Absolutely agree. External proof of "making available" (e.g. IP address, etc . . ) is only the beginning of the prosecutor's case. The rest of it will rest on forensic evidence on the hard drive (e.g. Limewire defaults changed, web history from a bittorrent search site, email conversations about sharing).
It's not an impossible burden to bear and most defendants that go on the stand trying to defend themselves will ultimately alienate the jury with their lame evasions.
So, aside from the childish comments about putting a laptop on the stand (as opposed to making an image of the hard drive and presenting the contents as evidence), your legal defense is "you can't provide it was me that did it, only that it was my computer". This won't work since it's fairly easy to establish that a file was creating by a given user of a computer (all file systems record the creator of a file), who installed the program (again, file system records). Now you can assert, although it was your user account that created the files and installed the programs, it was really someone else. You might be in luck if you have housemates that actually use your computer with your user account on a routine basis (or are willing to perjure themselves to that effect) but otherwise, the user account pretty firmly links it to you (especially if you have your gmail cookie and term paper saved in your/home). Of course, you can also assert that some criminal mastermind has taken control of the computer, manipulated the file system entries and somehow left no trace on the hard drive of her doing. You probably won't find a jury that will buy that as reasonable.
Remember, everything that you claim will have to be consistent with all the data that can be wrung from your hard drive. If you fudge the truth and are caught, the jury can conclude that you aren't a credible witness and discount all of your testimony. At that point, I venture you are screwed entirely.
In the final analysis, the prosecution only has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond all possible doubt. The hard drive image is going to make or break the case.
Actually, they are literally right wrt criminal infringement, which explicitly criminalizes "making available". See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000506----000-.html:
(a) Criminal Infringement.-- (1) In general.-- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed-- (A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain; (B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or (C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution. I'm somewhat amazed by the multitudes of/.ers that insist that "making available" is some crackpot theory that the RIAA just made up -- it's right there in the US Code. The parent is right that the criminal standard is not applicable in civil trials and that those torts probably require an actual copy. Nevertheless, "making available" is part of US law.
Yeah, it's also not hard to get a screwdriver and steal someone else's plate. It's not wise for a criminal to do so because having fraudulent/stolen/non-matching plates gives the officer a whole lot of PC in case he pulls you over for something minor. Just a terrible idea all around.
I never understood why anyone involved in lucrative crime (drugs mainly) would ever commit even the most minor violation (I imagine the successful ones that you don't read about in the blotter do just this). If I were carrying anything even remotely illegal, I would make sure all my blinkers and lights work, that the plates insurance, registration and driver's license that I hand the officer are all spotless and in my name. I wouldn't speed, change lanes, honk, swerve or even imperceptibly roll a stop sign. The fact that criminals routinely cannot implement even this smallest amount of common sense boggles the mind. It's as if they just aren't thinking at all.
You are mixing up my supply and demand side arguments.
On the demand side, I'm pretty certain that Americans will not tolerate any changes that reduce their perceived standard of living. Efficiencies like better cars, appliances and houses are a fantastic idea but take a long time to materialize due to slow turnover in those areas. Grander plans like better urban design so you don't have to drive ****ing everywhere and creating situations where you can live near where you work will take even longer. Support for these policies must come with a firm grasp of their realistic benefits, otherwise you aren't supporting any real policy you are just imagining things. I support them but I realize that they aren't the magic bullet some seem to claim.
Given that demand is likely to rise for the time being just due to population growth (even as the efficiencies that I support kick in), we need to be realistic about the supply side. Wind and solar are just not going to cut it as baseload power (solar is fantastic as a 'peak' power boost since it correlates with AC use) for the time being. We should invest in making them more efficient and economical, no doubt, but again, we have to be clear about what is realistic.
Despite/.ers insistence that it is dying, coal will be around in the US (and certainly in China) for a long time (your children will be dead before we generate less than 1% of our energy from fossil fuels). There is absolutely no reason for the DOE not to investigate safe and affordable ways to mitigate the environmental impact. Perhaps Greenpeace is right that sequestration is unrealistic, unsafe and unaffordable -- it certainly is now. On the other hand, so are wind and solar right now. Why should we foreclose options?
