It's a crime [quaker.org], not a war. If you want a reply, log in.
"I owe you no apologies nor will I accept those apologies made for me by others. If you dislike me, you dislike me not for what I am but for what you are not. By my own sweat, I have created a lifestyle which I desire for all men. To the world I have shared my wealth and given my blood, not because of obligation -- but by my free will. I have fed the hungry of the world. Many bit my hand; I used the other hand. I defeated my enemies in battle, then pulled them up from the ashes of defeat. Once strong, they again attacked; I turned the other cheek. Though I am strong, I have never used my strength to rule others. But do not misjudge me. I will not allow the fear of my own strength to become my weakness. If you wish to rise, I will give you a helping hand. But by the grace of God, and I'll first be damned, if I'll let you drag me down...."
-- D. Ault
It *is* a crime - one wrought by an international organization of criminals. We have been tormented for years, yet have made no substantial response. We have stood tall, we have stood fast, only to be attacked yet again. The perpatrators of this havoc cannot be sought, tried and convicted by normal means. We are not at war - we are defending our freedom.
The world will move on, and the American people will forget before this war will be done. But 5000 Americans will still be dead. There is nothing to stop it from happening again. Be glad you live in a country that has the strength and capability to try and change that.
This could actually be a good thing - if done right, the result will be a centrally managed network service delivery point for the Gov't. The end result could actually be cheaper than the current combined costs of running separately managed NOCs for each gov't organization.
Create a new organization - a gov't NOC.
Remove existing internet connections for gov't agencies.
Add new connection from gov't agency to the new NOC.
New organization maintains connection(s) to the Internet cloud from their NOC.
Allows:
Connections to be used for voice, data, VTC, etc., between gov't agencies.
Single connection to the Internet to be highly-controlled, throttled or shut down in times of crisis.
Single point of administrative control of networks allowing standardization of infrastructure through policy.
This is basically the way the military handles things, and it works fairly well. The largest issue is that the military had much of this infrastructure in place prior to the huge growth of computer networks, so much of the infrastructure isn't as integrated as it should be. I'd love to be able to design a system like that from the ground up. Can you say Voice-over-IP in all US government agencies?
As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather hear about it now, instead of back in June. Then it was just a paper presented at a conference. There's thousands of those, and I've presented a few myself.
Now, however, it's a paper that's been published in Nature. Can't say that I've ever had that distinction.
It's too much work to make a broad sweeping change like that.
The best solution is a mapping: organize sites into a hierarchical, location-driven, context-intelligent system like you describe, and map those to their current domain.
The interview on 60 Minutes was not with the Director of NSA - it was with the ex-director of NSA. How else do you think he got on 60 Minutes?
The current director, General Hayden, has made leaps and bounds in overcoming the beaucracy in the NSA in the recent years.
Things are getting better. It's difficult to create a government organization that's dynamic, flexible and responsive to changing trends in the technological sector. The NSA was at one time, and perhaps will be again.
Heh, not that different. I'd be willing to bet that the enlisted troops at the Fab shop on Guam would still do you a few favors for a bottle or two of 'Ole Granddad'
Only on Slashdot...
on
Dorm Storm?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Only on Slashdot can that comment be "Insightful," as opposed to "Funny"
Wrong idea. Assuming that they have successfully put a black box on the bottom of the ocean to intercept trans-Atlantic fiber signals, they are most definately not actually 'splicing' into the fiber, nor are they re-transmitting anything. The interception is an entirely passive system.
All you have to do is bend a piece of fiber slightly - just enough to slightly alter the reflection properties of the cladding. A small percentage of the light will be refracted out of the glass, allowing whomever to intercept it and read the signals.
The only thing that the receiving end will notice is a slight increase in the dB loss. They may notice if they've already established a baseline, but in a trans-oceanic fiber, there are too many things that can degrade the capability of a fiber. A few extra dB loss wouldn't be a worry.
The danger with these systems is not the encryption method used, but the legal agreement you have to sign in order to be able to make a compliant device. The penalties for not toeing the line are enormous.
That's precisely why it won't last. There is no technological barrier that cannot be overcome. What baffles me is that these companies invest millions of dollars into a technology that relies on
1) everyone keeping their mouth shut and
2) everyone following the established security policies.
