SearchKing is in the interactive, information and entertainment business. Much like a radio station or TV. We provide information and entertainment to the general public at no charge to our users, just like radio or TV. That means that whether we charge YOU to do a search or use our content or not, we are still a business and we have to make a profit to remain in business.
Like any other business, we have expenses. Employees, servers, bandwidth, rent and utilities. Let's not forget the taxes too. All these expenses have to paid and we are able to pay them through the revenues we receive from advertisers. People who want YOU as their customers.
I refuse to believe this operation is anything more than Bob Massa sitting in his parents' basement. Every piece of content on his web site was written by him. That's a busy CEO...
Unlike far too many of our competitors, we know YOU are smart enough to understand this. So, we don't try to hide or mislead anyone in any way. We are proud of our advertisers and proud that we are able to offer a service such as SearchKing for free.
I'm glad they aren't charging surfers for advertiser-purchased rankings whose prices are based on the page rankings by a free and well-regarded search engine... Hail to the King, baby.
Does an unspoken contract exist between search services and webmasters that allow a search engine to legally build it's business using the content of webmasters without express permission?
So the angle he's playing is that he and Google signed on unspoken (and presumably unwritten) contract that Google is now in breach of... uh huh. I don't think anyone should cry for Google's legal expenses. As long as they show up, with or without a lawyer, the case should be summarily dismissed. GOOGLE: There will never be a more perfect time to walk into a courtroom with a monkey in a three piece suit and tell the judge that he's your counsel. Think about it... =)
If his shyster lawyers really thought the suit was viable, they'd tell him to keep his dumb mouth shut...
BTW, I like the Brick Testament, but wasn't one of the Ten Commandments "No graven idols"? What would God's position be on molded plastic idols?:) (I'm agnostic and not overly knowledgable about these things...
Old Testament God would probably start bitching, throwing lightning bolts, etc, but New Testament response would be a fonze-like "Heeeeeeeeeyy" and have a chuckle.
You can tell how laid He got in between. Immaculate conception, my ass... =)
This is uninformed. Paper most certainly is not a safe archive medium and book bindings generally last less time than the paper. While digitial media may also have a short life under uncontrolled conditions it can easily be copied onto fresh media at a given interval and most importantly it costs much much less. Digital storage is so much cheaper that it makes redundant copies possible where expensive paper storage would not. Redundant digital copies of media stored in proper facilities cannot even be compared to books on a library shelf as a secure form of storage.
I've heard the argument before, that paper lasts longer than digital. I anecdotally remember that the Vatican was looking into the problem, and decided against converting their library to digital, due to the short lifespan of the available physical media. This was a few years ago, maybe they've become more enlightened since then...
Gotta worry about their ability to grasp the complex dilemmas of modern morality when they don't even understand bitspace... *rimshot*
ok sorry sorry take it back oh powerful one with the wrath and the smite-ing and hey =)
I have been (no more than) a 3d-tinkerer ever since Quake was released, periodically fooling around with whatever 3d packages I can find to learn and experiment with, for my enjoyment only, and maybe producing something I can shoot. When blender was GPL'd, I took a look at it, and with today's story, I have downloaded the non-commercial version of Maya. I have about a bagillion questions.
- Are the tools discussed today (Aqsis, Liquid) compatible with the NC version of Maya, or do they require the Pro version? Will I even need them for less than professional rendering?
- Are there things that blender cannot yet do that Maya can that I might conceivably use as a hobbyist?
- Is the level of user support, tutorials, manuals, etc. for blender comparable to that of Maya? From a cursory examination, it appears that Maya has several tutorials and discussion forums on the Alias Community website, and tons of active community websites.
- blender may eventually rival the community size, but I don't think it has yet. The blender "documentation" appears to be incomplete or incorrect, and comes with this disclaimer: This document is at the current state meant as a example how a possible way of organising and writing documentation could look like. It contains many old and obsolete information especially in terms of license and publishing rights. I have found a few tutorial sites. I have heard that the learning curve is steep, and without a lot of documentation, that kind of worries me.
So, to all who have some experience with one or both of the packages, which do you think will provide the most satisfying hobbyist experience? Power to do the things I will probably want to do, useful learning of 3d modelling, and usefulness of produced files (I noticed the Maya non-commercial version of the "Kompleet" package watermarks its files and is not compatible with the commercial version file-formats), and especially overall enjoyment of the activity.
If you know of any good learning resources for any of the tools, please post them. Thanks from all us 3d newbies...
