Both vulnerabilities mentioned within the article have already been fixed by all major Linux distributions. Replacement of the vulnerable library packages is easy to do and does not impact any of the software that depends upon those libraries. Linux is inherently more securable than Microsoft's desktop environment and applications.
The Non-disclosure terms for any protocols that can interoperate with Microsoft's Client or Server software would seem to restrict a lot of functionality from being released under an open source license by Sun..
It's time to take a release of the 2.6.x Linux kernel and get the CEOs of IBM,Sun,Novell,Redhat,Mandrake and any other organizations who which to join in, to distribute a copy of the source of the Linux kernel to each other and to Linus/OSDN for a token monetary amount. This would formally enact the terms of the GPL license, which effectively ensures that upstream distributers grant an implicit license to downstream recipients to use any intellectual property, patents or trade secrets the Linux kernel uses under the terms of the GPL.
Cut and paste. Speech output
on
We the Media
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
wget -c `wget -q -O- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/ | grep pdf | sed 's%^.* href="%%;s%".*$%%;s%^%http://www.oreilly.com%'`
In protest all Australia Open Source and Small software vendor developers should on mass purchase a airline ticket to New Zealand on a date close to the signing of the treaty. Then forward a photocopy of the ticket to their state and federal representatives explaining that they are looking to emigrate because of the adoption of such business hostile draconian legislation.
Business methord and software patents are detrimental to the software industry as a whole, but it is also one of the major driving forces to an interesting trend amongst most of the major IT vendors.
Applying game theory to long term software industry market, for both open and proprietary vendors, based on software patents...
1) Small software developers are unlikely to benefit from the overall balance of payments from licensing of their own and other vendors software patent portfolios, since other software vendors are just as likely to hold other software patents that the developer uses in his own products.
2) Larger software vendors are unlikely to benefit from payments from licensing of their software patent portfolio, as per above small sofware developers plus the software vendor is likely to hold the lion's share of the sofware target market, profit from software patent licensing will be much smaller in proportion to the overall sales of the vendors own products.
3) Third party intellectual property "holding companies", that do not actively participate in selling actual software, are the only class of organization that can benefit from licensing of their software patent portfolios. In most cases these entities have a very tenuous relationship to the ongoing development of the software methords patented
A computer based book manufacturing, distributing and retailing system for the high speed reproduction of a single copy of a book is disclosed. The system is especially adapted for direct consumer sales since the manufacture of a selected book can take place at the point of sale. A master module includes a computer having a database of books to be selected, the books preferably being stored in a digital book-description format. Upon selection of a particular book from the database, a single copy of the book (including the text and a color cover) is printed by means of high speed raster printing engines. The system includes a binder for binding the text pages and the cover into a book.
Which is just like downloading an TeX,Latex or DVI encoded file off a central ftp site and proccessing it though to a postscript file and printing and binding the result. Most Universities and tertiary institutions were providing this service by the late 80s. Harvey Ross patented not an invention but a description of an existing service.
A computer based book manufacturing, distributing and retailing system for the high speed reproduction of a single copy of a book is disclosed. The system is especially adapted for direct consumer sales since the manufacture of a selected book can take place at the point of sale. A master module includes a computer having a database of books to be selected, the books preferably being stored in a digital book-description format. Upon selection of a particular book from the database, a single copy of the book (including the text and a color cover) is printed by means of high speed raster printing engines. The system includes a binder for binding the text pages and the cover into a book.
Which is just like downloading an TeX,Latex or DVI encoded file off a central ftp site and proccessing it though to a postscript file and printing and binding the result. Most Universities and tertiary institutions were providing this service by the late 80s. Harvey Ross patented not an invention but a description of an existing service.
My last blog entry stirred up a lot of commentary and flamage (and some of the flamage was entertainingly wild: I love the Internet!). Reading through it, it's clear that there's still confusion about the meaning of our "collaboration" agreement with Microsoft.
