I wanted to say that I think your last gold watch analogy is the best argument against my point that i've seen yet.
Just for the record, I disagree somewhat with Apple sending the threatening letter to MacFixIt. It's Apple's fault, and they should rectify it by recalling all the CDs and releasing something a little better thought out.
But your counter-analogies don't address the exploitative nature of the situation either - and the only analogies against your's I can come up with now are pretty contrived... copyright with software is a very different beast than just about everything else.
Anyway, my only point was this: if you buy the upgrade CD without owning OSX 10, with the intention of using it to install 10.1 , then this is wrong.
please read the post which I was replying to - in this case it was relevant. the other poster said:
"They sold me a CD containing data, and I'm using it. I'm not copying anything they didn't sell me; I'm not giving it to someone who didn't pay; I'm not modifying their code and redistributing it. If it is, well, that wouldn't surprise me, but that doesn't mean Apple isn't wrong."
I disagree somewhat with Apple trying to force the site to remove the instructions on bypassing the copy protection.
But I will not defend people who fool themselves into thinking that it's justified to use the upgrade as a full install just because they can. I would respect them twice as much if they would just admit that they're taking it because they want it and don't want to pay for the full OS.
If you want OSX 10.1, just buy it.
The trend of criminalizing people who reveal problems rather than fixing the problems disgusts me. So do the people who exploit the problems and then blame the companies.
did you stop to think that, rather than lacking backbone, the people at macfixit said, "well, you know, they have a point. we don't want to carry information that helps people work around an admittedly weak security mechanism on the osx10.1 upgrade? if they want to do that, they can do figure it out on their own"
maybe i'm wrong, but there's no way of knowing - so why make accusation we can't back up?
What do we hate here? Current enforcement of copyright law. Why do we hate it? Because it takes laws that exist for good reason (protecting inventors from others immediately stealing their work and profiting from it) and twists their meaning to protect bad behavior (not letting me keep a backup of an ebook, if i stopped my personal boycott of the product). IE, it make morally shaky actions legal.
I won't condescend to you and make the obvious comparison here...
The correct analogy is if the cashier at a store gives you a $20 instead of the single that you were supposed to get in your change. Or buying a car from someone and finding an expensive watch between the seats.
It is morally wrong to keep it. It is stealing, no matter how clever your arguments are to the contrary.
It is very, very simple. Apple sells you an upgrade CD. They - through incompetence or ignorance - included the whole OSX 10.1 install. You inadvertently receive something you didn't pay for. Keeping it (or similarly, installing it without paying for a copy) is stealing.
Have you usurped the Supreme Court as being the definitive interpreter of the Constitution? Because according to the Constitution itself, the Supreme Court is final word in judicial review.
"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish....[Their] judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution..."
- US Constitution, Article III sec 1-2
Because they haven't struck down the Lanham Act yet. So not a SINGLE THING IN MY POST WAS WRONG.
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"
-US Constitution, Article V.
"In the United States trademarks may be protected by both Federal statute under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1051 - 1127, and states' statutory and/or common laws. Congress enacted the Lanham Act under its Constitutional grant of authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. See U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3. A trademark registered under the Lanham Act has nationwide protection. See 1115 of the Act.
Under the Lanham Act, a seller applies to register a trademark with the Patent and Trademark Office. The mark can already be in use or be one that will be used in the future. See 1051 of the act. The Office's regulations pertaining to trademarks are found in Parts 1 - 7 of Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations. If the trademark is initially, approved by an examiner, it is published in the Official Gazette of the Trademark Office to notify other parties of the pending approval so that it may be opposed. See 1062 - 1063 of the Act. An appeals process is available for rejected applications. See 1070 - 1071 of the Act."
- from http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/trademark.html
you can browse the sections of United States Code Title 15 at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/. As it mentions above, the Lanham Act is comprised of 1051 - 1127.
courtesy of google
Re:Welcome to Corporate Government...
on
DMCA 2, Freedom 0
·
· Score: 1
and ashcroft and bush are rigorously enforcing it.
how does the fact that it was enacted under the clinton administration absolve the bush administration of blame?