From the If-It-Weren't-So-Sad-It-Would-Be-Funny Department, yesterday when Netscape (apparently) deprecated RSS and broke all the links to their RSS stuff, they also broke people whose XML parsers require a DTD. The old URL for the RSS 0.91 DTD is totally 404 not found. John Munsch has a report from the field. I put a copy of the DTD into a folder here on scripting.com, and it will stay there, Murphy-willing, for perpetuity.
I mean, puh-leaze. We get all fired up at a web-enabled Pinball machine or a web-enabled Coke machine because it's a good hack.
Now, someone actually hacks a air conditioner with an ethernet interface (a cheap $10 part) to report back it's operating stats (just a bit of clever engineering) via an uplink that's probably outside your structured cabling plant, but it quite likely in the same room or just over the wall from your existing comm room.
So now, the A/C guys get all the pleasure of sitting back and monitoring all their equipment via a single, central point, something we've enjoyed for years. Oh, and now they get to know when something breaks before you do.
I run the networks in a collection of rather large buildings. I just did a walkthru of the communications rooms with the contractor who's installing the new A/C units, because they're 'net enabled. Those guys are fired up over the level of control and knowledge they'll have over their systems.
So now, a couple rather large companies think that maybe, just maybe, home users might like the same level of control over their home systems? It's not like it's expensive - (that $10 part and a bit of Engineering) it's bringing enterprise level technology into the home.
You know, I've really got to hand it to the NSA. Somewhere, deep in that organization, is an individual who is driving this whole SELinux project, and I think it's safe to say that He's got a clue.
Don't think that it wasn't difficult for the NSA to do what we've seen with SELinux. For an organization who's entire history has been built upon the idea that incognito is good, this movement of opening up and embracing the open source community was certainly hampered by the knee-jerk reaction of middle-managers who can't imagine working openly with private companies, much less thousands of developers worldwide.
Bravo, NSA. And bravo, Mr. Man-behind-the-scenes who's making this happen. My hat's off to you.
I don't know what kind of field you're in, but I'd tend to agree with the idea that you find someone in your field who happens to have the skills you're looking for.
Most techies are inquisitive by nature, and would jump at the chance to get involved in a position like you describe. You've got a whole lot of good things that you're offering: flexible and everchanging job requirements, a sense of ownership, 'status' by being someone who's needed - as opposed to just another coder. Most importantly, you're offering the chance to do something different, by applying coding skills as a tool - it gets really, really old spending your days making the newest widget that no one is ever going to use.
However, the 'code as a tool' concept is defining characteristic of your ideal person - most Computer Science graduates enjoy code for code's sake, not code for your experiment's sake. You need to get outside the CS mindset and find other scientists and engineers who enjoy the research itself, and not just the code. There was an interview with John Carmack (highly respected coder) where he made a great point: most coders are all about instant gratification - code, compile and run. If it doesn't work, tweak, compile and run. Repeat until it does work. The folks you find with a pure programming background might not like the longer lead time that's associated with whatever you're trying to accomplish.
The important issue here is the terms of the contract. Unless it was explicitly stated in the terms of that contract that the code will remain open, (which, I assure you, it doesn't) then the DoD can do whatever they wish.
It doesn't matter what kind of liscense the code has already been released under. It really doesn't matter what you want. The DoD owns the code, because they paid you to develop it. If they want to incorporate it into a closed system, then they have the power to do so. If you raise a ruckus and attempt to stand in the way of that, you'll find yourself replaced, quickly.
The problem with reading source code is that it's a lot like art. Not art the idea, but art the thing. (Writing good code is an art (the idea) but that's not the point)
Art is enitrely subjective. And the definition of good code is subjective. You realize this, and state that you're not interested in what defines excellent code. But we do agree that to find excellent (to you) code, you're going to have to dig through a lot of good (to others) code before you find that gem. Which leads to the next problem...
