I think it's been done. If you look at Off The Record encryption, it's almost as good as PGP and Just Works. I've gotten most of my Mac-using contacts to use it since it's bundled inside Adium. (I myself use gaim on Linux.)
PGP is a huge pain, but it does really neat stuff. Off The Record is easy to use, but not quite as powerful. (No web-of-trust, no "key generation", etc.)
> Sometimes you simply can't patch things any more, and it is time to start over. [...] Apple realized this and moved from 6800 to PowerPC to X86.
I don't think Apple moved from PPC to x86 because of "patching", they moved because they could coerce Intel into giving them better prices on the chips (IBM didn't really care about Apple's business, and Apple's priorities and IBM's priorities didn't align). In fact, the same OS runs on both platforms with only a few changes to the kernel. 90% of the codebase (things like drivers, filesystems, etc.) run fine on either platform.
Now if you mean OS9->OSX and the ensuing rewrite, you're right. OS9 was terrible, and it was time to start over.
Joel has a different viewpoint, however: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 69.html, "They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make: They decided to rewrite the code from scratch."
> No. "Big Brother" just ensures that everyone is a documented lawbreaker, and that documentation can be used to harrass, blackmail, or remove anyone who offends the ruling power.
This, to me, is the scarriest thing that a government can do. Pass laws and then say, "well it's OK, we're not going to use this against people". What? Don't pass laws if you're not going to prosecute every violator. Otherwise it sounds like you're saying, "this law shouldn't affect people that don't cause any controversy... we're only going to use it to take down people we don't like". Great, just great.
If every law were actually enforced, they would go away when people got fed up with them. Imagine every jaywalker going to jail -- jaywalking wouldn't be illegal for much longer after W (or someone else important, not one of us pleebs) had to spend time in a cell overnight.
Speaking of which, I think it's time to start filing lawsuits against the government for all these bullshit laws that are passed. I'm sure there are plenty of other laws that make these laws illegal.
> DSL performance - especially high-speed DSL - drops off dramatically as distance from the exchange increases.
Which is exactly why they shouldn't have sold her 3Mbps DSL. I have been trying to get speakeasy to bump me up to their 6Mbps package, but they won't because they don't think my line will support it. It's pretty impressive in this day and age when a company won't sell you a product because they're not confident that it will be as reliable as they demand.
Speaking of speakeasy, I've only had five minutes (!) of downtime in the last year -- better than the multiple OC-3s that we have at work!
My built-in 1440x900 LFP worked fine (needs 915resolution, though, to fix Intel's broken video BIOS), and my external 1920x1200 DFP worked fine too. DRI works (but is super slow, because Intel's drivers are horrible). My HDA audio worked fine.
The only thing that didn't work was the wifi card, because Intel insists on keeping their "regulatory compliance daemon" closed source.
So despite Intel's best efforts to make my system unusable, I prevalied and it worked fine. Won't be buying any Intel products again, though.
> If possible I'd write the algorithm in a custom bytecode language so that it wasn't just a straightforward decompile.
Yeah... then the person trying to get their files back would attach a debugger to your bytecode interperter instead of your virus. In the end, the amount of additional work for the white hat would be nil.
(Keep in mind that assembly is bytecode too. It's just an easier-to-read form... "AAAAAAAA" is valid x86 byte code, and translates to "inc %ecx, inc %ecx,..." in assembly.)
> Version.03? Is the developer still only on the first line of code?
Perl programs traditionally start at 0.01 and move up by "hundredths" from there. Development releases contain an underscore, to prevent confusion. For example, the first test release of Chroniton was 0.01_1.
If it makes you feel better, just mentally multiply the version number by one million... then my software is at version 30000!
> I just mirror my scsi disks with a big ultra-ATA device weekly and daily.
You might like my backup software, Chroniton. It will happily run from cron and make incremental backups (and allow you to easily restore from one). It also stores everthing to the filesystem, so even if my software crashes and burns (which it won't; it's heavily tested in practice and with unit tests:), your data will still be just fine. All of your file's metadata is safely versioned and archived, as well. Take a look, it's perfect for backups to external hard drives (that's what it's designed for anyway).
Version 0.03, due out tomorrow, will support backup of extended filesystem attribures and will default to the builtin tar on systems without GNU tar.:)
> With no copyrights, Microsoft could take FSF software, change it, and sell the result without releasing source code. RMS would not be pleased.
