...as opposed to the "drive around the cones please" pseudo-test.
Some places it's worse than that. When I got my license (TX) there was no driving test whatsoever. Just a written (which was multiple-choice on a computer).
Yeah, but the iPod would have to have enough horsepower to decode a high-resolution video. I don't remember IIRC what processor the video models have, but decoding 800x600 H.264 takes an exponential amount more CPU power than decoding 320x240. Rendering powerpoint presentations isn't nearly as stressful.
Skype already takes extreme measures to prevent reverse engineering and to abend the application if you try to run it under a debugger.
So does World of Warcraft, but people still hack it from time to time. Up until now there hasn't been much of a reason for anyone to want to modify Skype, so it hasn't been in the crosshairs of the reverse engineering crowd.
Example: Attaching a normal windows debugger or using softice isn't the only way to trace execution. Even if the app attempts to detect a virtualized CPU (say vmware), a full emulator can be completely invisible -- just slower. qemu even supports a gdb socket connection.
Trying to prevent reverse-engineering is a never-ending arms race and I'm not sure Skype has the will to stick it out. Just witness sites like game copy world to see how effect anti-reverse-engineering technologies are.
But... the CPUID instruction is easily recognizable, so it wouldn't take much work with a debugger to find it and replace it with a simple mov that fakes the cpuid info.
In order to counter that, skype will have to checksum/encrypt the binary, but certain groups of people have been circumventing those measures for a loooong time and are quite good at it.
If their encryption system works as well as their SATA controllers, I suspect either it will be cracked in a week, or will just plain not work to begin with.
No, they definitely can. Jabber doesn't use direct connections for normal chat, and even with an encrypted connection to the server, the server still can read what you're sending.
The only way to be sure is to use end-to-end encryption, which is usually client-specific.
Now, Lets look at Verizon. They are providing a massive pipe into the home with the Fibre. Possibly even T3 speeds of 45Mbp/s....or faster. Even cheap Ethernet bridges can do 100Mbps over multimode fiber. For FIOS they're probably using single-mode since it's much better for distance (and can reach higher speeds as well).
I've seen the 100Mbps number quoted a lot for Verizon -- it sounds like they're only using 15-20Mbps of it for internet service which leaves a lot of bandwidth for other things. Eventually they could even go gig with it if they needed.
You have much to learn about BOFHdom, grasshopper.
So take control of your own computers. Put them behind a department firewall. Put big stickers on them saying "Not IT Controlled" or "Keep your hands off!"
And then IT sends someone over to simply turn them off and cart them away. Any attempts to question or complain about this are replied to with a copy of the company policy (signed by all of the top executives) that says all computer equipment is to be purchased, installed, and maintained by the IT dept. Said employees are reprimanded for failing to follow the established procedure.
Don't even try it a second time, or the lawyers will be all over your ass for putting the company at risk by violating SOX, etc.
Reports of 6to4's death have been greatly exaggerated.
What broken ISPs are you using?
I can ping 192.88.99.1 from home (DSL line), work (high capacity business circuit), remote location at work (DSL in another city), and a co-located box that's triple-homed near a peering point.
I also use 6to4 at home; never had a problem with it.
I wouldn't call it that. Simple things like terminal services not listening on v6 addresses should have been fixed long ago but are still an issue. Setting up a portproxy works but for some reason I haven't figured out yet it's slooooooooow.
Yeah, I know the feeling. When I played SF2 years ago, it was the VGA-enhanced version (you could still tell it was designed for EGA, but the alien comm pictures and star systems looked pretty nice). A while back I pulled down the first Starflight from the underdogs and tried it in an emulator -- I swear the spaceport was 4-color CGA, yuck.
Still, one of these days I'll have to sit down and play it through (maybe hunt around for that Atari version). If the sequel is any indication the plot should make up for it.
Hey, Red Storm Rising! I had forgotten about that game. I used to play that for hours on end...
Star Control 2 isn't that the Starflight ripoff? Starflight was a _great_ game.
Not so much a ripoff, as the makers of Star Control 2 admit to being inspired by the Starflight series. SC2 was a later generation game though, with VGA graphics and background music and such (I think there was even a CD version with full recorded voices).
Starflight (and Starflight 2) are awesome games though! I've only played SF2, but I remember the in-game universe just being massive (doubly so when you consider the other side of the anomaly). Heh, I still remember mapping out trade routes so I could afford to get the Class 5 lasers, or mining cobalt to power the G'nunk shield nullifier. Amazing that it could all fit on a few floppies.
Just because you are a "Family Company" doesn't mean that your corporation is all cuddly and nice.
