Ballmer also said the states' proposed sanctions could cost billions of dollars and "erode" the value of Microsoft's flagship product by allowing competitors to "clone" the operating system.
Um, interesting choice of words. In this context, the word "clone" immediately conjures images of Compaq's cloning of the IBM PC's BIOS--an action that (with apologies to Woz) was probably the single most important event in the launching of the industry.
If Balmer's trying to argue that the proposed sanctions would be harmful to the consumer or would fail to promote competition, isn't this the worst comparison he could possibly make?
If it is indeed a chaotic system, then it is unpredictable. That's pretty much the definition of a chaotic system-- tiny changes in initial conditions can have enormous effects on the behavior of the system. The evolution of such a system is, even in principle, impossible to predict (unless one has absolutely complete knowledge of the present state of the system-- a degree of knowledge which we can never obtain no matter how advanced our measurement methods become-- and essentially infinite computational power).
Indeed, Thomas Gold has famously proposed an alternate hypothesis for how life may have evolved in extreme conditions beneath the Earth's crust. He also believes it reasonably like that life may evolve or have existed on Mars. (The 1992 discovery of a Martian metorite containing bacteria fossils would seem to support his hypothesis, although, as far as I know, it hasn't been conclusively ruled out that the life forms fossilized in that rock were terrestrial in origin.)
Sounds like John Cramer's "Transactional Interpretation" of quantum physics.
I think that it still has a lot of adherents. However, it's really more of an "interpretation" than a "theory." Its predictions are identical to those of the various other interpretations of quantum physics, so the question of whether this interpretation or another interpretation is "correct" is essentially a question of semantics.
The PC platform that Gates is touting was created by IBM, not Microsoft. Arguably, the PC-as-a-cheap-commodity was created when Compaq clean roomed a clone of IBM's BIOS. Maybe IBM thought the BIOS would give them control over the platform indefinitely.
All we need now is for somebody to create a clean room clone of Windows. Freedows shall be our salvation.
Absurd! It would require a massive conspiracy even to attempt that. For the cash and pawnable goods in your house? I don't think so.
First, this bill relates to delay of notification of warrants executed by Federal law enforcement, whereas you would go to the local police when you discover that your house has been broken into. So the Feds and the locals would have to be in cahoots.
Second, this bill explicitly prohibits the seizure of any "tangible property" under any warrants whose notification is delayed pursuant to this section. Geez, read the friggin' thing! Skim it, even. It's a pretty hard provision to miss, even on a cursory inspection.
Third, the Feds don't get to bury the warrant indefinitely just because they don't indict you. A judge would have to continually grant extensions to the delay. And when the judge retires, or transfers to another circuit, they'll need to get another judge. Um... this conspiracy would be pretty easy to expose.
Oh, sure, if all the locals are in on the conspiracy, they may be able to play dumb and tell you that their investigation went nowhere... but who needs a warrant for that?
All this applies quite clearly to US attempts to assassinate Castro, US kidnapping of Ol' Pineapple Face (Bush Sr.'s best buddy), the NATO bombing of Kosovo, Clinton's attempts to kidnap Somali guerillas, etc. etc. etc.
That thought has occurred to me as well, and I think there's a good case to be made for the position that many of these acts were indeed terrorist acts.
Note that the previous message only gives part of the definition of terrorism; not its entirety. Another requirement is that the act be a violation of the criminal laws of the United States. The assassination and kidnapping attempts you cite perhaps don't qualify, but only because of the Nixon defense: "If the President orders it, that makes it legal." So, if they do it us, it's terrorism; if we do it to them, it's not. This can't be all that surprising to you.
As for Kosovo, etc., the section cited in the earlier comment deals separately with situations of war or "armed conflict."
Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Green Mountain boys predate the statute, of course.
Minor clarification here: The bill does not permit an indefinite delay to be granted; the must be granted for "a reasonable period." It does, however, permit law enforcement officials to go back to court and get extensions, provided that they can show good cause.
