Without a good understanding of the security in place, the best you can do is presumably minimize the risk. Only shop with places where your credit card details are NOT stored on their systems, and if they give you the option, remove them.
Personally I think the online world will be a much safer place once we have 'one-time' transaction numbers for specific amounts, much like American Express are apparantly introducing. Instead of giving any old company your full and 'permanent' credit card details, you go to your bank and ask them to provide you with a unique number for that individual transaction for a particular amount. It's then impossible for th company to store your details, mischarge you or charge you again in the future. Of course, we'd have to be confident that the credit card companies security is good, but I'd rather trust them than some merchant who's just about managed to get a Java e-commerce app running on his shared server.
"The Reimerdes case dealt with somebody who didn't have a right to the DVD but was cracking through it to get the code, whereas the Connectix case dealt with a situation where a company was legally entitled to be using the code and reverse-engineering it for purposes of interoperability."
Keith Kupferschmid, intellectual property counsel at the Software and Information Industry Association
I may be missing something here, but I don't see the distinction. PlayStation is a proprietary platform. PlayStation games were built to run on that platform. bleem! was written to allow people who had purchased a license to a PlayStation game to play it on some platform other than PlayStation.
DVD players are a proprietary platform (because of the "decryption" code they contain). DVD's are built (encoded) to be played on that platform. DeCSS was written to allow people who had purchased a license to a DVD movie to play it on some platform other than a commercial DVD player.
I know that games on the traditional, stand alone dreamcast box will still be available, but what upsets me is that more and more of the console gaming in the US and the world is going to take place in a connected environment, either on the internet model or on the pay per view model.
A parent can feel safe letting their child play videogames without supervision because, unlike the internet, a parent can currently control all the access to specific videogames that a child might have. It costs a lot to buy the game, one need's parental permission to get it at the rental place.
A parent cannot feel safe when a kid can go home and download the latest new thing, without having to check with parents. Yes there are passwords and safety features, but this is a far lower level of safety than the level afforded when a clerk at the video store requires adult presence to rent certain games.
Linux and MacOS X are not really the same sort of thing. "Unix-like" is not just an item on a checklist. Linux is very nearly a true Unix (I'll let the pedants debate this one), while MacOS X shares more with NeXTSTEP and OpenSTEP - directory structure, NetInfo, display(postscript, PDF), et cetera.
While Linux is a nearly-universal kernel which runs near-flawlessly on many different systems, MacOS X is strictly a workstation for Macs. Linux has no problems running my Sparc 5 and my AMD K6 - nearly all of the services I run on each are source-compatible between the two - and is a proven server operating system. My department deploys no less than 5 Linux servers (Oracle and Apache), and they requre little maintenance - just a rack to live in. OS X is a very smooth desktop operating system, and that is in fact what I use at home and at work. While Linux can be used as a workstation and OS X as a server, for many reasons they are not comparable:
cost (free vs. ~$120)
hardware
many platforms, and from a few megabytes of RAM on a 386 to multiple gigabytes on sun4u
One platform - late Moto PPC, and no less than 128Mb RAM
goal
from single-floppy routers to multiprocessor servers to desktop game and work machines
simple, stable, powerful desktop operating system
The only reason OS X might tread on Linux's toes is the fact that it does have Unixish services and such. You can run Apache, sshd, proftpd, bind, innd, and other services from MacOS X. But that is not its focus.
The only reason Linux might tread on OS X's toes is that Linux can be used as a power-user's desktop operating system. But in my opinion, that is not its forte - and shouldn't be its focus.
Real encyclopedias are controlled by editorial boards that provide unbiased, fair and reasonable content. Judging from slashdot, and RMS' personal opinions I would conclude that is encyclodepia would be quite biased. In order to be of any use, it will have to be unbiased. If stallman is any judge of why people write free software, contributors will not want to write for it unless they can influence others opinions. We can see this right on the page with the comment about the "GNU system", sometimes called linux.
Is this really the type of encyclopedia that you would want?
I call on all slashdotters to join the protest against the unjust targeting of high speed probes against such innocent planatery bodies as mars, and this commet.
On the other hand its nice to see nasa planning a mission where they _deliberatly_ crash probes as opposed to what usually happens..
It's patently obvious to anyone who knows how ASP works that this was done by the nice folks at aspalliance.com and not by Microsoft. You can use ASP to build netscape and opera friendly sites with no problem. You can also use mod_perl and apache on linux to build sites that reject netscape clients and only allow ie.
