To keep this from just being a "me too" though, not only would this be the quickest way to get Microsoft to patch a hole in IE, it would be the quickest way to get millions to think of Firefox as the Bad Guys and MS as the Good Guys, so for the sake of wisdom, DON'T DO IT! (Rememeber how myDoom made linux look by going after SCO?)
RTFA - the upgrade was planned. It's probably tested by now, and they're not likely to upgrade during such a busy time of the year. No heads will probably roll because of this, but upgrades may be rushed in the future.
This is not a software patent, which is usually what is talked about as being "bad" on/.
This is a patent on the material object, not a intellecutal process. They are considered different by many, especially since one has had patents for a *long* time, the other only a few years, and in limited areas (*cough* US *cough*). Optical media date back to before software patents existed.
I don't have time to sit around and learn an entire new infrastructure from such (apparently) great helpful linux zealots on/. because apparently there is no help to be had.
I certainly don't agree with the troll you're replying to (see my post above in the thread). Don't let him stand for all linux users on/. either. Some of us are open to reality, and do understand that there is such a thing as the right tool for the job. There is help out there. Some of them in your local area may be able to help you, and open your org up to some solutions. (Find a user's group and ask.) Basically, don't get the feeling that we're all AC troll zealots like this dork. Some of us know that we should listen to the needs of the org and help them decide on the right tool, Linux or Windows, one app or the other.
Open Office is probably the area most likely open to change in a generic org, since it is a stable office program, and can more than meet the needs of an org w/o a total conversion and w/o a major learning curve for the users, etc. Firefox/Mozilla is more secure, so the org wastes less effort on security and spyware, etc. All of these are cross platform, and that's no accident. In the future, this may help in a transition if appropriate.
Small inroads are better than none. Knowledge is frequently gained a piece at a time.
Since every time a media player is mentioned on/., and this is an iPod running Linux, and 95% of my collection is in ogg, etc. I've karma whore by posting this link to the currently/.ed iPod Linux Wiki FAQ. In short, here's the answer, and there is no reason, from either the site or TFA to change it (TFA says nothing about ogg.) No mailing list or forums available.
Note: Linux != ogg. If your iPod runs linux, that does not mean everything you can run in mplayer will suddenly work on your iPod as some seem to be suggesting.
Short version (from the Wiki):
Is there an OGG player?
The Tremor (http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/) player is running at about 80% real-time.
I toss down another gauntle that instead of whining about how they're wasing money running Windows, the AC troll above, and all Slashdot that can do 3 things.
1. Consider that this is someone who is looking into using something besides Windows, and not blindly spending money bacause "that the way it's always been done."
2. Sit there and HELP THEM DO IT! (Though above postings are doing a good job, so it may not be necessary).
and this is the most important one:
3. Go help a non-pprofit with their tech needs! They need us, and the community needs them. Time frequently means more than money, espically if they need tech help.
I have a group I'm helping locally to "fix up" their computers, and they have to run Windows in order to run some specific software required for them to obtain a grant. Think they should switch to no Microsoft? Not on your life. They get far more money from their grant than they pay to Microsoft, so it would be extremely wasteful to both their community and their donators if they were to "dump Microsoft." (Giving alternatives where appropriate, is another story entirely.) Think they can always count on being able to find a tech who can support linux? Nope. Most are volunteers who come and leave as they wish, and odds are they know Microsoft. Think they want to become part of a minority population? Turn down tech help because they run an OS that few are likely to know about? No. MS makes sense fror them, at least at the OS level, and definitely at the workstation level.
If he survived Slashdotting, then he's survived a bigger mob than can carry torches without setting the whole neighborhood on fire before they get to his house. Let him be happy with his bandwith bill.
I know guys that like to set up Christmas lights on an outrageous scale keep my kids from demanding that I do the same to our house. We just drive by and look at all their lights instead. Thanks for saving me frostbite!