If the search was conducted on my house, how am I ever going to know that it wasn't a fishing expedition, and be able to challenge that, because I was never served a warrant detailing what the search was for? Judicial oversight is weakened- and I'm trusting the judge to disallow fishing expeditions, when previously I'd have a warrant, and my own lawyer working to protect my interests.
If the evidence is used against you in a court of law in order to use it against you, then the prosecution will have to account for it; the evidence will not otherwise be admissable. (More than that, you will almost certainly have a copy of the warrant itself by this time. Delay of notification may be granted so long as law enforcement can continue to show good cause. I can't think of any situation in which they could reasonably argue that, even as they are confronting you in court with evidence that resulted from execution of the warrant, they still have good cause to continue to delay notifying you of it.)
I concede that, if the evidence is never used against you, and the courts continue to grant extensions of the delay, it is theoretically possible that you will never become aware that the search ever happened, and therefore that you'll be unable to take any action about it. Of course, that's true under current law, as well-- if officers conduct an illegal search of your house and you never find out about it, you can't respond to it. As a general rule, they don't do this, because they want evidence they can actually use. The potential delay of notification does nothing to change that.
for me terrorism has nothing to do with the actions and everything to do with the intent.
Hey, whaddya know-- the law agrees with you! Terrorism-- or, more precisely, "international terrorism"-- is defined in U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2331. Part of the definition is:
(1) the term ''international terrorism'' means activities that...
(B) appear to be intended -
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping
IANAL, but from what I understand, we're talking about delay of warrant notification when such delay is necessary to avoid adverse results as defined in U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2705 (this covers things like threat to life, serious jeapordization of the investigation, etc.). It is not carte blance for law encforcement officials. They still have to go before a judge, get a warrant, and establish that immediate notification of the warrant would create a risk of the kind of adverse results defined in 18.2705. They can not simply "go fishing and hope to find evidence of a crime"; if they do, anything they find will be inadmissible, just as it would be under current law.
I think over history, Apple has shown with some regularity that they can pull "the impossible" out of their hat. Now with Jobs and NeXT genes on board, that sense is even more intense.
Over history, perhaps Apple has shown that, but has it shown it over recent history?
Early in Jobs's second tenure at Apple, the claim may have been justified. Apple had recently created the first Power Macintosh G3s, which compared favorably in price and performance to contemporary x86-based PCs. It had followed that up with the introduction of the iMac, which was a tremendously successful product. Then it created the B&W G3, which was an impressive machine (including an innovative case design that I think was pretty significant). It announced Mac OS X, which was very exciting. All in all, it did a heck of a lot to generate excitement, all within the span of about a year or two.
Since then, Apple's track record is far less impressive. OS X has only just arrived, far later than we expected it to, and while it's impressive, it's not nearly as impressive as would have been to deliver it on the originally announced schedule. The tardy operating system aside, the only really jaw-dropping product created by Apple in the last three years or so is the Cinema Display, and even that was over two years ago. The Cube garnered was an impressive feat of design and engineering, but a commercial failure. Meanwhile, both iMacs and Power Macs have fallen behind and now compare unfavorably in price and performance to x86-based Windows PCs, certain AltiVec-optimized PhotoShop filters notwithstanding. The iMac has become particularly stale; its look is no longer considered fashionable, and its display is considered too small for today's consumers.
During that great run a few years ago, Apple wowed us anew with every press event, WWDC, Seybold conference, etc., and we came to expect it to make the impossible the routine. And now, Apple fans are still in the habit of reacting with a frenzy of anticipation before each such event, despite the fact that such anticipation has been consistently met with disappointment for about three years now-- considerably longer than the impressive run that justified the habit in the first place.
Not that Apple hasn't produced any quality products in the past three years-- certainly, it has-- but it has consistently failed to live up to the hype. It has been, as pi radians said, more like a "normal company."
Maybe most everyone on Slashdot is a pimply-faced youth -- it's the only rationale I can find for the number of posts that actually *defend* the nosepickers who just got in trouble.
