My NEXII is currently in the posession of my brother who is carrying it with him as he hikes the Appalachian trail. He has it to listen to the Lord of the Rings a few hours a day while he hikes.
The fact that it only uses Compact Flash cards (no internal memory) allows me to mail him more cards and let him listen to new content without having to mail the player back home to be re-filled.
<freedom rant>
Because this player takes CF cards and behaves like a external drive it does not have any SDMI/DRM trappings of other players, allowing me to put whatever I want on the player from whatever computer I choose. Plus it works great with my linux box as a removable drive (no dumb special purpose drivers or reverse engineered hacks).
The objection brought against the website is the use of the term "GODZILLA" in conjunction with an image of a reptile(godzilla)-like creature. The C&D letter did mention the use of the "zilla" suffix but only in conjuntion with the use of their trademark and the likeness of a godzilla-like creature. It appears that if the image and reference were removed, the company would no longer have a complaint.
As far as this being a pre-cursor to action against mozilla.... I can only chuckle. Even if the Godzilla trademark holders want to come after all the "zillas" out there (and I don't think they do), they would never be able to get a favorable ruling because this "zilla" construction has been used back into antiquity (in computing terms) and has never been challenged. So the courts would have to rule that "something-zilla" is no longer part of their trademark because it hasn't been protected
How does it affect me, when I haven't installed the program?
The answer to this question is painfully simple: You are connected to and attempting to use the same network. Internet users, slashdot readers especially, should appreciate the effect that(tens/hundreds of) thousands of "other people" can have on such a network.
" You're telling me that if they get hacked, the entire Internet is at the mercy of the hackers. Why is that?"
Because, the actions of millions of compromised machines have the ability to bring internet traffic to a standstill. millions of boxes, spread throught the world all participating in a coordinated DoS attack, would be, as the article states, "unstoppable"
This has to be the only article I have read in a long time that stresses the importance of doing things the right way, instead of the wrong way or, heaven forbid, the "Max Power" way.
There are many core issues with video on any Unix that need to be hammered out now to ensure that things will go well both now and in the future.
As the author mentions several times, adapting refresh rates to video frame rates and working with the monitor's vertical sync as well as audio sync etc, are all very important things that need to be implimented before Video for (insert favorite unix here) will become anything more than a glorified hack.
The first logical step is to impliment what is needed to do things right, and to impliment them in the right(proper) way. the X-protocol should be fully implimented in Xfree, and the kernel should be extended to enable applications to be written which can make full use of the hardware, with minimal kludge-work.
Then the focus moves to making the "killer-app" type media production tools and players. The power of Open Source is the ability to build on the work of others. However, stealing someone's hack to adapt refresh rates, and jamming it into your own code is not an optimal solution. Focus on doing things right the first time, anything less (especially when dealing with core issues) is just asking for untold headaches and frustration in x years, when we are kicking ourselves for not doing the right thing the first time
OpenGL 2.0 seems to be in the right place at the right time. If the 2.0 standard can sanely standardize the programming of pixel and vertex shaders, OpenGL might be given the boost it needs to start overtaking Direct3D's hold on the gaming market. And once development moves to OpenGL, it's one step closer to widespread releases on (insert favorite OpenGL friendly operating system here) and a loosening of the MS stranglehold on computer games.
On the other hand, if this OpenGL extension craziness continues on as it has been, the project might collapse into a tangled and unsalvageable mess. The OpenGL standards people have one shot at doing this right, and whether or not they pull it off will determine their long term success or failure.