You can forge a signature on paper. You can't forge a cryptographic signature. Not in your lifetime, anyway.
Think of logging into a computer for the first time via SSH or a self-signed SSL cert. You're asked if you want to trust this key. All your computer says is that it knows this is a SSH/SSL key, but it doesn't know who owns this key, then it asks "Do you want to trust this key?" Trust begins with this question. There is no guarantee that a man in the middle attack isn't starting there w/o having the key tied to an individual, such as the party Verisign issued the key to (with complete info). With voting, you can't answer this question at all, since you can't trust a 3rd party or the candidate with the answer to this question.
Back to the paper analogy. My real signature is like a crypto key in a lot of ways. It's unique (like a crypto key), but you can't tell who I am from it alone since there is only one readable letter in it. (My handwriting always sucked, and you don't need letters to make it your signature anyway, so I let mine deteriorate ages ago). Like a crypto key, "brute force" is also unlikely to come up with a collision for my signature (in my lifetime), but it can come up with millions of ways to sign a name that looks like my name, or vaguely like my signature..
One big point here is that I could sign my signature a hundred different ways, and you couldn't tell it wasn't an actual person's identity if you don't ask "Is that really your signature?" I get that question a lot. Then I have to pull out an ID, such as my drivers license with a matching signature on it, or turn to the signature on the back of my credit card which was pre-signed. This is connecting it back to my identity. Your suggestion is the first part of this paragraph, without any ability to match it to another ID, such as my drivers license (or matching it to, say a list of registered voters).
For banking this is fine, since they can match my signature to the one on file, but this is still the crux of the voting problem. To avoid this, you'd have to tie the identity to the vote, recursing our posts earlier in the thread, or send the key with the vote, and have it be tied to an identity, or have it be forgeable by disconnecting it from the vote. The current check off of registered voters doesn't work if separated in place and time from the vote.
p.s. If your idea didn't have some potential, I wouldn't invest this much effort in playing devil's advocate.
Second, regarding the collecting and counting software being buggy: The whole point is, you can use any software you want, because the results can be independently verified. Each political party would probably write their own software for counting, and any bugs in that software would only hurt themselves. And on the user's end, the process would really be pretty trivial and may not even require special voting software. All you do is sign a thing saying "I vote for such and such candidate" then send it to that candidate's web site.
If this were a paper ballot, you'd never consider such a thing. "I'm candidate John Smith, and I claim that I have gotten 250M voted in the last election. Prove it? Sure, just look at this list of keys (signatures)." Without connecting the vote to a person (see below) or to a central location (open to bugs), you can't check that this kind of fraud would be avoided under your idea. At least with one source (the poll workers, etc.), you know to look at [insert mfg company/polling place here] to find the source of the latest software problem or fraud, and you do not have trust each candidate to be honest, not to mention the individual tabulation methods of each candidate.
As for ID's being traceable back to the individual casting the vote... No, they aren't. Once the government issued a certificate for a particular identity, it would not need to keep any record of that identity in its database. The only record it would need to keep is that you, the person, have already registered, and can't register again. I think that's at least as anonymous as the current ad hoc systems.
How about moving and transferring the identities to another location. OK, you're John Doe from LA, now you're John Doe from NY. That can be about the same as another system, say the one we have in place where people can (not legally though) vote in 2 places. The it works there. Another scenario: How about losing your ID (and people will lose them)? Well, which one needs to be canceled? Yours? How does the issuer tell which one that is if there was no record of it? You have to memorize your key? And I thought learning my SSN as a kid was hard. Currently, you can (in the districts I've voted al least) only claim to be one person on time on voting day. Then after that is checked off, you vote. No point in issuing a cert/identity for that. (They gave me a "voter pass" that was taken by the poller in the latest election.) The could have handed me a smart card, but that serves no real purpose above the slip of paper that I was given and 2 minutes later turned in.