We wouldn't even have this problem if the very same people hadn't killed the nuclear industry through scaremongering and excessive litigation. Amen. The person on this planet that has done the most to promote the warming of this planet has to be, without a doubt, Jane Fonda. It's not that her heart wasn't in the right place but her head was a different matter entirely.
Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Sorry, it's not that I don't wish that were true but it's just not. Look up the annual energy consumption of the US (105 exajoules (29000 TWh) -- according to Wikipedia) and try to come up with any reasonable scenario in which that much energy can be produced by wind and solar. I've tried to run the numbers even in the most favorable cases and they just aren't there without a huge boost in the efficiency and economy of those alternative methods.
Don't get me wrong, I think we are on the same team here but I refuse to believe, in the face of hard evidence, that wind + solar + geothermal + hydrodynamic + tidal energy will be sufficient to meet domestic US demand for the foreseeable future. Even the most aggressive energy efficiency plans won't kick in in earnest for a decade (cars turn over roughly 10 years, home appliances every 25, homes every 50 and the more you impose, the more costs go up and the slower the turnover happens).
This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise News of their impending demise is highly overrated. The US has enough coal to last us 50 years at current growth rates and China likely does too. With oil capacity down and natural gas reserves dwindling, Americans will either have to consume much less energy (not likely) or tap into coal.
There are a number of standards for secure deletion of magnetic media, but basically writing over it a few times with a random pattern should be sufficient. A lot of people claim that the Gutmann method is superior but that was based on an older encoding scheme that presupposed you knew about the physical layout of the data -- modern drives are permitted to shuffle your data however they want (e.g. sectors can be mapped arbitrarily to the physical platters). Gutmann himself no longer recommend his eponymous method:
In the time since this paper was published, some people have treated the 35-pass overwrite technique described in it more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques. As a result, they advocate applying the voodoo to PRML and EPRML drives even though it will have no more effect than a simple scrubbing with random data. In fact performing the full 35-pass overwrite is pointless for any drive since it targets a blend of scenarios involving all types of (normally-used) encoding technology, which covers everything back to 30+-year-old MFM methods (if you don't understand that statement, re-read the paper). If you're using a drive which uses encoding technology X, you only need to perform the passes specific to X, and you never need to perform all 35 passes. For any modern PRML/EPRML drive, a few passes of random scrubbing is the best you can do. As the paper says, "A good scrubbing with random data will do about as well as can be expected". This was true in 1996, and is still true now. Source: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html, emphasis added.
"As far as you can tell" obviously doesn't extend very far because a quick google search yields a half dozen SSH clients for Windows Mobile, including my favorite http://www.pocketputty.net/. Please at least attempt a cursory search before making claims
As far as *NIX on the mobile being "very mature", I can't seem to see any CDMA *NIX phones sold in the US. Samsung makes a few for the Chinese market, but none that they are willing to bring to the states. When Android comes out, you might have a leg to stand on, but until then I stand by my original statement: Linux on the mobile is premature, at best.
I've run Windows Mobile (HTC Titan, 320x240 screen) for a while now and I have no idea what you are talking about when you say that it doesn't support "every type of application". The resolution certainly limits its utility at some applications but that's hardly the OS's fault (word processing at 320x240 sucks no matter what, remote desktop is an exercise in scrolling around, even SSH is a pain). Newer version of the Titan run at VGA resolutions without issue. I expect that you haven't any experience with WinMo 6 so please don't bash it till you try it. It is (shockingly) a fine product and performs as advertised.
Also, I don't see any reasons (assertions don't count) that Linux will scale any nicer. I certainly don't see any Linux GUIs that are appropriate for a mobile device, hell, even BASH is a pain when you can only get about 25 characters per line. I'm looking forward to seeing how Android looks when it comes out, but until then, I think claims of Linux on mobile are very premature.
Where a vote has been passed on an obviously incomplete specification and through such blatant corruption, it should be challenged. This is the duty of anyone who values freedom and democracy - and for people intelligent enough to appreciate the importance of the the rule of law. The fact that the format was pushed through by Microsoft in particular is irrelevant to this point. While I appreciate the sentiment, the ISO is not a government body (even if it's members are) and has no particular duty to conduct its operations either fairly, freely or democratically. Sure, it would be nice if they did, but it's not something I think that can be legally required of a private organization. Now, one can reasonably argue that your country should not be a member of this organization unless it upholds some standards. Such an argument would have to made politically and not judicially since it is a matter of policy, not law.
