Ahh, indeed. Does this mean they will at least use enhancements made to the Paladin in the Crusader project? Seems like they made improvements worth keeping?
Bandwidth is intangible. Show mw a bushel basket full of it.
Bandwidth is little different from electricity in its intangibility, yet you can go to jail for stealing that too. For that matter, so is telephone connect time. It is a service, which is metered so the customer can be charged appropriately. Services do not have to be tangible, else everything from Miss Cleo to the shrink you should be seeing now wouldn't be in business.
Bandwidth is vapor.
If that's so, tell me what happens when your ISP disconnects your vapor service.
If Seti@home is designed such that they will accept the same damn results from any number of users, it's lame. They should have built in a method of tagging each work request with a serial number and only accepting the results of a particular request from the user they originally gave it to - and only once.
This is not only important for the competitive aspect of the project, assuring that competitors aren't cheating, but it also protects the integrity of the data crunching results that Seti@home exists for in the first place.
I know Dave Anderson and he's smarter than this. I wonder why he didn't do something like this?
My firewall blocks all incoming ICMP except a few
select types. Quench is not one of them. It could conceivably be used against you, so I block it. Why wouldn't the guys who write the scripts for the kiddies make changes to their code so that zombie machines ignore source quench ICMP?
I'm not sure how effective source quench is against routers in the path of a zombie host.
I haven't played this game for about 20 years or something. When playing just now, I discovered that the correct path through the maze is still tucked away in some brain cells somewhere. What's even scarier is that I can see all the tiny little things in this recreation that aren't quite right, such as the fact that you can pass through the portcullis (which allows you to open it with the key even when you're not holding the key quite right), that the portcullis opens too quickly, that the magnet won't attract things on an adjacent screen when you hold it offscreen, that the chalice doesn't glow quite right, and so on. I used to idolize this game, if you can't tell.
Some fond remembrances. Sometimes the bat takes away your sword when you're being chased by a dragon, but he accidentally kills the dragon for you. Heh heh. I particularly liked it when you'd hold the sword in the wrong position when trying to kill a dragon, and it eats you before you can stab it. When you end up in its stomach, the dragon dies because the sword gets dragged in with you. You're still alive in its stomach but can't get out.
When bored, we'd try and collect all of the objects and bring them to the castle (the goblet last, of course). We'd bring them inside in the correct order so that they were all stuck to the magnet. You'd have to do it just right because they have a particular pecking order for attraction to the magnet.
We used to punch the dragon in the face and run away when it stopped to try and bite you. Silly dragon.
What a bummer that he hasn't done the other two difficulty levels. Or maybe it's just not working right for me. Sigh.
And then firebomb the patent office and all their fuckin' archives.
FYI, patent records are stored at Iron Mountain's multiple-acre underground mine. Good luck.
Not to mention that there are electronic archives of patents in multiple places. See uspto.gov.
And don't forget, each patent holder and his patent attorney has copies of everything.
But I realize you're only planning a rhetorical firebombing.
Any self-respecting cheater will get around MAC checking without any trouble. But I sure wish someone could come up with a good method of blocking cheaters for real. They completely ruin the game. I can't even play online games any more.
It seems to me, though, that it should be possible to engineer a game such that it's not possible to cheat. You can't stop people from hacking the client, but you could make the server detect "impossible" things and shut down the offender. I.e., someone moving way too fast. You could also design the client/server protocol such that not enough information is ever sent to the client to allow bots to do things like aim weapons flawlessly, unless they are able to interpret visuals like a human.
They didn't "steal" Sybase code. They bought it from Sybase. And they bought it because Sybase wasn't interested in developing a Windows version of their software. It was Sybase's shortsightedness (and presumably desire for a quick buck with no work) that allowed MS to take their code and run.
Didn't we hear this about videos about 20 years
ago? It's not DVD that's killing movies, it's the stupid studios. If using big stars kills budgets, then don't use them. There are thousands of unknowns who are far better actors than the big names anyway. Learn how to budget. Don't waste money. The daily catering isn't necessary on the set, is it? My father-in-law was a purchasing manager for Fox studios. The excess, waste, extravagance and beaurocracy is dusgusting, if half of his stories are true.
I don't know jack about economics. My only education on the subject was Econ 101 in school. They drew a little graph for us - the theoretical supply/demand curve. The goal, they explained was to find the sweet spot where the supply and demand curves crossed. That is where profit is maximized. Perhaps the studios haven't taken Econ 101 or perhaps they think that moviegoing is an inelastic market and the price of the movie won't affect demand. Perhaps they need to go back to school. For the $10 a pop (or more) we're paying these days, I'm mighty choosy about what I go to see.
