and as a taxpayer I own the US Navy
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
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· Score: 2
Since I pay for the US Navy, would they be so kind as to invade Cuba and bring back a few boxes of Havannas for me ?
Yes, demand is higher than supply. The problem is also that most broadband markets does not consist of several providers competing for customers. The customers are glad to have a fat pipe, almost regardless of price. Very few have a choice, and where there is a choice it's between DSL or Cable, it's never between to different Cable carriers or DSL carriers.
The cost of producing bandwith is fixed, it is not three times as expensive to give someone 1.5 MBps than.5 MBps. It's not electricity where there is an acutal added cost in producing more.
But still, since at this stage the users are paying for the building of the networks, tiered or even metered price is a good way to split the costs somewhat fairly. Yet again, who pays for the highways, airports, seaports etc etc. Taxpayers. Why isn't Internet, the infrastructure of the 21st century to a greater extent paid for by our taxes ?
The local monopolies will maximize their short term gains, not do what's best in the long run for the consumers.
They should concentrate on figuring out how to distribute music over the Internet instead of coming up with new formats to temporarily store data. I mean, the CD is just a way to get the music from the studio to me and it's not a very clever way is it ?
The whole idea of burning CD and putting them in cases and them putting them on a truck and then out to a millions stores on a million trucks so that millions of people have to go to the store to pick it up.... it's so 20th century. Buying CDs online makes this process a bit easier, but still cumbersome.
Problem is, the RIAA are so afraid of music ending up on a hd that they rather would go back to old LPs than being innovative about this.
Isn't this the ultimate irony ? We have plenty of water on our planet, but instead of concentrating on how to keep/make it drinkable and how to supply it to people, we spend the money on getting to another freaking planet to get it.
China recently mentioned going to the moon so that they could mine there. The colonization of space will carry on where colonization on Earth stopped during the last century... plundering of natural resources.
Not to mention our need to keep our own ice from melting. Wars will be fought over fresh water, maybe on Mars too ?
This is so depressing I think I need a drink... and no ice, please.
"This event once again demonstrates the necessity to filter all incoming files for viruses, regardless of how well protected this or any other network is. Before use all data should be run through a mandatory check for virus code using the latest virus database update," commented Denis Zenkin, Kaspersky Labs Head of Corporate Communications.
Gee, I'm so grateful for Kaspersky Labs that they provide this valuable information. They only forgot to add
"If you refer to this article, we'll give you $5 rebate off your next virus update purchase." added Zenkin with a smile.
As much as we need the anti-virus software, the anti-virus companies need the virus makers. Without a worm or a virus that makes CNN headlines every 6 months, people will forget to buy updates, patches etc etc. The public forgets quickly, and will not buy new products from the AV companies if they don't feel a threat.
Sure, the problem is real, but part of me can't shake the feeling that somewhere there is a anti-virus company executive ordering a new plasma HDTV when he sees this news. Or maybe it's just becase X-Files ended yesterday that I'm seeing conspiracies everywhere.
My prediction is that a certain country will have spy satellites circulating the moon long before the first Chinese even gets off the ground.
"- High ground, drop rocks on anybody you don't like (Heinlein) "
Heinlein is dead, so that wouldn't... oh I see. I think conventional ballistic missiles are easier, cheaper and better to use than throwing moon rocks. And with only the Chinese there, it's wouldn't require Sherlock Holmes to figure out who sent it.
23. Falkland Exocet (Argentinian (French-friendly) Exocet sinks British H.M.S.Sheffield, 1983)
The British destroyer H.M.S. Sheffield was sunk in the Falkland Islands war. According to one report, the ship's radar warning systems were programmed to identify the Exocet missile as "friendly" because the British arsenal includes the Exocet's homing device and allowed the missile to reach its target, namely the Sheffield. From "The development of software for ballistic-missile defense," by H. Lin, Scientific American, vol. 253, no. 6 (Dec. 1985), p. 48.
This was perhaps a glitch in the design of the system, but it certainly sounds like the software worked as intended. That's not a bug, is it ?
This may be the case in the US for copyright protected material, but certainly not everywhere else.
In Sweden for instance it been upheld in court that copying copyrighted material using P2P clients is legal, for personal use and in small amounts. Sharing, otoh, is illegal but not copying what someone else is sharing.