I think there is a broad over-reliance on legal remedies for political problems. Part of that is the fact that, due to the ignorance of the electorate (rational ignorance, IMHO) and the substantial influence of corporate interests on the elected officials, legal action looks like the most promising avenue for progress. This is a false hope. Courts will not vindicate the ideals of the FOSS movement.
They are exempted, as it is the case in Australia: hundreds of police officers in South Australia were caught with pirated movies on their computers, but they will not be prosecuted because "the ability to effectively police the state will be severely diminished". Your quote is deceptive, at best (at worst, it's downright disingenuous). It was torrentfreak that wrote that, if the law were enforced literally, "the ability to effectively . . . . ", not the prosecutors or anyone else involved in the decision not to prosecute -- hence my strenuous objection to linked the two phrases with 'because' when there is absolutely no causal relationship.
The fact of the matter is, they weren't charged because that's what the prosecutor decided to do. That's how the Anglo-Saxon system of laws works and, although it is far from ideal (and I don't think anyone defending it claims it is), I'm quite certain that you don't want to live in a society where the prosecutor must bring every allegation to trial. Someone must make a decision as to what charges are serious enough (and the evidence strong enough) to take to trial. If it's not the prosecutors, then it will be the police that refer charges to the prosecutor to file (assuming she has no discretion).
No one would doubt, for instance, the right of a civil litigant to withdraw his case if he feels that pursuing the case is not in his best interest. The prosecutor fulfills the exact same role except that she represents the State in the proceedings and is expected to act according to the State's best interest. If you don't approve of her decisions, you are perfectly free to elect a new government.
The point is that the Mac Pro uses all server components (Xeons, FB-DIMMS) which is entirely overkill. What I mean by "midrange" is not "feature-incomplete", it means using regular socket 775 motherboards. Consider my current rig - Q6600@3.2, 4GB, 8800GTS, 2x250 RAID0, 2xDVDRW, eSata, 1394: costs ~$1100. I would gladly pay $1650 (a 50% markup!) for an Apple branded version but $2500 is asinine.
The baseline Mac Pros are unusable as shipped. 8 processors and 2GB of RAM? Seriously? Also, they're FB-DIMMS so getting up to 8GB will set you back ~$500. A decent hard drive setup (minimum would be 2x320GB RAID0 plus another for backup) will set you back another $200 or so. I'd prefer eSATA (most nice motherboards have that now) and a second optical drive (for mastering) - another $100 for both.
All told, once you actually get the thing usable, it's closer to $4k which is the KBB value of my current ride. Don't get me wrong, the Mac Pro is a hell of a lot of computer for the dollar but I wish they had a $2k model without an LCD duct-taped to it.
Yes, but it's also shinning more light Apple's infuriating decision not to offer a reasonable quad-core desktop that doesn't cost more than my car. People look at the PsyStar and see it's insufficient, but when they go to the Apple store, they have to chose between the Mini and the Pro -- the Psystar fails to fills the gap but it doesn't make the gap go away.
I really just don't understand it, Apple could get away with selling an equivalent of the Dell 530 (minitower, Q6600@2.4, 2GB, 250GB, 8XXX GPU, $600ish) for $1000+, and consumers would lap it up. Perhaps that would cannibalize some of the Mac Pro sales, but they would quickly make up in volume what they lost. More volume means more apps, more drivers, better support on the web and a healthier Apple. Instead, they sacrifice it at the altar of temporary profits.
Quote the Java Specification (link in parent):
All array accesses are checked at run time; an attempt to use an index that is less than zero or greater than or equal to the length of the array causes an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException to be thrown. What you have described simply cannot be done.
I have to be absolutely certain that there can't be any other reasonable explanation of what happened. [SNIP] What happened to the good old "we'd rather have ten guilty men run free than put one innocent man in jail"? Sorry, those two statements do not compute. The preference for acquitting N guilty men rather than convicting one innocent implies (for finite values of N) that absolute certainty cannot be required. Absolute certainty implies infinite N. There is no possible way to convict anyone (confessions with corroboration aside) certainly without introducing error. The best we can do is attempt to construct a system that is as fair as possible while still rendering decisions in a finite amount of time (justice delayed and so forth) for a finite amount of resource. Clearly we aren't there yet (not by a long shot) but the only way to make progress is to acknowledge that human decision making processes are flawed and work around it. A system that categorically does not convict the innocent is one that does not convict anyone at all.
