Other programs (i.e. malware) can use the hidden directory to hide themselves. Not to mention potential stability problems caused by the software altering core OS functions.
Password protected hidden partitions don't patch OS function pointers and can't really be (ab)used by malware in the same way, so not the same thing.
The analogy doesn't match because it is highly unusual to have houses where people are free to go in and help themselves to what's in there. Open APs where the owner has no problem with people using it is however not that unusual.
I'd second what FireFury said. English not being my native language sometimes makes it a bit difficult to get my point across accurately.
The closest analogy therefore would be if you left your door open at home and someone - unbeknownst to the house owner - stood outside and told people they were "free to go in and take what they like". This act would not excuse anyone who then took it upon themselves to steal from your house.
The analogy doesn't quite match because it is highly unusual to have houses where people are free to go in and help themselves to what's in there. Open APs where the owner has no problem with people using it is however not that unusual.
Ideally we'd have some way to distinguish between intentionally open APs and unintentionally open APs. Since there is no good way to do that, the question then becomes what the default legality of connecting to an open AP should be. If 'illegal' is the default, how should a reasonable person distinguish between legal and illegal? And what would that do to cafés, munis and others offering free wifi.
Oh, and this is about connecting to an open AP and using it to access the Intarweb. Connecting and then trying to hack into computers on the local net or similar is already covered by other laws.
Turning off SSID broadcast, MAC whitelist and WEP can all be circumvented fairly easy. But if you do that, you clearly also know that the owner of said AP doesn't want you using it. This entire flamefest is about whether it is legal to connect to an unsecured AP.
I know people like the 'open door' analogy, but let's see what's really happening here.
Laptop: Hey, can I connect to you? Access Point: Sure. Laptop: Can I get an IP address, too? Access Point: Sure.
That's more the equivalent of having a guard at your door saying 'please come in' to anyone passing by.
Unless AP answers no to those requests, how is Laptop to know that it is unauthorized? Heck, Windows will even autoconnect to an open AP; should we sue MS for aiding and abetting?
It should be the AP owners responsibility to set up the AP so that connecting to it requires authorization.
just because someone doesn't know about such things, doesn't mean it's morally right to use up their internet quota.
That's more an issue of AP manufacturers not properly edumacating their customers. The first page in the manual should explain this and the first screen in the setup wizard should include a 'allow anyone access yes/no'.
"READ CAREFULLY. By reading this article, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer."
For some reason, I find that people using Rand to support a statement often deserve -1 troll.
Exactly why that is, I don't know. Perhaps they are attracted by the idea that selfishness is moral, or perhaps they like reading thick books that are long-winded ways of explaining a few simple ideas.
A couple dozen POWER in a BMW? kinda doubt it. I think you probably mean PowerPC 4xx, which can trace it's genealogy to POWER but is not the same thing.
Dang, you beat me to it. That's the first thought that struck me too, Papadopoulos has reversed the cause and effect.
Some companies scale up their IT infrastructure at a faster-than-Moore pace because they need that IT infrastructure. Why do they need it? Because they are experiencing heavy growth. They don't have growth because their IT demands are exploding, their IT demands are exploding because they have growth.
I don't get what's so special about the 'bandwidth crunch' on cable. Compared to other last mile technologies, it stacks up pretty well. If you try to push the same services over *DSL, you'd come up very short. The only comparable alternative is fiber, and the cost of putting new fibre in the ground is going to be the same whether you are a cable co upgrading from coax or a telco upgrading from copper.
I'd even argue that cable cos are in a better position; the existing coax has loads of bandwidth so if they move the fiber to distribution points closer to the subscribers (e.g., instead of 5000 cable customers hanging off a single fiber node you have 100-200) you gain lots of last mile capacity without having to pull fibre all the way to each customer.
The difference is that most people know that pins and eyes don't mix. Numbtards don't run around with consumer grade pins and stick them in peoples eyes, but they don't think twice about fooling around with laser pointers.