Not true. The FSF could easily create a new license that's a binding legal contract. Something to the effect of, "If you want our trade secret, the source code to GCC, you have to make all modifications available to us. If you give this source to anyone else, you must have them sign and notarize this document."
> In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights [sic] management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu [sic, it's GNU] General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma.
Um, yeah? They're the Free Software Foundation -- they like Freedom. DRM is the exact opposite of Freedom, which is why they're against it. The FSF has always been about politics. If you want the neutral, "here's some code, enjoy!" stance, use the BSD license. If you want to ensure that software remains Free for generations to come, then the GPL is the way to go.
If you read Stallman's essay, The Right to Read, you'll see why he's so opposed to DRM. Today, DRM is limited to crappy pop music that nobody wants any, but the extension of what can be done with DRM is pretty scary. It's easier to nip the DRM plague in the bud rather than wait until the society in The Right to Read becomes reality!
Fuck new users. Let them use corporate-crippled software. Most free software I use (and write) has excellent documentation. Although it's not "let's hold your hand and treat you like a dumbshit", it's "here are all the details, read them, think about them, then read them again. after that, try some stuff and see what works". Personally, I wouldn't give up the second one for anything.
(Oh, but thinking is TOO HARD. Fuck you, that's too bad.)
> Debian is not known for being easy to install either.
User error. On my machine, it was press enter 3 times, partition the disk, press enter 4 times, reboot, set timezone, setup user account, apt-get upgrade, done. Much easier than Windows, which insists on asking dumb questions five minutes apart (so you can't just walk away), and doesn't let you create a password for your user! (You also can't have the same username as the machine's hostname. WTF?)
Anyway, Debian has the best installer out of any Linux I've used, and you can pry it out of my cold dead hands. For the record, Ubuntu's installer is using Debian's system -- although they may have written the partitioning wizard screen, which is quite nice.
> GPL projects can take all the BSD code or code from other compatibly licensed files they want, incorporate and improve it but the GPL prevents BSD developers from getting back most of those improvements unless the project incorprating gives them back under the original license (so it would seem anyway, someone correct me if wrong and explain).
Whoa, whoa, whoa! That is the whole point of the BSD license, and is why many slashdotters dislike it. If you want your changes back, you would NEVER license code under the BSD license!
This is why we have the GPL. The developer of (and community around) the software will ALWAYS get ALL changes back, and will be able to merge those changes with the mainline version of the application (no matter what).
Agreed. I'm fine with google collecting data from their own websites, but I hate seeing "Waiting for google-analytics.com..." at every website that I visit. It creeps me out for some reason. To that end, I installed the NoScript extension and haven't looked back. I learned that 99% of javascript on the web is doing something to benifet the site owner (rather than me, the visitor), so I've turned javascript off globally and only turn it on for sites that use it for something good. NoScript is powerful enough that I can block Google's spying while still using the site's AJAX features.
Big Brother might not be watching, but Google sure is.
> Tom's Hardware Guide - Wait... there was some content on that page? Let me check again...
This is why Dan's Data is pretty much the only hardware site I read. Obviously he doesn't review as much stuff as Tom, but his reviews are very detailed and his writing style is quite enjoyable. Only rarely is there more than one page (but it's one real page... with enough content to stimulate your brain, or something like that), and elsewhere on his site he encourages you to block his ads:)
All in all, if his RSS feed isn't in your feed reader, you should add it.:)
Why would you want to use Linux when there's Windows? Why would you want to use Firefox when there's IE?
Answer: because you get something out of it that you want. That's why.
Anyway, the solution to the no encryption rule is to use steganography to hide your crypto. It sounds like you're just chatting, but in the background that "noise" you hear is calling Al Queda to action... or whatever:)
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's been done. If you look at Off The Record encryption, it's almost as good as PGP and Just Works. I've gotten most of my Mac-using contacts to use it since it's bundled inside Adium. (I myself use gaim on Linux.)
PGP is a huge pain, but it does really neat stuff. Off The Record is easy to use, but not quite as powerful. (No web-of-trust, no "key generation", etc.)
> Sometimes you simply can't patch things any more, and it is time to start over. [...] Apple realized this and moved from 6800 to PowerPC to X86.
0 69.html, "They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make: They decided to rewrite the code from scratch."