Bad language leads to bad programs. Classic example - C doesn't associate lengths with strings or arrays - and buffer overflows result. A SQL interface that requires/allows constructing strings which mix syntax and user data is asking for trouble. You can blame the programmer for not validating the input data - but unless you provide the validation tool, its still your fault - you the language designer. Rubbish! You can have my C-style arrays when you pry them from my cold dead hands because, for my particular purpose, I don't need every access to check the bounds of the arrays. Please stop attempting to have the language force me to use the coding conventions that you prefer - the language should provide both safe and unsafe array access. This is the beauty of the C++ STL Vector class: it provides all the tools without judgment.
Let's take a stupidly simple example -- I want to write a function that returns the sum of a vector template inline T sum(const vector < T > &v) {
T _sum = 0;
for(unsigned i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i)
_sum += v[i];// NO NEED TO CHECK 'i' -- GUARANTEED TO BE IN BOUNDS//
return _sum; } Sorry, Java users, your language specification will not allow you to access an array without a bounds-check (see the Java Language Spec, http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/arrays.html#10.4). You are just SOL. I did a quick test summing up 10000000 random integers using the code above, and an identical version using vector.at() which does bounds-checking. The performance difference was greater than 3 times.
template < class T > inline T sum_fast(const vector < T > &v) {
T sum = 0;
for(unsigned i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i)
sum += v[i];
return sum; }
template < class T > inline T sum_slow(const vector < T> > v) {
T sum = 0;
for(unsigned i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i)
sum += v.at(i);
return sum; }
int main(void) {
vector < int > a(10000000);
for(unsigned i = 0, s = a.size(); i < s; ++i)
a[i] = rand();
The ability to brick lost phones, encrypt contents, apply IT security profiles, provision remotely over the air, sync to the server to make the hand-held expendable, data modem for the laptop, etc. I believe that Windows Mobile 6 can do all of those things except the first. Of course, if you want Exchange sync you'll have to pay for enough Exchange licenses but that expensive option looks pretty frugal compared to RIM's exorbitant service. OTA provisioning, fine-grained control over allowed executables, encryptions, tethering are all there (and can all be pushed).
I'm not trying to diss Blackberry (never used one, so that would be quite foolish), just noticed that you listed a lot of features that I know WinMo has as being critical for the warrior. It is true that all the road warriors that I know do use BBs but I don't know if that's because of their IT dept, disappointment (WinMo 5 was not acceptable) or whatever else actually animates IT decisions.
True story: I flew next to a guy that had a BB and a RAZR that seemed to think it was perfectly normal to have them be two separate devices. He fell asleep before I could interrogate him further . . .
Yeah, it's a goofy name and it runs Windows Mobile but I've really taken a liking to it. EVDO kicks the shit out of EDGE (with RevA, I have clocked 1Mb/s) and built-in GPS is a real convenience. No push email, but you can have it query Exchange, IMAP or POP3 every 5 minutes if you like. The keyboard is also quite useful, IMO.
More important than the hardware, however, is the huge library of 3rd party software that is written for WinMo. I've never been unable to find an application that does what I want. Add to it the fact that it's pretty easy to jump in and write your own code (C++ or C#, your choice) and it adds up to a very appealing package.
The OP is correct, Linux updates (at least in the *untu line of distros) are purposefully staggered to avoid hammering the servers. IIRC, every install has a random number associated with it that determines when it checks for and grabs the updates.
As others have said, there's nothing you can do about it except hope that there are multiple layers of security (I suppose compartmentalization and frequent backups help in the remedial sense).
Please stop judging the United States Constitution based on George Bush. Presidents come and go (and the sooner this one goes, the better) but I'm confident that the institutions of this country are stronger than a temporary fuckup. Perhaps this is a minority view of/., but recall that Nixon didn't manage to destroy the Constitution and he was much more clever than W.
