An interesting point; Stallman's first 'slap in the face' from propriatory software wasn't a closed operating system or application. It was a binary-only printer driver that he wanted to modify.
For this reason alone I'm now running an ATI card instead of an nvidia. The drivers may still have a few bugs but at least they're open, and they'll get better in time.
"Publishing your method" is both the requirement and the entire point of getting a patent. If you want to keep your method secret, that would be a 'trade secret'.
IN THEORY you shouldn't be able to patent an idea that's trivially obvious or where prior art exists. Using checksums to identify files or verify that they were transferred correctly is trivially obvious, and fairly-much the reason checksums were invented. Prior art goes back to the 300-baud-modem days.
If you've opted for the 'trade secret' route, and someone manages to figure out how your protocol works, either by reverse-engineering (samba, etc) or by virtue of it simply being an obvious idea (checksums, hashes) then it's not a secret anymore. And it's not protected by patent.
If an employee or contractor leaks your secret you can take them to court and get injunctions to stop the secret spreading any further. But if you don't act quickly enough and your secret becomes public knowledge, you're S.O.L.
I'm also not a lawyer, but I have a vague idea of how things are supposed to work..
Dude, you rock! I never knew you could to do that in Linux:)
(Yeah, I'm an idiot, I should have known it was possible but I've got used to crap like my TV-out being unsupported, so I never thought about it. Why isn't this the default on major distro's already?)
The other half of 'don't give users root' - you need to set permissions or assign users to groups so that they never need root in normal use. And you should leave sshd running so that when a user calls, you can make these changes without leaving your desk.
Some examples;/dev/floppy,/dev/cdrom; needs to automount when a disk is inserted, or be mountable and ejectable by a desktop icon.
dialup networking; use modemlights, kppp, or set up dial-on-demand.
shutting down; some distros require the root password to shutdown. If yours does, reconfigure this.
The end user shouldn't need root _ever_ for day-to-day computer use. If they want anything more than the basic 'look and feel' desktop settings changed, they should call tech support.
You might also want to make the machine console-secure as far as possible. Boot only from HDD, set a password on the bootloader and BIOS, replace the case screws with torx screws, etc. It depends who has physical access, and how secure you need to be.
Even if all your web traffic was encrypted, multiple https sessions to a large number of different hosts, and doing a lot of traffic is _much_ different from normal websurfing. They could reliably detect and block this if it became common.
Here's my suggestion. Open an https session, and pass some sort of simple 'obfuscating' key to the sender. This is a short https session that can't easily be distinguished from normal web surfing.
Then the sender obfuscates the data with your key, and send it back to you via a 'plaintext' FTP session. Nothing identifies the data as encrypted, but it's also not recognisable as a 'copyrighted' work. What are they going to do, block all ftp?
Any kind of voter-verifiable trail needs to be simple enough that the ordinary person can understand and trust it.
Barcodes, encryption, etc all fail this test, no matter how untamperable they might be. If you want the paper trail to be machine readable, you want a list of names in plain text with a big black machine-readable DOT next to the name they voted for.
A human-readable paper vote, placed into a locked box, and counted under the scrutiny of multiple volunteers is the only system of voting I'll ever trust.
Put the content on another domain. EG in this particular case all the filtered content is already hosted on asstr.org, so she could simply link to the archive and NOT have it hosted on her homepage.
Download 'putty', and SSH to your home machine. From there you can run links, epic4, slrn, or basically any other text-based app. Nothing gets filtered, nothing incriminating shows up in the logs at your workplace, nothing ends up in your work cache or your local cache. And if you're worried about the boss walking in run screen first and have a 'top' session running that you can quickly switch to.
The problem is, your workplace is between a rock and a hard place; they can be sued for 'allowing' porn in the workplace but there are simply NO content filters that can reliably decide what is or isn't porn. Hell, even people's views of this differ. The best they can do is just block anything slightly dodgy, and if you really need to go there you'll have to get it all OK'd by the higher-up's.
Verne uses his Linux computer with speech synthesiser to play his audio (mostly the soundtrack of science and space-related TV programs from Discovery channel, which he records via cron jobs since they run them at stupid hours)
The output from the computer is also fed into a small FM transmitter, so he can use an FM walkman or portable radio if he wants to listen while moving around. Unfortunately, there's no way of controllingthe audio thts way (ie skipping the ad-breaks)
Total cost == most of this stuff was being thrown away:)
Modem; not supported, had to download a driver. Linux would have been the same. Drivers available for both OS's
Nvidia 3d card; Windows supported all the modes, but came up in 800x600, 256 colours. Windows native drivers did NOT support proper 3d or detect the monitor until I probed for it, offering me modes the monitor couldn't display. Redhat's installer detects both the card and monitor, presents me with only displayable modes and suggests 1024x768 at 24 bits as a default. Proper 3d drivers available for both OS's, although I admit they're harder to install under Linux.