In short, there's no easy answer here, and it may lie in the direction you're considering, but voting is more complicated than that. Remember that the current systems we have are from centuries of voter fraud, and a quick fix is probably not the answer.
"Say goodbye to problems with partisan election officials and rigged voting machines! (And, remember, your vote would still be anonymous, as long as you created a unique identity that you used just for voting."
Um, you mean the ID *you created*? And what prevents you from having multiple identities if you create them? Though I see some potential here, but some would have to hand out your ID, not self generate it. It's a series of trust relationships, and I know I don't trust you not to create 100 IDs and vote 100 times. With the group you're opening a relationship with (say the bank) issuing the identities, you have this trust established with them - Oh wait! That's what TFA is talking about!
Using this system for verifying voting might have *something* worth looking at, but then you have your ID locked to the vote (not a problem for banking) and then you have...wait for it...the possibility that the software used to collect and count the votes can be rigged or is buggy. Hey, you're back to the current situation in voting, but with an individual vote tied to the person who caast it. <sarcasm>You may as well have them sign the ballot so we can call them to see if that's really who they meant to vote for.</sarcasm>
"I have too many ideas..."
Think about them and they might be useful, or they might have already been done or dismissed.
As I read this, and from the postings made by Dave Winer, this is intended to be used by blogs. If/. is CmdrTaco's blog, which it still really is (though it's owned by VA), then/. should be able to use these links to keep the links to the stories permanent, as NYT intends to do with this mechanism. So why don't they? This way, searching the archives of/. won't give you links to stories that don't work!
If VA needs to work with the NYT to get a partnership with VA as Userland has done, then it makes sense for them to do it. Users might stop Karma Whoring the NYT text, and NYT could keep their advertising revenue. It would benefit all! This is what doing business is supposed to be like.
(Anyone from VA or/. management care to say if this is in the works, or if it's been tried, ect?)
It basically says the USL (SCOX's claimed successor in interest) agrees to not sue anyone who is not a licensee who uses "methods and concepts" (i.e. non-literal copying), which is what SCOX's allegations against Linux are based on.
IANAL, and my.sig says what I am, so talk to one in your area, etc.
While it may be insighful, as the authors should be allowed what license to contribute their license under especially if they're not paid to produce it, and also should be allowed to keep rights over their work, I'd suggest that the subject line is hard to get past. No one is likely to be converted by calling them fascists. "Hum, I'm a fascit, I've never been called that before." A less trolling tone might let the content make its point, though, as I believe the point is a valid one.
2. You may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, sell, participate in the transfer or sale or reproduce, create Derivative Works from, distribute, perform, display or in any way exploit any of the Material released under this License unless expressly permitted by the PlaneShift Team.
I hate to be rude, but am I the only loyal PA reader that doesn't like this series? I mean, yeah it's weird and christmas themed, but I expect a little more humor and games related content in their strip.
Humor is in the eye of the beholder (intended), and it would appear that Cthulhu is games related content. And if you're not disliking of something in PA over the years, then they're not trying hard enough. If you want to fill the void, try another comic until the series is done. (Personally, the top hat cat character strips bore me, but I know my respect is still high towards Gabe and Tycho over the years.)
Magic Mirror Backup is a P2P Backup system. Looks nice for smaller departments. I may look into using it at home, but 2 of the computers out of the 5 are Mac, and it's Win & Linux only. Maybe I'll learn porting to Darwin for fun.
Slashdot Mirror
If the AC is still watching thread, then follow the suggestions on Google, because that query works for me.
QOS? Why, just filter The evil Bit out.
Try searching google for "Intrusion detection system" for some of what you might be referring to.
Funny and Insightful ;)
To keep this from just being a "me too" though, not only would this be the quickest way to get Microsoft to patch a hole in IE, it would be the quickest way to get millions to think of Firefox as the Bad Guys and MS as the Good Guys, so for the sake of wisdom, DON'T DO IT! (Rememeber how myDoom made linux look by going after SCO?)