While it is true that as a part of it we did sign up for Microsoft's Communications Protocol Program that is a part of the US v. Microsoft case, our full agreement both modifies and expands on it to give us a much more broad and useful agreement. It is important to understand that in no way does this lock Sun or Sun customers into interoperating with any Microsoft system on Microsoft's strict terms. Right now, most of our interoperability is achieved through reverse-engineering. We have the option, entirely at our discretion, to access Microsoft's specifications through the collaboration agreement. But before we do so, on a case-by-case basis, we will do an analysis of the business case for the entanglements that such access implies (principally confidentiality and royalties). Right now, the vast majority of the software that we (Sun) produce has free and open specifications and we provide the implementations of a large and growing fraction of it as open source. We are not going to slow down our involvement in the open source community. Right now we have launched no projects that will access any Microsoft specifications under the agreement - we simply have the option to, if we decide that the benefits outweigh the costs.
This ablity to selectively pick and choose and other "flexabilities" was a detail left out of Sun's press release, and more interestingly, the recent joint status report on Microsoft's complicance with the US DOJ final antitrust judgement.
The X Window System, more simply 'X' or 'X11', is judged worldwide to be one of the most successful open source, collaborative technologies developed to date.
Since it's public release in 1987, every new release of the display servers has remained backwards compatible to remote networked applications going back to 1986. That means that you can have a 1987 Unix server running an X application, behind an internal firewall, networked to any modern X display server on any desktop OS you care to name. It is the only graphical network protocol
in current use that has remained backwards compatable. X11 display server vendors are not going to break that backward compatiblity
Building remote network X11 application servers has proven to be the most future proof, vendor independent and secureable route.
However, Hitchens would love to disagree with you and the propagandist Moore.
Hitchens states: 1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group.
Fahrenheit 9/11 Notes + Sources: FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Bushs good
friend James Bath was hired by the bin Laden family to manage their money in
Texas and invest in businesses. And James Bath himself, in turn, invested
in George W. Bush.
Baths business relationship with Salem bin Laden, and other wealthy
Saudi businessmen, has been well documented. See, e.g., Mike
Ward, Bin Laden Relatives Have Ties to Texas, Austin American-Statesman,
November 9, 2001; Jerry Urban, Feds Investigate Entrepreneur Allegedly
Tied to Saudis, Houston Chronicle, June 4, 1992; Thomas Petzinger Jr., et
al., Family Ties: How Oil Firm Linked to a Son of Bush Won Bahrain
Drilling Pact, The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1991.
[E]arly 1980s tax records reviewed by TIME show that Bath invested
$50,000 in Bush's energy ventures and remained a stockholder until Bush
sold his company to Harken in 1986. Jonathan Beaty, A
Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes, Time Magazine, October 28, 1991.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Bush ran Arbusto
nearly into the ground, as he did every other company he was involved in
until finally one of his companies was bought by Harken Energy and they gave
him a seat on their board.
Bush's name was to help rescue him, just as it had attracted investors
and helped revive his flagging fortunes throughout his years in the dusty
plains city of Midland. A big Dallas-based firm, Harken Oil and Gas, was
looking to buy up troubled oil companies. After finding Spectrum, Harken's
executives saw a bonus in their target's CEO, despite his spotty track
record. By the end of September 1986, the deal was done. Harken assumed $
3.1 million in debts and swapped $ 2.2 million of its stock for a company
that was hemorrhaging money, though it had oil and gas reserves projected
to produce $ 4 million in future net revenue. Harken, a firm that liked to
attach itself to stars, had also acquired Bush, whom it used not as an
operating manager but as a high-profile board member. It was one of the
biggest breaks of Bush's life. Still, the Harken deal completed a
disappointing reprise of what was becoming a familiar pattern. As an
oilman, Bush always worked hard, winning a reputation as a
straight-shooter and a good boss who was witty, warm and immensely
likable. Even the investors who lost money in his ventures remained
admirers, and some of them are now raising money for his presidential
campaign. But the story of Bush's career in oil, which began following
his graduation from Harvard Business School in the su
Why did I repost those articles again in entirety? Because I have yet to come across any decent answers to the issues raised by those same officals who at there time were at the highest level of briefing.