I've seen the same thing done by linux sites but with ie users as the targets. It's not new and it's not likely to become popular as it alienates customers.
Finally you'll note that the URL is http://www.aspalliance.com/dagon/rejectNS/rejectNS.html
Dagon is a demonic fish god that was worshiped by the heathen cananites. This smacks of the actions of a lone satanist rather than a major corporation. Although I would expect satanists to like mozilla, the mascot is a demonic fire-breathing lizard after all.
The Guest Book of the 'Ministere de la Culture' (www.culture.fr) have been spammed a lot yesterday. People discovered that HTML tags were not parsed from the names, and started putting javascript in their names that opened various browser window to anti-tax sites. Was pretty funny while it lasted. Then someone made a syntax error in its name and the page stopped loading.
So the webmaster decided to put it offline (or, more likely, was just waiting for something like that so they could put it offline).
You are all going to have to bear with me I'm recovering from last nights dose of poison. My grammar isn't really the best when my blood is still saturated in alcohol. Happy new year to all by the way.
The media treated the "let-down" as if they were looking forward to computer systems everywhere crashing. If this guy hadn't alerted the public to the problem, wouldn't the problems have occured anyway? Let me use an analogy.
You feel a case of influenza coming on, because you are getting a headache. You don't know for sure, but you think you should go to the doctor to get it checked out. The doctor tells you in about a week you'll have the flu. But if you take these anti-biotics, you should be fine. You take the medicine, you don't get the flu the next week. Figures right? But then what do you do? You angrily lecture the doctor for prescribing you medicine and wasting your money when you never got the flu anyway - the medicine wasn't needed.
Of course there aren't going to be any problems with computers if we all spent billions fixing them. We fix a problem we knew we had, and then whinge because the problem never showed itself.
... "that can put out such a powerful burst of radio-frequency energy it will destroy or disable electrical and electronic systems for miles around without killing anyone."
As mankind becomes more and more dependent on electronics and begins to integrate with it, statements like the above will become ever more meaningless. In fact, they're meaningless right now, even without thinking about the plight of people with pacemakers: one of those pulses would probably kill many people simply because they happen to be in planes or lifts/elevators at the time.
Sigh. But then, I guess loss of life isn't a severe worry to weapons manufacturers.
Slashdot Mirror
Without a good understanding of the security in place, the best you can do is presumably minimize the risk. Only shop with places where your credit card details are NOT stored on their systems, and if they give you the option, remove them.
Personally I think the online world will be a much safer place once we have 'one-time' transaction numbers for specific amounts, much like American Express are apparantly introducing. Instead of giving any old company your full and 'permanent' credit card details, you go to your bank and ask them to provide you with a unique number for that individual transaction for a particular amount. It's then impossible for th company to store your details, mischarge you or charge you again in the future. Of course, we'd have to be confident that the credit card companies security is good, but I'd rather trust them than some merchant who's just about managed to get a Java e-commerce app running on his shared server.
"The Reimerdes case dealt with somebody who didn't have a right to the DVD but was cracking through it to get the code, whereas the Connectix case dealt with a situation where a company was legally entitled to be using the code and reverse-engineering it for purposes of interoperability."
Keith Kupferschmid, intellectual property counsel at the Software and Information Industry Association
I may be missing something here, but I don't see the distinction. PlayStation is a proprietary platform. PlayStation games were built to run on that platform. bleem! was written to allow people who had purchased a license to a PlayStation game to play it on some platform other than PlayStation.
DVD players are a proprietary platform (because of the "decryption" code they contain). DVD's are built (encoded) to be played on that platform. DeCSS was written to allow people who had purchased a license to a DVD movie to play it on some platform other than a commercial DVD player.
Am I missing something here?
I know that games on the traditional, stand alone dreamcast box will still be available, but what upsets me is that more and more of the console gaming in the US and the world is going to take place in a connected environment, either on the internet model or on the pay per view model.
A parent can feel safe letting their child play videogames without supervision because, unlike the internet, a parent can currently control all the access to specific videogames that a child might have. It costs a lot to buy the game, one need's parental permission to get it at the rental place.
A parent cannot feel safe when a kid can go home and download the latest new thing, without having to check with parents. Yes there are passwords and safety features, but this is a far lower level of safety than the level afforded when a clerk at the video store requires adult presence to rent certain games.