The legal power limit on laser pointers is set so that they eye's natural blink reflex will protect the retina from permanent damage. This thing is 50 * the limit, and will cause permanent damage at less than 1/100 second. Blink reflex is at about 1/10 second. Even partial reflection off something like a milk glass might cause permanent blind spots (and you are unlikely to realize it at the time, the brain interpolates). An instructable like this without a warning to use laser safety glasses and treat it like you would a.22 gun is an accident waiting to happen.
Also, if you use a diode rated at say 200mW@2.5V it will output a lot more if run at 3V. And someone is bound to make one with a CD-burner diode; while they are lower powered, they output IR so you won't see where you're pointing it and it won't trigger the blink reflex.
That's pretty much exactly what J&J did. Red Cross is free to use the symbol in connection with nonprofit relief services, they don't even have to pay $1 to J&J. And that's an arrangement that has been working just fine for a long time.
Then RC went ahead and licensed the symbol to manufacturers of first aid kits and similar, which happen to be in direct competition with J&J's products.
I kind of doubt it, 0.25W will make a mess of your retina but is a bit on the weak side for cutting. For comparison, industrial CNC lasers are in the 100-3000W range and laser engraving on wood use afaik 5-10W.
Slashdot Mirror
Other programs (i.e. malware) can use the hidden directory to hide themselves. Not to mention potential stability problems caused by the software altering core OS functions.
Password protected hidden partitions don't patch OS function pointers and can't really be (ab)used by malware in the same way, so not the same thing.
The analogy doesn't match because it is highly unusual to have houses where people are free to go in and help themselves to what's in there. Open APs where the owner has no problem with people using it is however not that unusual.
I'd second what FireFury said. English not being my native language sometimes makes it a bit difficult to get my point across accurately.
The closest analogy therefore would be if you left your door open at home and someone - unbeknownst to the house owner - stood outside and told people they were "free to go in and take what they like". This act would not excuse anyone who then took it upon themselves to steal from your house.
The analogy doesn't quite match because it is highly unusual to have houses where people are free to go in and help themselves to what's in there. Open APs where the owner has no problem with people using it is however not that unusual.
Ideally we'd have some way to distinguish between intentionally open APs and unintentionally open APs. Since there is no good way to do that, the question then becomes what the default legality of connecting to an open AP should be. If 'illegal' is the default, how should a reasonable person distinguish between legal and illegal? And what would that do to cafés, munis and others offering free wifi.
Oh, and this is about connecting to an open AP and using it to access the Intarweb. Connecting and then trying to hack into computers on the local net or similar is already covered by other laws.
Turning off SSID broadcast, MAC whitelist and WEP can all be circumvented fairly easy. But if you do that, you clearly also know that the owner of said AP doesn't want you using it. This entire flamefest is about whether it is legal to connect to an unsecured AP.
Configure your DHCP to only provide leases to a static set of MACs?
I know people like the 'open door' analogy, but let's see what's really happening here.
Laptop: Hey, can I connect to you?
Access Point: Sure.
Laptop: Can I get an IP address, too?
Access Point: Sure.
That's more the equivalent of having a guard at your door saying 'please come in' to anyone passing by.
Unless AP answers no to those requests, how is Laptop to know that it is unauthorized? Heck, Windows will even autoconnect to an open AP; should we sue MS for aiding and abetting?
It should be the AP owners responsibility to set up the AP so that connecting to it requires authorization.
just because someone doesn't know about such things, doesn't mean it's morally right to use up their internet quota.
That's more an issue of AP manufacturers not properly edumacating their customers. The first page in the manual should explain this and the first screen in the setup wizard should include a 'allow anyone access yes/no'.
I really like Doctorow's example of EULA judo:
"READ CAREFULLY. By reading this article, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer."
For some reason, I find that people using Rand to support a statement often deserve -1 troll.