Related recent /. story
on
Web Services
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Here's a related/. story regarding IBM and Microsoft's suggested security standard for web services.
People don't want to be protected. They do not want knowledge. They want to make mistakes, and they want to pay to have them fixed.
That may be true for you, but that is not the true for "people". "People" want to trust and that is the bottom line. They need to trust that the service they get is professional, whether it be from their plumber or computer technician. Most people have more important things in life - families, jobs - than caring about details about commodities like plumbing, cars and computers. And they should.
Trust is an important factor in the service industry and that is what Internet is about for most people. They have no experience with the online world, and therefore asume that the same rules apply as in the real world. EULA's aren't made for people to read, and there's is no way that Jane and John Doe is going to start doing just that.
It is an indication of an unmature an skewed industry when people have to be computer-savvy in order not to get ripped-off. Imagine if by buying hamburgers at a drive-thru you unknowingly agreed to have gas pumped out of your car ? I doubt that idea would fly.
So get off your high horse and start acting like a responsible person instead of calling people idiots. It's not the general public that are idiots, it's the ones designing computers, programs and websites that ordinary people can't use that are.
I think the author has several good points, especially in pointing out some key shortcomings of Java (java on the client, Swing). Also, the.NET toolkit looks very competent and building and deploying.asp's is quite simple as compared to deploying a java solution.
But the key thing not mentioned is the fact that Big Blue and the rest of the industry is quite determined on Java. Sure, IBM and Microsoft are working together on Web Services, but I think IBM is unlikely to start supporting.NET instead of Java in their tools. More important, when IBM and MS are talking to each other and making standards for web services, it is more likely than not that both Java and C# will coexist.
Java has shortcomings, but it has become a success despite this, and due to a vast support from professionals ranging from programmers to computer scientists. To say that all this will be gone in 5 years is more than bold, when in fact the amount of existing Java code are probably more than can be replaced in 5 years.
Of course, languages and platforms come and go, but since C# doesn't drastically change the way application development is done - which is what Java did, in several ways - I don't think it'll start a revolution in the way that the article suggests.
It does add some more information and comments, but mostly it's a rehash of the original press release. Interesting to see is that this article mentions Verisign as a third partner, which makes quite a difference I think.
Oh.. and it's got the words "web services", "security" and "privacy" linked a gazillion times.
I believe that an important concept in criminal law - IANAL (I never thought I would have to write that!) - is intent.
It's like saying a car manufacturer is equal to someone making car bombs, since both are potentially vulnerable.
And obviously, you can't hold everyone who accidently and unknowingly distributes a virus responsible for that. The virus was designed to exploit a vulnerability and it lies in its nature that people distribute it against their own will.
If someone accidently writes a virus on the other hand, I don't think they would be held responsible to the same degree as someone doing so on purpose and then distributing it.
Seems kind of desperate when I company does something like this. It is a pretty good sign that its business model does not hold what the company promised their investors.
Take Yahoo! for instance, who recently reported a loss of $50M+ for the first quarter this fiscal year. They probably weighed the bad-will and complaints of changing their marketing policy against a projected short-term income for selling these addresses. Whatever $ figure they came up with as a result of resetting it's users settings , it's probably too high.
The strange thing is that when these policies change for the worse, people not only get upset, but they also a) become more reluctant to give accurate information when signing up b) opt-out as soon as possible. Apart from being able to sell a few more - lower quality - addresses, nothing is gained. The downside is that the intended audience for the advertising emails is less likely than before to read the emails, and also the accuracy of any demographics of the audience.
I think advertisers will realize sooner than later that the apparently millions of new Yahoo! customers were people that already opted out of advertising email, and therefore are a dead market not worth the new and higher price that Yahoo! demands
This isn't exactly the first time Microsoft has chosen to scrap a project that has been so heavily advertised, but it's definitely one of the most prestigious ones they have cancelled.