USB printer/scanner; not detected at all in Windows; requires 120M download of HP drivers. I'm not certain about Linux support, but a quick Google search suggests all of the HP "all-in-one" scanner/printers are supported at least. already
Network card; detected by both Windows and Linux, and DHCP's itself some network settings. Under Redhat Linux all ports are firewalled by default, and no servies are running. Under Windows XP, all ports are open and several insecure services such as UPNP and SMB are running. This machine connected to a cable modem would have picked up a worm in less than a minute.
I agree; but when people criticise Linux for not supporting your USB keyboard, winmodem, 3d card, etc. out of the box, it's worth pointing out that Windows also doesn't support 3D hardware, quite a few network cards, quite a few modems, some soundcards, etc. without a driver CD or download.
In general, I've found that Redhat picks up far more of the hardware I have without needing any extra configuration. Under windows, I need to install drivers for my camera, tuner card, and network card. Redhat can use them automatically with no additional downloads.
The bottom line; I wouldn't expect Grandma to install Redhat OR windows herself. But I suspect if she tried, she'd get a lot further installing Redhat. She'd at least have a working desktop, Openoffice, and some games by just clicking 'next' at every prompt.
Yes, I am slow. I've been doing other things at the same time and I had to download stuff that I didn't have recent versions for. I've done similar rebuilds in half a day before.
I'm curious about your USB problems; RedHat and Debian both detected my USB camera without a hitch (it's the only USB device I own:)
You could switch on "legacy USB support" in BIOS and let that handle it? Or you could try a more mainstream distro; I've never been too impressed with Mandrake.
If each of those applications could be _completely_ removed and replaced, it might not be a problem. The real issue with IE/OE/MP is that Microsoft claim they're "Part of the OS" and can't be removed.
If Windows came pre-loaded with multiple third-party products (as FC1 effectively does; it's all third-party products:) I doubt anyone would have a problem with it.
If I could buy XP for $50 boxed, stamped CD with printed manual, and it came with all that, then it might actually start to compete with Linux:)
Yes I admit if you have some one set it up well, any one can use it.
I've just spent two days setting up XP for some friends, finding drivers for the 3d card, sound and modem, installing Norton, OOo, gimp, and some other apps. I've still got Nero and a firewall to sort out.
Why? Normally the OEM sorts all this out for you. In this case the OEM install that it had was so loaded up with bloatware, advertising and crap that it ran like shit. It's a 1.8GHz machine, and it was performing worse than the old P166 my kids use.
If I had been installing FC1 I would already have basically everything I get with Windows PLUS OpenOffice, Gimp, a bunch of games, cd burning software, a firewall, and no need for a virus scanner.
When's the last time Grandma had to reinstall Windows? How'd it go for her?
Trusted Computing and DRM _done right_ could be good for the consumer.
What wories me is half-assed DRM forced onto the consumer by a Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA-style partnership. Microsoft is dead-keen to go this way because it's the ultimate answer to 'decomoditizing' of protocols, backed up by the DMCA.
And in three years when Longhorn's been out a while, you've spent a few grand on movies and music online, and all your mail is in an encrypted protocol, some virus is going to come along that erases everyone's encryption keys.
It'll happen, because Microsoft's next OS is going to be little more secure than their last one.
Microsoft's idea of 'code signing' is only going to be as well implimented as their idea of a Mail Client, Media Player, Web Browser, or Web Server.
And when it does happen, nobody is going to have any un-encrypted backups of their content (well, Duh!) or a working backup of those keys (because that would allow you to unlock content on multiple computers)
And a few people are going to realise that DRM has been really good for Microsoft and the content industry, but hasn't really helped the end user at all.
OTOH; if you want point-and-click, Ximian Red Carpet is similar to the "Windows Components" installer, but handles a much broader range of software, and also lets you bring your system up to date with two or three mouseclicks and zero reboots.
Slashdot Mirror
TCO-related link :)
Most firms cannot count cost of IT downtime
(but when they can, it's often >$100,000 per hour)
Heck yes, back in my day we didn't have no fancy bottled helium. We had to make our own helium by banging hydrogen atoms together.
An interesting point; Stallman's first 'slap in the face' from propriatory software wasn't a closed operating system or application. It was a binary-only printer driver that he wanted to modify.