"beware LNUX (va linux systems), their management spends exhorbidant sums of money on 'business trips' to China in order to sodomize pandas"
the decision as i read it states that anyone who acts on this information should know better, because it is on a message board and is intrinsically opinion rather than fact.
more sinister, posting:
"Person X embezzles money from his company. He then uses it to buy drugs which he then sells to children. He funnels the profits to terrorist groups. And he like kiddy p0rn".
this could hurt X's reputation and may cause people to harm him. however, because of the context, it is not libelous. however, if a newspaper did the same, there would be a lawsuit and the paper would lose. this is a silly double standard, and invites abuse ("sorry that we at the NY Post said that GE stock was going to nosedive without any evidence, but everyone knows that you cannot take this paper seriously...")
essentially the judge says that nothing on message boards can be taken seriously - not that personal communication must be protected. Their is now a legal precedent that message boards are a joke.
once i load tested a java based content server - 5 clients over a LAN couldn't max it out.
granted, even IIS servering up static files is a hundred times faster... but 3 of these java servers each serviced 100-300K requests in a given day with a 20 page/sec peak load. and they were greatly underutilized (cpu's (2) only reach 10% of capacity). granted, the lead developer was a hell of a programmer.
blah, in any case, point taken. but nobody uses java for the performance... the big advantage is that.java files are a lot easier to read than.asm ones and that it leaves a smaller hole when you shoot yourself in the foot.
Why on earth would the FSF be expected to advocate the 'freedom to choose whatever license you want'... something which is not only a given, but also contrary to the goals of the FSF?
You're playing rhetorical tricks. It is possible to promote your viewpoint and disagree with rivals while not condemning them. That was my point. Of course FSF should advocate the GPL, but that does not require the vitriolic denunciation of proprietary software that i see from Stallman.
When you have a quote by them saying, "and so we will do this, this and this to make all other licenses illegal" THEN I will listen.
Now you are trying to get me with excessive literalism. I don't have the secret FSF plan to destroy proprietary software. It doesn't exist (AFAIK). But the following ideas are omnipresent on fsf.org: laws should follow ethics. ethics say we should act for the collective benefit of society. proprietary software harms society.... it doesn't take a philosopher to read between the lines.
As it is, you seem to be expecting the FSF to advocate things it totally does not believe in, and this is foolish. What possible reason could the FSF have for publically stating 'we advocate people using proprietary licenses if they want'? That is YOUR PROBLEM if you want to do that. You don't need their permission and are certainly not going to get their blessing- why even behave like you expect them to approve of this?
I think this bares repeating:
However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom. (Stallman)
I'm not saying that Free software isn't an admirable cause. I believe it is. But developers should choose to release their code under the GPL because they think it is right, not because they are compelled to. I think the FSF would be best served promoting choice, and pointing out why the GPL is the best among them. Instead it seems as though they are against closed source as much as they are pro-Free.
i was going to breath some fire, but i have to concede that you're right.
while i didn't want to get involved in a discussion with strong Stallman supporters - in part because of my lack of expertise on the subject, and in part due to the unwillingness to listen that i've seen among them - i'll clarify my views.
(i don't know Stallman and don't feel comfortable making personal statements about him. so i am guarded in my language, like it or not.)
from what essays of his that i've read, i can't help but think that he is too much of an extremist and too much of an idealist to be an effective spokesperson for Free software.
i read an interesting editorial today in the nytimes (here). it discusses fundamentalism vs pluralism, albeit in the context of the afganistan war. Stallman might do himself a favor by reading it and looking closely between the lines.
i see no reason that commercial, proprietary software cannot coexist with Free software.
unfortunately, i don't think that Stallman really sees that his view is totally contrary to the notion of 'freedom'. it's a totalitarian notion that has historical analogs - notably the USSR - where an ideology has been imposed on people for their 'benefit'.
why should i distribute my source with my binaries? if i'm offering my binaries for free, then what right does anyone have to complain about this - if it is buggy or you have issues with my licensing, then don't download it. i can see were this gets sticky in areas were a single product has almost universal acceptance and the source is closed (ie windows, aol client/AIM). but if there are no alternatives, you are always free to develope your won, as Mr. Torvalds did.
i am positive that this is Stallman's view because he nearly says it outright: "However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the 'freedom to choose any license you want for software you write'. We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom."