Wow, was this discussion only Tuesday night? Seems like so much longer ago. Hope you see it and reply.
Forgive some of the scatter-brained-ness of my first reply. When I type and talk fast, I use shortcuts, and some clarity can get lost. It might be useful to reread my post, and whenever I say "run trusted" I mean the program can run with privilege to access its area of trusted memory, the Fritz chip, and therefore access trusted data. Which makes some of your replies not really effective. I also say "code" when I mean "binary data, which could be code or content."
Yes, people *can* compile the code themselves and get a trusted binary.... You can modify it any way you want, it just won't play "licensed" content.
It's not a trusted binary if it doesn't have access to play licensed content. It would be just a regular binary. If I were a developer of programs to play encrypted content, how would I test my software? I would be the copyright owner of my test content, therefore I could encrypt it using my own key for play on my test machine. But I still couldn't load my test program into "trusted" mode in order to access my own content to test it, without it being approved by the remote 3rd party. This really breaks my development cycle. I don't believe you've addressed this yet in your model.
NOTHING is broken. The new machines do *everything* they do now. The ONLY thing they add is MORE stuff they can do - ie - play content that is "trusted" or "encrypted".
Right now I can play any of my music at any time, any number of times, without having to pay anyone any additional money. There is no musical content that is released that I cannot play right now. The reason? There is no hardware, nor a market for hardware, that would support a distribution model of releasing only encrypted content. Therefore to be profitable, the content is released unencrypted. If the assumption is changed, and there would be a platform for such encrypted media, the distribution model could change, too. If it were effective, I would no longer be able to play my content in the manner of my choosing. I would call that "broken", and a loss of functionality.
If I were the middleman I'd approve only OSS packages, and only after extensive peer review. That's just me.
I think that is just you. If you join the security community, you'll realize that this, while ostensibly a "security" related issue (just not mine, someone else's financial security), is not something that many folks in the community feel is operating on their side. First of all, it prevents them from being masters of their own domain. No one in the industry is going to use as their work or research machines any TCPA devices, as they will not need access to encrypted media. Eventually, that may change as TCPA-awareness pervades even something as un-broken as email, but not initially. Anyway, serious professionals do not donate their time to corporate shilling. One can hire them to conduct reviews of code, and many of them do source reviews of popular programs that many use everyday (the "many eyeballs" you're hoping to cash in on), but... they're not going to do OSS source-review of programs designed to limit their freedom... (especially not before they're able to be used. How would you test it if you can't run it yet?) at least not until after they've been approved by the middleman.
You see what I'm saying? If anyone finds any bugs that will enable them to use the program to decrypt encrypted, licensed media, they're not going to come forward until after the software gets approved. Then they're going to use it to remove the encryption from all the content that they can get their hands on. Then that content will be distributed to anyone who wants it in very similar fashion to the current method.
Me: And don't even say, "So they can run trusted code", because I'll be running that code Free as a bird the week after it gets cracked.
This is what I meant by that statement. Bugs will be found, but only after it's too late. Will the 3rd party attempt to revoke the certification once the bug hits the mainstream? Try to close the barn door while at least a couple of the (slower) horses are still inside? How will they do that if the boxes people are using to do this aren't connected to the Net? Or will an unfettered net connection be assumed on every device that is supposed to be able to run encrypted content, checking with the 3rd party before loading a program into trusted mode? Is this feasible with laptops? Portable CD players? DVD players?
Come to think of it, will my DVD player still be equipped with a digital-output line for audio? Will that be encrypted, too? Will the DVD player automatically re-sign the output for my receiver? What about the analog going to the speakers? It's not digital, but it could easily be reconverted, and the loss in quality is probably comparable to mp3 compression, and I wouldn't say that's exactly scared everyone away.
There's about a billion things wrong with TCPA that are not solvable. No, not even with your neat little package. What if the 3rd party's private key becomes compromised? Isn't the public copy of that burned into all Fritz chips? How will it be revoked? How will you authenticate the new replacement key? How is any answer to the first two questions a possible answer to the problem of someone substituting the 3rd party's key with another, say, their own?
That should be enough holes for now. I'm holding my breath in anticipation of your solutions.
I say goddam! Anyone notice how freakin eighties that movie soundtrack is?? I wanted Louis Gossett Jr to pop up on the com telling the kid to turn that racket off.
President Gates has recently indicated that he wishes to fully comply with details of the US inspection settlement. We cannot morally seek regime change without first giving the inspectors time to verify compliance with the terms.
