No, a porch light won't obscure the stars overhead... But use a modulated porch-light to send a signal to a light sensor. As you move away from the porch, its light becomes more and more drowned out by the light from the stars. This basically means that the fringe reception area for TV stations suddenly becomes much, much smaller, and a lot of people on the outskirts of town are suddenly forced to get satellite dishes; or at least a special defocused antenna to try and get more signal strength from over thataway ------->
If you want to be paranoid, why couldn't some agency (NSA or otherwise) have arranged for one of their coders to work on kernel modules and patches long ago? No one would've had any clue that a backdoor had been engineered in by such an organization.
> does anyone harbor any lingering thoughts that
> AMD is a second-class citizen in the
> chipmaking world?
Yes, I do. The Pentium 4 is a new chip architecture, and no one disputes its current incarnation is a dog. It's fairly easy to beat the P4 1.5 GHz using older chip designs.
Problem is, the whole reason Intel switched architectures is because the P3 was reaching the limits of its design, while the P4 is capable of much, much more. In a few short months the P4 should be up to 2 GHz, and promises to run even faster. When this happens, AMD will be hard pressed to compete without fielding a new design itself, and then it'll be back to Intel out front with the other chip makers playing catch-up.
If I were in your shoes, I think I'd go ahead, set up the server, and start it working, while surreptitiously slipping word to ORBS, etc. the domain and IPs you're using. I suspect your boss wouldn't even get the 0.01% return he's counting on, and would eventually give up.
Certainly the Feds could do such a thing. But the fact is, crackers have already performed similar feats in compromising systems, and you cannot discount the possibility it could happen to you.
Adam, a new user, generates a public key for himself and uploads it to a PGP key server. Zack, who has cracked and taken control of Adam's ISP, has set things up so all keys uploaded to or downloaded from a PGP key server are instead intercepted and replaced with keys of his own, which he can of course decrypt. From now on, anyone requesting Adam's key will get one of Zack's public keys instead.
Adam then downloads Bill's key from the key server, which is replaced by another of Zack's public keys. He encrypts an email to Bill with that public key, signs it with his private key, and sends it off.
Zack, who has also intercepted that ISP's POP and SMTP functions, intercepts the email. Since it was really his key that was used to encrypt it, he readily decrypts the email, re-encrypts it with Bill's real public key, signs it with the key he has placed on the key server under Adam's name, and sends it on his way.
Bill, receiving the email, has no reason to disbelieve that the message has been tampered with. Checking its signature with the one on file at the PGP key server shows it is genuine.
Given this sort of control, Zack can not only intercept and read all communications between Adam and Bill, he can also alter or generate completely bogus messages, and neither party would suspect unless Adam called Bill on the phone and compared key fingerprints.
The "man in the middle" attack is very powerful, and given control over DNS functions and the ability to provide altered file distributions, can be used to subvert every encrypted protocol used, including https and ssh2. If the upgrade of Netscape you just downloaded has been modified and its root security keys have been changed, you can kiss your privacy goodbye.
An enormous part of the problem with having routinely encrypted email is that without taking basic manual security precautions it is impossible to eliminate man-in-the-middle attacks. If Alice has never sent email to Betsy, how does she go about getting her public key? From a PGP key server, say? How do you know the [insert government/industry black hat name here] isn't standing between you and them, replacing the real key for one they have the password to, and then passing on the email re-encrypted so Betsy would never know?
Perhaps you're smarter than I am, but every _transparent_ method of key verification I can think of is foiled by someone in control of your link to the outside world. In order to keep this from compromising your security, you'd need a different verification method. This would require, for instance, Alice calling Betsy over the telephone and having her read back her encryption key's fingerprint, and comparing it with the key she got over the net. This isn't something a casual computer user is willing to do regularly in order to check his security.
MS claims that this will prevent casual piracy. I don't see the difference in "convenience" between finding a serial # for software on a pirate site or a crack for MS's code. Why would MS add such a sophisticated yet ineffective scheme to their software? Is it a plan to collect information about what software people use?
I think I'll get a pirate copy of every piece of MS software I use -- even those I purchase, or receive free with the machine. Then I'll at least have some privacy.
This is a great idea, even if most people won't need to use it. I've been waiting for Microsoft to start forcing PC manufacturers to use "trusted" Windows-boot-only BIOSes, and if (when!) it happens, there'll be a way out.