The issue that has many/.'ers concerned is not whether the kids are saints-- clearly they are not-- but rather whether the reaction to their behavior, by the school and by the government, were appropriate.
Argue "freedom of speech" all you like, but your right to verbally abuse me ends where my fist reaches your face. All the utopian ideals in the world aren't going to do you a bit of good when you're picking your teeth up from the ground.
Wanna disagree with someone? Wanna protest something unfair? Wanna make a difference to the system and wanna get things to change?
Better do it civilly, then. Much safer for your teeth, let alone your education.
If I speak uncivilly and you knock my teeth out, my incivility does not justify your violence. In this case, we would both be in the wrong. (You, however, would probably be the only one subject to criminal prosecution.)
A couple of kids put up a website that, from what we know about it, reflected a great deal of immaturity. That's not a very interesting subject of discussion. We all know that the world is full of immature teenagers, and will continue to be so for the forseeable future.
A school and the police react in a heavy-handed manner. This kind of behavior has disturbing consequences for our society, and hence we decry it.
We all have a good idea of what the Microsoft solution will be: Encryption and copy protection enforced at the operating system level, designed to fit the desires of the RIAA.
That, combined with legislation that prohibits free implemenations of same, will create a legal system that says, "It is a crime to listen to music or view movies without using Microsoft software."
Is this possible?
Darwin is open source, and, from what I understand, it's possible to replace OS X's Darwin with a modified Darwin. So wouldn't it be possible to patch the video system to capture everything that comes through it? Since such a patch would have significant legitimate uses, I don't think the law could prevent its distribution.
Why is it infeasible to store the number stream along with timestamps, and when you decrypt the "start" message, just go back to the proper point in your stream? Even if you missed it by 10 or 1000 places, it's then just a matter of trying different keys until one makes sense.
Suppose the "start" message indicates the frequency on which the number stream is being broadcast. Then you can't record the number stream prior to decoding the start message, because you don't know what to record.
Probably not just a single frequency. In principle, I suppose you could have 100,000 transmitters each transmitting 100 million bits per second on a unique frequency. The original synchronization message would indicate not only the time at which to start using the random numbers, but also the "channel(s)" from which to get the numbers.
Just don't ask me where you're going to get that kind of bandwidth. Perhaps there is already a natural source of such a collection of signals.
"The greatest boon, however is that if the FED requires you to give up your private key (that initiates a communications channel), it doesn't do them any good."
We already have that, assuming PKE isn't practically broken any time soon.
All you need to do is periodically generate a new public/private key pair, and discard the old private key when the other party begins using the new public key.
A lot of skeptics have argued that people won't want to use web-based pay-per-use or subscription-based services, because they'd rather own and control the software.
I believe that this conclusion results from thinking in terms of software that exists today. For today's software, today's model works, and the.NET model doesn't make sense. Of course I wouldn't want my word processor, spreadsheet, or image editor to be a subscription-based service. However, web-based services create the possibility of new kinds of services.
I'll provide a very simple example.
One "web based service" that I like to use is driving directions available from maps.yahoo.com. The interface to this service is manual. I open the page in my web browser, enter a starting address and a destination address, click, and... voila, up comes up a page with driving directions (along with, of course, an advertisement that pays for the service).
Now suppose I want to incorporate this functionality into another system. I have an on-line store at which customers can purchase my goods. I provide delivery of these goods within a limited area, and charge for delivery according to the driving time and distance from my warehouse. In order for my on-line store to provide the delivery charge to my customers, it needs to determine the driving time and distance to the customer's address. When an order comes through, I want driving directions to be provided to my drivers automatically.
(Assume, for sake of this discussion, that it's not sufficient for my purposes to purchase a CD with this data. Suppose maps.yahoo.com provides useful up-to-the-moment information, such as road conditions. It's not an especially compelling example, but I chose it for simplicity.)