The "internet" was originally comprised mostly of "geek types. They had bandwidth and webspace either from work or school. The only people that had homepages back then were all of the form http://cs.someuniversity.edu/~yourusernamehere
then along came compuserve/prodigy/et al. and the whole world got onto the internet, and it escaped from the nerd world, where the internet could leech off of university and corporate connections. People now had to start paying for things, as usage increased so did bandwidth requirements, and as anyone knows real bandwidth isn't cheap. If you didn't have the luxury of free personal webspace (work or school) you had to become a publisher on your own dime, and no one likes that, especially the unwashed masses. So the internet went commercial. "Content" sites, and "free"-webspace fueled by ad revenues abounded, and they survived (in theory at least) from their ad revenues
Now however, the banner-ad, pop-up, pop-under revenue model is not working out like the marketing people wanted it to, so the ad supported sites need to find a new resourse to leech off of. Now it seems that the actual users will be the ones caught footing the bill for the internet. It may be hard for some people to stomach, but all that bandwidth, (non-)content, etc. cannot be provided gratis, someone has to foot the bill. First it was the universities, then the advertisers, and now the users. The big problem everyone is running into is how to impliment such a plan. The internet doesn't lend itself very readily to subscriptions, micro-payments scemes are immature at best, besides no one likes the idea of pay-per-view internet, and no other really viable alternative has presented itself as of yet.
I dont see how software will help you get around this
It gets around this by not allowing users to input their passwords by using the letters on the keyboard. They use something similar to the arcade "Insert your name here:" interface where you move a cursor up and down to select the letters/numbers/symbols/spaces. It would probably start at a random place in the sequence too, so that the keylogger's capture of up x 15 down x 27 etc. is rendered useless.
Re:Sigh, Diana could never figure it out...
on
Robot Mine Smasher
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
unexploded cluster bombs
Both the parent and the grandparent post were talking about land mines not un-exploded ordinance. The parent post was a contrast between america's use of land mines and the practices of various other mine-deploying entities. UXO is another issue, one that was not part of this thread
Those people fall into the second category, mostly. They are people that understand what they are getting into, and understand the chance they have at fabulous wealth.
There are also naive people who don't know any better and get stuck in a contract that leaves them with little money, and no rights to any of their music. Those are the slaves
- The apple press release is information not in the article.
- The zdnet article covers the licencing scheme in more detail (the link in the story is to another slashdot article)
- The mpegla page is a more useful link to pertinent information on that site, instead of the link to the homepage provided in the article.
Is it karma whoring? maybe. Is it informative? depends on who you ask. Is it thin on true insight? yeah. Should it be modded to +5 informative? nah. Should it be modded down as Redundant? No.
None of this information is provided in the article, and no other comment so far posted (about 30) supplies this information.
If the internet has taught anyone anything over the last 20+ years it is that closed standards, or standards that require licencing do not work . Standards are developed (or at least should be) as means to an end. Packet switching is a means to send data. Data Comression is a means to transfer data more effectively. HTML is a means to simplify and "standardize" web content.
Companies that have "crate patented standards and get rich off the licencing" as part of their buisiness plan should be shunned by those who are seeking to make money by providing entertainment or information.
I personally a mystified that things like this MPEG insanity can and have survived. Open standards have reigned supreme on the internet, and nearly everywhere else, but somehow these proprietary video compression algorithms live on.
I don't pretend to be an expert on video codec's and the like, but I would like to believe that some sane individuals could develop an open video compression system and stop all of this idiocy
I must admit that I don't see why everyone is quick to jump onto the "Midbar is evil" bandwagon. If one accepts as fact that any protection scheme can be (relatively) easily broken, I have no hatred for Midbar at all. The way I see it, they scammed the record companies. They came up with the "copy protection" scheme (which really isn't anything ov consequence. It may break the standard, but it's not too bad) and licenced it to music companies for big bucks. Now the music companies are out X million dollars and no-one in the music-listening public is worse off for it.
It could be possible that Midbar et al. may end up being the heroes in this whole thing by expensively demonstrating the futile nature of this sort of copy-protection.
so why are the artists signing this so-called horrible deals anyway?
Two Reasons:
They have stars in their eyes, and are drooling over their "big break" and don't realize they have just mortgaged their entire life on an investment that might just ruin them, or leave them as a slave to the record company.
2. They realize they're getting screwed, but signing the contract is the only way to get into the club. And artists hope that they make it big, and get to tour and make some real money.