Subscriptionware is the result of taking the Intellectual Property meme and taking it to its ultimate conclusion. Remember: You didn't really buy the software you think you bought; you merely licensed it. The battle between IP giants and Open Source is looking more and more like the war between heaven and hell, a collision of extremes between whom there is no quarter, battling over the "souls" of machines rather than humanity.
One good thing about this subscription model is finally you won't be forced to buy your operating system with your computer; instead of paying that monthly or annual fee, you can simply toss the installation disc and use a BSD CD. My only worry is that Microsoft and its ilk will finally coerce hardware manufacturers to tie the OS so tightly to their machines that there is no way to switch.
Great, just great...
You can take it for granted that, someday, the Russians or Chinese or somebody is going to detonate a nuke above the stratosphere and subject the US to an EMP surge... Society as we know it would collapse badly. But could you imagine the chaos when all these little chips in everything all get zorched?
While I think the idea of banning any information is ultimately futile, the ISP, knowing it could be held responsible, should've discontinued carrying the newsgroup, and the offending content, on its own servers. Let those pedophiles get their downloads from servers outside the US, or over Freenet, where the government would find tracking the source of that content impossible.
I'm afraid the only way to make DDoS attacks infeasible is for victimized companies to begin suing both the owners of the networks that have been hacked to produce the floods of packets, and one or more of the ISPs responsible for forwarding those packets to the victims' networks. The grounds for such lawsuits would be negligence in not repairing security holes in those machines, and-or allowing communications from obviously spoofed packets inside their network.
When companies are informed of the potential liability of not properly securing their networks, they will finally take serious steps to prevent their property from being hijacked and used to attack other systems.
You seem to like Sony, and you'll probably want to consider Sony for your audio components, with a couple of caveats...
1. Don't get a "home theater" package. They are all disappointing.
2. Sony's receivers have good sound quality, but their amps IMO don't have enough "oomph" for the bass you'll want. Add a subwoofer with at least 120 watts of power, and you'll be much happier.
Brand new article I just found; according to WorldNetDaily, "The year's 10 most underreported stories". Yes, they're all of greatest interest to conservatives, but hey, that's what I am.
Sorry; I didn't mean to be such a meanie. Please don't sue me for pointing certain things out.
I'm not going to claim Fox News is less biased than their competitors; they have a markedly more conservative slant on the news. Your hypothetical activist might be invited onto a show to debate more conservative viewpoints, and he might indeed be given an uphill battle to fight. Or yes, he might not be invited on. CNN or CNBC would be more likely to show him in a better light, and that's where your activist should look to peddle his opinions. If you don't like Fox beating up environmentalists, watch another channel.
News "censored by the 'liberal' networks"? I've seen a few examples, mostly about the Clinton administration and other politicians. The editorializing between and during newscasts is certainly different. As for CNN's website versus its broadcasting, there have been several stories, prominent on their website, that have received little or no attention on the television show.
As for my ideas on healthcare, I thought about it for a while. If you don't think having to pay out a $100,000 insurance policy in a month, rather than in a year of five years, would be no incentive for an insurer, then I suggest you ask an actuary. And you're right, if a company is providing you both medical care and workman's compensation, their care certainly would be aimed at getting you back to work. That might mean prescribing a more effective medication or performing an operative procedure. It might mean the company would claim you were feigning sickness; but that's no change from how it is now. My suggestions don't fix all the problems.
Finally, on my being paranoid about everything, I'm not the one claiming "they" would do anything to maintain their dominance on the news media. Who is this "they" we're talking about? Are "they" planning on shutting down WorldNetDaily? Or the Drudge Report? Or Salon.com?
> If you have something different to say, you're
> told to go elsewhere
I'm sorry, but if someone doesn't want to listen to your viewpoints, you don't have the right to corner them and blast it in their face with a megaphone. The administrators of information channels certainly do censor information; if they didn't, not only would those channels be completely overloaded by all those wanting to put their own slant on life, but they'd find their customers leaving in droves.
Of course, those channels may be subverted by interests wanting to limit the spread of bad news. IMHO, this has been the case with network news in the United States. But when the media is censored, it becomes less attractive, and opens the possibility of a less-regulated newcomer coming along and eating their lunch. Look at what's happened lately, with the introduction of the Fox News Channel.