Conceivably, I could hack a solution, programatically constructing an HTTP/POST request together programmatically and parsing the returned HTML. This works as long as maps.yahoo.com is reliable and the format of the output doesn't change. Unfortunately, I have no such guarantee, and the service provider has no incentive to make this easy for me. (Today, the provider's revenue comes from ads; it does not want me using its service without a human viewing the ads.) Also, even if it does work, it will take considerable time and effort to implement it (well, not a huge amount, but this is a trivial example).
Now suppose there were a standard platform on which Yahoo (or Mapquest, or other) could provide this as a pay-per-use service, and on which I could invoke this service with a single method call. This would be a win-win for the service provider and for me.
Another trivial example would be day-trading software that relies on up-to-the-minute market information. (Yes, day-trading packages do exist today even without anything like.NET. Again, it's a trivial example.)
Now these services are attractive to me, despite the fact that they're not entirely within my control. By the nature of the services, which rely on current data from outside sources, they can not possibly be self-contained systems residing entirely on my own hardware. They must be web-based.
Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer also said the states' proposed sanctions could cost billions of dollars and "erode" the value of Microsoft's flagship product by allowing competitors to "clone" the operating system.
Um, interesting choice of words. In this context, the word "clone" immediately conjures images of Compaq's cloning of the IBM PC's BIOS--an action that (with apologies to Woz) was probably the single most important event in the launching of the industry.
If Balmer's trying to argue that the proposed sanctions would be harmful to the consumer or would fail to promote competition, isn't this the worst comparison he could possibly make?
If it is indeed a chaotic system, then it is unpredictable. That's pretty much the definition of a chaotic system-- tiny changes in initial conditions can have enormous effects on the behavior of the system. The evolution of such a system is, even in principle, impossible to predict (unless one has absolutely complete knowledge of the present state of the system-- a degree of knowledge which we can never obtain no matter how advanced our measurement methods become-- and essentially infinite computational power).
Indeed, Thomas Gold has famously proposed an alternate hypothesis for how life may have evolved in extreme conditions beneath the Earth's crust. He also believes it reasonably like that life may evolve or have existed on Mars. (The 1992 discovery of a Martian metorite containing bacteria fossils would seem to support his hypothesis, although, as far as I know, it hasn't been conclusively ruled out that the life forms fossilized in that rock were terrestrial in origin.)
Sounds like John Cramer's "Transactional Interpretation" of quantum physics.
I think that it still has a lot of adherents. However, it's really more of an "interpretation" than a "theory." Its predictions are identical to those of the various other interpretations of quantum physics, so the question of whether this interpretation or another interpretation is "correct" is essentially a question of semantics.
The PC platform that Gates is touting was created by IBM, not Microsoft.
Arguably, the PC-as-a-cheap-commodity was created when Compaq clean roomed a clone of IBM's BIOS. Maybe IBM thought the BIOS would give them control over the platform indefinitely.
All we need now is for somebody to create a clean room clone of Windows. Freedows shall be our salvation.
Absurd! It would require a massive conspiracy even to attempt that. For the cash and pawnable goods in your house? I don't think so.
First, this bill relates to delay of notification of warrants executed by Federal law enforcement, whereas you would go to the local police when you discover that your house has been broken into. So the Feds and the locals would have to be in cahoots.
Second, this bill explicitly prohibits the seizure of any "tangible property" under any warrants whose notification is delayed pursuant to this section. Geez, read the friggin' thing! Skim it, even. It's a pretty hard provision to miss, even on a cursory inspection.
Third, the Feds don't get to bury the warrant indefinitely just because they don't indict you. A judge would have to continually grant extensions to the delay. And when the judge retires, or transfers to another circuit, they'll need to get another judge. Um... this conspiracy would be pretty easy to expose.
Oh, sure, if all the locals are in on the conspiracy, they may be able to play dumb and tell you that their investigation went nowhere... but who needs a warrant for that?
All this applies quite clearly to US attempts to assassinate Castro, US kidnapping of Ol' Pineapple Face (Bush Sr.'s best buddy), the NATO bombing of Kosovo, Clinton's attempts to kidnap Somali guerillas, etc. etc. etc.