Hey, if you're that worried about the snooty French waiter spitting in your food, go for it, but Canadians aren't gonna be going home with his girl, eh? ; )
Folks, "-1: Overrated" isn't a conversational weapon. I read pretty high when I'm not moderating, as I'm sure a lot of folks do. We're counting on useful moderation. So please don't moderate based on whether or not you think slashdotters should join the military -- moderate based on whether or not you thought dan_lamb's comment stimulated discussion. Obviously, it has.
If you disagree with his comment, please do so. If you do it intelligently, thoughtful moderators will mod you up for the same reasons they modded up the statement that you disagreed with.
As someone who spent 30 days in solitary confinement for disobeying orders in the Marine Corps (mainly because I am a stubborn geek who isn't good a taking orders that I disagree with...
Sir, you've earned my respect. Would you mind if I ask what order you disobeyed?
+1 Insightful. There's just way too many interesting discussions on this article to sit and moderate, though.
Though some of my faith in humanity was restored when I heard a historian note that by the end of the Vietnam War pilots were refused en masse to run bombing missions over North Vietnam, having destroyed all plausible military targets.
(The military is working hard to make sure something like that can't happen again, e.g., military drones)
Yes, there is the geek "contribution". Sigh. It would perhaps be better for the world, if not necessarily for each nation's military might, if all the World's geeks motivated to develop better weapons were to instead enlist. If nothing else, it might at least put a face on the death and suffering caused by the previous generation's "defense" geeks, rather than making the decision to kill a less human one.
With regards to the parent, I would agree that you are ultimately responsible for every action you take. Having "orders" is a dodge. My advice would be to join no military or organization that would issue you orders that you would feel uncomfortable refusing, should they conflict with your own judgement. Lend your skills and judgement to your employer, whomever it should be. Never give up your judgement, or become a tool for others to do evil.
I'm always reminded of the Allies and the Germans, at the signing of the Armistice at the end of WWI, getting up out of the trenches and meeting each other in No Man's Land for congratulations and revelry. Why didn't they do the same ten minutes earlier? Because the orders to kill were still coming in, and the order for peace had not yet arrived. How odd.
I believe there are very few people fighting wars that want to be fighting wars. The real motivation is coming from the top, the orders of people who aren't involved in combat. Everyone else is praying for peace, but have been stirred by a sense of duty to compromise their judgement in the service of the war mongers. Again, what an odd thing to value more than life itself.
You become "tainted" and MS may well sue you if you work on a conceptually related project.
I did some digging on the ms shared source license, and couldn't find much. As much as I appreciate the anec(Slash)dotal evidence, I would like to actually read the damn license and find out how bad the tainting provision is.
I did find the Rotor shared-source CLI license, and it seems relatively benign. But that's not the Windows XP shared-source license. It looks like you have to contact by hand someone at an office if you want to even see the conditions of the license. Anyone have a copy, want to post it?
Maybe, but when you go into it with a purpose, such as finding every moderation that gave an informative to someone who obviously hadn't RTFA, maybe you can make a difference.
Reread your list, and tell the nice poster how that sounds even remotely friendly to Free Software.
Slower production time. Awaits certification by a third-party. Cannot possibly run as trusted on every system. People can't modify and compile their trusted code themselves (Say goodbye to testing). XMMS isn't allowed to ship with output modules? wtf... What part of your post was supposed to be friendly to Free Software??!
Oh yeah, and since the middleman has a financial incentive to approve client binaries, how is he going to be able to spot all the security holes that dedicated, unbiased security professionals have not yet found? The first time a program gets slipped past the middle man, it becomes unencrypted data, which will then be distributed ala Gnutella / Freenet. Is IE going to be trusted? Media Player? IIS? Word? Can you spot the bug-free software in that list? Me neither. Does it just mean that people are going to suddenly write flawless code, especially when they can't compile and test it themselves?
Oh yeah, and the part you completely forgot to mention: why in God's name I'm supposed to plunk down hard currency for a computer that breaks so many things that used to work.
BS. It's all BS. TCPA, all of it. No one's going to buy crippled machines. Christ MS can't even sell new copies of Office, because the old ones work just fine, even if the new version is a little better. Why would anyone want to ditch their old computer when the alternative is something that's not only broken, but hostile?
And don't even say, "So they can run trusted code", because I'll be running that code Free as a bird the week after it gets cracked.
--
Please forgive my hostility. I just hate the idea of groups sitting behind closed doors and conspiring to enslave my future machines to their avarice. And you're the only one I can reach.