As far as boobies on the public airwaves goes, they belong to the public and it seems only logical that the public can make rules for their use. I wouldn't vote for those restrictions, but I respect the overwhelming vote in favor. Democracy sucks like that sometimes.
MS KULASZKA: Mr. Steacy, you were talking before about context and how important it is when you do your investigation. What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate one of these complaints?
MR. STEACY: Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value.
MS KULASZKA: Okay. That was a clear answer.
MR. STEACY: It's not my job to give value to an American concept.
Now, I'm sure that's not the view of most Canadians but idea that someone from your "human rights" commissions has such abject disregard for the universal value of free speech - a value that is by far not uniquely American. How did this person get to be in that position?
So freedom and constitutional rights in the United States have eroded to the point where Freedom is now defined as the ability to play Led Zeppelin all day? While I'm generally not happy about the state of American Constituional Law (and I'm also not alarmist about it either, most of the institutions seem sound enough to survive a few bad terms), I would say that the right to play whatever music (obscenity notwithstanding) you want on your radio station constitutes a part of a fundamental right. It's not defined that way, it's just that the way it's defined necessarily includes that right (mathematically, that right is necessarily a subset of the broader right).
As far as the French policy goes, I cannot imagine any Court in the United States upholding a restraint on the ability of a citizen to freely contract with an ISP for internet access. The only way this could possibly happen is if it is proven (note: the "making available" theory no longer holds water) that the person in question distributed files in violation of someone else's rights, the DA/USA could make not touching the internet a part of a plea deal. In that case, it's voluntary and so there is no question of legality.
And what happens if your bank is Egg (now owned by Citi Group) and tell you every time you log in that you should try the Egg Money Manager, which is only available as an ActiveX control? It's frustrating to keep telling users 'disable ActiveX' and have banks tell them to enable it (and use IE), and if they do then I think they ought to accept at least partial responsibility for the user's poor security. I don't know about you, but what I tell people about ActiveX depends on their level of competence. For the idiots, I say 'disable ActiveX'. For the clueful, however, I explain that ActiveX is, for security purposes, like running the program locally and that they should therefore enable ActiveX only for trusted domains distributed over HTTPS. They tend to understand the basic point: accepting an ActiveX control == allowing this website full access to my computer (and usually ask me why the hell MS would embed such a thing into a program that is, by design, exposed to untrusted sources).
In that context, I have no idea why you would have a problem with ActiveX controls from your bank - if you do not trust them to due something malicious to your computer then perhaps you shouldn't bank with them. For the incredibly paranoid, you can always create a VM exclusively for Egg and revert it back when you are done.
There are a lot of problems with the ActiveX model, its use in cryptographically secure protocols with strong authentication and encryption is not among them.
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Absolutely agree. External proof of "making available" (e.g. IP address, etc . . ) is only the beginning of the prosecutor's case. The rest of it will rest on forensic evidence on the hard drive (e.g. Limewire defaults changed, web history from a bittorrent search site, email conversations about sharing).
It's not an impossible burden to bear and most defendants that go on the stand trying to defend themselves will ultimately alienate the jury with their lame evasions.
So, aside from the childish comments about putting a laptop on the stand (as opposed to making an image of the hard drive and presenting the contents as evidence), your legal defense is "you can't provide it was me that did it, only that it was my computer". This won't work since it's fairly easy to establish that a file was creating by a given user of a computer (all file systems record the creator of a file), who installed the program (again, file system records). Now you can assert, although it was your user account that created the files and installed the programs, it was really someone else. You might be in luck if you have housemates that actually use your computer with your user account on a routine basis (or are willing to perjure themselves to that effect) but otherwise, the user account pretty firmly links it to you (especially if you have your gmail cookie and term paper saved in your /home). Of course, you can also assert that some criminal mastermind has taken control of the computer, manipulated the file system entries and somehow left no trace on the hard drive of her doing. You probably won't find a jury that will buy that as reasonable.
Remember, everything that you claim will have to be consistent with all the data that can be wrung from your hard drive. If you fudge the truth and are caught, the jury can conclude that you aren't a credible witness and discount all of your testimony. At that point, I venture you are screwed entirely.
In the final analysis, the prosecution only has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond all possible doubt. The hard drive image is going to make or break the case.