Hailstorm/Persona was supposed to be a.NET service that "authenticates users, provides the ability to send alerts, and stores personal information, including contacts, e-mail, calendar, profile, lists, electronic wallet, physical location, document stores, application settings, favorite Web sites, devices owned, and preferences for receiving alerts." (from Microsoft)
I think the key problem for Microsoft is the following (from the article:) "They ran into the reality that many companies don't want any company between them and their customers,"
Bill and Steve are probably a bit surprised, not used to having people say No to them, especially not the big companies that they have started to court now that they have a consumer market monopoly..NET is crucial to get penetration on the Big Market, i.e. mission critical business application software.
Hailstorm/Persona was seen by many as a reference implementation of.NET's, showing off its capabilities. Now it's going to be interesting to see how the industry acceptance for.NET evolves.
The comparisions to Microsoft - unavoidable in any discussion on/. it seems - are very unfair. First, as mentioned in other posts, IBM is a much larger company than Microsoft, so that alone would not be a reason to merge with/buy Sun. Second, IBM has a very different business model.
Microsoft is a consumer product company that has been moving into the corporate world. IBM is a business product company that have tried making consumer products. In fact, apart from Lotus, IBM do not have any products directly competing with Microsoft. Microsoft is trying to get into the high-end mission critical systems, but so far they're mostly found on webservers and on PC clients.
IBM is also a services revenue driven company, with a successful and profitable consulting organisation. IBM recently made Visual Age for Java and also Websphere Studio available for free. That is an indication that they will continue to focus on their Websphere centred approach, trying to sell and implement the large infrastructure solution with WebSphere, MQ Series etc on their own hardware.
Back on topic, Java, that will be the platform of choice for IBM for one main reason: Microsoft won't make any money from it. IBM sell hardware and software that support the use of Java applications. Microsoft has clearly shown it want to control the runtime environment as well, but we'll see who wins that race.
Slashdot Mirror
For some reason, a press-release with the wording "enlarge and vitalize " sounds familiar to the emails I find in my Junk folder...
This story and most comments seem to equate 'privacy' with 'anonymity'. That is not the case, however. In fact, the distinction between them is a true measure of privacy. In the US, companies are using your personal information for their own purposes and it is hard to stop them sometimes. With all the credit cards, SSN, taxpayer ID number, drivers license etc etc information out there leaving a trail of you, Americans should be more concerned about how that information is used. The companies or the govn't have little trouble identifying you uniquely as it is, it just takes them some time. Having a single unique ID#, would facilitate this necessary process. Americans should concentrate on legislation on how personal information can be used and accessed.
For instance, like mentioned elsewhere, Sweden has had a unique ID for quite some time (50+ years). But there is also a very strict legislation on how this data can be used. You can always request to see your own records from all databases, save the security police (CIA). The government cannot use the data to find out who lives on social welfare but still drives expensive cars and boats, and thus might be receiving welfare on the wrong basis.
I'm certain that it is more crucial that legislation regarding our personal data is crucial for privacy, rather than obstructing a single unique ID over the plethora of IDs we now have in America.
Since I pay for the US Navy, would they be so kind as to invade Cuba and bring back a few boxes of Havannas for me ?
I'm surprised that there are so many 404 Page Not Found errors in Google's search results, even on the top hits.
Shouldn't Google automatically check results that a user follows and flag those that cannot be displayed ?
... dev/null, in hardware ?
Yes, demand is higher than supply. The problem is also that most broadband markets does not consist of several providers competing for customers. The customers are glad to have a fat pipe, almost regardless of price. Very few have a choice, and where there is a choice it's between DSL or Cable, it's never between to different Cable carriers or DSL carriers.
.5 MBps. It's not electricity where there is an acutal added cost in producing more.
The cost of producing bandwith is fixed, it is not three times as expensive to give someone 1.5 MBps than
But still, since at this stage the users are paying for the building of the networks, tiered or even metered price is a good way to split the costs somewhat fairly. Yet again, who pays for the highways, airports, seaports etc etc. Taxpayers. Why isn't Internet, the infrastructure of the 21st century to a greater extent paid for by our taxes ?
The local monopolies will maximize their short term gains, not do what's best in the long run for the consumers.
Yeah, if you can get sued just for claiming that a well-known spammer is spammer, this will be a blockbuster in courthouses over the world...
I can already see the next generation of spam... "Make $$$$$$$$ free!!!! Sue anti-spammers!!!! "
They should concentrate on figuring out how to distribute music over the Internet instead of coming up with new formats to temporarily store data. I mean, the CD is just a way to get the music from the studio to me and it's not a very clever way is it ?