Oh, definitely. I only mean that such a company wouldn't be required to pursue profit without thinking of the moral implications, not that they wouldn't do it anyway. The promise of riches often brings out the worst in us, and sometimes family members can be just as bad as any shareholder. Just look what happened to Wal-mart after Sam died and his children took over (not that it was ever rosy and perfect to begin with, but still).
Also on the privately owned list are companies such as Levi Strauss, who I definitely wouldn't consider a poster child for "Do no evil"...
I guess what I'm trying to say to budding entrepreneurs is: be very careful who you trust.
Oh, and I forgot to mention. If you just absolutely feel it necessary to give up control of your company to a large group, employee owned isn't a bad way to go...
That's a joke, right? If not, I'm afraid it's you who are misinformed. I don't suppose you'd care to provide any references or even search terms to back up your claims? (FWIW, I couldn't care less about Google and China; they still have the best damn search engine out there).
Yes, there are tax and liability benefits to incorporation, but you can't be forced to do it. Most companies above a certain size do incorporate for the liability reason alone. However, individuals and partnerships can still get the limited liability and most of the tax benefits by organizing as an LLC or L(L)P (many law firms do this).
Even if you do incorporate, you can't be forced to become publicly traded. Many large companies are privately held -- in fact, a majority of all corporations. Privately held corporations are exempt from SEC jurisdiction, most of the disclosure requirements, Sarbanes Oxley, etc. Additionally, your shareholders can't sue you for not maximizing profit if you're the only shareholder!
I'd even go so far as to say that most companies that go public do so for one of two reasons. Either the owners want to sell part of the company and make a lot of money for themselves, or they see it as a quick way to get additional capital. The former is mostly just greed, and the latter isn't necessary if you properly plan your finances and have the company invest back in itself.
I'll go ahead and back up my statements with evidence. Here is a list of the top privately owned companies in the US. You may recognize such names as:
Mars PricewaterhouseCoopers (who ironically does quite a bit of business auditing public companies and helping them comply with SOX) Bechtel (Hoover dam, Chunnel, etc) Cox Communications Toys "R" Us...and that's just in the >$10 billion/yr range. There's quite a few in the top 20 publicly traded list that have less revenue than the top privately owned. Quite a few of these are also entirely owned by a single family (Bechtel, HEB). If all the owners were to decide to take a unified stand on a moral issue, they have the power to see it through.
You're right, it's too late for Google to fix it. It was too late the day of the IPO.
The shareholders would also sue under American Law...
Which is exactly why being a publicly held corporation and the motto "Do No Evil" are simply incompatible. The only way for Google to truly be able to maintain the moral high ground was for it to remain privately owned.
The lesson here is that if you own a company and don't want it to be forced to mindlessly pursue profit at any expense, don't go public. Just don't do it.
Of course it is the war on terror. Think of the children and then think of terror that the word boobies could potential put in them. If the life of one child is saved from the terror word boobies then it is all worth it.
They've got it all wrong. Terrorists don't have boobies, that's why they're so pissed off at the world. If their culture had a little more nudity in it they'd probably be more relaxed.
Since my BIOS sucks and is broken anyway (horribly wrong IRQ routing table, references to nonexistent variables in the battery status), I override the whole DSDT with my own AML code and just ignore what the BIOS says.
Of course this is on FreeBSD. Linux has the capability to override the BIOS's ACPI code as well. Unfortunately Windows doesn't -- or more accurately only the checked (debug) builds of Windows do. I can change the annoying S4 behavior of my laptop, but my friend who runs Windows on the same model is stuck with it...
Yes, it's a good format. If you don't mind being tied to a player with a hideous interface that tries to be everything to everyone and falls short in every area. A player that even with the "classic" skin sucks up more memory than any other app on the system. A format that sometimes needs to connect to the internet to check if you're "licensed" to play the file in question.
MS's programmers aren't stupid. However, their marketing department is.
Know how you feel... Canada or NZ is starting to look better and better. I know they've got problems too but nothing like this. Better hurry before other countries decide they don't want american immigrants.
But isn't NSA already reading all the traffic from the Real Big Routers?
Is that even possible? Sure, sometimes the govt. has a lead on tech over the civillian sector, but for something that advances as fast as data transmission rates and storage capacity, I find it hard to believe they could keep up with all the traffic. Maybe a specific filter on a certain router, but even that is pushing it as the big pipes are generally pretty saturated. I can't even begin to imagine the storage requirements or transmissions speeds necessary to monitor everything.
Slashdot Mirror
...as opposed to the "drive around the cones please" pseudo-test.
Some places it's worse than that. When I got my license (TX) there was no driving test whatsoever. Just a written (which was multiple-choice on a computer).
Yeah, but the iPod would have to have enough horsepower to decode a high-resolution video. I don't remember IIRC what processor the video models have, but decoding 800x600 H.264 takes an exponential amount more CPU power than decoding 320x240. Rendering powerpoint presentations isn't nearly as stressful.