(1) In general.-- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed--
(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution. I'm somewhat amazed by the multitudes of
Yeah, it's also not hard to get a screwdriver and steal someone else's plate. It's not wise for a criminal to do so because having fraudulent/stolen/non-matching plates gives the officer a whole lot of PC in case he pulls you over for something minor. Just a terrible idea all around.
I never understood why anyone involved in lucrative crime (drugs mainly) would ever commit even the most minor violation (I imagine the successful ones that you don't read about in the blotter do just this). If I were carrying anything even remotely illegal, I would make sure all my blinkers and lights work, that the plates insurance, registration and driver's license that I hand the officer are all spotless and in my name. I wouldn't speed, change lanes, honk, swerve or even imperceptibly roll a stop sign. The fact that criminals routinely cannot implement even this smallest amount of common sense boggles the mind. It's as if they just aren't thinking at all.
I've always been (rabidly) pro-nuclear. I thought that it might be a distraction in the instant discussion though.
You are mixing up my supply and demand side arguments.
/.ers insistence that it is dying, coal will be around in the US (and certainly in China) for a long time (your children will be dead before we generate less than 1% of our energy from fossil fuels). There is absolutely no reason for the DOE not to investigate safe and affordable ways to mitigate the environmental impact. Perhaps Greenpeace is right that sequestration is unrealistic, unsafe and unaffordable -- it certainly is now. On the other hand, so are wind and solar right now. Why should we foreclose options?
On the demand side, I'm pretty certain that Americans will not tolerate any changes that reduce their perceived standard of living. Efficiencies like better cars, appliances and houses are a fantastic idea but take a long time to materialize due to slow turnover in those areas. Grander plans like better urban design so you don't have to drive ****ing everywhere and creating situations where you can live near where you work will take even longer. Support for these policies must come with a firm grasp of their realistic benefits, otherwise you aren't supporting any real policy you are just imagining things. I support them but I realize that they aren't the magic bullet some seem to claim.
Given that demand is likely to rise for the time being just due to population growth (even as the efficiencies that I support kick in), we need to be realistic about the supply side. Wind and solar are just not going to cut it as baseload power (solar is fantastic as a 'peak' power boost since it correlates with AC use) for the time being. We should invest in making them more efficient and economical, no doubt, but again, we have to be clear about what is realistic.
Despite
Don't get me wrong, I think we are on the same team here but I refuse to believe, in the face of hard evidence, that wind + solar + geothermal + hydrodynamic + tidal energy will be sufficient to meet domestic US demand for the foreseeable future. Even the most aggressive energy efficiency plans won't kick in in earnest for a decade (cars turn over roughly 10 years, home appliances every 25, homes every 50 and the more you impose, the more costs go up and the slower the turnover happens). This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise News of their impending demise is highly overrated. The US has enough coal to last us 50 years at current growth rates and China likely does too. With oil capacity down and natural gas reserves dwindling, Americans will either have to consume much less energy (not likely) or tap into coal.
A good general explanation is given by the RCMP (what the hell mounties have to do with computers, like most of Canadian society, is entirely beyond me) http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/tsb/pubs/it_sec/g2-003_e.pdf
If you have the practical need to nuke a drive, used DBAN: http://dban.sourceforge.net/
"As far as you can tell" obviously doesn't extend very far because a quick google search yields a half dozen SSH clients for Windows Mobile, including my favorite http://www.pocketputty.net/. Please at least attempt a cursory search before making claims
As far as *NIX on the mobile being "very mature", I can't seem to see any CDMA *NIX phones sold in the US. Samsung makes a few for the Chinese market, but none that they are willing to bring to the states. When Android comes out, you might have a leg to stand on, but until then I stand by my original statement: Linux on the mobile is premature, at best.
I've run Windows Mobile (HTC Titan, 320x240 screen) for a while now and I have no idea what you are talking about when you say that it doesn't support "every type of application". The resolution certainly limits its utility at some applications but that's hardly the OS's fault (word processing at 320x240 sucks no matter what, remote desktop is an exercise in scrolling around, even SSH is a pain). Newer version of the Titan run at VGA resolutions without issue. I expect that you haven't any experience with WinMo 6 so please don't bash it till you try it. It is (shockingly) a fine product and performs as advertised.