This is very true in my experience. Throughout all of my education there has been little if any emphasis on proper coding habits and design. Everything has been more or less free-form, and I think CS students are much worse off for it.
This has all become painfully clear to me since I started designing real software and API's. I've realized that I know next to nothing about proper software design, and it has bitten me quite a few times.
As far as I can tell, good programming practices are mostly language independant, and would be very valuable to any CS student. Why they don't teach it is beyond me
If the disk is rendered unreadable by a reaction involving oxegen, all that is needed to keep the DVD's from going bad is to store them in an oxygen free environment. After you open the packaging, watch the DVD, then place it in an airtight package with some yeast and water (the activated yeast will consume the oxygen in the container) and the disk should still be playable at a later time providing the new packaging is airtight, and you consume all the oxygen.
Of course the other obvious way to get around this is to rip the contents and burn your own.
"...rather than jumping off on this tangent." Sorry for the tangent, but for goodness sake, it was 2am, and I really should have been in bed.
On further review of the article and your (grand)parent post things are seen a little clearer. I was following this thread reading it as a "lets give computers to poor people, it will solve all their problems" kind of deal, instead of the "let's reduce the opportunity cost for people to get on-line." (the former view was somewhat bolstered in my mind by the myriad of "solutions" (most of them public service type things) that had been proposed by others)
To sum up: 1. I have no problems with people being able to have access to inexpensive computers and internet connectivity. 2. There is nothing wrong with members of any class/race/religion/etc. having access to computers. 3. "Bridging the digital divide" (as defined by the article, and in the parent post) is fine by me.
My objections we meant for the straw man defined above, and I sorry about that "root problem" bit. The intended point was to say that there are deeper issues, (breakdown of family structure, poor fiscal habits, entitlement mentalities, etc) which are holding back large scale upward mobility among low-income households.
"Calvinist prick" Actually, I am a Calvinist, however no one I know would classify me as a prick, sorry if I sounded that way
If ways can be found to get computers for more of them, or to reduce the economic sacrifices they have to make to get them, can we all agree that it is a good thing?
If the social experiments of pasts decades have taught us anything it is that throwing money at a (social) problem never makes it go away, and usually makes it bigger. People complain about the "digital divide" and are concerned that the underprivelidged are missing out on cultural benefits of the online world. The deeper problem is that most of the lower classes have no interest in the culture of the net, and if given computers would not take advantage of the rich human content of the web.
The root problem is that the lower class is comprised mostly of poor civic citizens, but addressing that problem is very difficult and complicated. So people just try and throw money (or hardware) at the problem, hoping it will fix itself.
There is a digital divide, but it is a symptom of a larger cultural divide, and giving out computers will not fix the problem.
That is exactly what the original post stated. He even said it in the subject line. "DO NOT DEPLOY". And somehow the child has been modded up past the parent for re-hashing the same idea.
Re:So where's the energy density?
on
Lunar Lasers
·
· Score: 1
Question: "how much 'noontime sunlight' does any place on earth get?"
Answer: "very little"
Even if you assumed that there was never any cloud cover or fog, the most actual sunlight you can expect is ~12hrs a day. And only a few hours of that is anything close to directly overhead. I would venture to guess that even in the perfect weather case you are averaging less than 20% of noontime intensity, and that is not including down time because of atmospheric concerns.
A geo-stationary sattelite would recieve dirct sunlight >90% of the time, and is not subject to weather concerns. A moon-base would have day/night problems, but doesn't have the suns energy absorbed by an atmosphere or any cloud cover.
It may have a large cost, but compared to other solar-collection schemes it has the most reliability of any plan in existence.
At first, I thought you were saying that the police were trying to blind pilots for some reason. But anyways...BR> Blinding pilots was actually a major plot point in Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honor. Clark and Chavez, the two CIA spooks had the equivalent of a massive flashbulb w/ parabolic mirror and scope. They got in the landing path of a few military surveilance airplanes and *FLASH* they're blind and the planes crash and burn.
In short it's already been thought of, just like flying airliners full of fuel into buildings (also in Debt of Honor btw). I think that Tom Clancy guy should quit writing, he's giving too many people too many ideas.