For this reason alone I'm now running an ATI card instead of an nvidia. The drivers may still have a few bugs but at least they're open, and they'll get better in time.
which is why you should stuff as much as you can into the 'prepaid reply envelopes' that they generously provide. :-)
"Publishing your method" is both the requirement and the entire point of getting a patent. If you want to keep your method secret, that would be a 'trade secret'.
IN THEORY you shouldn't be able to patent an idea that's trivially obvious or where prior art exists. Using checksums to identify files or verify that they were transferred correctly is trivially obvious, and fairly-much the reason checksums were invented. Prior art goes back to the 300-baud-modem days.
If you've opted for the 'trade secret' route, and someone manages to figure out how your protocol works, either by reverse-engineering (samba, etc) or by virtue of it simply being an obvious idea (checksums, hashes) then it's not a secret anymore. And it's not protected by patent.
If an employee or contractor leaks your secret you can take them to court and get injunctions to stop the secret spreading any further. But if you don't act quickly enough and your secret becomes public knowledge, you're S.O.L.
I'm also not a lawyer, but I have a vague idea of how things are supposed to work..
"64 billion should be enough for anybody" .. ?
Now I feel guilty about using the GIMP.. is it possible to send these guys a 1c donation via paypal?
:-}
Perhaps we should _all_ do that.
Dude, you rock! I never knew you could to do that in Linux :)
(Yeah, I'm an idiot, I should have known it was possible but I've got used to crap like my TV-out being unsupported, so I never thought about it. Why isn't this the default on major distro's already?)
For every slashdotting, there is an equal and opposite failure of the webserver?
The other half of 'don't give users root' - you need to set permissions or assign users to groups so that they never need root in normal use. And you should leave sshd running so that when a user calls, you can make these changes without leaving your desk.
/dev/floppy, /dev/cdrom; needs to automount when a disk is inserted, or be mountable and ejectable by a desktop icon.
Some examples;
dialup networking; use modemlights, kppp, or set up dial-on-demand.
shutting down; some distros require the root password to shutdown. If yours does, reconfigure this.
The end user shouldn't need root _ever_ for day-to-day computer use. If they want anything more than the basic 'look and feel' desktop settings changed, they should call tech support.
You might also want to make the machine console-secure as far as possible. Boot only from HDD, set a password on the bootloader and BIOS, replace the case screws with torx screws, etc. It depends who has physical access, and how secure you need to be.
English is a living language. People speaking English define the language, the OED merely documents 'popular use'.
I would have considered 'leverage' to be both a noun and a verb, but then I have a habit of verbing many of my nouns.
Even if all your web traffic was encrypted, multiple https sessions to a large number of different hosts, and doing a lot of traffic is _much_ different from normal websurfing. They could reliably detect and block this if it became common.
Here's my suggestion. Open an https session, and pass some sort of simple 'obfuscating' key to the sender. This is a short https session that can't easily be distinguished from normal web surfing.
Then the sender obfuscates the data with your key, and send it back to you via a 'plaintext' FTP session. Nothing identifies the data as encrypted, but it's also not recognisable as a 'copyrighted' work. What are they going to do, block all ftp?
Errr.. what?
Any kind of voter-verifiable trail needs to be simple enough that the ordinary person can understand and trust it.
Barcodes, encryption, etc all fail this test, no matter how untamperable they might be. If you want the paper trail to be machine readable, you want a list of names in plain text with a big black machine-readable DOT next to the name they voted for.
A human-readable paper vote, placed into a locked box, and counted under the scrutiny of multiple volunteers is the only system of voting I'll ever trust.
I don't think they're insuring against SCO winning., the code review means they're pretty confident SCO has no case.
They're insuring against individual nusance lawsuits from SCO, and similar bottom-feeders that may start up this path in the future.
It's MONDAY here, you insensitive clod!
Put the content on another domain. EG in this particular case all the filtered content is already hosted on asstr.org, so she could simply link to the archive and NOT have it hosted on her homepage.
At least they're not blocking by IP address.
Do what I do;
Download 'putty', and SSH to your home machine.
From there you can run links, epic4, slrn, or basically any other text-based app. Nothing gets filtered, nothing incriminating shows up in the logs at your workplace, nothing ends up in your work cache or your local cache. And if you're worried about the boss walking in run screen first and have a 'top' session running that you can quickly switch to.
The problem is, your workplace is between a rock and a hard place; they can be sued for 'allowing' porn in the workplace but there are simply NO content filters that can reliably decide what is or isn't porn. Hell, even people's views of this differ. The best they can do is just block anything slightly dodgy, and if you really need to go there you'll have to get it all OK'd by the higher-up's.