Re:Unethical Behavior: RedWolves2's Amazon Link
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· Score: 3, Insightful
It'd only be unethical if he had defrauded people about the book's value or done so in a story submission.
Hmm. Why do you draw a distinction between shilling for amazon in a story submission and doing so in a post? I think it's the same behavior, either way. The only thing that would make it worse in my book about a submission would be that the behavior had the tacit approval of the story's editors.
I think what rubbed some of us wrong, including myself, was that he sounded like he was motivated to help slashdot readers to save a couple bucks, but upon realizing he's trying to reap 15% of a large number of sales, you realize that he has much shadier motives. You wonder why he didn't disclose it to begin with. It suggests that he didn't want people to know he was shilling, that he had a financial interest in the behavior. In the US, we usually require our politicians to disclose conflicts of interest in the stocks they hold when recommending certain companies for public works contracts, or journalists to indicate whether they have any interest in a story, such as when they're reporting on a company that owns or is related to the company they work for. It's just integrity.
Do you have anything against people making a buck?
I think he could have had it both ways, by saying something like
"Buy from Amazon, it's only $16! Click my link (don't forget I referred you;)"
Works for me. I might have bought it from his link if he'd done it that way... that would be a great way to quickly make a lot of bucks, without compromising your integrity.
Re:Unethical Behavior: RedWolves2's Amazon Link
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· Score: 2
Could it be that you are just pissed that you missed out on an opportunity? Sour grapes, eh?
I commented because I agreed with the parent that it was shady behavior, but what was even more interesting was his expressed desire for a way to punish such shameless shills. The first thing that came to mind is how often people claim to want increased authority to combat excesses or abuses, especially in the moral arena. I thought that was probably characteristic of a sizable minority of slashdot readers, with the majority leaning more towards a Libertarian outlook, and I thought it would be interesting fodder for intelligent debate. If your post is all we've got to go on, obviously I was wrong...
Guess I struck a nerve, calling you a whore, eh RedWolves2? =)
hahahaha... I offered the same prayer, and this is what I got back.
From the Slashgods:
I doth hear thy prayer, and I say, is there not such means to recourse thine ire in thine own power? Is there not such "Meta-moderation" that shall purge the Wicked and Ignorant from the Halls of the Blessed by Wisdom? Nay, do not beseech Me for relief when the Power of Recourse rests with Man himself.
And now do I command all the Faithful: Get thee to thy chambers of Meta-moderation, that you can sit in Righteous Judgement of those that do blaspheme and reward false piety in My Name.
Supplicants: I'm on my way! =p
Re:Unethical Behavior: RedWolves2's Amazon Link
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Slashdot should have a policy allowing moderators to discard posts from people who pull this kind of crap.
This is great. We've got a microcosm of the whole Libertarian-accepts-sketchy vs. Ethical-demands-authority debate that always crops up on/.
RedWolves2 is a whore. I hate namecalling, but that's the fact. As soon as I saw him shill for Amazon, I checked to make sure that he had included his affiliate code in the link, and sure enough. He will make some money on being the first 3+ post on the article, with a link (unless he subsequently gets modded down). I have a friend that, despite my chiding him, maintains an Amazon affiliate link for a book that he recommends as his sig, and pulls in a modest ~$15 a month. That's not even half as shady as RedWolves2 though.
What upsets us about RedWolves2's action? The fact that he didn't disclose that he had included his referrer tag? I'm not bothered that he referred Amazon for a discount, and it would only make sense that he'd include *someone*'s affiliate code. If he was a true humanitarian, he would have picked a worthwhile organization that had an affiliate code and used theirs, and disclosed that fact. No, I'd say it's the fact that he used his own, and didn't disclose it, that has got our hackles up.
That being said, that it's fairly unethical behavior that many of us would find distasteful, do we need a new method of dealing with it? He was modded up by folks who apparently wanted to reward his post, dubiously in the public interest. He could be modded down by people who want to punish it. Ultimately, you'd believe that most people clicking through his link would understand the Amazon referral program, and would realize who they were rewarding. Maybe people just keep a list of affiliate codes for worthy charities by their monitors for just such purchases.
Some AC mentioned that the Tattered Cover is a more worthwhile book store to support, and that they have it for $14. They might have an affiliate program, perhaps someone should find a decent organization and buy it from there.
I just double-checked, and sure enough, RedWolves2 has already lost 2 mod points. Looks like the people are speaking...