The whole idea of burning CD and putting them in cases and them putting them on a truck and then out to a millions stores on a million trucks so that millions of people have to go to the store to pick it up.... it's so 20th century. Buying CDs online makes this process a bit easier, but still cumbersome.
Problem is, the RIAA are so afraid of music ending up on a hd that they rather would go back to old LPs than being innovative about this.
Isn't this the ultimate irony ? We have plenty of water on our planet, but instead of concentrating on how to keep/make it drinkable and how to supply it to people, we spend the money on getting to another freaking planet to get it.
China recently mentioned going to the moon so that they could mine there. The colonization of space will carry on where colonization on Earth stopped during the last century... plundering of natural resources.
Not to mention our need to keep our own ice from melting. Wars will be fought over fresh water, maybe on Mars too ?
This is so depressing I think I need a drink... and no ice, please.
"If you refer to this article, we'll give you $5 rebate off your next virus update purchase." added Zenkin with a smile.
As much as we need the anti-virus software, the anti-virus companies need the virus makers. Without a worm or a virus that makes CNN headlines every 6 months, people will forget to buy updates, patches etc etc. The public forgets quickly, and will not buy new products from the AV companies if they don't feel a threat.
Sure, the problem is real, but part of me can't shake the feeling that somewhere there is a anti-virus company executive ordering a new plasma HDTV when he sees this news. Or maybe it's just becase X-Files ended yesterday that I'm seeing conspiracies everywhere.
"- First class secrecy (on far side)"
My prediction is that a certain country will have spy satellites circulating the moon long before the first Chinese even gets off the ground.
"- High ground, drop rocks on anybody you don't like (Heinlein) "
Heinlein is dead, so that wouldn't... oh I see. I think conventional ballistic missiles are easier, cheaper and better to use than throwing moon rocks. And with only the Chinese there, it's wouldn't require Sherlock Holmes to figure out who sent it.
This was perhaps a glitch in the design of the system, but it certainly sounds like the software worked as intended. That's not a bug, is it ?
"capitolism" is a pretty good word... was it intentional or a typo ? In any case, I'm gonna start using it for those mega-lobbying-mega-coprporations.
This may be the case in the US for copyright protected material, but certainly not everywhere else.
In Sweden for instance it been upheld in court that copying copyrighted material using P2P clients is legal, for personal use and in small amounts. Sharing, otoh, is illegal but not copying what someone else is sharing.
Here's a related /. story regarding IBM and Microsoft's suggested security standard for web services.
That may be true for you, but that is not the true for "people". "People" want to trust and that is the bottom line. They need to trust that the service they get is professional, whether it be from their plumber or computer technician. Most people have more important things in life - families, jobs - than caring about details about commodities like plumbing, cars and computers. And they should.
Trust is an important factor in the service industry and that is what Internet is about for most people. They have no experience with the online world, and therefore asume that the same rules apply as in the real world. EULA's aren't made for people to read, and there's is no way that Jane and John Doe is going to start doing just that.
It is an indication of an unmature an skewed industry when people have to be computer-savvy in order not to get ripped-off. Imagine if by buying hamburgers at a drive-thru you unknowingly agreed to have gas pumped out of your car ? I doubt that idea would fly.
So get off your high horse and start acting like a responsible person instead of calling people idiots. It's not the general public that are idiots, it's the ones designing computers, programs and websites that ordinary people can't use that are.
I think the author has several good points, especially in pointing out some key shortcomings of Java (java on the client, Swing). Also, the .NET toolkit looks very competent and building and deploying .asp's is quite simple as compared to deploying a java solution.
.NET instead of Java in their tools. More important, when IBM and MS are talking to each other and making standards for web services, it is more likely than not that both Java and C# will coexist.
But the key thing not mentioned is the fact that Big Blue and the rest of the industry is quite determined on Java. Sure, IBM and Microsoft are working together on Web Services, but I think IBM is unlikely to start supporting
Java has shortcomings, but it has become a success despite this, and due to a vast support from professionals ranging from programmers to computer scientists. To say that all this will be gone in 5 years is more than bold, when in fact the amount of existing Java code are probably more than can be replaced in 5 years.