That thought has occurred to me as well, and I think there's a good case to be made for the position that many of these acts were indeed terrorist acts.
Note that the previous message only gives part of the definition of terrorism; not its entirety. Another requirement is that the act be a violation of the criminal laws of the United States. The assassination and kidnapping attempts you cite perhaps don't qualify, but only because of the Nixon defense: "If the President orders it, that makes it legal." So, if they do it us, it's terrorism; if we do it to them, it's not. This can't be all that surprising to you.
As for Kosovo, etc., the section cited in the earlier comment deals separately with situations of war or "armed conflict."
Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Green Mountain boys predate the statute, of course.
The delay may be an indefinite delay.
Minor clarification here: The bill does not permit an indefinite delay to be granted; the must be granted for "a reasonable period." It does, however, permit law enforcement officials to go back to court and get extensions, provided that they can show good cause.
If the search was conducted on my house, how am I ever going to know that it wasn't a fishing expedition, and be able to challenge that, because I was never served a warrant detailing what the search was for? Judicial oversight is weakened- and I'm trusting the judge to disallow fishing expeditions, when previously I'd have a warrant, and my own lawyer working to protect my interests.
If the evidence is used against you in a court of law in order to use it against you, then the prosecution will have to account for it; the evidence will not otherwise be admissable. (More than that, you will almost certainly have a copy of the warrant itself by this time. Delay of notification may be granted so long as law enforcement can continue to show good cause. I can't think of any situation in which they could reasonably argue that, even as they are confronting you in court with evidence that resulted from execution of the warrant, they still have good cause to continue to delay notifying you of it.)
I concede that, if the evidence is never used against you, and the courts continue to grant extensions of the delay, it is theoretically possible that you will never become aware that the search ever happened, and therefore that you'll be unable to take any action about it. Of course, that's true under current law, as well-- if officers conduct an illegal search of your house and you never find out about it, you can't respond to it. As a general rule, they don't do this, because they want evidence they can actually use. The potential delay of notification does nothing to change that.
Hey, whaddya know-- the law agrees with you! Terrorism-- or, more precisely, "international terrorism"-- is defined in U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2331. Part of the definition is:
IANAL, but from what I understand, we're talking about delay of warrant notification when such delay is necessary to avoid adverse results as defined in U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2705 (this covers things like threat to life, serious jeapordization of the investigation, etc.). It is not carte blance for law encforcement officials. They still have to go before a judge, get a warrant, and establish that immediate notification of the warrant would create a risk of the kind of adverse results defined in 18.2705. They can not simply "go fishing and hope to find evidence of a crime"; if they do, anything they find will be inadmissible, just as it would be under current law.
Over history, perhaps Apple has shown that, but has it shown it over recent history?
Early in Jobs's second tenure at Apple, the claim may have been justified. Apple had recently created the first Power Macintosh G3s, which compared favorably in price and performance to contemporary x86-based PCs. It had followed that up with the introduction of the iMac, which was a tremendously successful product. Then it created the B&W G3, which was an impressive machine (including an innovative case design that I think was pretty significant). It announced Mac OS X, which was very exciting. All in all, it did a heck of a lot to generate excitement, all within the span of about a year or two.
Since then, Apple's track record is far less impressive. OS X has only just arrived, far later than we expected it to, and while it's impressive, it's not nearly as impressive as would have been to deliver it on the originally announced schedule. The tardy operating system aside, the only really jaw-dropping product created by Apple in the last three years or so is the Cinema Display, and even that was over two years ago. The Cube garnered was an impressive feat of design and engineering, but a commercial failure. Meanwhile, both iMacs and Power Macs have fallen behind and now compare unfavorably in price and performance to x86-based Windows PCs, certain AltiVec-optimized PhotoShop filters notwithstanding. The iMac has become particularly stale; its look is no longer considered fashionable, and its display is considered too small for today's consumers.