This War Will Disabilize The Entire Middle East Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-americanism By Nathan Eckert
George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more.
This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher. It will not end the threat of weapons of mass destruction; it will make possible their further proliferation. And it will not lay the groundwork for the flourishing of democracy throughout the Mideast; it will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence.
If you thought Osama bin Laden was bad, just wait until the countless children who become orphaned by U.S. bombs in the coming weeks are all grown up. Do you think they will forget what country dropped the bombs that killed their parents? In 10 or 15 years, we will look back fondly on the days when there were only a few thousand Middle Easterners dedicated to destroying the U.S. and willing to die for the fundamentalist cause. From this war, a million bin Ladens will bloom.
And what exactly is our endgame here? Do we really believe that we can install Gen. Tommy Franks as the ruler of Iraq? Is our arrogance and hubris so great that we actually believe that a U.S. provisional military regime will be welcomed with open arms by the Iraqi people? Democracy cannot possibly thrive under coercion. To take over a country and impose one's own system of government without regard for the people of that country is the very antithesis of democracy. And it is doomed to fail.
A war against Iraq is not only morally wrong, it will be an unmitigated disaster.
No It Won't By Bob Sheffer
No it won't.
It just won't. None of that will happen.
You're getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine. So just relax, okay? You're really overreacting.
"This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher"?
It won't.
"It will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence"?
Not really.
"A war against Iraq is not only morally wrong, it will be an unmitigated disaster"?
Sorry, no, I disagree.
"To take over a country and impose one's own system of government without regard for the people of that country is the very antithesis of democracy"?
You are completely wrong.
Trust me, it's all going to work out perfect. Nothing bad is going to happen. It's all under control.
Why do you keep saying these things? I can tell when there's trouble looming, and I really don't sense that right now. We're in control of this situation, and we know what we're doing. So stop being so pessimistic.
Look, you've been proven wrong, so stop talking. You've had your say already.
Be quiet, okay? Everything's fine.
You're wrong.
Looking back at the article today, it's not funny , just very very sad.
Many Australians have been voicing their concern about this country's front-line role in the campaign to attack Iraq, but so far the Howard Government has stood firm.
So how will it deal with another Australian who's reportedly declared Government policy against Iraq is dumb and not worth the risk?
Well, not so easily, when that opinion comes from a senior analyst in the Office of National Assessment, Andrew Wilkie, and pinned to that is his resignation.
The Office of National Assessment gathers and interprets an enormous flow of global intelligence material and briefs the PM accordingly.
Andrew Wilkie is a Duntroon graduate, a former soldier, a lieutenant colonel and has dropped a bombshell in the national capital tonight with a stinging criticism of the Howard Government's policy on Iraq.
He joins me now from Canberra.
Andrew Wilkie, is it accurate to describe you as a senior analyst with the Office of National Assessment?
ANDREW WILKIE, FORMER ANALYST, OFFICE OF NATIONAL ASSESSMENTS: Yes, Kerry.
KERRY O'BRIEN: And you were originally seconded to work there from the army back in '99.
ANDREW WILKIE: That's right, '99 and 2000 I was seconded there as a strategic analyst in the strategic analysis branch.
KERRY O'BRIEN: And the Office of National Assessments more recently, have you been privy to top level intelligence on areas like terrorism issues and Afghanistan and Iraq?
ANDREW WILKIE: Over the last 15 months or so I've been working global terrorism and transnational issues.
Because I'm one of the very small number of ex-military people in the office, I keep across potential military problems and am called in to work in the national intelligence watch office when those crises blow up.
Hence I've worked on Afghanistan, Kosovo and I was on stand-by to work on Iraq.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Why have you resigned?
ANDREW WILKIE: Kerry, war must obviously be justified and it must obviously be the option of last resort.