I don't think Apple moved from PPC to x86 because of "patching", they moved because they could coerce Intel into giving them better prices on the chips (IBM didn't really care about Apple's business, and Apple's priorities and IBM's priorities didn't align). In fact, the same OS runs on both platforms with only a few changes to the kernel. 90% of the codebase (things like drivers, filesystems, etc.) run fine on either platform.
Now if you mean OS9->OSX and the ensuing rewrite, you're right. OS9 was terrible, and it was time to start over.
Joel has a different viewpoint, however: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
> There aren't enough of us geeks to hold the hand of every user in the world.
:)
Who exactly wrote all the software we have now that the non-technical users rely on every day? Geeks. There are plenty of us around
> No. "Big Brother" just ensures that everyone is a documented lawbreaker, and that documentation can be used to harrass, blackmail, or remove anyone who offends the ruling power.
This, to me, is the scarriest thing that a government can do. Pass laws and then say, "well it's OK, we're not going to use this against people". What? Don't pass laws if you're not going to prosecute every violator. Otherwise it sounds like you're saying, "this law shouldn't affect people that don't cause any controversy... we're only going to use it to take down people we don't like". Great, just great.
If every law were actually enforced, they would go away when people got fed up with them. Imagine every jaywalker going to jail -- jaywalking wouldn't be illegal for much longer after W (or someone else important, not one of us pleebs) had to spend time in a cell overnight.
Speaking of which, I think it's time to start filing lawsuits against the government for all these bullshit laws that are passed. I'm sure there are plenty of other laws that make these laws illegal.
> DSL performance - especially high-speed DSL - drops off dramatically as distance from the exchange increases.
Which is exactly why they shouldn't have sold her 3Mbps DSL. I have been trying to get speakeasy to bump me up to their 6Mbps package, but they won't because they don't think my line will support it. It's pretty impressive in this day and age when a company won't sell you a product because they're not confident that it will be as reliable as they demand.
Speaking of speakeasy, I've only had five minutes (!) of downtime in the last year -- better than the multiple OC-3s that we have at work!
My built-in 1440x900 LFP worked fine (needs 915resolution, though, to fix Intel's broken video BIOS), and my external 1920x1200 DFP worked fine too. DRI works (but is super slow, because Intel's drivers are horrible). My HDA audio worked fine.
The only thing that didn't work was the wifi card, because Intel insists on keeping their "regulatory compliance daemon" closed source.
So despite Intel's best efforts to make my system unusable, I prevalied and it worked fine. Won't be buying any Intel products again, though.
Really? I bought a D620 a month ago and Debian stable installed on it just fine. I think this is a case of either trolling, or stupidity.
> If possible I'd write the algorithm in a custom bytecode language so that it wasn't just a straightforward decompile.
..." in assembly.)
Yeah... then the person trying to get their files back would attach a debugger to your bytecode interperter instead of your virus. In the end, the amount of additional work for the white hat would be nil.
(Keep in mind that assembly is bytecode too. It's just an easier-to-read form... "AAAAAAAA" is valid x86 byte code, and translates to "inc %ecx, inc %ecx,
> Version .03? Is the developer still only on the first line of code?
Perl programs traditionally start at 0.01 and move up by "hundredths" from there. Development releases contain an underscore, to prevent confusion. For example, the first test release of Chroniton was 0.01_1.
If it makes you feel better, just mentally multiply the version number by one million... then my software is at version 30000!
> I just mirror my scsi disks with a big ultra-ATA device weekly and daily.
:), your data will still be just fine. All of your file's metadata is safely versioned and archived, as well. Take a look, it's perfect for backups to external hard drives (that's what it's designed for anyway).
:)
You might like my backup software, Chroniton. It will happily run from cron and make incremental backups (and allow you to easily restore from one). It also stores everthing to the filesystem, so even if my software crashes and burns (which it won't; it's heavily tested in practice and with unit tests
Version 0.03, due out tomorrow, will support backup of extended filesystem attribures and will default to the builtin tar on systems without GNU tar.
It's Slashdot... Slashdot is where the Linux geeks hang out. If you don't like it, maybe you should read the MSDN forums or something?
> With no copyrights, Microsoft could take FSF software, change it, and sell the result without releasing source code. RMS would not be pleased.
Not true. The FSF could easily create a new license that's a binding legal contract. Something to the effect of, "If you want our trade secret, the source code to GCC, you have to make all modifications available to us. If you give this source to anyone else, you must have them sign and notarize this document."
A PITA, yes, but Free Software is still possible.
> In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights [sic] management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu [sic, it's GNU] General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma.