Yes, there are only so many channels available on cable television, and it's possible for ALL the channels to be subverted. Thank goodness for the internet. Whenever one source is dumbed down, expect people to move elsewhere. Even the normally liberal networks recognize this; look at the difference between the information made available on CNN's website versus the pap they show on television.
If you want a forum to publicize your ideas, you have it. It's here. Now. Make it available, advertise it, and if it's interesting, expect people to read it.
http://hmofix.shambala.net -- an idea of my own. So far I haven't gotten much interest; but you don't see me bellyaching about it.
Let the FSF buy one share apiece of all the major hardware makers (not just hard drives, but motherboards, processors, etc), and when one of them decides to offer this sort of "copy prevention" facility, sue them on the grounds that:
* It's annoying to customers
* It makes their product less competitive compared to companies producing unprotected drives
* It exposes the company to liability if their protection scheme fails or can be bypassed.
I think the best way to store your documents in some sort of XML application, either using one of the predefined applications or designing one that fits your needs yourself.
The advantages are obvious:
XML is plain text and can be read by anyone even without knowledge of XML
XML is structure-carrying data; the data itself is carrying the information on how it is structured;
XML is standardized; there are numerous applications that can use the data, e.g. search engines or query languages, transformations, editors
XML documents can be easily transformed to any other document type using XSLT. This includes HTML and PDF
The point wouldn't be to subject the user to entering IP6 addresses; that would be ludicrous. Instead, a computer (or dedicated device) could take a phone number as input, and without needing to access any sort of domain service, be able to determine a hardware address on the internet matching that phone number. If in the future the phone system were subsumed by the internet, with IP to the location and a voice-over-IP converter acting as the phone, this would be an easy way to administer such a system.
I'm not saying a DNS-based lookup system wouldn't be preferable; I can see a number of cases where such systems would solve problems (rerouting a number when a person moves, for instance). I still think reserving room in IP6 space would be worthwhile. The systems would complement each other.
I think you could map all of the phone numbers in the world into the IP6 space without too much trouble... It might be worthwhile to reserve the space for just that.
Slashdot Mirror
No, a porch light won't obscure the stars overhead... But use a modulated porch-light to send a signal to a light sensor. As you move away from the porch, its light becomes more and more drowned out by the light from the stars. This basically means that the fringe reception area for TV stations suddenly becomes much, much smaller, and a lot of people on the outskirts of town are suddenly forced to get satellite dishes; or at least a special defocused antenna to try and get more signal strength from over thataway ------->
If you want to be paranoid, why couldn't some agency (NSA or otherwise) have arranged for one of their coders to work on kernel modules and patches long ago? No one would've had any clue that a backdoor had been engineered in by such an organization.
> does anyone harbor any lingering thoughts that
> AMD is a second-class citizen in the
> chipmaking world?
Yes, I do. The Pentium 4 is a new chip architecture, and no one disputes its current incarnation is a dog. It's fairly easy to beat the P4 1.5 GHz using older chip designs.
Problem is, the whole reason Intel switched architectures is because the P3 was reaching the limits of its design, while the P4 is capable of much, much more. In a few short months the P4 should be up to 2 GHz, and promises to run even faster. When this happens, AMD will be hard pressed to compete without fielding a new design itself, and then it'll be back to Intel out front with the other chip makers playing catch-up.
If I were in your shoes, I think I'd go ahead, set up the server, and start it working, while surreptitiously slipping word to ORBS, etc. the domain and IPs you're using. I suspect your boss wouldn't even get the 0.01% return he's counting on, and would eventually give up.
Certainly the Feds could do such a thing. But the fact is, crackers have already performed similar feats in compromising systems, and you cannot discount the possibility it could happen to you.
Here's an example of "man in the middle":
Adam, a new user, generates a public key for himself and uploads it to a PGP key server. Zack, who has cracked and taken control of Adam's ISP, has set things up so all keys uploaded to or downloaded from a PGP key server are instead intercepted and replaced with keys of his own, which he can of course decrypt. From now on, anyone requesting Adam's key will get one of Zack's public keys instead.
Adam then downloads Bill's key from the key server, which is replaced by another of Zack's public keys. He encrypts an email to Bill with that public key, signs it with his private key, and sends it off.