Art takes study to fully understand. And again, excellent code takes study to fully understand. Some will say that the ability to understand code quickly is an element of excellence, but this goes back to the first point, that art is subjective. Perhaps someone else places versatile and consistent APIs across a tool set above readability. Programmers are always making trade-offs between the relative incline of the learning curve and the power of the interface. (windows vs. unix, for example)
You can continue the analogy for a while, but these two combine to make a situation where you're going to have a tough time finding good code. You'll get tons of submissions of what excellent code is, but to make that distinction yourself, you're going to have to study each case in-depth.
...but from the other perspective. I use Southwestern Bell DSL, but I keep my primary e-mail with mailbank.com. Last weekend I kept noticing that I wasn't getting a successful connection to the mailbank.com address. After a few days, I finally did a traceroute to see what the issue was - same thing: routing loop. (not split horizion, and they're probably not using RIP or IGRP, but that's beside the point.)
The problem was that it was with SWBell's backbone provider. And, as it turns out, it was actually with SWB's provider's provider. I called tech support and attempted to be polite and explain the problem to the tech who picked up the phone. After getting the runaround, I quickly thanked her, and hung up. Then I called right back.
This time I immediately asked to speak to the second tier technician. When he asked why, I bowled him over with so much technical jargon and FUD ("This has the potential to be affecting thousands of users!") that he transferred me to a technician with their provider's tech support without another question.
Unfortunately, that guy only had slightly more of a clue than the first did. The problem arose when this guy didn't have another POC to pass it off to. He promised to bring it up with his supervisor as soon as he came in. (it was 7am) I thanked him for his troubles, and asked him to keep me posted on what happened.
Just yesterday he e-mailed me back - his supervisor said the problem wasn't with them, so to send it back to SWB. SWB determined that since I could reach their POP servers without trouble, it wasn't their responsbility.
(sigh) Luckily, someone at the backbone provider noticed, because it was fixed Wednesday sometime.
It would've been nice though, to simply be able to call them directly, and speak with someone who cared about and understood the terms 'routing loop'.
You know, the idea of Instant Messenging service becoming a major sticking point between the merger of two multi-billion dollar corporations strikes me as somewhat silly. But while reading the constraints that AOL is bound to by the FCCs decision, I'm struck by an interesting thought.
In order to neutralize the effectiveness of AOLs IM in competetive situations, the FCC is trying to force AOL to create and adhere to a standard, so that any company can create an IM client, and interact with AOL's.
Using an established standard, to open up a company's monopoly on services.
What if the Justice Department had saddled Microsoft with similar constraints? Standardize the document and spreadsheet formats, so that any word processor or spreadsheet application can read, edit and save documents. For people in the business world, this is easily the biggest hurdle to switching to Linux. (yes, yes, yes, I know, "Linux will do it, freedom from the yoke of MS control! without their help!" spare me. it's not perfect, and it needs to be)
If people had the freedom to choose which program they used to read their documents, then Microsoft would have to work a lot harder to build better software. Attarct users based on the qualities of the software, not based on what format your files are in. We'd see more word processors crop up, more spreadsheet applications, because suddenly there would be this gigantic installed base of users, itching to try out something little/yellow/different/better.
So. That whole idea is not really fully developed, but I've got to run. You want to finish it off for me and solidify it bit, feel free.
You know, if I were a troll, I'd be in hog heaven. this is typical slashdot knee-jerk BS.
I finally signed up for an ebay account a few weeks ago.
And I didn't receive this e-mail.
Is it possible, just for a second, that, God forbid, they're telling the truth, and some mysterious "error" DID occur when you signed up?
Imagine this: monthly (annual, bi-annual, first, whatever) audit shows that for the users that created accounts from the period of A to B, there is an abnormal number of users who selected to recieve no communications at all. After a bit of checking it turns out that sure enough, there was a problem. So now you have this block of thousands of users whose communications preferences you don't know. What do you do?
Ignore it? Yeah, the PHBs will love that.
Send an e-mail explaining that there was an error, and ask them to review their 'communication preferences'? Won't work, because folks like my Mom will get lost, quickly.
Send an e-mail explaining that there was an error, set them back to defaults, and apologize? This, to me, seems like the best option, because if you turned the settings off, then you obviously wanted them off, and will go through the trouble to turn them off again. Unlike my mom, who doesn't know one way or the other.