Um, yeah? They're the Free Software Foundation -- they like Freedom. DRM is the exact opposite of Freedom, which is why they're against it. The FSF has always been about politics. If you want the neutral, "here's some code, enjoy!" stance, use the BSD license. If you want to ensure that software remains Free for generations to come, then the GPL is the way to go.
If you read Stallman's essay, The Right to Read , you'll see why he's so opposed to DRM. Today, DRM is limited to crappy pop music that nobody wants any, but the extension of what can be done with DRM is pretty scary. It's easier to nip the DRM plague in the bud rather than wait until the society in The Right to Read becomes reality!
Fuck new users. Let them use corporate-crippled software. Most free software I use (and write) has excellent documentation. Although it's not "let's hold your hand and treat you like a dumbshit", it's "here are all the details, read them, think about them, then read them again. after that, try some stuff and see what works". Personally, I wouldn't give up the second one for anything.
(Oh, but thinking is TOO HARD. Fuck you, that's too bad.)
> Debian is not known for being easy to install either.
User error. On my machine, it was press enter 3 times, partition the disk, press enter 4 times, reboot, set timezone, setup user account, apt-get upgrade, done. Much easier than Windows, which insists on asking dumb questions five minutes apart (so you can't just walk away), and doesn't let you create a password for your user! (You also can't have the same username as the machine's hostname. WTF?)
Anyway, Debian has the best installer out of any Linux I've used, and you can pry it out of my cold dead hands. For the record, Ubuntu's installer is using Debian's system -- although they may have written the partitioning wizard screen, which is quite nice.
You can only read the top 5 comments for each story with the mobile version. What if I want to read them all?
(Valid XHTML + CSS would let my browser do that -- but unfortunately slashdot is neither.)
> I'm honestly seeing no comparison to the Mac OS. Have you had any exposure to or experience with the Mac OS at any point?
Agreed. Looks more like one of XFCE's gtk2 themes. Not bad, really.
> Iran has LAZERZ ! PEWPEWPEW ! Call in teh marinez !
Welcome to Slashdot, Mr. President!
> GPL projects can take all the BSD code or code from other compatibly licensed files they want, incorporate and improve it but the GPL prevents BSD developers from getting back most of those improvements unless the project incorprating gives them back under the original license (so it would seem anyway, someone correct me if wrong and explain).
Whoa, whoa, whoa! That is the whole point of the BSD license, and is why many slashdotters dislike it. If you want your changes back, you would NEVER license code under the BSD license!
This is why we have the GPL. The developer of (and community around) the software will ALWAYS get ALL changes back, and will be able to merge those changes with the mainline version of the application (no matter what).
Agreed. I'm fine with google collecting data from their own websites, but I hate seeing "Waiting for google-analytics.com..." at every website that I visit. It creeps me out for some reason. To that end, I installed the NoScript extension and haven't looked back. I learned that 99% of javascript on the web is doing something to benifet the site owner (rather than me, the visitor), so I've turned javascript off globally and only turn it on for sites that use it for something good. NoScript is powerful enough that I can block Google's spying while still using the site's AJAX features.
Big Brother might not be watching, but Google sure is.
> Tom's Hardware Guide - Wait... there was some content on that page? Let me check again...
:)
:)
This is why Dan's Data is pretty much the only hardware site I read. Obviously he doesn't review as much stuff as Tom, but his reviews are very detailed and his writing style is quite enjoyable. Only rarely is there more than one page (but it's one real page... with enough content to stimulate your brain, or something like that), and elsewhere on his site he encourages you to block his ads
All in all, if his RSS feed isn't in your feed reader, you should add it.
Yeah, you're right. I'm an idiot.
I thought it was gmail.google.com that you were redirected to, but obviously not!
> Because they'll use checkout.google.com, like sensible people?
Just like they use mail.google.com for their mail service? Oh wait, they use gmail.com for that.
> I work for Google in the ecommerce section. So I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies.
Look at this guy's journal. He apparently posts posts exactly like the above just to get "loser slashbots" to reply.
If it's the "loser slashbots" who reply to him... what is he?
Why would you want to use Linux when there's Windows? Why would you want to use Firefox when there's IE?
:)
Answer: because you get something out of it that you want. That's why.
Anyway, the solution to the no encryption rule is to use steganography to hide your crypto. It sounds like you're just chatting, but in the background that "noise" you hear is calling Al Queda to action... or whatever