Skype already takes extreme measures to prevent reverse engineering and to abend the application if you try to run it under a debugger.
So does World of Warcraft, but people still hack it from time to time. Up until now there hasn't been much of a reason for anyone to want to modify Skype, so it hasn't been in the crosshairs of the reverse engineering crowd.
Example: Attaching a normal windows debugger or using softice isn't the only way to trace execution. Even if the app attempts to detect a virtualized CPU (say vmware), a full emulator can be completely invisible -- just slower. qemu even supports a gdb socket connection.
Trying to prevent reverse-engineering is a never-ending arms race and I'm not sure Skype has the will to stick it out. Just witness sites like game copy world to see how effect anti-reverse-engineering technologies are.
But... the CPUID instruction is easily recognizable, so it wouldn't take much work with a debugger to find it and replace it with a simple mov that fakes the cpuid info.
In order to counter that, skype will have to checksum/encrypt the binary, but certain groups of people have been circumventing those measures for a loooong time and are quite good at it.
To appease them, Intel and Silicon image came up with a bolt-on encryption system
Wait, this Silicon Image?
If their encryption system works as well as their SATA controllers, I suspect either it will be cracked in a week, or will just plain not work to begin with.
Or just read the contents of the chip remotely. I mean, that is what RFID chips are designed to do...
No, they definitely can. Jabber doesn't use direct connections for normal chat, and even with an encrypted connection to the server, the server still can read what you're sending.
The only way to be sure is to use end-to-end encryption, which is usually client-specific.
Now, Lets look at Verizon. They are providing a massive pipe into the home with the Fibre. Possibly even T3 speeds of 45Mbp/s. ...or faster. Even cheap Ethernet bridges can do 100Mbps over multimode fiber. For FIOS they're probably using single-mode since it's much better for distance (and can reach higher speeds as well).
I've seen the 100Mbps number quoted a lot for Verizon -- it sounds like they're only using 15-20Mbps of it for internet service which leaves a lot of bandwidth for other things. Eventually they could even go gig with it if they needed.
You have much to learn about BOFHdom, grasshopper.
So take control of your own computers. Put them behind a department firewall. Put big stickers on them saying "Not IT Controlled" or "Keep your hands off!"
And then IT sends someone over to simply turn them off and cart them away. Any attempts to question or complain about this are replied to with a copy of the company policy (signed by all of the top executives) that says all computer equipment is to be purchased, installed, and maintained by the IT dept. Said employees are reprimanded for failing to follow the established procedure.
Don't even try it a second time, or the lawyers will be all over your ass for putting the company at risk by violating SOX, etc.
Reports of 6to4's death have been greatly exaggerated.
What broken ISPs are you using?
I can ping 192.88.99.1 from home (DSL line), work (high capacity business circuit), remote location at work (DSL in another city), and a co-located box that's triple-homed near a peering point.
I also use 6to4 at home; never had a problem with it.
XP's IPv6 support is decent.
I wouldn't call it that. Simple things like terminal services not listening on v6 addresses should have been fixed long ago but are still an issue. Setting up a portproxy works but for some reason I haven't figured out yet it's slooooooooow.
Yeah, I know the feeling. When I played SF2 years ago, it was the VGA-enhanced version (you could still tell it was designed for EGA, but the alien comm pictures and star systems looked pretty nice). A while back I pulled down the first Starflight from the underdogs and tried it in an emulator -- I swear the spaceport was 4-color CGA, yuck.
Still, one of these days I'll have to sit down and play it through (maybe hunt around for that Atari version). If the sequel is any indication the plot should make up for it.
Hey, Red Storm Rising! I had forgotten about that game. I used to play that for hours on end...
Star Control 2 isn't that the Starflight ripoff? Starflight was a _great_ game.
Not so much a ripoff, as the makers of Star Control 2 admit to being inspired by the Starflight series. SC2 was a later generation game though, with VGA graphics and background music and such (I think there was even a CD version with full recorded voices).
Starflight (and Starflight 2) are awesome games though! I've only played SF2, but I remember the in-game universe just being massive (doubly so when you consider the other side of the anomaly). Heh, I still remember mapping out trade routes so I could afford to get the Class 5 lasers, or mining cobalt to power the G'nunk shield nullifier. Amazing that it could all fit on a few floppies.
Just because you are a "Family Company" doesn't mean that your corporation is all cuddly and nice.
Oh, definitely. I only mean that such a company wouldn't be required to pursue profit without thinking of the moral implications, not that they wouldn't do it anyway. The promise of riches often brings out the worst in us, and sometimes family members can be just as bad as any shareholder. Just look what happened to Wal-mart after Sam died and his children took over (not that it was ever rosy and perfect to begin with, but still).