Tom Bombadil lives with his wife Goldberry in the Old Forrest east of Buckland. Frodo and his companions meet Tom as they travel through the old forrest fleeing from the nazgul who had caught up to them in Buckland. They stay with Tom for a time and then head through the Barrow Downs towards Bree. It's all in the Fellowship of the Ring, consumes 2-3 chapters of the book.
If it isn't even obvious who he is for those who have read the books It seems you either read the books a long time ago, don't remember the first book very well, or have poor retention. He's there, and is mentioned elsewhere in the Trilogy as well (counsel of Elrond, Gandalf plans a visit).
SSN's are not to be used as a "national ID" because it is prohibited by law. No person, except the SSA and the IRS can force you to provide your SSN. Sure everyone asks for it wen tyou sign up for anything, but you are never obligated to give it. And no one can deny service because of it.
Re:The goverment needs network security, too
on
GOVNET In the Works
·
· Score: 1
woah nellie!!
No one is implying that Gov't comm. should not be protected somehow. What people are complaining about is the Gov't saying "the internet isn't secure enough for us, so you build us our own internet so we can be secure." There is no reason the Government can't secure it's current networks and communicate between locations using current internet infrastructure. it's just a grab for Gov't IT to get a new $15B toy to play with.
Exactly what price can you put on good security?
There are cheaper ways of accomplishing security.
There are cheap ways to design cars too, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to drive the 'safest' car available.
You seem to be missing what I believe are a few key things.
1. Good security does not come from having your own private network. All it takes is someone inside allowing people to tunnel through their box to compromise the whole set-up.
2. Good security that is cheap is better than good security that is expensive. If I offer you two cars, both of which have the same performance in crashes, one of which costs $157,995 and the other $25,000 which would you choose? The point is this: there can be more than one correct solution to a problem. And if one costs significantly less than the other, go for the cheaper solution.
Slashdot Mirror
My NEXII is currently in the posession of my brother who is carrying it with him as he hikes the Appalachian trail. He has it to listen to the Lord of the Rings a few hours a day while he hikes.
The fact that it only uses Compact Flash cards (no internal memory) allows me to mail him more cards and let him listen to new content without having to mail the player back home to be re-filled.
<freedom rant>
Because this player takes CF cards and behaves like a external drive it does not have any SDMI/DRM trappings of other players, allowing me to put whatever I want on the player from whatever computer I choose. Plus it works great with my linux box as a removable drive (no dumb special purpose drivers or reverse engineered hacks).
</freedom rant>
Nearly every comment here is missing the point.
The objection brought against the website is the use of the term "GODZILLA" in conjunction with an image of a reptile(godzilla)-like creature. The C&D letter did mention the use of the "zilla" suffix but only in conjuntion with the use of their trademark and the likeness of a godzilla-like creature. It appears that if the image and reference were removed, the company would no longer have a complaint.
As far as this being a pre-cursor to action against mozilla.... I can only chuckle. Even if the Godzilla trademark holders want to come after all the "zillas" out there (and I don't think they do), they would never be able to get a favorable ruling because this "zilla" construction has been used back into antiquity (in computing terms) and has never been challenged. So the courts would have to rule that "something-zilla" is no longer part of their trademark because it hasn't been protected
2. Head for a small island state somewhere ...
, Wow! someone finally figured out Phase Two!
How does it affect me, when I haven't installed the program?
The answer to this question is painfully simple: You are connected to and attempting to use the same network. Internet users, slashdot readers especially, should appreciate the effect that(tens/hundreds of) thousands of "other people" can have on such a network.
" You're telling me that if they get hacked, the entire Internet is at the mercy of the hackers. Why is that?"
Because, the actions of millions of compromised machines have the ability to bring internet traffic to a standstill. millions of boxes, spread throught the world all participating in a coordinated DoS attack, would be, as the article states, "unstoppable"
This has to be the only article I have read in a long time that stresses the importance of doing things the right way, instead of the wrong way or, heaven forbid, the "Max Power" way.