Zack, who has also intercepted that ISP's POP and SMTP functions, intercepts the email. Since it was really his key that was used to encrypt it, he readily decrypts the email, re-encrypts it with Bill's real public key, signs it with the key he has placed on the key server under Adam's name, and sends it on his way.
Bill, receiving the email, has no reason to disbelieve that the message has been tampered with. Checking its signature with the one on file at the PGP key server shows it is genuine.
Given this sort of control, Zack can not only intercept and read all communications between Adam and Bill, he can also alter or generate completely bogus messages, and neither party would suspect unless Adam called Bill on the phone and compared key fingerprints.
The "man in the middle" attack is very powerful, and given control over DNS functions and the ability to provide altered file distributions, can be used to subvert every encrypted protocol used, including https and ssh2. If the upgrade of Netscape you just downloaded has been modified and its root security keys have been changed, you can kiss your privacy goodbye.
An enormous part of the problem with having routinely encrypted email is that without taking basic manual security precautions it is impossible to eliminate man-in-the-middle attacks. If Alice has never sent email to Betsy, how does she go about getting her public key? From a PGP key server, say? How do you know the [insert government/industry black hat name here] isn't standing between you and them, replacing the real key for one they have the password to, and then passing on the email re-encrypted so Betsy would never know?
Perhaps you're smarter than I am, but every _transparent_ method of key verification I can think of is foiled by someone in control of your link to the outside world. In order to keep this from compromising your security, you'd need a different verification method. This would require, for instance, Alice calling Betsy over the telephone and having her read back her encryption key's fingerprint, and comparing it with the key she got over the net. This isn't something a casual computer user is willing to do regularly in order to check his security.
MS claims that this will prevent casual piracy. I don't see the difference in "convenience" between finding a serial # for software on a pirate site or a crack for MS's code. Why would MS add such a sophisticated yet ineffective scheme to their software? Is it a plan to collect information about what software people use?
I think I'll get a pirate copy of every piece of MS software I use -- even those I purchase, or receive free with the machine. Then I'll at least have some privacy.
You're forgetting -- with Napster, no copyrighted content is stored on the server. All it does is help people find each other.
This is a great idea, even if most people won't need to use it. I've been waiting for Microsoft to start forcing PC manufacturers to use "trusted" Windows-boot-only BIOSes, and if (when!) it happens, there'll be a way out.
> But hey, at least rich people get a tax
> cut (even if they don't want one)..."
http://www.attackcartoons.com/estatetax.GIF
Subscriptionware is the result of taking the Intellectual Property meme and taking it to its ultimate conclusion. Remember: You didn't really buy the software you think you bought; you merely licensed it. The battle between IP giants and Open Source is looking more and more like the war between heaven and hell, a collision of extremes between whom there is no quarter, battling over the "souls" of machines rather than humanity.
One good thing about this subscription model is finally you won't be forced to buy your operating system with your computer; instead of paying that monthly or annual fee, you can simply toss the installation disc and use a BSD CD. My only worry is that Microsoft and its ilk will finally coerce hardware manufacturers to tie the OS so tightly to their machines that there is no way to switch.
Great, just great... You can take it for granted that, someday, the Russians or Chinese or somebody is going to detonate a nuke above the stratosphere and subject the US to an EMP surge... Society as we know it would collapse badly. But could you imagine the chaos when all these little chips in everything all get zorched?
While I think the idea of banning any information is ultimately futile, the ISP, knowing it could be held responsible, should've discontinued carrying the newsgroup, and the offending content, on its own servers. Let those pedophiles get their downloads from servers outside the US, or over Freenet, where the government would find tracking the source of that content impossible.
I'm afraid the only way to make DDoS attacks infeasible is for victimized companies to begin suing both the owners of the networks that have been hacked to produce the floods of packets, and one or more of the ISPs responsible for forwarding those packets to the victims' networks. The grounds for such lawsuits would be negligence in not repairing security holes in those machines, and-or allowing communications from obviously spoofed packets inside their network.
When companies are informed of the potential liability of not properly securing their networks, they will finally take serious steps to prevent their property from being hijacked and used to attack other systems.
Get a gigabyte microdisk. I'd love to see a USB CompactFlash adapter that you could throw a microdrive into and stick in your pocket.
You seem to like Sony, and you'll probably want to consider Sony for your audio components, with a couple of caveats...