I'm not satisfied that in this case it is either justified or it's been viewed as the option of last resort.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Was there a particular moment that pushed you over the edge on this decision, I mean it is a big decision.
You've walked away on a career.
ANDREW WILKIE: It's the biggest decision I think I've ever made in my life.
Frankly I don't know what tomorrow will bring for me.
Was there a particular point in time?
No it's been accumulating over many, many weeks, if not months.
Although there have been some particular incidents which stick in my mind as incidents which annoyed me very much at the time.
For example, when Colin Powell presented evidence to the Security Council some weeks ago now about links between Al Qaeda and Iraq and as far as I'm aware there was no hard evidence and there is still no hard evidence that there is any active cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
KERRY O'BRIEN: But are you satisfied that you're really in a position to know that, to know that in the face of Colin Powell and all the credibility that he might muster?
ANDREW WILKIE: Yes, we are obviously privy to a substantial flow of intelligence, of hard intelligence from the US.
We haven't seen anything to prove that there is a link between the two organisations.
And, in fact, if you just approach it from first principles, there's a lot of good reasons why there wouldn't be a link.
Unless, of course, Saddam Hussein is pushed into establishing a relationship with Al Qaeda and that's one of the things that I worry about, if there is an invasion of Iraq that that will be just one of the sorts of forces that could push him towards a closer relationship with
Letters of resignation, particularly those from State Department diplomats to their superiors, are not ordinarily a forum for disagreements about the course of American foreign policy. The following letter of resignation, written by career diplomat John Brady Kiesling to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, is unusual for its content and length. Kiesling, 45, served in several U.S. embassies before his most recent post in Athens. He shared a 1994 award from the American Foreign Service Association for "constructive dissent" after he and 12 others signed a letter of protest over the lack of U.S. intervention in the conflict in Bosnia.
February 27, 2003
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7 . I do so with a heavy heart.
The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.
It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.
The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.
The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safegua! rds that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to do to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?
We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is littl
On the 17 March 2003, Robin Cook, the now former UK Foreign Minister, resigned his position due to his great consern over the actions of the UK and the USA.
What follows is a copy of his resignation speech in the House of Commons, which won applause from some backbenchers in unprecedented Commons scenes.
This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the back benches.
I must confess that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here.
None of those 20 years were more enjoyable or more rewarding than the past two, in which I have had the immense privilege of serving this House as Leader of the House, which were made all the more enjoyable, Mr Speaker, by the opportunity of working closely with you.
It was frequently the necessity for me as Leader of the House to talk my way out of accusations that a statement had been preceded by a press interview.
On this occasion I can say with complete confidence that no press interview has been given before this statement.
I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support.
The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour party in my lifetime.
I hope that he will continue to be the leader of our party, and I hope that he will continue to be successful. I have no sympathy with, and I will give no comfort to, those who want to use this crisis to displace him.
I applaud the heroic efforts that the prime minister has made in trying to secure a second resolution.
I do not think that anybody could have done better than the foreign secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within the Security Council.
But the very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it was to succeed.
Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.
France has been at the receiving end of bucket loads of commentary in recent days.
It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution.
We delude ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is all the result of President Chirac.
The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner - not NATO, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.
To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse.
Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible.
History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.
The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is not a superpower.
Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules.
Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate.
Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired.
I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo.
It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies.
It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the las
Slashdot Mirror
Both vulnerabilities mentioned within the article have already been fixed by all major Linux distributions. Replacement of the vulnerable library packages is easy to do and does not impact any of the software that depends upon those libraries. Linux is inherently more securable than Microsoft's desktop environment and applications.
The Non-disclosure terms for any protocols that can interoperate with Microsoft's Client or Server software would seem to restrict a lot of functionality from being released under an open source license by Sun..
The BSA, Microsoft and the definition of Extortion.