Slashdot Mirror
KEEP SEARCHKING FREE
SearchKing is in the interactive, information and entertainment business. Much like a radio station or TV. We provide information and entertainment to the general public at no charge to our users, just like radio or TV. That means that whether we charge YOU to do a search or use our content or not, we are still a business and we have to make a profit to remain in business.
Like any other business, we have expenses. Employees, servers, bandwidth, rent and utilities. Let's not forget the taxes too. All these expenses have to paid and we are able to pay them through the revenues we receive from advertisers. People who want YOU as their customers.
I refuse to believe this operation is anything more than Bob Massa sitting in his parents' basement. Every piece of content on his web site was written by him. That's a busy CEO...
Unlike far too many of our competitors, we know YOU are smart enough to understand this. So, we don't try to hide or mislead anyone in any way. We are proud of our advertisers and proud that we are able to offer a service such as SearchKing for free.
I'm glad they aren't charging surfers for advertiser-purchased rankings whose prices are based on the page rankings by a free and well-regarded search engine... Hail to the King, baby.
From his post on his own forums:
Does an unspoken contract exist between search services and webmasters that allow a search engine to legally build it's business using the content of webmasters without express permission?
So the angle he's playing is that he and Google signed on unspoken (and presumably unwritten) contract that Google is now in breach of... uh huh. I don't think anyone should cry for Google's legal expenses. As long as they show up, with or without a lawyer, the case should be summarily dismissed. GOOGLE: There will never be a more perfect time to walk into a courtroom with a monkey in a three piece suit and tell the judge that he's your counsel. Think about it... =)
If his shyster lawyers really thought the suit was viable, they'd tell him to keep his dumb mouth shut...
BTW, I like the Brick Testament, but wasn't one of the Ten Commandments "No graven idols"? What would God's position be on molded plastic idols? :) (I'm agnostic and not overly knowledgable about these things...
Old Testament God would probably start bitching, throwing lightning bolts, etc, but New Testament response would be a fonze-like "Heeeeeeeeeyy" and have a chuckle.
You can tell how laid He got in between. Immaculate conception, my ass... =)
*looking for lightning bolts*
Yes, but the great advantage of the 'Creation' program is that it will only take six days to write...
It's like a moderation point from someone whose opinion is almost as valuable as a real moderator =)
someone more clever should think of a joke about the author scrapping his entire codebase a couple revisions later...
... is Exchange =)
Kinda disappointed... For a second there, I thought it was another email worm that uninstalled Outlook on its way out...
=)
This is uninformed. Paper most certainly is not a safe archive medium and book bindings generally last less time than the paper. While digitial media may also have a short life under uncontrolled conditions it can easily be copied onto fresh media at a given interval and most importantly it costs much much less. Digital storage is so much cheaper that it makes redundant copies possible where expensive paper storage would not. Redundant digital copies of media stored in proper facilities cannot even be compared to books on a library shelf as a secure form of storage.
I've heard the argument before, that paper lasts longer than digital. I anecdotally remember that the Vatican was looking into the problem, and decided against converting their library to digital, due to the short lifespan of the available physical media. This was a few years ago, maybe they've become more enlightened since then...
Gotta worry about their ability to grasp the complex dilemmas of modern morality when they don't even understand bitspace... *rimshot*
ok sorry sorry take it back oh powerful one with the wrath and the smite-ing and hey =)
Ok this is only tangenitally on-topic, but...
I have been (no more than) a 3d-tinkerer ever since Quake was released, periodically fooling around with whatever 3d packages I can find to learn and experiment with, for my enjoyment only, and maybe producing something I can shoot. When blender was GPL'd, I took a look at it, and with today's story, I have downloaded the non-commercial version of Maya. I have about a bagillion questions.
- Are the tools discussed today (Aqsis, Liquid) compatible with the NC version of Maya, or do they require the Pro version? Will I even need them for less than professional rendering?
- Are there things that blender cannot yet do that Maya can that I might conceivably use as a hobbyist?
- Is the level of user support, tutorials, manuals, etc. for blender comparable to that of Maya? From a cursory examination, it appears that Maya has several tutorials and discussion forums on the Alias Community website, and tons of active community websites.
- blender may eventually rival the community size, but I don't think it has yet. The blender "documentation"
appears to be incomplete or incorrect, and comes with this disclaimer: This document is at the current state meant as a example how a possible way of organising and writing documentation could look like. It contains many old and obsolete information especially in terms of license and publishing rights. I have found a few tutorial sites. I have heard that the learning curve is steep, and without a lot of documentation, that kind of worries me.