Also, I don't see any reasons (assertions don't count) that Linux will scale any nicer. I certainly don't see any Linux GUIs that are appropriate for a mobile device, hell, even BASH is a pain when you can only get about 25 characters per line. I'm looking forward to seeing how Android looks when it comes out, but until then, I think claims of Linux on mobile are very premature.
I think there is a broad over-reliance on legal remedies for political problems. Part of that is the fact that, due to the ignorance of the electorate (rational ignorance, IMHO) and the substantial influence of corporate interests on the elected officials, legal action looks like the most promising avenue for progress. This is a false hope. Courts will not vindicate the ideals of the FOSS movement.
The fact of the matter is, they weren't charged because that's what the prosecutor decided to do. That's how the Anglo-Saxon system of laws works and, although it is far from ideal (and I don't think anyone defending it claims it is), I'm quite certain that you don't want to live in a society where the prosecutor must bring every allegation to trial. Someone must make a decision as to what charges are serious enough (and the evidence strong enough) to take to trial. If it's not the prosecutors, then it will be the police that refer charges to the prosecutor to file (assuming she has no discretion).
No one would doubt, for instance, the right of a civil litigant to withdraw his case if he feels that pursuing the case is not in his best interest. The prosecutor fulfills the exact same role except that she represents the State in the proceedings and is expected to act according to the State's best interest. If you don't approve of her decisions, you are perfectly free to elect a new government.
Here's the cliff's notes version of prosecutorial discretion: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/CliffsReviewTopic/Prosecutorial-Discretion.topicArticleId-10065,articleId-10015.html
The point is that the Mac Pro uses all server components (Xeons, FB-DIMMS) which is entirely overkill. What I mean by "midrange" is not "feature-incomplete", it means using regular socket 775 motherboards. Consider my current rig - Q6600@3.2, 4GB, 8800GTS, 2x250 RAID0, 2xDVDRW, eSata, 1394: costs ~$1100. I would gladly pay $1650 (a 50% markup!) for an Apple branded version but $2500 is asinine.
That's the mid-range that's necessary!
The baseline Mac Pros are unusable as shipped. 8 processors and 2GB of RAM? Seriously? Also, they're FB-DIMMS so getting up to 8GB will set you back ~$500. A decent hard drive setup (minimum would be 2x320GB RAID0 plus another for backup) will set you back another $200 or so. I'd prefer eSATA (most nice motherboards have that now) and a second optical drive (for mastering) - another $100 for both.
All told, once you actually get the thing usable, it's closer to $4k which is the KBB value of my current ride. Don't get me wrong, the Mac Pro is a hell of a lot of computer for the dollar but I wish they had a $2k model without an LCD duct-taped to it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883104031
Yes, but it's also shinning more light Apple's infuriating decision not to offer a reasonable quad-core desktop that doesn't cost more than my car. People look at the PsyStar and see it's insufficient, but when they go to the Apple store, they have to chose between the Mini and the Pro -- the Psystar fails to fills the gap but it doesn't make the gap go away.
I really just don't understand it, Apple could get away with selling an equivalent of the Dell 530 (minitower, Q6600@2.4, 2GB, 250GB, 8XXX GPU, $600ish) for $1000+, and consumers would lap it up. Perhaps that would cannibalize some of the Mac Pro sales, but they would quickly make up in volume what they lost. More volume means more apps, more drivers, better support on the web and a healthier Apple. Instead, they sacrifice it at the altar of temporary profits.
For an interesting review of historical views on 'N' (and Blackstone's criteria in general), see http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/guilty.htm.
Let's take a stupidly simple example -- I want to write a function that returns the sum of a vector
template
inline T sum(const vector < T > &v) {
T _sum = 0;
for(unsigned i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i)
_sum += v[i];
return _sum;
}
Sorry, Java users, your language specification will not allow you to access an array without a bounds-check (see the Java Language Spec, http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/arrays.html#10.4). You are just SOL. I did a quick test summing up 10000000 random integers using the code above, and an identical version using vector.at() which does bounds-checking. The performance difference was greater than 3 times.