RTFA - the upgrade was planned. It's probably tested by now, and they're not likely to upgrade during such a busy time of the year. No heads will probably roll because of this, but upgrades may be rushed in the future.
This is not a software patent, which is usually what is talked about as being "bad" on /.
This is a patent on the material object, not a intellecutal process. They are considered different by many, especially since one has had patents for a *long* time, the other only a few years, and in limited areas (*cough* US *cough*). Optical media date back to before software patents existed.
Retired from a company =! not working at all.
I don't have time to sit around and learn an entire new infrastructure from such (apparently) great helpful linux zealots on /. because apparently there is no help to be had.
/. either. Some of us are open to reality, and do understand that there is such a thing as the right tool for the job. There is help out there. Some of them in your local area may be able to help you, and open your org up to some solutions. (Find a user's group and ask.) Basically, don't get the feeling that we're all AC troll zealots like this dork. Some of us know that we should listen to the needs of the org and help them decide on the right tool, Linux or Windows, one app or the other.
I certainly don't agree with the troll you're replying to (see my post above in the thread). Don't let him stand for all linux users on
Open Office is probably the area most likely open to change in a generic org, since it is a stable office program, and can more than meet the needs of an org w/o a total conversion and w/o a major learning curve for the users, etc. Firefox/Mozilla is more secure, so the org wastes less effort on security and spyware, etc. All of these are cross platform, and that's no accident. In the future, this may help in a transition if appropriate.
Small inroads are better than none. Knowledge is frequently gained a piece at a time.
Since every time a media player is mentioned on /., and this is an iPod running Linux, and 95% of my collection is in ogg, etc. I've karma whore by posting this link to the currently /.ed iPod Linux Wiki FAQ. In short, here's the answer, and there is no reason, from either the site or TFA to change it (TFA says nothing about ogg.) No mailing list or forums available.
Note: Linux != ogg. If your iPod runs linux, that does not mean everything you can run in mplayer will suddenly work on your iPod as some seem to be suggesting.
Short version (from the Wiki):
Is there an OGG player?
The Tremor (http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/) player is running at about 80% real-time.
I toss down another gauntle that instead of whining about how they're wasing money running Windows, the AC troll above, and all Slashdot that can do 3 things.
1. Consider that this is someone who is looking into using something besides Windows, and not blindly spending money bacause "that the way it's always been done."
2. Sit there and HELP THEM DO IT! (Though above postings are doing a good job, so it may not be necessary).
and this is the most important one:
3. Go help a non-pprofit with their tech needs! They need us, and the community needs them. Time frequently means more than money, espically if they need tech help.
I have a group I'm helping locally to "fix up" their computers, and they have to run Windows in order to run some specific software required for them to obtain a grant. Think they should switch to no Microsoft? Not on your life. They get far more money from their grant than they pay to Microsoft, so it would be extremely wasteful to both their community and their donators if they were to "dump Microsoft." (Giving alternatives where appropriate, is another story entirely.) Think they can always count on being able to find a tech who can support linux? Nope. Most are volunteers who come and leave as they wish, and odds are they know Microsoft. Think they want to become part of a minority population? Turn down tech help because they run an OS that few are likely to know about? No. MS makes sense fror them, at least at the OS level, and definitely at the workstation level.
If he survived Slashdotting, then he's survived a bigger mob than can carry torches without setting the whole neighborhood on fire before they get to his house. Let him be happy with his bandwith bill.
I know guys that like to set up Christmas lights on an outrageous scale keep my kids from demanding that I do the same to our house. We just drive by and look at all their lights instead. Thanks for saving me frostbite!
You can forge a signature on paper. You can't forge a cryptographic signature. Not in your lifetime, anyway.