A quick deja.com search is pretty ugly regarding the Dulux DVD player. Most of the users' stories are similar to Adam's: delays, no response and no refunds. The one userdid get his, but due to the problems it has, is shipping it back. (Follow the rest of the thread for more info)
Slashdot Mirror
It *is* a crime - one wrought by an international organization of criminals. We have been tormented for years, yet have made no substantial response. We have stood tall, we have stood fast, only to be attacked yet again. The perpatrators of this havoc cannot be sought, tried and convicted by normal means. We are not at war - we are defending our freedom.
The world will move on, and the American people will forget before this war will be done. But 5000 Americans will still be dead. There is nothing to stop it from happening again. Be glad you live in a country that has the strength and capability to try and change that.
J.J.
Allows:
This is basically the way the military handles things, and it works fairly well. The largest issue is that the military had much of this infrastructure in place prior to the huge growth of computer networks, so much of the infrastructure isn't as integrated as it should be. I'd love to be able to design a system like that from the ground up. Can you say Voice-over-IP in all US government agencies?
Good things, indeed.
JJ
disclaimer: I run networks for the military...
...but was published in Nature 27 Sep 01.
As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather hear about it now, instead of back in June. Then it was just a paper presented at a conference. There's thousands of those, and I've presented a few myself.
Now, however, it's a paper that's been published in Nature. Can't say that I've ever had that distinction.
J.J.
It's too much work to make a broad sweeping change like that.
The best solution is a mapping: organize sites into a hierarchical, location-driven, context-intelligent system like you describe, and map those to their current domain.
This, of course, has already been done.
J.J.
See for yourself. Recently closed items w/ "Diablo II" in the title, sorted by closing price.
The interview on 60 Minutes was not with the Director of NSA - it was with the ex-director of NSA. How else do you think he got on 60 Minutes?
The current director, General Hayden, has made leaps and bounds in overcoming the beaucracy in the NSA in the recent years.
Things are getting better. It's difficult to create a government organization that's dynamic, flexible and responsive to changing trends in the technological sector. The NSA was at one time, and perhaps will be again.
Heh, not that different. I'd be willing to bet that the enlisted troops at the Fab shop on Guam would still do you a few favors for a bottle or two of 'Ole Granddad'
Only on Slashdot can that comment be "Insightful," as opposed to "Funny"
Wrong idea. Assuming that they have successfully put a black box on the bottom of the ocean to intercept trans-Atlantic fiber signals, they are most definately not actually 'splicing' into the fiber, nor are they re-transmitting anything. The interception is an entirely passive system.
All you have to do is bend a piece of fiber slightly - just enough to slightly alter the reflection properties of the cladding. A small percentage of the light will be refracted out of the glass, allowing whomever to intercept it and read the signals.
The only thing that the receiving end will notice is a slight increase in the dB loss. They may notice if they've already established a baseline, but in a trans-oceanic fiber, there are too many things that can degrade the capability of a fiber. A few extra dB loss wouldn't be a worry.
JJ
The danger with these systems is not the encryption method used, but the legal agreement you have to sign in order to be able to make a compliant device. The penalties for not toeing the line are enormous.
That's precisely why it won't last. There is no technological barrier that cannot be overcome. What baffles me is that these companies invest millions of dollars into a technology that relies on
1) everyone keeping their mouth shut and
2) everyone following the established security policies.
Why was the DVD encryption broken? Carelessness.
It won't last.
J.J.
(sigh)
When will they learn?
If they make it, we'll break it. Period.
http://www.lariat.org
Lariat is the Laramie Internet Access and Telecommunications group. It's an ISP co-op in Laramie, Wyoming, run by users and for users.
They have some information on their site that you might find useful.
J.J.
From Dave's Scripting News on Friday, 27 Apr 01:
From the If-It-Weren't-So-Sad-It-Would-Be-Funny Department, yesterday when Netscape (apparently) deprecated RSS and broke all the links to their RSS stuff, they also broke people whose XML parsers require a DTD. The old URL for the RSS 0.91 DTD is totally 404 not found. John Munsch has a report from the field. I put a copy of the DTD into a folder here on scripting.com, and it will stay there, Murphy-willing, for perpetuity.
You can find his copy of the DTD here.