Also on the privately owned list are companies such as Levi Strauss, who I definitely wouldn't consider a poster child for "Do no evil"...
I guess what I'm trying to say to budding entrepreneurs is: be very careful who you trust.
Oh, and I forgot to mention. If you just absolutely feel it necessary to give up control of your company to a large group, employee owned isn't a bad way to go...
That's a joke, right? If not, I'm afraid it's you who are misinformed. I don't suppose you'd care to provide any references or even search terms to back up your claims? (FWIW, I couldn't care less about Google and China; they still have the best damn search engine out there).
...and that's just in the >$10 billion/yr range. There's quite a few in the top 20 publicly traded list that have less revenue than the top privately owned. Quite a few of these are also entirely owned by a single family (Bechtel, HEB). If all the owners were to decide to take a unified stand on a moral issue, they have the power to see it through.
Yes, there are tax and liability benefits to incorporation, but you can't be forced to do it. Most companies above a certain size do incorporate for the liability reason alone. However, individuals and partnerships can still get the limited liability and most of the tax benefits by organizing as an LLC or L(L)P (many law firms do this).
Even if you do incorporate, you can't be forced to become publicly traded. Many large companies are privately held -- in fact, a majority of all corporations. Privately held corporations are exempt from SEC jurisdiction, most of the disclosure requirements, Sarbanes Oxley, etc. Additionally, your shareholders can't sue you for not maximizing profit if you're the only shareholder!
I'd even go so far as to say that most companies that go public do so for one of two reasons. Either the owners want to sell part of the company and make a lot of money for themselves, or they see it as a quick way to get additional capital. The former is mostly just greed, and the latter isn't necessary if you properly plan your finances and have the company invest back in itself.
I'll go ahead and back up my statements with evidence. Here is a list of the top privately owned companies in the US. You may recognize such names as:
Mars
PricewaterhouseCoopers (who ironically does quite a bit of business auditing public companies and helping them comply with SOX)
Bechtel (Hoover dam, Chunnel, etc)
Cox Communications
Toys "R" Us
So if it's number 2, they're just dragging Yahoo!, MS, et cetera in for the heck of it?
To make it less suspicious. If they investigated Google only, the timing would make the real reason pretty obvious.
/tinfoil hat off
This isn't something Google can fix.
You're right, it's too late for Google to fix it. It was too late the day of the IPO.
The shareholders would also sue under American Law...
Which is exactly why being a publicly held corporation and the motto "Do No Evil" are simply incompatible. The only way for Google to truly be able to maintain the moral high ground was for it to remain privately owned.
The lesson here is that if you own a company and don't want it to be forced to mindlessly pursue profit at any expense, don't go public. Just don't do it.
Of course it is the war on terror. Think of the children and then think of terror that the word boobies could potential put in them. If the life of one child is saved from the terror word boobies then it is all worth it.
They've got it all wrong. Terrorists don't have boobies, that's why they're so pissed off at the world. If their culture had a little more nudity in it they'd probably be more relaxed.
Since my BIOS sucks and is broken anyway (horribly wrong IRQ routing table, references to nonexistent variables in the battery status), I override the whole DSDT with my own AML code and just ignore what the BIOS says.
Of course this is on FreeBSD. Linux has the capability to override the BIOS's ACPI code as well. Unfortunately Windows doesn't -- or more accurately only the checked (debug) builds of Windows do. I can change the annoying S4 behavior of my laptop, but my friend who runs Windows on the same model is stuck with it...
Yes, it's a good format. If you don't mind being tied to a player with a hideous interface that tries to be everything to everyone and falls short in every area. A player that even with the "classic" skin sucks up more memory than any other app on the system. A format that sometimes needs to connect to the internet to check if you're "licensed" to play the file in question.
MS's programmers aren't stupid. However, their marketing department is.
Know how you feel... Canada or NZ is starting to look better and better. I know they've got problems too but nothing like this. Better hurry before other countries decide they don't want american immigrants.
But isn't NSA already reading all the traffic from the Real Big Routers?
Is that even possible? Sure, sometimes the govt. has a lead on tech over the civillian sector, but for something that advances as fast as data transmission rates and storage capacity, I find it hard to believe they could keep up with all the traffic. Maybe a specific filter on a certain router, but even that is pushing it as the big pipes are generally pretty saturated. I can't even begin to imagine the storage requirements or transmissions speeds necessary to monitor everything.
Microsoft or Blockbuster might just pony up so that thier video on demand works better than Googles.
I figure theirs (MS & blockbuster) will be bloated enough that once you factor in the preferential treatment, it will be about even.
Yeah, no kidding, I play nethack while watching TV all the time! :-P