So, to all who have some experience with one or both of the packages, which do you think will provide the most satisfying hobbyist experience? Power to do the things I will probably want to do, useful learning of 3d modelling, and usefulness of produced files (I noticed the Maya non-commercial version of the "Kompleet" package watermarks its files and is not compatible with the commercial version file-formats), and especially overall enjoyment of the activity.
If you know of any good learning resources for any of the tools, please post them. Thanks from all us 3d newbies...
lol =p
Wow, was this discussion only Tuesday night? Seems like so much longer ago. Hope you see it and reply.
... You can modify it any way you want, it just won't play "licensed" content.
... they're not going to do OSS source-review of programs designed to limit their freedom... (especially not before they're able to be used. How would you test it if you can't run it yet?) at least not until after they've been approved by the middleman.
Forgive some of the scatter-brained-ness of my first reply. When I type and talk fast, I use shortcuts, and some clarity can get lost. It might be useful to reread my post, and whenever I say "run trusted" I mean the program can run with privilege to access its area of trusted memory, the Fritz chip, and therefore access trusted data. Which makes some of your replies not really effective. I also say "code" when I mean "binary data, which could be code or content."
Yes, people *can* compile the code themselves and get a trusted binary.
It's not a trusted binary if it doesn't have access to play licensed content. It would be just a regular binary. If I were a developer of programs to play encrypted content, how would I test my software? I would be the copyright owner of my test content, therefore I could encrypt it using my own key for play on my test machine. But I still couldn't load my test program into "trusted" mode in order to access my own content to test it, without it being approved by the remote 3rd party. This really breaks my development cycle. I don't believe you've addressed this yet in your model.
NOTHING is broken. The new machines do *everything* they do now. The ONLY thing they add is MORE stuff they can do - ie - play content that is "trusted" or "encrypted".
Right now I can play any of my music at any time, any number of times, without having to pay anyone any additional money. There is no musical content that is released that I cannot play right now. The reason? There is no hardware, nor a market for hardware, that would support a distribution model of releasing only encrypted content. Therefore to be profitable, the content is released unencrypted. If the assumption is changed, and there would be a platform for such encrypted media, the distribution model could change, too. If it were effective, I would no longer be able to play my content in the manner of my choosing. I would call that "broken", and a loss of functionality.
If I were the middleman I'd approve only OSS packages, and only after extensive peer review. That's just me.
I think that is just you. If you join the security community, you'll realize that this, while ostensibly a "security" related issue (just not mine, someone else's financial security), is not something that many folks in the community feel is operating on their side. First of all, it prevents them from being masters of their own domain. No one in the industry is going to use as their work or research machines any TCPA devices, as they will not need access to encrypted media. Eventually, that may change as TCPA-awareness pervades even something as un-broken as email, but not initially. Anyway, serious professionals do not donate their time to corporate shilling. One can hire them to conduct reviews of code, and many of them do source reviews of popular programs that many use everyday (the "many eyeballs" you're hoping to cash in on), but
You see what I'm saying? If anyone finds any bugs that will enable them to use the program to decrypt encrypted, licensed media, they're not going to come forward until after the software gets approved. Then they're going to use it to remove the encryption from all the content that they can get their hands on. Then that content will be distributed to anyone who wants it in very similar fashion to the current method.
Me: And don't even say, "So they can run trusted code", because I'll be running that code Free as a bird the week after it gets cracked.
This is what I meant by that statement. Bugs will be found, but only after it's too late. Will the 3rd party attempt to revoke the certification once the bug hits the mainstream? Try to close the barn door while at least a couple of the (slower) horses are still inside? How will they do that if the boxes people are using to do this aren't connected to the Net? Or will an unfettered net connection be assumed on every device that is supposed to be able to run encrypted content, checking with the 3rd party before loading a program into trusted mode? Is this feasible with laptops? Portable CD players? DVD players?
Come to think of it, will my DVD player still be equipped with a digital-output line for audio? Will that be encrypted, too? Will the DVD player automatically re-sign the output for my receiver? What about the analog going to the speakers? It's not digital, but it could easily be reconverted, and the loss in quality is probably comparable to mp3 compression, and I wouldn't say that's exactly scared everyone away.
There's about a billion things wrong with TCPA that are not solvable. No, not even with your neat little package. What if the 3rd party's private key becomes compromised? Isn't the public copy of that burned into all Fritz chips? How will it be revoked? How will you authenticate the new replacement key? How is any answer to the first two questions a possible answer to the problem of someone substituting the 3rd party's key with another, say, their own?