J.J.
obligatory no login link
I mean, puh-leaze. We get all fired up at a web-enabled Pinball machine or a web-enabled Coke machine because it's a good hack.
Now, someone actually hacks a air conditioner with an ethernet interface (a cheap $10 part) to report back it's operating stats (just a bit of clever engineering) via an uplink that's probably outside your structured cabling plant, but it quite likely in the same room or just over the wall from your existing comm room.
So now, the A/C guys get all the pleasure of sitting back and monitoring all their equipment via a single, central point, something we've enjoyed for years. Oh, and now they get to know when something breaks before you do.
I run the networks in a collection of rather large buildings. I just did a walkthru of the communications rooms with the contractor who's installing the new A/C units, because they're 'net enabled. Those guys are fired up over the level of control and knowledge they'll have over their systems.
So now, a couple rather large companies think that maybe, just maybe, home users might like the same level of control over their home systems? It's not like it's expensive - (that $10 part and a bit of Engineering) it's bringing enterprise level technology into the home.
Don't we usually like that?
J.J.
You know, I've really got to hand it to the NSA. Somewhere, deep in that organization, is an individual who is driving this whole SELinux project, and I think it's safe to say that He's got a clue.
Don't think that it wasn't difficult for the NSA to do what we've seen with SELinux. For an organization who's entire history has been built upon the idea that incognito is good, this movement of opening up and embracing the open source community was certainly hampered by the knee-jerk reaction of middle-managers who can't imagine working openly with private companies, much less thousands of developers worldwide.
Bravo, NSA. And bravo, Mr. Man-behind-the-scenes who's making this happen. My hat's off to you.
I don't know what kind of field you're in, but I'd tend to agree with the idea that you find someone in your field who happens to have the skills you're looking for.
Most techies are inquisitive by nature, and would jump at the chance to get involved in a position like you describe. You've got a whole lot of good things that you're offering: flexible and everchanging job requirements, a sense of ownership, 'status' by being someone who's needed - as opposed to just another coder. Most importantly, you're offering the chance to do something different, by applying coding skills as a tool - it gets really, really old spending your days making the newest widget that no one is ever going to use.
However, the 'code as a tool' concept is defining characteristic of your ideal person - most Computer Science graduates enjoy code for code's sake, not code for your experiment's sake. You need to get outside the CS mindset and find other scientists and engineers who enjoy the research itself, and not just the code. There was an interview with John Carmack (highly respected coder) where he made a great point: most coders are all about instant gratification - code, compile and run. If it doesn't work, tweak, compile and run. Repeat until it does work. The folks you find with a pure programming background might not like the longer lead time that's associated with whatever you're trying to accomplish.
Random thoughts,
J.J.
The important issue here is the terms of the contract. Unless it was explicitly stated in the terms of that contract that the code will remain open, (which, I assure you, it doesn't) then the DoD can do whatever they wish.
It doesn't matter what kind of liscense the code has already been released under. It really doesn't matter what you want. The DoD owns the code, because they paid you to develop it. If they want to incorporate it into a closed system, then they have the power to do so. If you raise a ruckus and attempt to stand in the way of that, you'll find yourself replaced, quickly.
J.J.
...but I'll still point out for the masses that human cloning made the cover of Time this week. linkage
The problem with reading source code is that it's a lot like art. Not art the idea, but art the thing. (Writing good code is an art (the idea) but that's not the point)
Art is enitrely subjective. And the definition of good code is subjective. You realize this, and state that you're not interested in what defines excellent code. But we do agree that to find excellent (to you) code, you're going to have to dig through a lot of good (to others) code before you find that gem. Which leads to the next problem...
Art takes study to fully understand. And again, excellent code takes study to fully understand. Some will say that the ability to understand code quickly is an element of excellence, but this goes back to the first point, that art is subjective. Perhaps someone else places versatile and consistent APIs across a tool set above readability. Programmers are always making trade-offs between the relative incline of the learning curve and the power of the interface. (windows vs. unix, for example)
You can continue the analogy for a while, but these two combine to make a situation where you're going to have a tough time finding good code. You'll get tons of submissions of what excellent code is, but to make that distinction yourself, you're going to have to study each case in-depth.
Good luck.
J.J.