There are many core issues with video on any Unix that need to be hammered out now to ensure that things will go well both now and in the future.
As the author mentions several times, adapting refresh rates to video frame rates and working with the monitor's vertical sync as well as audio sync etc, are all very important things that need to be implimented before Video for (insert favorite unix here) will become anything more than a glorified hack.
The first logical step is to impliment what is needed to do things right, and to impliment them in the right(proper) way. the X-protocol should be fully implimented in Xfree, and the kernel should be extended to enable applications to be written which can make full use of the hardware, with minimal kludge-work.
Then the focus moves to making the "killer-app" type media production tools and players. The power of Open Source is the ability to build on the work of others. However, stealing someone's hack to adapt refresh rates, and jamming it into your own code is not an optimal solution. Focus on doing things right the first time, anything less (especially when dealing with core issues) is just asking for untold headaches and frustration in x years, when we are kicking ourselves for not doing the right thing the first time
OpenGL 2.0 seems to be in the right place at the right time. If the 2.0 standard can sanely standardize the programming of pixel and vertex shaders, OpenGL might be given the boost it needs to start overtaking Direct3D's hold on the gaming market. And once development moves to OpenGL, it's one step closer to widespread releases on (insert favorite OpenGL friendly operating system here) and a loosening of the MS stranglehold on computer games.
On the other hand, if this OpenGL extension craziness continues on as it has been, the project might collapse into a tangled and unsalvageable mess. The OpenGL standards people have one shot at doing this right, and whether or not they pull it off will determine their long term success or failure.
The "internet" was originally comprised mostly of "geek types. They had bandwidth and webspace either from work or school. The only people that had homepages back then were all of the form
http://cs.someuniversity.edu/~yourusernamehere
then along came compuserve/prodigy/et al. and the whole world got onto the internet, and it escaped from the nerd world, where the internet could leech off of university and corporate connections. People now had to start paying for things, as usage increased so did bandwidth requirements, and as anyone knows real bandwidth isn't cheap. If you didn't have the luxury of free personal webspace (work or school) you had to become a publisher on your own dime, and no one likes that, especially the unwashed masses. So the internet went commercial. "Content" sites, and "free"-webspace fueled by ad revenues abounded, and they survived (in theory at least) from their ad revenues
Now however, the banner-ad, pop-up, pop-under revenue model is not working out like the marketing people wanted it to, so the ad supported sites need to find a new resourse to leech off of. Now it seems that the actual users will be the ones caught footing the bill for the internet. It may be hard for some people to stomach, but all that bandwidth, (non-)content, etc. cannot be provided gratis, someone has to foot the bill. First it was the universities, then the advertisers, and now the users. The big problem everyone is running into is how to impliment such a plan. The internet doesn't lend itself very readily to subscriptions, micro-payments scemes are immature at best, besides no one likes the idea of pay-per-view internet, and no other really viable alternative has presented itself as of yet.
I dont see how software will help you get around this
It gets around this by not allowing users to input their passwords by using the letters on the keyboard. They use something similar to the arcade "Insert your name here:" interface where you move a cursor up and down to select the letters/numbers/symbols/spaces. It would probably start at a random place in the sequence too, so that the keylogger's capture of up x 15 down x 27 etc. is rendered useless.
unexploded cluster bombs
Both the parent and the grandparent post were talking about land mines not un-exploded ordinance. The parent post was a contrast between america's use of land mines and the practices of various other mine-deploying entities. UXO is another issue, one that was not part of this thread
"YOU DO THIS CAUSE YOU WANT TO BE INSANELY RICH."
Those people fall into the second category, mostly. They are people that understand what they are getting into, and understand the chance they have at fabulous wealth.
There are also naive people who don't know any better and get stuck in a contract that leaves them with little money, and no rights to any of their music. Those are the slaves
Who moderated this as redundant?
- The apple press release is information not in the article.