Which leads me to the next point. Movies suck. They all suck. They're so over-Hollywoodized that I just can't stand going any more. And it's getting harder to find places to see indy films, as the smaller theaters get crushed by the megaplexes. Perhaps this has something to do with Hollywood's plight?
In any case, so long as movies continue to be made, people will see them in theaters. Not everyone has a home theater with THX and Dolby 5.1. And not everyone's home is quieter or less distracting than a theater. And some of us like to get out of the house once in a while. And I certainly don't have a 40 foot high screen in my living room. And I don't like to wait for good movies to appear on DVD - I want to see them right away. Maybe that's why McCallum's upset. They botched the last two Star Wars movies so badly that maybe they're afraid everyone's just going to wait for DVD next round. I know I will.
I love it when people argue, as in this article, that Linux is less secure because more security holes are posted than Windows. There are two reasons why this is a specious argument. First, there is little doubt that the holes are there in Windows too. It's just that they don't get found as easily because of the closed-source nature of Windows. That doesn't mean the hackers don't know about them. I prefer *everybody* knowing, which is what tends to happen with open-source code. And, when Windows bugs are found, you certainly aren't going to see the bad sections of code posted to Bugtraq...
Second, the holes in Linux are generally less problematic than the plethora of VB script and other bugs in Windows. When a bug is found in fetchmail, for example, it's a lot harder to exploit than VB script execution in Outlook. Also, a small percentage of Linux users actually run fetchmail, but LOTS of people run Outlook (not to mention all MS Office apps). So, on Linux, unless a bug is found in the OS itself or in some program that's intrinsic to Linux's operation, it's going to be hard for hackers to exploit. Since everyone on Windows uses IE, Office, and so on, there is a much higher payoff for hackers.
It's sad how many so-called security experts are really just apologist shills for Micro$oft.
A friend of mine is a professor at Lewis and Clark college in Portland, OR, and he tells me that they purposefully do not block P2P of any kind. They consider this sort of a student recruitment tool. It does tend to clog their network on Friday and Saturday evenings when students are busy downloading MP3s and pr0n, but their response to the issue is to add more bandwidth to the Internet.
As far as they're concerned, it's one of the costs of doing business as a college these days.
Privacy Manager from Pacific Bell/SBC. I pay $4 a month, and no longer get ANY telemarketer calls. It's been about a year now of completely telemarketer-free calls. The service is not intended to actually stop telemarketers, but through a serendipitous technical issue, it does. (I will not explain further, since it is largely due to security through obscurity.) If you are an SBC customer, or the customer of a company that offers a similar service, get it NOW!
I used to get about 8 telemarket calls a day, and had completely stopped answering the phone. At the end of the day, I would check the answering machine for real calls and call everyone back. Now I actually have a phone again, not an attention-demanding marketing tool.
US Copyright law extends as far as the US has influence in the world.
This has nothing to do with US copyright law and everything to do with international copyright law. I do not defend the RIAA, but feel obliged to note that copyright law is extended *both* directions through international treaty. IANAL, but I at least understand that US copyrights are honored elsewhere, and foreign copyrights are honored in the US. At least in theory, and excluding "pirate" countries and countries without at least a modicum of stability.
It's truly obnoxious the way the RIAA chooses to defend its copyrights. But the implication that the US is somehow overstepping its bounds by going after pirates outside its borders is ludicrous. These "foreign" countries have *agreed* to protect the copyrights of US entities, just as the US has agreed to protect theirs. It's the RIAA's heavy handed tactics that are the problem, not their belief that they have the right to protect their copyrighted works.
What's really in question is the legal interpretation of copyrights outside the US with regard to file sharing. To that end, the US can only work within the confines of the legal systems of the countries in question. They may display an excess of testosterone when dealing with the legal systems of these countries, but in the end the say is not that of the US legal system. The DMCA does not apply because it is not recognized internationally.
I've been using the Internet since the early 80's. I also have learned to change with the times rather than become a dinosaur. There is little or no reason for open relays, and this ain't the good old days any more. (This in response to the first comment).
As for him keeping an open relay to permit "anonymous mail", that's not what I understood. From statements made on his web site, it looks like he has an open relay so his friends can send mail from wherever they are in the world at any time. If that's the only reason, there is NO EXCUSE for the open relay. There are many solutions to facilitate this. If he wants to allow anonymous mail... well, there ain't no such thing. You can always be traced through IP address and other means. Regardless, if you want to, you can always go to your public library, Internet cafe, or whatever, and send email directly to your victim with any number of tools. That's about as anonymous as it gets. No need for a Gillmore anon mail server.