That should be enough holes for now. I'm holding my breath in anticipation of your solutions.
I say goddam! Anyone notice how freakin eighties that movie soundtrack is?? I wanted Louis Gossett Jr to pop up on the com telling the kid to turn that racket off.
"But Chappy, I need it to help me concentrate!"
*shudder*
Damn! already replied to this article! LOL
President Gates has recently indicated that he wishes to fully comply with details of the US inspection settlement. We cannot morally seek regime change without first giving the inspectors time to verify compliance with the terms.
Give peace a chance? =p
... if everyone who used Linux bought a copy of XP =)
Hey, if you're that worried about the snooty French waiter spitting in your food, go for it, but Canadians aren't gonna be going home with his girl, eh? ; )
Folks, "-1: Overrated" isn't a conversational weapon. I read pretty high when I'm not moderating, as I'm sure a lot of folks do. We're counting on useful moderation. So please don't moderate based on whether or not you think slashdotters should join the military -- moderate based on whether or not you thought dan_lamb's comment stimulated discussion. Obviously, it has.
If you disagree with his comment, please do so. If you do it intelligently, thoughtful moderators will mod you up for the same reasons they modded up the statement that you disagreed with.
Please don't piss in the pool. Thank you.
</rant>
As someone who spent 30 days in solitary confinement for disobeying orders in the Marine Corps (mainly because I am a stubborn geek who isn't good a taking orders that I disagree with...
Sir, you've earned my respect. Would you mind if I ask what order you disobeyed?
+1 Insightful. There's just way too many interesting discussions on this article to sit and moderate, though.
Though some of my faith in humanity was restored when I heard a historian note that by the end of the Vietnam War pilots were refused en masse to run bombing missions over North Vietnam, having destroyed all plausible military targets.
Sorta like what some Israeli officers are doing in Palestine.
(The military is working hard to make sure something like that can't happen again, e.g., military drones)
Yes, there is the geek "contribution". Sigh. It would perhaps be better for the world, if not necessarily for each nation's military might, if all the World's geeks motivated to develop better weapons were to instead enlist. If nothing else, it might at least put a face on the death and suffering caused by the previous generation's "defense" geeks, rather than making the decision to kill a less human one.
With regards to the parent, I would agree that you are ultimately responsible for every action you take. Having "orders" is a dodge. My advice would be to join no military or organization that would issue you orders that you would feel uncomfortable refusing, should they conflict with your own judgement. Lend your skills and judgement to your employer, whomever it should be. Never give up your judgement, or become a tool for others to do evil.
I'm always reminded of the Allies and the Germans, at the signing of the Armistice at the end of WWI, getting up out of the trenches and meeting each other in No Man's Land for congratulations and revelry. Why didn't they do the same ten minutes earlier? Because the orders to kill were still coming in, and the order for peace had not yet arrived. How odd.
I believe there are very few people fighting wars that want to be fighting wars. The real motivation is coming from the top, the orders of people who aren't involved in combat. Everyone else is praying for peace, but have been stirred by a sense of duty to compromise their judgement in the service of the war mongers. Again, what an odd thing to value more than life itself.
You become "tainted" and MS may well sue you if you work on a conceptually related project.
I did some digging on the ms shared source license, and couldn't find much. As much as I appreciate the anec(Slash)dotal evidence, I would like to actually read the damn license and find out how bad the tainting provision is.
I did find the Rotor shared-source CLI license, and it seems relatively benign. But that's not the Windows XP shared-source license. It looks like you have to contact by hand someone at an office if you want to even see the conditions of the license. Anyone have a copy, want to post it?
Maybe, but when you go into it with a purpose, such as finding every moderation that gave an informative to someone who obviously hadn't RTFA, maybe you can make a difference.
Beats prayer ; )
Must ... refrain ... from modding you down, for posting without starting with "Must refrain" ...
Whoops. No longer an issue. =)
Reread your list, and tell the nice poster how that sounds even remotely friendly to Free Software.
Slower production time. Awaits certification by a third-party. Cannot possibly run as trusted on every system. People can't modify and compile their trusted code themselves (Say goodbye to testing). XMMS isn't allowed to ship with output modules? wtf... What part of your post was supposed to be friendly to Free Software??!
Oh yeah, and since the middleman has a financial incentive to approve client binaries, how is he going to be able to spot all the security holes that dedicated, unbiased security professionals have not yet found? The first time a program gets slipped past the middle man, it becomes unencrypted data, which will then be distributed ala Gnutella / Freenet. Is IE going to be trusted? Media Player? IIS? Word? Can you spot the bug-free software in that list? Me neither. Does it just mean that people are going to suddenly write flawless code, especially when they can't compile and test it themselves?