Verne uses his Linux computer with speech synthesiser to play his audio (mostly the soundtrack of science and space-related TV programs from Discovery channel, which he records via cron jobs since they run them at stupid hours)
:)
The output from the computer is also fed into a small FM transmitter, so he can use an FM walkman or portable radio if he wants to listen while moving around. Unfortunately, there's no way of controllingthe audio thts way (ie skipping the ad-breaks)
Total cost == most of this stuff was being thrown away
OK, how about the install I just did..
Modem; not supported, had to download a driver. Linux would have been the same. Drivers available for both OS's
Nvidia 3d card; Windows supported all the modes, but came up in 800x600, 256 colours. Windows native drivers did NOT support proper 3d or detect the monitor until I probed for it, offering me modes the monitor couldn't display. Redhat's installer detects both the card and monitor, presents me with only displayable modes and suggests 1024x768 at 24 bits as a default. Proper 3d drivers available for both OS's, although I admit they're harder to install under Linux.
USB printer/scanner; not detected at all in Windows; requires 120M download of HP drivers. I'm not certain about Linux support, but a quick Google search suggests all of the HP "all-in-one" scanner/printers are supported at least. already
Network card; detected by both Windows and Linux, and DHCP's itself some network settings. Under Redhat Linux all ports are firewalled by default, and no servies are running. Under Windows XP, all ports are open and several insecure services such as UPNP and SMB are running. This machine connected to a cable modem would have picked up a worm in less than a minute.
I agree; but when people criticise Linux for not supporting your USB keyboard, winmodem, 3d card, etc. out of the box, it's worth pointing out that Windows also doesn't support 3D hardware, quite a few network cards, quite a few modems, some soundcards, etc. without a driver CD or download.
In general, I've found that Redhat picks up far more of the hardware I have without needing any extra configuration. Under windows, I need to install drivers for my camera, tuner card, and network card. Redhat can use them automatically with no additional downloads.
The bottom line; I wouldn't expect Grandma to install Redhat OR windows herself. But I suspect if she tried, she'd get a lot further installing Redhat. She'd at least have a working desktop, Openoffice, and some games by just clicking 'next' at every prompt.
Yes, I am slow. I've been doing other things at the same time and I had to download stuff that I didn't have recent versions for. I've done similar rebuilds in half a day before.
:)
I'm curious about your USB problems; RedHat and Debian both detected my USB camera without a hitch (it's the only USB device I own
You could switch on "legacy USB support" in BIOS and let that handle it? Or you could try a more mainstream distro; I've never been too impressed with Mandrake.
If each of those applications could be _completely_ removed and replaced, it might not be a problem. The real issue with IE/OE/MP is that Microsoft claim they're "Part of the OS" and can't be removed.
:) I doubt anyone would have a problem with it.
:)
If Windows came pre-loaded with multiple third-party products (as FC1 effectively does; it's all third-party products
If I could buy XP for $50 boxed, stamped CD with printed manual, and it came with all that, then it might actually start to compete with Linux
Yes I admit if you have some one set it up well, any one can use it.
I've just spent two days setting up XP for some friends, finding drivers for the 3d card, sound and modem, installing Norton, OOo, gimp, and some other apps. I've still got Nero and a firewall to sort out.
Why? Normally the OEM sorts all this out for you. In this case the OEM install that it had was so loaded up with bloatware, advertising and crap that it ran like shit. It's a 1.8GHz machine, and it was performing worse than the old P166 my kids use.
If I had been installing FC1 I would already have basically everything I get with Windows PLUS OpenOffice, Gimp, a bunch of games, cd burning software, a firewall, and no need for a virus scanner.
When's the last time Grandma had to reinstall Windows? How'd it go for her?
Trusted Computing and DRM _done right_ could be good for the consumer.
What wories me is half-assed DRM forced onto the consumer by a Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA-style partnership. Microsoft is dead-keen to go this way because it's the ultimate answer to 'decomoditizing' of protocols, backed up by the DMCA.
And in three years when Longhorn's been out a while, you've spent a few grand on movies and music online, and all your mail is in an encrypted protocol, some virus is going to come along that erases everyone's encryption keys.
It'll happen, because Microsoft's next OS is going to be little more secure than their last one.
Microsoft's idea of 'code signing' is only going to be as well implimented as their idea of a Mail Client, Media Player, Web Browser, or Web Server.
And when it does happen, nobody is going to have any un-encrypted backups of their content (well, Duh!) or a working backup of those keys (because that would allow you to unlock content on multiple computers)
And a few people are going to realise that DRM has been really good for Microsoft and the content industry, but hasn't really helped the end user at all.
OTOH; if you want point-and-click, Ximian Red Carpet is similar to the "Windows Components" installer, but handles a much broader range of software, and also lets you bring your system up to date with two or three mouseclicks and zero reboots.