Think of logging into a computer for the first time via SSH or a self-signed SSL cert. You're asked if you want to trust this key. All your computer says is that it knows this is a SSH/SSL key, but it doesn't know who owns this key, then it asks "Do you want to trust this key?" Trust begins with this question. There is no guarantee that a man in the middle attack isn't starting there w/o having the key tied to an individual, such as the party Verisign issued the key to (with complete info). With voting, you can't answer this question at all, since you can't trust a 3rd party or the candidate with the answer to this question.
Back to the paper analogy. My real signature is like a crypto key in a lot of ways. It's unique (like a crypto key), but you can't tell who I am from it alone since there is only one readable letter in it. (My handwriting always sucked, and you don't need letters to make it your signature anyway, so I let mine deteriorate ages ago). Like a crypto key, "brute force" is also unlikely to come up with a collision for my signature (in my lifetime), but it can come up with millions of ways to sign a name that looks like my name, or vaguely like my signature..
One big point here is that I could sign my signature a hundred different ways, and you couldn't tell it wasn't an actual person's identity if you don't ask "Is that really your signature?" I get that question a lot. Then I have to pull out an ID, such as my drivers license with a matching signature on it, or turn to the signature on the back of my credit card which was pre-signed. This is connecting it back to my identity. Your suggestion is the first part of this paragraph, without any ability to match it to another ID, such as my drivers license (or matching it to, say a list of registered voters).
For banking this is fine, since they can match my signature to the one on file, but this is still the crux of the voting problem. To avoid this, you'd have to tie the identity to the vote, recursing our posts earlier in the thread, or send the key with the vote, and have it be tied to an identity, or have it be forgeable by disconnecting it from the vote. The current check off of registered voters doesn't work if separated in place and time from the vote.
p.s. If your idea didn't have some potential, I wouldn't invest this much effort in playing devil's advocate.
So how does that percentage compare to other class action lawsuits? For all I know, that is a high percentage of members of the class.
Second, regarding the collecting and counting software being buggy: The whole point is, you can use any software you want, because the results can be independently verified. Each political party would probably write their own software for counting, and any bugs in that software would only hurt themselves. And on the user's end, the process would really be pretty trivial and may not even require special voting software. All you do is sign a thing saying "I vote for such and such candidate" then send it to that candidate's web site.
If this were a paper ballot, you'd never consider such a thing. "I'm candidate John Smith, and I claim that I have gotten 250M voted in the last election. Prove it? Sure, just look at this list of keys (signatures)." Without connecting the vote to a person (see below) or to a central location (open to bugs), you can't check that this kind of fraud would be avoided under your idea. At least with one source (the poll workers, etc.), you know to look at [insert mfg company/polling place here] to find the source of the latest software problem or fraud, and you do not have trust each candidate to be honest, not to mention the individual tabulation methods of each candidate.
As for ID's being traceable back to the individual casting the vote... No, they aren't. Once the government issued a certificate for a particular identity, it would not need to keep any record of that identity in its database. The only record it would need to keep is that you, the person, have already registered, and can't register again. I think that's at least as anonymous as the current ad hoc systems.
How about moving and transferring the identities to another location. OK, you're John Doe from LA, now you're John Doe from NY. That can be about the same as another system, say the one we have in place where people can (not legally though) vote in 2 places. The it works there. Another scenario: How about losing your ID (and people will lose them)? Well, which one needs to be canceled? Yours? How does the issuer tell which one that is if there was no record of it? You have to memorize your key? And I thought learning my SSN as a kid was hard. Currently, you can (in the districts I've voted al least) only claim to be one person on time on voting day. Then after that is checked off, you vote. No point in issuing a cert/identity for that. (They gave me a "voter pass" that was taken by the poller in the latest election.) The could have handed me a smart card, but that serves no real purpose above the slip of paper that I was given and 2 minutes later turned in.
In short, there's no easy answer here, and it may lie in the direction you're considering, but voting is more complicated than that. Remember that the current systems we have are from centuries of voter fraud, and a quick fix is probably not the answer.
That is way more information than I needed. And a picture I don't want to see.