His notion of power ("Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you.") is deeply flawed... i would say power is more like 'directly preventing others from acting freely'. government has power - you can be punished for murder, you must pay taxes, etc. it is limited power we give up under the social contract (if you subscribe to Hobbes) in return for certain benefits of government. and their cannot be more than 1 government simultaneous.
software companies/programmers don't have this power that Stallman attributes to them. there are always alternatives. if you don't like oracle, then use sqlserver. or use postgresql or mysql. or write your own. a company can be as restrictive as they want with their license and charge as much as they want. but they cannot force people to buy their software.
an abundance of licenses doesn't affect the freedom of a computer user.
a restriction on the way i see fit to distribute my software does infringe on my freedoms, though. and a restriction on any freedom undermines them all.
IBM's already had their anti-trust difficulties, and entering the desktop/workstation/lower-end server OS arena probably wouldn't look good from that perspective (different (imho) from creating their own proprietary OS, but....)
anyway, i understand you point. personally, i'm torn between 1.) having IBM create/buy their own distro and create a huge chunk of legitimacy for Linux with huge/rich customers of IBM (and in turn attract more developers) and 2.) that an IBM distro could be disastrous for Debian, SuSe, et al. - most businesses that have a choice between IBM products and non-IBM products would choose IBM if they had the $.
(i totally agree with you about management fascination with all things IBM - have you ever seen one looking at a decked-out ThinkPad? although, honestly, i get a little misty eyed myself:) )
or these sloppy admins could store them in encrypted form and/or in a private directory....
i'm sure google knows of a dozen ways they can do this, but why should they? it isn't prohibitively hard to write a spider, and with a 160GB HD for $300, someone with not-so-pure motives and the equivalent of an undergrad education in CS could write one, send it out (ignoring robots.txt), do the reverse of that regex search to sniff out cc#'s online, and create a database full of beer money.
ie, (as has been mentioned n+1 times already) Google changing their behavior does nothing to fix the underlying problem of sysadmins that are undertrained and/or irresponsible.
they are talking about sensitive personal information - just don't store this online.
if you really need to access something (that isn't a credit card number... just don't do that!) and don't have physical access to the box, try SSH or at least make sure it's a secure directory (httpS://blah/mystuff...)
okay, i am not above admitting i've made a mistake. and with the benefit of you further explanation, i realize i have made one.
although it may have never have come across as such in my post, i read and loved both the old man and the sea and 1984 (along with many other pieces by hemingway and orwell... as a matter of fact, i think orwell's essays on politics and writing are some of the finest examples of the essay in the english language).
and i do respect his experience - as a man who lived through WWII, the rise of fascism across europe, and the failure of communism in the ussr. he wrote about his time with a rare combination of insight into human nature, writing skill, and imagination.
that said though...
i don't believe a book can really speak the whole truth about human nature. i think every piece of literature, painting, film, and.. well, everything that people do.... offers a glimpse of the human 'spirit'.
while i respect orwell and think that 1984 is one of the finer books ever written, i feel that is like a single jewel in Indra's net in Buddhist philosophy... albeit a particularly brilliant one. also in that net are siddhartha, guernica, life is beautiful, countless daily acts of kindness, just as many acts of cruelty... each of them interconnected and reflected in each other, forming the whole.
or perhaps there isn't a whole/truth to find.
either way, i don't think it's in any one book, and that is what i originally thought you meant. sorry about that:)
1984, for whatever insight it offered, wasn't anything more than a product of the imagination of Orwell.
Similarly, The Old Man and the Sea was nothing but a product of Hemingways mind.
Neither is any kind of authoritative guide on the human condition. They are both opinions and reflections of reality. You cannot use them to deduce anything more about human nature and/or 'spirit' than you could by watching 'Indiana Jones'.
Slashdot Mirror
...which is how most moderators seem to use it. which is sad. tyranny of the majority is boring in spirited discussions...
how is this a troll? please, if you can't mod well, then just mod up...
I wanted to say that I think your last gold watch analogy is the best argument against my point that i've seen yet.
Just for the record, I disagree somewhat with Apple sending the threatening letter to MacFixIt. It's Apple's fault, and they should rectify it by recalling all the CDs and releasing something a little better thought out.
But your counter-analogies don't address the exploitative nature of the situation either - and the only analogies against your's I can come up with now are pretty contrived... copyright with software is a very different beast than just about everything else.