I just want to hear the reason and rationalization from the horse's mouth. I truly am perplexed and want to hear the real reason, not supposistions by commenters on Slashdot. That is why I posed the question.
Dan, you are often referred to as one of the voices of power in IT, freedom on the Internet, etc. But, I have a hard time swallowing that in light of your much-publicised problems with Verio regarding your open SMTP relay. Can you please explain the logic behind your actins to us rabid anti-spammers here on Slashdot? Specifically, why keep an open SMTP relay which can be (and has been) used by spammers to propogate their evil (and sue your ISP for the right to run said SMTP relay) when there are numerous secure methods of SMTP relaying
out there? Was this simply a matter of principle, or was there actually some technical reason for not wanting to deploy a secure relaying method?
Ebay is not shy when it comes to stomping people who infringe on "their" IP. It would only serve them right to get stomped.
It is irrelevant that the guy didn't sue ebay until they were successful. It makes little sense to sue someone for damages unless they have money to sue for. It also costs a *lot* of money to sue. This guy's company is small time. A small company has to think *real* hard before suing a large company. You have to have lots of available cash and/or a lawyer who will work on contingency (and they will only do that if the defendant has deep pockets and the case is a strong one).
You have to pick your battles carefully, unless you have unlimited legal power, such as if you're ebay, Micro$oft, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh, indeed. Does this mean they will at least use enhancements made to the Paladin in the Crusader project? Seems like they made improvements worth keeping?
With UAVs, counter-battery radar and mobile systems like Paladin and MLRS, it's suicide...
Too bad the Bush administration killed the Paladin. It was pretty awesome while it lasted.
Bandwidth is intangible. Show mw a bushel basket full of it.
Bandwidth is little different from electricity in its intangibility, yet you can go to jail for stealing that too. For that matter, so is telephone connect time. It is a service, which is metered so the customer can be charged appropriately. Services do not have to be tangible, else everything from Miss Cleo to the shrink you should be seeing now wouldn't be in business.
Bandwidth is vapor.
If that's so, tell me what happens when your ISP disconnects your vapor service.
... for someone to start a parallel namespace run in true freeware style. ICANN is an abomination.
If Seti@home is designed such that they will accept the same damn results from any number of users, it's lame. They should have built in a method of tagging each work request with a serial number and only accepting the results of a particular request from the user they originally gave it to - and only once. This is not only important for the competitive aspect of the project, assuring that competitors aren't cheating, but it also protects the integrity of the data crunching results that Seti@home exists for in the first place. I know Dave Anderson and he's smarter than this. I wonder why he didn't do something like this?
But a double-posting inside a single slashback tops it. (AbiWord resolution)
But will it read my old 8-inch CPM floppies?
YHBT. 'Nuff said.
What if the script kiddies attacked their targets with loads of source quench packets? Can you source quench a source quench attack? :)
My firewall blocks all incoming ICMP except a few select types. Quench is not one of them. It could conceivably be used against you, so I block it. Why wouldn't the guys who write the scripts for the kiddies make changes to their code so that zombie machines ignore source quench ICMP?
I'm not sure how effective source quench is against routers in the path of a zombie host.
I haven't played this game for about 20 years or something. When playing just now, I discovered that the correct path through the maze is still tucked away in some brain cells somewhere. What's even scarier is that I can see all the tiny little things in this recreation that aren't quite right, such as the fact that you can pass through the portcullis (which allows you to open it with the key even when you're not holding the key quite right), that the portcullis opens too quickly, that the magnet won't attract things on an adjacent screen when you hold it offscreen, that the chalice doesn't glow quite right, and so on. I used to idolize this game, if you can't tell.
Some fond remembrances. Sometimes the bat takes away your sword when you're being chased by a dragon, but he accidentally kills the dragon for you. Heh heh. I particularly liked it when you'd hold the sword in the wrong position when trying to kill a dragon, and it eats you before you can stab it. When you end up in its stomach, the dragon dies because the sword gets dragged in with you. You're still alive in its stomach but can't get out.
When bored, we'd try and collect all of the objects and bring them to the castle (the goblet last, of course). We'd bring them inside in the correct order so that they were all stuck to the magnet. You'd have to do it just right because they have a particular pecking order for attraction to the magnet.
We used to punch the dragon in the face and run away when it stopped to try and bite you. Silly dragon.