Exactly why that is, I don't know. Perhaps they are attracted by the idea that selfishness is moral, or perhaps they like reading thick books that are long-winded ways of explaining a few simple ideas.
anonymous source claims that BrandX is merely waiting for BrandY to release their ProductX before they clobber them with ProductY.
Wait.. Why is BrandX making ProductY?
A couple dozen POWER in a BMW? kinda doubt it. I think you probably mean PowerPC 4xx, which can trace it's genealogy to POWER but is not the same thing.
smaller dies = more per wafer = more cost effective solution?
new process = more defects per wafer = fewer working chips
Shannon. Too low bandwidth.
Dang, you beat me to it. That's the first thought that struck me too, Papadopoulos has reversed the cause and effect.
Some companies scale up their IT infrastructure at a faster-than-Moore pace because they need that IT infrastructure. Why do they need it? Because they are experiencing heavy growth. They don't have growth because their IT demands are exploding, their IT demands are exploding because they have growth.
It is like your water utility connecting your house to the water pipe and getting pissed when you have it turned on all the time.
I don't get what's so special about the 'bandwidth crunch' on cable. Compared to other last mile technologies, it stacks up pretty well. If you try to push the same services over *DSL, you'd come up very short. The only comparable alternative is fiber, and the cost of putting new fibre in the ground is going to be the same whether you are a cable co upgrading from coax or a telco upgrading from copper.
I'd even argue that cable cos are in a better position; the existing coax has loads of bandwidth so if they move the fiber to distribution points closer to the subscribers (e.g., instead of 5000 cable customers hanging off a single fiber node you have 100-200) you gain lots of last mile capacity without having to pull fibre all the way to each customer.
Although with all the loses in the IP arena can SCO still legally sell it's OS?
Yes. The parts they developed on top of or are unrelated to Novell's SVR4 copyrights anyway.
I've RTFA, and still don't get what the 'surprising results' is supposed to be.
It has huge capacity - check.
It is noisy and sucks power - check.
It is not a speed champion - check.
Not exactly surprising for the first 1TB drive on the market.
It might be large enough to store a year of /. dupes. ;-)
and the video is MJPEG 320x240. This is probably dumped directly from a Ricoh digital camera.
The difference is that most people know that pins and eyes don't mix. Numbtards don't run around with consumer grade pins and stick them in peoples eyes, but they don't think twice about fooling around with laser pointers.
.22 gun is an accident waiting to happen.
The legal power limit on laser pointers is set so that they eye's natural blink reflex will protect the retina from permanent damage. This thing is 50 * the limit, and will cause permanent damage at less than 1/100 second. Blink reflex is at about 1/10 second. Even partial reflection off something like a milk glass might cause permanent blind spots (and you are unlikely to realize it at the time, the brain interpolates). An instructable like this without a warning to use laser safety glasses and treat it like you would a
Also, if you use a diode rated at say 200mW@2.5V it will output a lot more if run at 3V. And someone is bound to make one with a CD-burner diode; while they are lower powered, they output IR so you won't see where you're pointing it and it won't trigger the blink reflex.
That's pretty much exactly what J&J did. Red Cross is free to use the symbol in connection with nonprofit relief services, they don't even have to pay $1 to J&J. And that's an arrangement that has been working just fine for a long time.
Then RC went ahead and licensed the symbol to manufacturers of first aid kits and similar, which happen to be in direct competition with J&J's products.
I kind of doubt it, 0.25W will make a mess of your retina but is a bit on the weak side for cutting. For comparison, industrial CNC lasers are in the 100-3000W range and laser engraving on wood use afaik 5-10W.
Geneva Convention Protocol IV on Blinding Laser Weapons. Then again, the US hasn't really shown much interest in complying with international treaties lately so what the heck; those laser designators are dual use, no?
Professional asswipes would use UV lasers. If you miss the target's eyes you give him a heightened chance of skin cancer instead.
The laser used in the article is said to be 245mW, so with regards to eye safety it would not be an exaggeration to say 'this is a weapon, not a toy'.