Anyway, my only point was this: if you buy the upgrade CD without owning OSX 10, with the intention of using it to install 10.1 , then this is wrong.
Isn't it obvious by now that just because it's Federal law doesn't make it right?
Or could I use the same justification for the DMCA and the US PATRIOT act?
please read the post which I was replying to - in this case it was relevant. the other poster said:
"They sold me a CD containing data, and I'm using it. I'm not copying anything they didn't sell me; I'm not giving it to someone who didn't pay; I'm not modifying their code and redistributing it. If it is, well, that wouldn't surprise me, but that doesn't mean Apple isn't wrong."
I disagree somewhat with Apple trying to force the site to remove the instructions on bypassing the copy protection.
But I will not defend people who fool themselves into thinking that it's justified to use the upgrade as a full install just because they can. I would respect them twice as much if they would just admit that they're taking it because they want it and don't want to pay for the full OS.
If you want OSX 10.1, just buy it.
The trend of criminalizing people who reveal problems rather than fixing the problems disgusts me. So do the people who exploit the problems and then blame the companies.
did you stop to think that, rather than lacking backbone, the people at macfixit said, "well, you know, they have a point. we don't want to carry information that helps people work around an admittedly weak security mechanism on the osx10.1 upgrade? if they want to do that, they can do figure it out on their own"
maybe i'm wrong, but there's no way of knowing - so why make accusation we can't back up?
Come on!
What do we hate here? Current enforcement of copyright law. Why do we hate it? Because it takes laws that exist for good reason (protecting inventors from others immediately stealing their work and profiting from it) and twists their meaning to protect bad behavior (not letting me keep a backup of an ebook, if i stopped my personal boycott of the product). IE, it make morally shaky actions legal.
I won't condescend to you and make the obvious comparison here...
The correct analogy is if the cashier at a store gives you a $20 instead of the single that you were supposed to get in your change. Or buying a car from someone and finding an expensive watch between the seats.
It is morally wrong to keep it. It is stealing, no matter how clever your arguments are to the contrary.
It is very, very simple. Apple sells you an upgrade CD. They - through incompetence or ignorance - included the whole OSX 10.1 install. You inadvertently receive something you didn't pay for. Keeping it (or similarly, installing it without paying for a copy) is stealing.
Have you usurped the Supreme Court as being the definitive interpreter of the Constitution? Because according to the Constitution itself, the Supreme Court is final word in judicial review.
"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish....[Their] judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution..."
- US Constitution, Article III sec 1-2
Because they haven't struck down the Lanham Act yet. So not a SINGLE THING IN MY POST WAS WRONG.
It you disagree with the law, fine, go ahead. If I think that the first amendment gives me the right to yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, I'll still go to jail for yelling it. (Schenk v US)
Furthermore, with respect to your last point:
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"
-US Constitution, Article V.
here is a description from cornell law:
"In the United States trademarks may be protected by both Federal statute under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1051 - 1127, and states' statutory and/or common laws. Congress enacted the Lanham Act under its Constitutional grant of authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. See U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3. A trademark registered under the Lanham Act has nationwide protection. See 1115 of the Act.
Under the Lanham Act, a seller applies to register a trademark with the Patent and Trademark Office. The mark can already be in use or be one that will be used in the future. See 1051 of the act. The Office's regulations pertaining to trademarks are found in Parts 1 - 7 of Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations. If the trademark is initially, approved by an examiner, it is published in the Official Gazette of the Trademark Office to notify other parties of the pending approval so that it may be opposed. See 1062 - 1063 of the Act. An appeals process is available for rejected applications. See 1070 - 1071 of the Act."