1. Don't get a "home theater" package. They are all disappointing.
2. Sony's receivers have good sound quality, but their amps IMO don't have enough "oomph" for the bass you'll want. Add a subwoofer with at least 120 watts of power, and you'll be much happier.
Brand new article I just found; according to WorldNetDaily, "The year's 10 most underreported stories". Yes, they're all of greatest interest to conservatives, but hey, that's what I am.
Sorry; I didn't mean to be such a meanie. Please don't sue me for pointing certain things out.
I'm not going to claim Fox News is less biased than their competitors; they have a markedly more conservative slant on the news. Your hypothetical activist might be invited onto a show to debate more conservative viewpoints, and he might indeed be given an uphill battle to fight. Or yes, he might not be invited on. CNN or CNBC would be more likely to show him in a better light, and that's where your activist should look to peddle his opinions. If you don't like Fox beating up environmentalists, watch another channel.
News "censored by the 'liberal' networks"? I've seen a few examples, mostly about the Clinton administration and other politicians. The editorializing between and during newscasts is certainly different. As for CNN's website versus its broadcasting, there have been several stories, prominent on their website, that have received little or no attention on the television show.
As for my ideas on healthcare, I thought about it for a while. If you don't think having to pay out a $100,000 insurance policy in a month, rather than in a year of five years, would be no incentive for an insurer, then I suggest you ask an actuary. And you're right, if a company is providing you both medical care and workman's compensation, their care certainly would be aimed at getting you back to work. That might mean prescribing a more effective medication or performing an operative procedure. It might mean the company would claim you were feigning sickness; but that's no change from how it is now. My suggestions don't fix all the problems.
Finally, on my being paranoid about everything, I'm not the one claiming "they" would do anything to maintain their dominance on the news media. Who is this "they" we're talking about? Are "they" planning on shutting down WorldNetDaily? Or the Drudge Report? Or Salon.com?
> If you have something different to say, you're
> told to go elsewhere
I'm sorry, but if someone doesn't want to listen to your viewpoints, you don't have the right to corner them and blast it in their face with a megaphone. The administrators of information channels certainly do censor information; if they didn't, not only would those channels be completely overloaded by all those wanting to put their own slant on life, but they'd find their customers leaving in droves.
Of course, those channels may be subverted by interests wanting to limit the spread of bad news. IMHO, this has been the case with network news in the United States. But when the media is censored, it becomes less attractive, and opens the possibility of a less-regulated newcomer coming along and eating their lunch. Look at what's happened lately, with the introduction of the Fox News Channel.
Yes, there are only so many channels available on cable television, and it's possible for ALL the channels to be subverted. Thank goodness for the internet. Whenever one source is dumbed down, expect people to move elsewhere. Even the normally liberal networks recognize this; look at the difference between the information made available on CNN's website versus the pap they show on television.
If you want a forum to publicize your ideas, you have it. It's here. Now. Make it available, advertise it, and if it's interesting, expect people to read it.
http://hmofix.shambala.net -- an idea of my own. So far I haven't gotten much interest; but you don't see me bellyaching about it.
Let the FSF buy one share apiece of all the major hardware makers (not just hard drives, but motherboards, processors, etc), and when one of them decides to offer this sort of "copy prevention" facility, sue them on the grounds that:
* It's annoying to customers
* It makes their product less competitive compared to companies producing unprotected drives
* It exposes the company to liability if their protection scheme fails or can be bypassed.
Wow. I put that in as "plain text", and look how it formatted!
I think the best way to store your documents in some sort of XML application, either using one of the predefined applications or designing one that fits your needs yourself.
The advantages are obvious:
The point wouldn't be to subject the user to entering IP6 addresses; that would be ludicrous. Instead, a computer (or dedicated device) could take a phone number as input, and without needing to access any sort of domain service, be able to determine a hardware address on the internet matching that phone number. If in the future the phone system were subsumed by the internet, with IP to the location and a voice-over-IP converter acting as the phone, this would be an easy way to administer such a system.
I'm not saying a DNS-based lookup system wouldn't be preferable; I can see a number of cases where such systems would solve problems (rerouting a number when a person moves, for instance). I still think reserving room in IP6 space would be worthwhile. The systems would complement each other.
I think you could map all of the phone numbers in the world into the IP6 space without too much trouble... It might be worthwhile to reserve the space for just that.