- The zdnet article covers the licencing scheme in more detail (the link in the story is to another slashdot article)
- The mpegla page is a more useful link to pertinent information on that site, instead of the link to the homepage provided in the article.
Is it karma whoring? maybe.
Is it informative? depends on who you ask.
Is it thin on true insight? yeah.
Should it be modded to +5 informative? nah.
Should it be modded down as Redundant? No.
None of this information is provided in the article, and no other comment so far posted (about 30) supplies this information.
If the internet has taught anyone anything over the last 20+ years it is that closed standards, or standards that require licencing do not work . Standards are developed (or at least should be) as means to an end. Packet switching is a means to send data. Data Comression is a means to transfer data more effectively. HTML is a means to simplify and "standardize" web content.
Companies that have "crate patented standards and get rich off the licencing" as part of their buisiness plan should be shunned by those who are seeking to make money by providing entertainment or information.
I personally a mystified that things like this MPEG insanity can and have survived. Open standards have reigned supreme on the internet, and nearly everywhere else, but somehow these proprietary video compression algorithms live on.
I don't pretend to be an expert on video codec's and the like, but I would like to believe that some sane individuals could develop an open video compression system and stop all of this idiocy
I must admit that I don't see why everyone is quick to jump onto the "Midbar is evil" bandwagon. If one accepts as fact that any protection scheme can be (relatively) easily broken, I have no hatred for Midbar at all. The way I see it, they scammed the record companies. They came up with the "copy protection" scheme (which really isn't anything ov consequence. It may break the standard, but it's not too bad) and licenced it to music companies for big bucks. Now the music companies are out X million dollars and no-one in the music-listening public is worse off for it.
It could be possible that Midbar et al. may end up being the heroes in this whole thing by expensively demonstrating the futile nature of this sort of copy-protection.
so why are the artists signing this so-called horrible deals anyway?
Two Reasons:
They have stars in their eyes, and are drooling over their "big break" and don't realize they have just mortgaged their entire life on an investment that might just ruin them, or leave them as a slave to the record company.
2. They realize they're getting screwed, but signing the contract is the only way to get into the club. And artists hope that they make it big, and get to tour and make some real money.
"We are not taught to design",/i>
This is very true in my experience. Throughout all of my education there has been little if any emphasis on proper coding habits and design. Everything has been more or less free-form, and I think CS students are much worse off for it.
This has all become painfully clear to me since I started designing real software and API's. I've realized that I know next to nothing about proper software design, and it has bitten me quite a few times.
As far as I can tell, good programming practices are mostly language independant, and would be very valuable to any CS student. Why they don't teach it is beyond me
If the disk is rendered unreadable by a reaction involving oxegen, all that is needed to keep the DVD's from going bad is to store them in an oxygen free environment. After you open the packaging, watch the DVD, then place it in an airtight package with some yeast and water (the activated yeast will consume the oxygen in the container) and the disk should still be playable at a later time providing the new packaging is airtight, and you consume all the oxygen.
Of course the other obvious way to get around this is to rip the contents and burn your own.
"...rather than jumping off on this tangent."
Sorry for the tangent, but for goodness sake, it was 2am, and I really should have been in bed.
On further review of the article and your (grand)parent post things are seen a little clearer. I was following this thread reading it as a "lets give computers to poor people, it will solve all their problems" kind of deal, instead of the "let's reduce the opportunity cost for people to get on-line." (the former view was somewhat bolstered in my mind by the myriad of "solutions" (most of them public service type things) that had been proposed by others)
To sum up:
1. I have no problems with people being able to have access to inexpensive computers and internet connectivity.
2. There is nothing wrong with members of any class/race/religion/etc. having access to computers.
3. "Bridging the digital divide" (as defined by the article, and in the parent post) is fine by me.
My objections we meant for the straw man defined above, and I sorry about that "root problem" bit. The intended point was to say that there are deeper issues, (breakdown of family structure, poor fiscal habits, entitlement mentalities, etc) which are holding back large scale upward mobility among low-income households.