- from http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/trademark.html
you can browse the sections of United States Code Title 15 at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/. As it mentions above, the Lanham Act is comprised of 1051 - 1127.
courtesy of google
and ashcroft and bush are rigorously enforcing it.
how does the fact that it was enacted under the clinton administration absolve the bush administration of blame?
what if i were to post this on datek:
"beware LNUX (va linux systems), their management spends exhorbidant sums of money on 'business trips' to China in order to sodomize pandas"
the decision as i read it states that anyone who acts on this information should know better, because it is on a message board and is intrinsically opinion rather than fact.
more sinister, posting:
"Person X embezzles money from his company. He then uses it to buy drugs which he then sells to children. He funnels the profits to terrorist groups. And he like kiddy p0rn".
this could hurt X's reputation and may cause people to harm him. however, because of the context, it is not libelous. however, if a newspaper did the same, there would be a lawsuit and the paper would lose. this is a silly double standard, and invites abuse ("sorry that we at the NY Post said that GE stock was going to nosedive without any evidence, but everyone knows that you cannot take this paper seriously...")
essentially the judge says that nothing on message boards can be taken seriously - not that personal communication must be protected. Their is now a legal precedent that message boards are a joke.
are they ill tempered sea bass?
nice, but you forgot the corollary to Godwin's Law... :)
(end of first paragraph)
once i load tested a java based content server - 5 clients over a LAN couldn't max it out.
... the big advantage is that .java files are a lot easier to read than .asm ones and that it leaves a smaller hole when you shoot yourself in the foot.
granted, even IIS servering up static files is a hundred times faster... but 3 of these java servers each serviced 100-300K requests in a given day with a 20 page/sec peak load. and they were greatly underutilized (cpu's (2) only reach 10% of capacity). granted, the lead developer was a hell of a programmer.
blah, in any case, point taken. but nobody uses java for the performance
Why on earth would the FSF be expected to advocate the 'freedom to choose whatever license you want'... something which is not only a given, but also contrary to the goals of the FSF?
You're playing rhetorical tricks. It is possible to promote your viewpoint and disagree with rivals while not condemning them. That was my point. Of course FSF should advocate the GPL, but that does not require the vitriolic denunciation of proprietary software that i see from Stallman.
When you have a quote by them saying, "and so we will do this, this and this to make all other licenses illegal" THEN I will listen.
Now you are trying to get me with excessive literalism. I don't have the secret FSF plan to destroy proprietary software. It doesn't exist (AFAIK). But the following ideas are omnipresent on fsf.org: laws should follow ethics. ethics say we should act for the collective benefit of society. proprietary software harms society.... it doesn't take a philosopher to read between the lines.
As it is, you seem to be expecting the FSF to advocate things it totally does not believe in, and this is foolish. What possible reason could the FSF have for publically stating 'we advocate people using proprietary licenses if they want'? That is YOUR PROBLEM if you want to do that. You don't need their permission and are certainly not going to get their blessing- why even behave like you expect them to approve of this?
I think this bares repeating:
However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom. (Stallman)
I'm not saying that Free software isn't an admirable cause. I believe it is. But developers should choose to release their code under the GPL because they think it is right, not because they are compelled to. I think the FSF would be best served promoting choice, and pointing out why the GPL is the best among them. Instead it seems as though they are against closed source as much as they are pro-Free.
great comment. i have no mod points to give :(
i was going to breath some fire, but i have to concede that you're right.
while i didn't want to get involved in a discussion with strong Stallman supporters - in part because of my lack of expertise on the subject, and in part due to the unwillingness to listen that i've seen among them - i'll clarify my views.
(i don't know Stallman and don't feel comfortable making personal statements about him. so i am guarded in my language, like it or not.)
from what essays of his that i've read, i can't help but think that he is too much of an extremist and too much of an idealist to be an effective spokesperson for Free software.
i read an interesting editorial today in the nytimes (here). it discusses fundamentalism vs pluralism, albeit in the context of the afganistan war. Stallman might do himself a favor by reading it and looking closely between the lines.
i see no reason that commercial, proprietary software cannot coexist with Free software.
unfortunately, i don't think that Stallman really sees that his view is totally contrary to the notion of 'freedom'. it's a totalitarian notion that has historical analogs - notably the USSR - where an ideology has been imposed on people for their 'benefit'.
why should i distribute my source with my binaries? if i'm offering my binaries for free, then what right does anyone have to complain about this - if it is buggy or you have issues with my licensing, then don't download it. i can see were this gets sticky in areas were a single product has almost universal acceptance and the source is closed (ie windows, aol client/AIM). but if there are no alternatives, you are always free to develope your won, as Mr. Torvalds did.
i am positive that this is Stallman's view because he nearly says it outright: "However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the 'freedom to choose any license you want for software you write'. We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom."