Of course, languages and platforms come and go, but since C# doesn't drastically change the way application development is done - which is what Java did, in several ways - I don't think it'll start a revolution in the way that the article suggests.
Here's an article from InfoWorld magazine on the same subject.
http://www.idg.net/ic_846015_4394_1-3921.html
It does add some more information and comments, but mostly it's a rehash of the original press release. Interesting to see is that this article mentions Verisign as a third partner, which makes quite a difference I think.
Oh.. and it's got the words "web services", "security" and "privacy" linked a gazillion times.
I believe that an important concept in criminal law - IANAL (I never thought I would have to write that!) - is intent.
It's like saying a car manufacturer is equal to someone making car bombs, since both are potentially vulnerable.
And obviously, you can't hold everyone who accidently and unknowingly distributes a virus responsible for that. The virus was designed to exploit a vulnerability and it lies in its nature that people distribute it against their own will.
If someone accidently writes a virus on the other hand, I don't think they would be held responsible to the same degree as someone doing so on purpose and then distributing it.
Seems kind of desperate when I company does something like this. It is a pretty good sign that its business model does not hold what the company promised their investors.
Take Yahoo! for instance, who recently reported a loss of $50M+ for the first quarter this fiscal year. They probably weighed the bad-will and complaints of changing their marketing policy against a projected short-term income for selling these addresses. Whatever $ figure they came up with as a result of resetting it's users settings , it's probably too high.
The strange thing is that when these policies change for the worse, people not only get upset, but they also a) become more reluctant to give accurate information when signing up b) opt-out as soon as possible. Apart from being able to sell a few more - lower quality - addresses, nothing is gained. The downside is that the intended audience for the advertising emails is less likely than before to read the emails, and also the accuracy of any demographics of the audience.
I think advertisers will realize sooner than later that the apparently millions of new Yahoo! customers were people that already opted out of advertising email, and therefore are a dead market not worth the new and higher price that Yahoo! demands
Well, I didn't figure out that 'uncopyrightable' is the only 15 letter word etc. myself... but the sig is mine. Copyrighted, naturally.
This isn't exactly the first time Microsoft has chosen to scrap a project that has been so heavily advertised, but it's definitely one of the most prestigious ones they have cancelled.
.NET service that "authenticates users, provides the ability to send alerts, and stores personal information, including contacts, e-mail, calendar, profile, lists, electronic wallet, physical location, document stores, application settings, favorite Web sites, devices owned, and preferences for receiving alerts." (from Microsoft)
.NET is crucial to get penetration on the Big Market, i.e. mission critical business application software.
.NET's, showing off its capabilities. Now it's going to be interesting to see how the industry acceptance for .NET evolves.
Hailstorm/Persona was supposed to be a
I think the key problem for Microsoft is the following (from the article:) "They ran into the reality that many companies don't want any company between them and their customers,"
Bill and Steve are probably a bit surprised, not used to having people say No to them, especially not the big companies that they have started to court now that they have a consumer market monopoly.
Hailstorm/Persona was seen by many as a reference implementation of
The comparisions to Microsoft - unavoidable in any discussion on /. it seems - are very unfair. First, as mentioned in other posts, IBM is a much larger company than Microsoft, so that alone would not be a reason to merge with/buy Sun. Second, IBM has a very different business model.
Microsoft is a consumer product company that has been moving into the corporate world. IBM is a business product company that have tried making consumer products. In fact, apart from Lotus, IBM do not have any products directly competing with Microsoft. Microsoft is trying to get into the high-end mission critical systems, but so far they're mostly found on webservers and on PC clients.
IBM is also a services revenue driven company, with a successful and profitable consulting organisation. IBM recently made Visual Age for Java and also Websphere Studio available for free. That is an indication that they will continue to focus on their Websphere centred approach, trying to sell and implement the large infrastructure solution with WebSphere, MQ Series etc on their own hardware.
Back on topic, Java, that will be the platform of choice for IBM for one main reason: Microsoft won't make any money from it. IBM sell hardware and software that support the use of Java applications. Microsoft has clearly shown it want to control the runtime environment as well, but we'll see who wins that race.
...how often do you change the battery ?