It doesn't look like the staff scheduling software, unless customers need to use a web interface to schedule their own flight attendants and pilots.
Since it appears to be crew scheduling that was the issue, I'd look in the direction of Tata. Thanks for the info.
"Say goodbye to problems with partisan election officials and rigged voting machines! (And, remember, your vote would still be anonymous, as long as you created a unique identity that you used just for voting."
Um, you mean the ID *you created*? And what prevents you from having multiple identities if you create them? Though I see some potential here, but some would have to hand out your ID, not self generate it. It's a series of trust relationships, and I know I don't trust you not to create 100 IDs and vote 100 times. With the group you're opening a relationship with (say the bank) issuing the identities, you have this trust established with them - Oh wait! That's what TFA is talking about!
Using this system for verifying voting might have *something* worth looking at, but then you have your ID locked to the vote (not a problem for banking) and then you have...wait for it...the possibility that the software used to collect and count the votes can be rigged or is buggy. Hey, you're back to the current situation in voting, but with an individual vote tied to the person who caast it. <sarcasm>You may as well have them sign the ballot so we can call them to see if that's really who they meant to vote for.</sarcasm>
"I have too many ideas..."
Think about them and they might be useful, or they might have already been done or dismissed.
As I read this, and from the postings made by Dave Winer, this is intended to be used by blogs. If /. is CmdrTaco's blog, which it still really is (though it's owned by VA), then /. should be able to use these links to keep the links to the stories permanent, as NYT intends to do with this mechanism. So why don't they? This way, searching the archives of /. won't give you links to stories that don't work!
/. management care to say if this is in the works, or if it's been tried, ect?)
If VA needs to work with the NYT to get a partnership with VA as Userland has done, then it makes sense for them to do it. Users might stop Karma Whoring the NYT text, and NYT could keep their advertising revenue. It would benefit all! This is what doing business is supposed to be like.
(Anyone from VA or
I don't know about the US court cases, but the The 1994 USL-Regents of UCal Settlement Agreement might prove useful, especially section 3c.
.sig says what I am, so talk to one in your area, etc.
It basically says the USL (SCOX's claimed successor in interest) agrees to not sue anyone who is not a licensee who uses "methods and concepts" (i.e. non-literal copying), which is what SCOX's allegations against Linux are based on.
IANAL, and my
While it may be insighful, as the authors should be allowed what license to contribute their license under especially if they're not paid to produce it, and also should be allowed to keep rights over their work, I'd suggest that the subject line is hard to get past. No one is likely to be converted by calling them fascists. "Hum, I'm a fascit, I've never been called that before." A less trolling tone might let the content make its point, though, as I believe the point is a valid one.
Not legal by the Planeshift license:
2. You may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, sell, participate in the transfer or sale or reproduce, create Derivative Works from, distribute, perform, display or in any way exploit any of the Material released under this License unless expressly permitted by the PlaneShift Team.
So much for the torrent I was going to make....
I hate to be rude, but am I the only loyal PA reader that doesn't like this series? I mean, yeah it's weird and christmas themed, but I expect a little more humor and games related content in their strip.
Humor is in the eye of the beholder (intended), and it would appear that Cthulhu is games related content. And if you're not disliking of something in PA over the years, then they're not trying hard enough. If you want to fill the void, try another comic until the series is done. (Personally, the top hat cat character strips bore me, but I know my respect is still high towards Gabe and Tycho over the years.)
Magic Mirror Backup is a P2P Backup system. Looks nice for smaller departments. I may look into using it at home, but 2 of the computers out of the 5 are Mac, and it's Win & Linux only. Maybe I'll learn porting to Darwin for fun.
Since the torrent link given is messed up up, I've set up another torrent tracker for short term abuse.
If she weighs *the same* as a duck... (emphasis mine)
Then she's made of wood.
And therefore...
A Witch!
(Splitting atoms, splitting hairs - what's the difference?)