His notion of power ("Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you.") is deeply flawed... i would say power is more like 'directly preventing others from acting freely'. government has power - you can be punished for murder, you must pay taxes, etc. it is limited power we give up under the social contract (if you subscribe to Hobbes) in return for certain benefits of government. and their cannot be more than 1 government simultaneous.
software companies/programmers don't have this power that Stallman attributes to them. there are always alternatives. if you don't like oracle, then use sqlserver. or use postgresql or mysql. or write your own. a company can be as restrictive as they want with their license and charge as much as they want. but they cannot force people to buy their software.
an abundance of licenses doesn't affect the freedom of a computer user.
a restriction on the way i see fit to distribute my software does infringe on my freedoms, though. and a restriction on any freedom undermines them all.
</big long rant>...
IBM's already had their anti-trust difficulties, and entering the desktop/workstation/lower-end server OS arena probably wouldn't look good from that perspective (different (imho) from creating their own proprietary OS, but....)
:) )
anyway, i understand you point. personally, i'm torn between 1.) having IBM create/buy their own distro and create a huge chunk of legitimacy for Linux with huge/rich customers of IBM (and in turn attract more developers) and 2.) that an IBM distro could be disastrous for Debian, SuSe, et al. - most businesses that have a choice between IBM products and non-IBM products would choose IBM if they had the $.
(i totally agree with you about management fascination with all things IBM - have you ever seen one looking at a decked-out ThinkPad? although, honestly, i get a little misty eyed myself
i believe that RMS's point is that people ideally should not have a choice.
i believe his says this directly in his essay.
or these sloppy admins could store them in encrypted form and/or in a private directory....
i'm sure google knows of a dozen ways they can do this, but why should they? it isn't prohibitively hard to write a spider, and with a 160GB HD for $300, someone with not-so-pure motives and the equivalent of an undergrad education in CS could write one, send it out (ignoring robots.txt), do the reverse of that regex search to sniff out cc#'s online, and create a database full of beer money.
ie, (as has been mentioned n+1 times already) Google changing their behavior does nothing to fix the underlying problem of sysadmins that are undertrained and/or irresponsible.
are you kidding?
they are talking about sensitive personal information - just don't store this online.
if you really need to access something (that isn't a credit card number... just don't do that!) and don't have physical access to the box, try SSH or at least make sure it's a secure directory (httpS://blah/mystuff...)
okay, i am not above admitting i've made a mistake. and with the benefit of you further explanation, i realize i have made one.
.. well, everything that people do. ... offers a glimpse of the human 'spirit'.
:)
although it may have never have come across as such in my post, i read and loved both the old man and the sea and 1984 (along with many other pieces by hemingway and orwell... as a matter of fact, i think orwell's essays on politics and writing are some of the finest examples of the essay in the english language).
and i do respect his experience - as a man who lived through WWII, the rise of fascism across europe, and the failure of communism in the ussr. he wrote about his time with a rare combination of insight into human nature, writing skill, and imagination.
that said though...
i don't believe a book can really speak the whole truth about human nature. i think every piece of literature, painting, film, and
while i respect orwell and think that 1984 is one of the finer books ever written, i feel that is like a single jewel in Indra's net in Buddhist philosophy... albeit a particularly brilliant one. also in that net are siddhartha, guernica, life is beautiful, countless daily acts of kindness, just as many acts of cruelty... each of them interconnected and reflected in each other, forming the whole.
or perhaps there isn't a whole/truth to find.
either way, i don't think it's in any one book, and that is what i originally thought you meant. sorry about that
reality is not in a book.
1984, for whatever insight it offered, wasn't anything more than a product of the imagination of Orwell.
Similarly, The Old Man and the Sea was nothing but a product of Hemingways mind.
Neither is any kind of authoritative guide on the human condition. They are both opinions and reflections of reality. You cannot use them to deduce anything more about human nature and/or 'spirit' than you could by watching 'Indiana Jones'.
i hope that's tounge in cheek...
.... and reverse that for fuel cells.
2H20 + electricity -> 2H2 + 02
the only way to 'destroy' hydrogen is through fusion. remember that pesky rule of thumb about conservation of mass/energy?
try this link, it's more informative than my little summary.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/fuel-cell.htm