"Calvinist prick"
Actually, I am a Calvinist, however no one I know would classify me as a prick, sorry if I sounded that way
If ways can be found to get computers for more of them, or to reduce the economic sacrifices they have to make to get them, can we all agree that it is a good thing?
If the social experiments of pasts decades have taught us anything it is that throwing money at a (social) problem never makes it go away, and usually makes it bigger. People complain about the "digital divide" and are concerned that the underprivelidged are missing out on cultural benefits of the online world. The deeper problem is that most of the lower classes have no interest in the culture of the net, and if given computers would not take advantage of the rich human content of the web.
The root problem is that the lower class is comprised mostly of poor civic citizens, but addressing that problem is very difficult and complicated. So people just try and throw money (or hardware) at the problem, hoping it will fix itself.
There is a digital divide, but it is a symptom of a larger cultural divide, and giving out computers will not fix the problem.
Mod parent down
That is exactly what the original post stated. He even said it in the subject line. "DO NOT DEPLOY". And somehow the child has been modded up past the parent for re-hashing the same idea.
Question: "how much 'noontime sunlight' does any place on earth get?"
Answer: "very little"
Even if you assumed that there was never any cloud cover or fog, the most actual sunlight you can expect is ~12hrs a day. And only a few hours of that is anything close to directly overhead. I would venture to guess that even in the perfect weather case you are averaging less than 20% of noontime intensity, and that is not including down time because of atmospheric concerns.
A geo-stationary sattelite would recieve dirct sunlight >90% of the time, and is not subject to weather concerns. A moon-base would have day/night problems, but doesn't have the suns energy absorbed by an atmosphere or any cloud cover.
It may have a large cost, but compared to other solar-collection schemes it has the most reliability of any plan in existence.
At first, I thought you were saying that the police were trying to blind pilots for some reason. But anyways...BR>
Blinding pilots was actually a major plot point in Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honor. Clark and Chavez, the two CIA spooks had the equivalent of a massive flashbulb w/ parabolic mirror and scope. They got in the landing path of a few military surveilance airplanes and *FLASH* they're blind and the planes crash and burn.
In short it's already been thought of, just like flying airliners full of fuel into buildings (also in Debt of Honor btw). I think that Tom Clancy guy should quit writing, he's giving too many people too many ideas.
Who is Bombadil?
Tom Bombadil lives with his wife Goldberry in the Old Forrest east of Buckland. Frodo and his companions meet Tom as they travel through the old forrest fleeing from the nazgul who had caught up to them in Buckland. They stay with Tom for a time and then head through the Barrow Downs towards Bree. It's all in the Fellowship of the Ring, consumes 2-3 chapters of the book.
If it isn't even obvious who he is for those who have read the books It seems you either read the books a long time ago, don't remember the first book very well, or have poor retention. He's there, and is mentioned elsewhere in the Trilogy as well (counsel of Elrond, Gandalf plans a visit).
SSN's are not to be used as a "national ID" because it is prohibited by law. No person, except the SSA and the IRS can force you to provide your SSN. Sure everyone asks for it wen tyou sign up for anything, but you are never obligated to give it. And no one can deny service because of it.
woah nellie!!
No one is implying that Gov't comm. should not be protected somehow. What people are complaining about is the Gov't saying "the internet isn't secure enough for us, so you build us our own internet so we can be secure." There is no reason the Government can't secure it's current networks and communicate between locations using current internet infrastructure. it's just a grab for Gov't IT to get a new $15B toy to play with.
Exactly what price can you put on good security? There are cheaper ways of accomplishing security. There are cheap ways to design cars too, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to drive the 'safest' car available.
You seem to be missing what I believe are a few key things.
1. Good security does not come from having your own private network. All it takes is someone inside allowing people to tunnel through their box to compromise the whole set-up.
2. Good security that is cheap is better than good security that is expensive. If I offer you two cars, both of which have the same performance in crashes, one of which costs $157,995 and the other $25,000 which would you choose? The point is this: there can be more than one correct solution to a problem. And if one costs significantly less than the other, go for the cheaper solution.