Oh yeah, and the part you completely forgot to mention: why in God's name I'm supposed to plunk down hard currency for a computer that breaks so many things that used to work.
BS. It's all BS. TCPA, all of it. No one's going to buy crippled machines. Christ MS can't even sell new copies of Office, because the old ones work just fine, even if the new version is a little better. Why would anyone want to ditch their old computer when the alternative is something that's not only broken, but hostile?
And don't even say, "So they can run trusted code", because I'll be running that code Free as a bird the week after it gets cracked.
--
Please forgive my hostility. I just hate the idea of groups sitting behind closed doors and conspiring to enslave my future machines to their avarice. And you're the only one I can reach.
It'd only be unethical if he had defrauded people about the book's value or done so in a story submission.
;)"
Hmm. Why do you draw a distinction between shilling for amazon in a story submission and doing so in a post? I think it's the same behavior, either way. The only thing that would make it worse in my book about a submission would be that the behavior had the tacit approval of the story's editors.
I think what rubbed some of us wrong, including myself, was that he sounded like he was motivated to help slashdot readers to save a couple bucks, but upon realizing he's trying to reap 15% of a large number of sales, you realize that he has much shadier motives. You wonder why he didn't disclose it to begin with. It suggests that he didn't want people to know he was shilling, that he had a financial interest in the behavior. In the US, we usually require our politicians to disclose conflicts of interest in the stocks they hold when recommending certain companies for public works contracts, or journalists to indicate whether they have any interest in a story, such as when they're reporting on a company that owns or is related to the company they work for. It's just integrity.
Do you have anything against people making a buck?
I think he could have had it both ways, by saying something like
"Buy from Amazon, it's only $16! Click my link (don't forget I referred you
Works for me. I might have bought it from his link if he'd done it that way... that would be a great way to quickly make a lot of bucks, without compromising your integrity.
Could it be that you are just pissed that you missed out on an opportunity? Sour grapes, eh?
I commented because I agreed with the parent that it was shady behavior, but what was even more interesting was his expressed desire for a way to punish such shameless shills. The first thing that came to mind is how often people claim to want increased authority to combat excesses or abuses, especially in the moral arena. I thought that was probably characteristic of a sizable minority of slashdot readers, with the majority leaning more towards a Libertarian outlook, and I thought it would be interesting fodder for intelligent debate. If your post is all we've got to go on, obviously I was wrong...
Guess I struck a nerve, calling you a whore, eh RedWolves2? =)
From the Slashgods:
Supplicants: I'm on my way! =p
Slashdot should have a policy allowing moderators to discard posts from people who pull this kind of crap.
/.
This is great. We've got a microcosm of the whole Libertarian-accepts-sketchy vs. Ethical-demands-authority debate that always crops up on
RedWolves2 is a whore. I hate namecalling, but that's the fact. As soon as I saw him shill for Amazon, I checked to make sure that he had included his affiliate code in the link, and sure enough. He will make some money on being the first 3+ post on the article, with a link (unless he subsequently gets modded down). I have a friend that, despite my chiding him, maintains an Amazon affiliate link for a book that he recommends as his sig, and pulls in a modest ~$15 a month. That's not even half as shady as RedWolves2 though.
What upsets us about RedWolves2's action? The fact that he didn't disclose that he had included his referrer tag? I'm not bothered that he referred Amazon for a discount, and it would only make sense that he'd include *someone*'s affiliate code. If he was a true humanitarian, he would have picked a worthwhile organization that had an affiliate code and used theirs, and disclosed that fact. No, I'd say it's the fact that he used his own, and didn't disclose it, that has got our hackles up.
That being said, that it's fairly unethical behavior that many of us would find distasteful, do we need a new method of dealing with it? He was modded up by folks who apparently wanted to reward his post, dubiously in the public interest. He could be modded down by people who want to punish it. Ultimately, you'd believe that most people clicking through his link would understand the Amazon referral program, and would realize who they were rewarding. Maybe people just keep a list of affiliate codes for worthy charities by their monitors for just such purchases.
Some AC mentioned that the Tattered Cover is a more worthwhile book store to support, and that they have it for $14. They might have an affiliate program, perhaps someone should find a decent organization and buy it from there.
I just double-checked, and sure enough, RedWolves2 has already lost 2 mod points. Looks like the people are speaking...