There are two distinct possibilities. I will be generous and present them in order of highest benefit to M$:
This was M$'s plan all along. The have a long history of doing something dorky at first, only later to do something that comes closer to being the right thing. This gives them the feeling of having done the right thing while giving us confirmation that M$ is run by dorks.
M$ is still suffering from Y2K fallout and they are just now getting their systems to recognize Y2K dates (as of 3 weeks ago). Unfortunately, they have not had the opportunity to send the college interns around to reset all of the system clocks, a task that most of us handle by having our systems access a central clock.
Damn! that's a long brain puke for somebody who doesn't call theirself "Hemos!!!" Are we absolutely sure "Greg Roelofs" != "Hemos?" Or, is Hemos masquerading as jaime to make up this stuff?
Anyway, thanks for the update on the status of PNG.
Of these the first one "Court is avoided. Life returns to normal." is the worst.
If the parties "concerned" come to some sort of agreement that avoids a full trial the GPL is left in Limbo. At least with options 2 and 3 you know whether you need to redevelop the license.
If the GPL is upheld we all have a reason to rejoice. If not upheld, we can get input on why and what needs to be done to get a GPL-like license upheld.
I can see it now... It makes it sooo easy to share all of your most confidential information with everybody in the whole damn world. Any thing written to stdout also pushes the entire content of your corporate intranet to a special BillLocutusGates@hotmail.com address that is really a global mailing list.
Meanwhile, once you have posted to the list you are added to the FSCKMEINTHEA$$ mailing list (hosted by MS, or at least half of MS) that feeds your system every possible virus permutation imaginable by way of the special back door on port 666 that the C# jit compiler creates upon first execution.
Actually, I do use Windows on a daily basis. I am sitting at a WinNT-SP6 station right now. I do not consider "a few reboots per month" to be stable. I know of Linux boxes have been running without reboots for upwards of 8 months and, they were only rebooted then because of new hardware installation. This NT box I'm sitting at now gets rebooted once a week whether I like it or not.
As for Win2k, Until problems with the special Kerberos "extensions" are worked out our campus is being given a very strong caution against switching to it and the server edition is forbidden on the network.
"Cheap student editions?" Yes, the price has been reduced for academic packaging but, for the same functionality I can still use the free tools that came bundled with my free OS.
Why should I pay $139 for Win2k (upgrade, academic price) plus another $100 (academic price) for Visual C++ 6.0 Pro. or, $260 (academic) for Visual Studio 6.0 Pro. when I can have RedHat Linux 6.2 Deluxe for $79.95 (regular price) including all of the tools I need?
System stability is "fluff?"Coding and file manipulation tools are "fluff?"gcc is "fluff?"
I beg to differ.
What about the fact that you have access to a truly complete definition of the API? Does this guy realize that there things that MS does with their code that others can't because the API is less than fully documented in the public arena?
Additionally, if you want to compile on a MS platform you pretty much have to shell out several hundred dollars for your tools. On Linux your tools are included with the distribution that you can acquire completely free from many places.
Perhaps some of these orphans will be adopted. Any cracker wannabe should look here for ideas.
DeCSS will be good for DVD
on
DeCSS Update
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· Score: 2
Someday, the industry honchos will figure out that DeCSS can actually be very good for DVD. The technology, if used correctly, can actually be used to generate a much wider market of DVD users, and produce higher sales of DVD merchandise.
This REALLY rocks. We may soon have a legitimate, legally distributable DVD player for Linux! I wonder how many of us will then consider the possiblity of purging our file systems of our tucked away copies of the DeCSS code. I know I will be hanging onto mine if for no other reason than to study the code and its methods.
Re:A cautionary tale of Web design
on
Boo No More
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· Score: 1
Hey! Don't knock librarians! They've been in the information biz FOREVER!
If you follow the link from my ID. You'll see that I agree whole heartedly.
If Julius hadn't been such a power hungry jerk consumed by fits of jealousy we might still have the library at Alexandria.
Keith Higgs Digital Library Specialist University Library Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio Home of this year's World Champion Cleveland Indians
Re:A cautionary tale of Web design
on
Boo No More
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· Score: 2
Point well made. However, in no way does that these toys should never be used. The key is to use them effectively and conservatively. Not conservatively in the political sense but, try to remember that just because it gets your geek rocks off doesn't mean squat to the librarian down the street who just wants to buy a couple of ounces of herbal tea via this newfangled internet gizmo.
Personally, I use rollovers and other Javascript toys a lot. However, I aim to make them a minor part of the page and use them only where they genuinely enhance the user experience, and with small footprint images. No full screen rollovers will ever be found on one of my pages, ever, period, end of sentence.
If you don't really have anything to say you only prove that fact by maxing out the special effects. (Does anybody know if George Lucas reads/.?)
Somebody place a call to Lesley H Wexner. You know, the guy who owns Galyans, Abercrombe & Fitch, Lerners, The Limited, and Victoria's Secret. Les is just about due to buy another venture.
First off, the obligatory "IANAL" statement: I Am Not A Lawyer." But, as a web manager for a library at a prestigeous academic institution I have more than enough opportunity to get exposure to (C) policies, practices and regulations.