Here's the code if you don't believe me:
APPENDIX:
#include < iostream >
#include < vector >
#include < ctime >
using namespace std;
template < class T >
inline T sum_fast(const vector < T > &v) {
T sum = 0;
for(unsigned i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i)
sum += v[i];
return sum;
}
template < class T >
inline T sum_slow(const vector < T> > v) {
T sum = 0;
for(unsigned i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i)
sum += v.at(i);
return sum;
}
int main(void) {
vector < int > a(10000000);
for(unsigned i = 0, s = a.size(); i < s; ++i)
a[i] = rand();
clock_t start1 = clock();
int res1 = sum_fast(a);
clock_t end1 = clock();
cout << res1 << " computed in " << end1 - start1 << " cycles\n";
clock_t start2 = clock();
int res2 = sum_slow(a);
clock_t end2 = clock();
cout << res2 << " computed in " << end2 - start2 << " cycles\n";
}
Produces the following output (MSVC 2K5 EE, all optimizations on)
614261309 computed in 15 cycles
614261309 computed in 47 cycles
I'm not trying to diss Blackberry (never used one, so that would be quite foolish), just noticed that you listed a lot of features that I know WinMo has as being critical for the warrior. It is true that all the road warriors that I know do use BBs but I don't know if that's because of their IT dept, disappointment (WinMo 5 was not acceptable) or whatever else actually animates IT decisions.
True story: I flew next to a guy that had a BB and a RAZR that seemed to think it was perfectly normal to have them be two separate devices. He fell asleep before I could interrogate him further . . .
Yeah, it's a goofy name and it runs Windows Mobile but I've really taken a liking to it. EVDO kicks the shit out of EDGE (with RevA, I have clocked 1Mb/s) and built-in GPS is a real convenience. No push email, but you can have it query Exchange, IMAP or POP3 every 5 minutes if you like. The keyboard is also quite useful, IMO.
More important than the hardware, however, is the huge library of 3rd party software that is written for WinMo. I've never been unable to find an application that does what I want. Add to it the fact that it's pretty easy to jump in and write your own code (C++ or C#, your choice) and it adds up to a very appealing package.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Titan
The OP is correct, Linux updates (at least in the *untu line of distros) are purposefully staggered to avoid hammering the servers. IIRC, every install has a random number associated with it that determines when it checks for and grabs the updates.
As others have said, there's nothing you can do about it except hope that there are multiple layers of security (I suppose compartmentalization and frequent backups help in the remedial sense).
Please stop judging the United States Constitution based on George Bush. Presidents come and go (and the sooner this one goes, the better) but I'm confident that the institutions of this country are stronger than a temporary fuckup. Perhaps this is a minority view of /., but recall that Nixon didn't manage to destroy the Constitution and he was much more clever than W.
As far as boobies on the public airwaves goes, they belong to the public and it seems only logical that the public can make rules for their use. I wouldn't vote for those restrictions, but I respect the overwhelming vote in favor. Democracy sucks like that sometimes.
Now, I'm sure that's not the view of most Canadians but idea that someone from your "human rights" commissions has such abject disregard for the universal value of free speech - a value that is by far not uniquely American. How did this person get to be in that position? So freedom and constitutional rights in the United States have eroded to the point where Freedom is now defined as the ability to play Led Zeppelin all day? While I'm generally not happy about the state of American Constituional Law (and I'm also not alarmist about it either, most of the institutions seem sound enough to survive a few bad terms), I would say that the right to play whatever music (obscenity notwithstanding) you want on your radio station constitutes a part of a fundamental right. It's not defined that way, it's just that the way it's defined necessarily includes that right (mathematically, that right is necessarily a subset of the broader right).
As far as the French policy goes, I cannot imagine any Court in the United States upholding a restraint on the ability of a citizen to freely contract with an ISP for internet access. The only way this could possibly happen is if it is proven (note: the "making available" theory no longer holds water) that the person in question distributed files in violation of someone else's rights, the DA/USA could make not touching the internet a part of a plea deal. In that case, it's voluntary and so there is no question of legality.
In that context, I have no idea why you would have a problem with ActiveX controls from your bank - if you do not trust them to due something malicious to your computer then perhaps you shouldn't bank with them. For the incredibly paranoid, you can always create a VM exclusively for Egg and revert it back when you are done.
There are a lot of problems with the ActiveX model, its use in cryptographically secure protocols with strong authentication and encryption is not among them.