...but from the other perspective. I use Southwestern Bell DSL, but I keep my primary e-mail with mailbank.com. Last weekend I kept noticing that I wasn't getting a successful connection to the mailbank.com address. After a few days, I finally did a traceroute to see what the issue was - same thing: routing loop. (not split horizion, and they're probably not using RIP or IGRP, but that's beside the point.)
The problem was that it was with SWBell's backbone provider. And, as it turns out, it was actually with SWB's provider's provider. I called tech support and attempted to be polite and explain the problem to the tech who picked up the phone. After getting the runaround, I quickly thanked her, and hung up. Then I called right back.
This time I immediately asked to speak to the second tier technician. When he asked why, I bowled him over with so much technical jargon and FUD ("This has the potential to be affecting thousands of users!") that he transferred me to a technician with their provider's tech support without another question.
Unfortunately, that guy only had slightly more of a clue than the first did. The problem arose when this guy didn't have another POC to pass it off to. He promised to bring it up with his supervisor as soon as he came in. (it was 7am) I thanked him for his troubles, and asked him to keep me posted on what happened.
Just yesterday he e-mailed me back - his supervisor said the problem wasn't with them, so to send it back to SWB. SWB determined that since I could reach their POP servers without trouble, it wasn't their responsbility.
(sigh) Luckily, someone at the backbone provider noticed, because it was fixed Wednesday sometime.
It would've been nice though, to simply be able to call them directly, and speak with someone who cared about and understood the terms 'routing loop'.
J.J.
You know, the idea of Instant Messenging service becoming a major sticking point between the merger of two multi-billion dollar corporations strikes me as somewhat silly. But while reading the constraints that AOL is bound to by the FCCs decision, I'm struck by an interesting thought.
In order to neutralize the effectiveness of AOLs IM in competetive situations, the FCC is trying to force AOL to create and adhere to a standard, so that any company can create an IM client, and interact with AOL's.
Using an established standard, to open up a company's monopoly on services.
What if the Justice Department had saddled Microsoft with similar constraints? Standardize the document and spreadsheet formats, so that any word processor or spreadsheet application can read, edit and save documents. For people in the business world, this is easily the biggest hurdle to switching to Linux. (yes, yes, yes, I know, "Linux will do it, freedom from the yoke of MS control! without their help!" spare me. it's not perfect, and it needs to be)
If people had the freedom to choose which program they used to read their documents, then Microsoft would have to work a lot harder to build better software. Attarct users based on the qualities of the software, not based on what format your files are in. We'd see more word processors crop up, more spreadsheet applications, because suddenly there would be this gigantic installed base of users, itching to try out something little/yellow/different/better.
So. That whole idea is not really fully developed, but I've got to run. You want to finish it off for me and solidify it bit, feel free.
J.J.
Actually, no.
This patent refers to the all-terrain wheelchair that is Kamen's most recent invention. See Fig. 4.
J.J.
You know, if I were a troll, I'd be in hog heaven. this is typical slashdot knee-jerk BS.
I finally signed up for an ebay account a few weeks ago.
And I didn't receive this e-mail.
Is it possible, just for a second, that, God forbid, they're telling the truth, and some mysterious "error" DID occur when you signed up?
Imagine this: monthly (annual, bi-annual, first, whatever) audit shows that for the users that created accounts from the period of A to B, there is an abnormal number of users who selected to recieve no communications at all. After a bit of checking it turns out that sure enough, there was a problem. So now you have this block of thousands of users whose communications preferences you don't know. What do you do?
Ignore it? Yeah, the PHBs will love that.
Send an e-mail explaining that there was an error, and ask them to review their 'communication preferences'? Won't work, because folks like my Mom will get lost, quickly.
Send an e-mail explaining that there was an error, set them back to defaults, and apologize? This, to me, seems like the best option, because if you turned the settings off, then you obviously wanted them off, and will go through the trouble to turn them off again. Unlike my mom, who doesn't know one way or the other.
Suck it up, folks.
J.J.
A quick deja.com search is pretty ugly regarding the Dulux DVD player. Most of the users' stories are similar to Adam's: delays, no response and no refunds. The one user did get his, but due to the problems it has, is shipping it back. (Follow the rest of the thread for more info)
J.J.