That said, HTML in itself is no more (C)-able than source code in any other language (C, C++, Perl, Chinese, etc...). HTML is an internationally agreed upon standard subset of SGML, another ISO standardized language for data formatting.
However, if they had done something truely novel or innovative (which I doubt, since you state that their code was produced by commercially available software) they might be able to apply for Patent. Since HTML is so extensively documented in the public arena it is unlikely that any such patent application would pass the scrutiny of even the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.;-)
My reasonably well informed laymans legal opinion is that HTML code in and of itself is not (C)-able. The information that is being presented may or may not be (C)-able by the agency that owns it.
Let them sue. In the mean time, investigate the "nuisance law suite" laws in your area and see if you can bring a counter suit to recover every cent this will cost you and your client plus punitive damages for being idiots. Seek a summary judgement so it doesn't have to take up any real court time.
Now, I don't mean to be dispairaging of our readers of the Aussie persuasion. I've read a lot of truly excellent posts by those from Oz. But, from what I've heard, if they're looking for black holes, you couldn't look in a more likely place than the Aussie Outback. I mean, there's practically nothing there, and the few inhabitants that are there are so dense that their gravity well even managed to suck down SkyLab several years back.
On first read of carefully orchestrated headlines it *sounds* like MS may be going open source in a big way. Not at all. All they're doing is expanding the developer base by allowing a lot more of us access to the peripheral source data that a lot of development houses have already.
There's less than a snowballs chance in Hell that MS is going to release the information about all of their insider OS hooks that they keep for themselves.
If MS really wanted to push Windows app development forward they would publish information on all of the little built-in OS hooks they have.
Back in the early days of radio the music industry corporate types (record label executives) saw radio as a threat to their livelyhood. The music industry at large then discovered that radio airplay actually sold more records. As a direct result of free-to-the-listener radio the recording industry grown at rates it never could achieve without the exposure provided by radio, even with people recording from the radio at home.
Now that broadband internet access is available we are seeing the same types of posturing from the music industry and the listeners. The question has been posed again: "why would people pay for my work if they can download it free?" This was exactly the question in the early days of radio. If suitable anti-piracy measures can be put in place to prevent the financial collapse of the recording industry that some doomsayers claim we could be facing I would forsee a time when the music industry and internet based "radio" will coexist peacefully.
The technology exists today to design a secure file format that requires the presence of a keyserver to allow access to information. Data files can be securely formatted to deny access unless an acceptable key is presented and accepted by the server. This technology could lead to an individual listener license to be purchased with a commercial distribution, or through a licensing agency via mail, telephone, or online service. Would a method of implementing some sort of individual listener license whereby I (as a listener) purchase a device portable license to specific online artistic works be interesting to you as an artist?
So now I can dump all of my browsers and just use my media player.
One less thing to take up disk space. One less thing to crash the system. If it runs on PalmOS and fits in my limited memory I'll start showing colleagues that Victoria's Secret fashion show during meetings. 8=]
That's just it... "algorithms and keys." But, nobody with half a brain would ever keep the algorithms AND the keys in the same place. If you use a strong enough key you'll have plenty of time to detect a crack attempt. Once detected you can start changing your keys on a much more frequent basis. If a cracker can't get a reliable key they'll eventually be forced to give up on breaking your security.
The report (earlier this week) was that the source would be posted to and freely downloadable from one of the many Intel servers. They will make it relatively easy to find too. So, yes, it's free.
Your challenge is to then find the holes and patch them.
Slashdot Mirror
So, Now's your chance to METAMODERATE!
There are two distinct possibilities. I will be generous and present them in order of highest benefit to M$:
Anyway, thanks for the update on the status of PNG.
If the parties "concerned" come to some sort of agreement that avoids a full trial the GPL is left in Limbo. At least with options 2 and 3 you know whether you need to redevelop the license.
If the GPL is upheld we all have a reason to rejoice. If not upheld, we can get input on why and what needs to be done to get a GPL-like license upheld.
Meanwhile, once you have posted to the list you are added to the FSCKMEINTHEA$$ mailing list (hosted by MS, or at least half of MS) that feeds your system every possible virus permutation imaginable by way of the special back door on port 666 that the C# jit compiler creates upon first execution.
As for Win2k, Until problems with the special Kerberos "extensions" are worked out our campus is being given a very strong caution against switching to it and the server edition is forbidden on the network.
"Cheap student editions?" Yes, the price has been reduced for academic packaging but, for the same functionality I can still use the free tools that came bundled with my free OS.
Why should I pay $139 for Win2k (upgrade, academic price) plus another $100 (academic price) for Visual C++ 6.0 Pro. or, $260 (academic) for Visual Studio 6.0 Pro. when I can have RedHat Linux 6.2 Deluxe for $79.95 (regular price) including all of the tools I need?
I beg to differ.
What about the fact that you have access to a truly complete definition of the API? Does this guy realize that there things that MS does with their code that others can't because the API is less than fully documented in the public arena?
Additionally, if you want to compile on a MS platform you pretty much have to shell out several hundred dollars for your tools. On Linux your tools are included with the distribution that you can acquire completely free from many places.