It's time to take a release of the 2.6.x Linux kernel and get the CEOs of IBM,Sun,Novell,Redhat,Mandrake and any other organizations who which to join in, to distribute a copy of the source of the Linux kernel to each other and to Linus/OSDN for a token monetary amount. This would formally enact the terms of the GPL license, which effectively ensures that upstream distributers grant an implicit license to downstream recipients to use any intellectual property, patents or trade secrets the Linux kernel uses under the terms of the GPL.
In protest all Australia Open Source and Small software vendor developers should on mass purchase a airline ticket to New Zealand on a date close to the signing of the treaty. Then forward a photocopy of the ticket to their state and federal representatives explaining that they are looking to emigrate because of the adoption of such business hostile draconian legislation.
Applying game theory to long term software industry market, for both open and proprietary vendors, based on software patents...
1) Small software developers are unlikely to benefit from the overall balance of payments from licensing of their own and other vendors software patent portfolios, since other software vendors are just as likely to hold other software patents that the developer uses in his own products.
2) Larger software vendors are unlikely to benefit from payments from licensing of their software patent portfolio, as per above small sofware developers plus the software vendor is likely to hold the lion's share of the sofware target market, profit from software patent licensing will be much smaller in proportion to the overall sales of the vendors own products.
3) Third party intellectual property "holding companies", that do not actively participate in selling actual software, are the only class of organization that can benefit from licensing of their software patent portfolios. In most cases these entities have a very tenuous relationship to the ongoing development of the software methords patented
See Patents bad but also pushing interesting trend
Timeline Inc has won a US Washington Court of Appeal judgment against Microsoft for the right to sue Microsoft's customers, and subsequently sued Cognos. On February 13, 2004, Cognos settled at cost to Cognos totaling $1.75 million
In a lot of ways you are better with GPL licensed techology , which effectively grants all downstream users the right to use the patents from upstream developers under the terms of the GPL .
Software Patent are inherently bad but are also pushing an interesting trend. Pushing vendors towards adopting the GPL-like licensing as a form of simpler form of cross licensing arrangement.
Which is just like downloading an TeX,Latex or DVI encoded file off a central ftp site and proccessing it though to a postscript file and printing and binding the result. Most Universities and tertiary institutions were providing this service by the late 80s. Harvey Ross patented not an invention but a description of an existing service.
Which is just like downloading an TeX,Latex or DVI encoded file off a central ftp site and proccessing it though to a postscript file and printing and binding the result. Most Universities and tertiary institutions were providing this service by the late 80s. Harvey Ross patented not an invention but a description of an existing service.
Do not promote this government granted business methord intellectual monopoly.
on April 15 2004, Sun's James Gosling, in response to this article and some "slashdot flamage" from the same author, blogged in More on Sun & Microsoft
This ablity to selectively pick and choose and other "flexabilities" was a detail left out of Sun's press release, and more interestingly, the recent joint status report on Microsoft's complicance with the US DOJ final antitrust judgement.Since it's public release in 1987, every new release of the display servers has remained backwards compatible to remote networked applications going back to 1986. That means that you can have a 1987 Unix server running an X application, behind an internal firewall, networked to any modern X display server on any desktop OS you care to name. It is the only graphical network protocol in current use that has remained backwards compatable. X11 display server vendors are not going to break that backward compatiblity
Building remote network X11 application servers has proven to be the most future proof, vendor independent and secureable route.
There is more than enough evidence raised by Fahrenheit 9/11 that deserves deeper investigation.
Factual Back-Up For Fahrenheit 9/11
Factual Back-Up For Fahrenheit 9/11
PBS should respond to this inter-fear-ence by the neo-conservative moral minority by broadcasting Fahrenheit 9/11 before the election.
There is nothing to prevent a third party producing a plugin/Active-X component for Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Sites wanting to deliver a richer interface could just use remote X applications.
At the time many thought this 26 MARCH 2003 article from The Onion was a joke
Looking back at the article today, it's not funny , just very very sad.VOTE!
What follows is a copy of his resignation speech in the House of Commons, which won applause from some backbenchers in unprecedented Commons scenes.