During that great run a few years ago, Apple wowed us anew with every press event, WWDC, Seybold conference, etc., and we came to expect it to make the impossible the routine. And now, Apple fans are still in the habit of reacting with a frenzy of anticipation before each such event, despite the fact that such anticipation has been consistently met with disappointment for about three years now-- considerably longer than the impressive run that justified the habit in the first place.
Not that Apple hasn't produced any quality products in the past three years-- certainly, it has-- but it has consistently failed to live up to the hype. It has been, as pi radians said, more like a "normal company."
The issue that has many /.'ers concerned is not whether the kids are saints-- clearly they are not-- but rather whether the reaction to their behavior, by the school and by the government, were appropriate.
If I speak uncivilly and you knock my teeth out, my incivility does not justify your violence. In this case, we would both be in the wrong. (You, however, would probably be the only one subject to criminal prosecution.)
A couple of kids put up a website that, from what we know about it, reflected a great deal of immaturity. That's not a very interesting subject of discussion. We all know that the world is full of immature teenagers, and will continue to be so for the forseeable future.
A school and the police react in a heavy-handed manner. This kind of behavior has disturbing consequences for our society, and hence we decry it.
That, combined with legislation that prohibits free implemenations of same, will create a legal system that says, "It is a crime to listen to music or view movies without using Microsoft software."
Is this possible? Darwin is open source, and, from what I understand, it's possible to replace OS X's Darwin with a modified Darwin. So wouldn't it be possible to patch the video system to capture everything that comes through it? Since such a patch would have significant legitimate uses, I don't think the law could prevent its distribution.
Just don't ask me where you're going to get that kind of bandwidth. Perhaps there is already a natural source of such a collection of signals.
"The greatest boon, however is that if the FED requires you to give up your private key (that initiates a communications channel), it doesn't do them any good." We already have that, assuming PKE isn't practically broken any time soon. All you need to do is periodically generate a new public/private key pair, and discard the old private key when the other party begins using the new public key.
I believe that this conclusion results from thinking in terms of software that exists today. For today's software, today's model works, and the .NET model doesn't make sense. Of course I wouldn't want my word processor, spreadsheet, or image editor to be a subscription-based service. However, web-based services create the possibility of new kinds of services.
I'll provide a very simple example.
One "web based service" that I like to use is driving directions available from maps.yahoo.com. The interface to this service is manual. I open the page in my web browser, enter a starting address and a destination address, click, and... voila, up comes up a page with driving directions (along with, of course, an advertisement that pays for the service).
Now suppose I want to incorporate this functionality into another system. I have an on-line store at which customers can purchase my goods. I provide delivery of these goods within a limited area, and charge for delivery according to the driving time and distance from my warehouse. In order for my on-line store to provide the delivery charge to my customers, it needs to determine the driving time and distance to the customer's address. When an order comes through, I want driving directions to be provided to my drivers automatically.
(Assume, for sake of this discussion, that it's not sufficient for my purposes to purchase a CD with this data. Suppose maps.yahoo.com provides useful up-to-the-moment information, such as road conditions. It's not an especially compelling example, but I chose it for simplicity.)
Conceivably, I could hack a solution, programatically constructing an HTTP/POST request together programmatically and parsing the returned HTML. This works as long as maps.yahoo.com is reliable and the format of the output doesn't change. Unfortunately, I have no such guarantee, and the service provider has no incentive to make this easy for me. (Today, the provider's revenue comes from ads; it does not want me using its service without a human viewing the ads.) Also, even if it does work, it will take considerable time and effort to implement it (well, not a huge amount, but this is a trivial example).
Now suppose there were a standard platform on which Yahoo (or Mapquest, or other) could provide this as a pay-per-use service, and on which I could invoke this service with a single method call. This would be a win-win for the service provider and for me.
Another trivial example would be day-trading software that relies on up-to-the-minute market information. (Yes, day-trading packages do exist today even without anything like .NET. Again, it's a trivial example.)
Now these services are attractive to me, despite the fact that they're not entirely within my control. By the nature of the services, which rely on current data from outside sources, they can not possibly be self-contained systems residing entirely on my own hardware. They must be web-based.