Let's see here, Linux has:
- Stable systems
- Free OS
- Lots of FREE tools, Woohoo!
- Open API
Whereas, Microsoft has:- Questionable stability
- $200+ for the OS
- Expensive tools
- Only a SEMI-open API
I think Linux wins 4-0!!Perhaps some of these orphans will be adopted. Any cracker wannabe should look here for ideas.
Someday, the industry honchos will figure out that DeCSS can actually be very good for DVD. The technology, if used correctly, can actually be used to generate a much wider market of DVD users, and produce higher sales of DVD merchandise.
This REALLY rocks. We may soon have a legitimate, legally distributable DVD player for Linux! I wonder how many of us will then consider the possiblity of purging our file systems of our tucked away copies of the DeCSS code. I know I will be hanging onto mine if for no other reason than to study the code and its methods.
If you follow the link from my ID. You'll see that I agree whole heartedly.
If Julius hadn't been such a power hungry jerk consumed by fits of jealousy we might still have the library at Alexandria.
Keith Higgs
Digital Library Specialist
University Library
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio Home of this year's World Champion Cleveland Indians
Personally, I use rollovers and other Javascript toys a lot. However, I aim to make them a minor part of the page and use them only where they genuinely enhance the user experience, and with small footprint images. No full screen rollovers will ever be found on one of my pages, ever, period, end of sentence.
If you don't really have anything to say you only prove that fact by maxing out the special effects. (Does anybody know if George Lucas reads /.?)
Somebody place a call to Lesley H Wexner. You know, the guy who owns Galyans, Abercrombe & Fitch, Lerners, The Limited, and Victoria's Secret. Les is just about due to buy another venture.
- Microsoft.com. Search for exact phrase "SAMBA." (include the period)
- Web Workshop - CIFS Products and Vendors
- Samba
- At the bottom of the page select Linuxcare
- then click the Linuxcare logo to go to the US site for Linuxcare
- Under Linux Links select News/Press
- then, finally, Slashdot!
Voila! Microsoft to Slashdot and back in under 10 links.Yeah, I know it's old, but it's still true.
That said, HTML in itself is no more (C)-able than source code in any other language (C, C++, Perl, Chinese, etc...). HTML is an internationally agreed upon standard subset of SGML, another ISO standardized language for data formatting.
However, if they had done something truely novel or innovative (which I doubt, since you state that their code was produced by commercially available software) they might be able to apply for Patent. Since HTML is so extensively documented in the public arena it is unlikely that any such patent application would pass the scrutiny of even the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ;-)
My reasonably well informed laymans legal opinion is that HTML code in and of itself is not (C)-able. The information that is being presented may or may not be (C)-able by the agency that owns it.
Let them sue. In the mean time, investigate the "nuisance law suite" laws in your area and see if you can bring a counter suit to recover every cent this will cost you and your client plus punitive damages for being idiots. Seek a summary judgement so it doesn't have to take up any real court time.
Now, I don't mean to be dispairaging of our readers of the Aussie persuasion. I've read a lot of truly excellent posts by those from Oz. But, from what I've heard, if they're looking for black holes, you couldn't look in a more likely place than the Aussie Outback. I mean, there's practically nothing there, and the few inhabitants that are there are so dense that their gravity well even managed to suck down SkyLab several years back.
There's less than a snowballs chance in Hell that MS is going to release the information about all of their insider OS hooks that they keep for themselves.
If MS really wanted to push Windows app development forward they would publish information on all of the little built-in OS hooks they have.
Now that broadband internet access is available we are seeing the same types of posturing from the music industry and the listeners. The question has been posed again: "why would people pay for my work if they can download it free?" This was exactly the question in the early days of radio. If suitable anti-piracy measures can be put in place to prevent the financial collapse of the recording industry that some doomsayers claim we could be facing I would forsee a time when the music industry and internet based "radio" will coexist peacefully.
The technology exists today to design a secure file format that requires the presence of a keyserver to allow access to information. Data files can be securely formatted to deny access unless an acceptable key is presented and accepted by the server. This technology could lead to an individual listener license to be purchased with a commercial distribution, or through a licensing agency via mail, telephone, or online service. Would a method of implementing some sort of individual listener license whereby I (as a listener) purchase a device portable license to specific online artistic works be interesting to you as an artist?
One less thing to take up disk space.
One less thing to crash the system.
If it runs on PalmOS and fits in my limited memory I'll start showing colleagues that Victoria's Secret fashion show during meetings. 8=]
Actually, I did, and I agree. I just don't agree that this is an example of "security through obscurity."
So, download the source and tweak it to run on Alpha. Much easier said than done but, do-able.
That's just it... "algorithms and keys." But, nobody with half a brain would ever keep the algorithms AND the keys in the same place. If you use a strong enough key you'll have plenty of time to detect a crack attempt. Once detected you can start changing your keys on a much more frequent basis. If a cracker can't get a reliable key they'll eventually be forced to give up on breaking your security.
Source code is one thing. Implementation is another, and more important.
If their code is solid there should be no problems in securing a site with it.
Your challenge is to then find the holes and patch them.