Linux and MacOS X are not really the same sort of thing. "Unix-like" is not just an item on a checklist. Linux is very nearly a true Unix (I'll let the pedants debate this one), while MacOS X shares more with NeXTSTEP and OpenSTEP - directory structure, NetInfo, display(postscript, PDF), et cetera. While Linux is a nearly-universal kernel which runs near-flawlessly on many different systems, MacOS X is strictly a workstation for Macs. Linux has no problems running my Sparc 5 and my AMD K6 - nearly all of the services I run on each are source-compatible between the two - and is a proven server operating system. My department deploys no less than 5 Linux servers (Oracle and Apache), and they requre little maintenance - just a rack to live in. OS X is a very smooth desktop operating system, and that is in fact what I use at home and at work. While Linux can be used as a workstation and OS X as a server, for many reasons they are not comparable: cost (free vs. ~$120) hardware many platforms, and from a few megabytes of RAM on a 386 to multiple gigabytes on sun4u One platform - late Moto PPC, and no less than 128Mb RAM goal from single-floppy routers to multiprocessor servers to desktop game and work machines simple, stable, powerful desktop operating system The only reason OS X might tread on Linux's toes is the fact that it does have Unixish services and such. You can run Apache, sshd, proftpd, bind, innd, and other services from MacOS X. But that is not its focus. The only reason Linux might tread on OS X's toes is that Linux can be used as a power-user's desktop operating system. But in my opinion, that is not its forte - and shouldn't be its focus.
Real encyclopedias are controlled by editorial boards that provide unbiased, fair and reasonable content. Judging from slashdot, and RMS' personal opinions I would conclude that is encyclodepia would be quite biased. In order to be of any use, it will have to be unbiased. If stallman is any judge of why people write free software, contributors will not want to write for it unless they can influence others opinions. We can see this right on the page with the comment about the "GNU system", sometimes called linux. Is this really the type of encyclopedia that you would want?
I call on all slashdotters to join the protest against the unjust targeting of high speed probes against such innocent planatery bodies as mars, and this commet. On the other hand its nice to see nasa planning a mission where they _deliberatly_ crash probes as opposed to what usually happens..
It's patently obvious to anyone who knows how ASP works that this was done by the nice folks at aspalliance.com and not by Microsoft. You can use ASP to build netscape and opera friendly sites with no problem. You can also use mod_perl and apache on linux to build sites that reject netscape clients and only allow ie. I've seen the same thing done by linux sites but with ie users as the targets. It's not new and it's not likely to become popular as it alienates customers. Finally you'll note that the URL is http://www.aspalliance.com/dagon/rejectNS/rejectNS .html
Dagon is a demonic fish god that was worshiped by the heathen cananites. This smacks of the actions of a lone satanist rather than a major corporation. Although I would expect satanists to like mozilla, the mascot is a demonic fire-breathing lizard after all.
The Guest Book of the 'Ministere de la Culture' (www.culture.fr) have been spammed a lot yesterday. People discovered that HTML tags were not parsed from the names, and started putting javascript in their names that opened various browser window to anti-tax sites. Was pretty funny while it lasted. Then someone made a syntax error in its name and the page stopped loading. So the webmaster decided to put it offline (or, more likely, was just waiting for something like that so they could put it offline).
You are all going to have to bear with me I'm recovering from last nights dose of poison. My grammar isn't really the best when my blood is still saturated in alcohol. Happy new year to all by the way.
The media treated the "let-down" as if they were looking forward to computer systems everywhere crashing. If this guy hadn't alerted the public to the problem, wouldn't the problems have occured anyway? Let me use an analogy.
You feel a case of influenza coming on, because you are getting a headache. You don't know for sure, but you think you should go to the doctor to get it checked out. The doctor tells you in about a week you'll have the flu. But if you take these anti-biotics, you should be fine. You take the medicine, you don't get the flu the next week. Figures right? But then what do you do? You angrily lecture the doctor for prescribing you medicine and wasting your money when you never got the flu anyway - the medicine wasn't needed.
Of course there aren't going to be any problems with computers if we all spent billions fixing them. We fix a problem we knew we had, and then whinge because the problem never showed itself.
how about actual peace and love for a change? goodwill to all
They will gain their own intelligence and come back to Earth and hurl asteroid chunks at us for opressing their organic brethren. Hey, it IS 2001!
As mankind becomes more and more dependent on electronics and begins to integrate with it, statements like the above will become ever more meaningless. In fact, they're meaningless right now, even without thinking about the plight of people with pacemakers: one of those pulses would probably kill many people simply because they happen to be in planes or lifts/elevators at the time.
Sigh. But then, I guess loss of life isn't a severe worry to weapons manufacturers.