What a bummer that he hasn't done the other two difficulty levels. Or maybe it's just not working right for me. Sigh.
I thought that a plane cabin was the one place I would never have to deal with people who won't quit talking on the phone."
For $10/minute, you won't be bothered much, I'd warrant.
And then firebomb the patent office and all their fuckin' archives.
FYI, patent records are stored at Iron Mountain's multiple-acre underground mine. Good luck.
Not to mention that there are electronic archives of patents in multiple places. See uspto.gov.
And don't forget, each patent holder and his patent attorney has copies of everything.
But I realize you're only planning a rhetorical firebombing.
Any self-respecting cheater will get around MAC checking without any trouble. But I sure wish someone could come up with a good method of blocking cheaters for real. They completely ruin the game. I can't even play online games any more.
It seems to me, though, that it should be possible to engineer a game such that it's not possible to cheat. You can't stop people from hacking the client, but you could make the server detect "impossible" things and shut down the offender. I.e., someone moving way too fast. You could also design the client/server protocol such that not enough information is ever sent to the client to allow bots to do things like aim weapons flawlessly, unless they are able to interpret visuals like a human.
In the olden days using csh, if you typed this:
% ^saccharine
You'd get this error:
bad substitute
And if you tried this:
% cat door
You'd get:
cat: can't open door
MS-SQL Server (can you say Sybase)
They didn't "steal" Sybase code. They bought it from Sybase. And they bought it because Sybase wasn't interested in developing a Windows version of their software. It was Sybase's shortsightedness (and presumably desire for a quick buck with no work) that allowed MS to take their code and run.
Didn't we hear this about videos about 20 years ago? It's not DVD that's killing movies, it's the stupid studios. If using big stars kills budgets, then don't use them. There are thousands of unknowns who are far better actors than the big names anyway. Learn how to budget. Don't waste money. The daily catering isn't necessary on the set, is it? My father-in-law was a purchasing manager for Fox studios. The excess, waste, extravagance and beaurocracy is dusgusting, if half of his stories are true.
I don't know jack about economics. My only education on the subject was Econ 101 in school. They drew a little graph for us - the theoretical supply/demand curve. The goal, they explained was to find the sweet spot where the supply and demand curves crossed. That is where profit is maximized. Perhaps the studios haven't taken Econ 101 or perhaps they think that moviegoing is an inelastic market and the price of the movie won't affect demand. Perhaps they need to go back to school. For the $10 a pop (or more) we're paying these days, I'm mighty choosy about what I go to see.
Which leads me to the next point. Movies suck. They all suck. They're so over-Hollywoodized that I just can't stand going any more. And it's getting harder to find places to see indy films, as the smaller theaters get crushed by the megaplexes. Perhaps this has something to do with Hollywood's plight?
In any case, so long as movies continue to be made, people will see them in theaters. Not everyone has a home theater with THX and Dolby 5.1. And not everyone's home is quieter or less distracting than a theater. And some of us like to get out of the house once in a while. And I certainly don't have a 40 foot high screen in my living room. And I don't like to wait for good movies to appear on DVD - I want to see them right away. Maybe that's why McCallum's upset. They botched the last two Star Wars movies so badly that maybe they're afraid everyone's just going to wait for DVD next round. I know I will.
I love it when people argue, as in this article, that Linux is less secure because more security holes are posted than Windows. There are two reasons why this is a specious argument. First, there is little doubt that the holes are there in Windows too. It's just that they don't get found as easily because of the closed-source nature of Windows. That doesn't mean the hackers don't know about them. I prefer *everybody* knowing, which is what tends to happen with open-source code. And, when Windows bugs are found, you certainly aren't going to see the bad sections of code posted to Bugtraq...
Second, the holes in Linux are generally less problematic than the plethora of VB script and other bugs in Windows. When a bug is found in fetchmail, for example, it's a lot harder to exploit than VB script execution in Outlook. Also, a small percentage of Linux users actually run fetchmail, but LOTS of people run Outlook (not to mention all MS Office apps). So, on Linux, unless a bug is found in the OS itself or in some program that's intrinsic to Linux's operation, it's going to be hard for hackers to exploit. Since everyone on Windows uses IE, Office, and so on, there is a much higher payoff for hackers.
It's sad how many so-called security experts are really just apologist shills for Micro$oft.
A friend of mine is a professor at Lewis and Clark college in Portland, OR, and he tells me that they purposefully do not block P2P of any kind. They consider this sort of a student recruitment tool. It does tend to clog their network on Friday and Saturday evenings when students are busy downloading MP3s and pr0n, but their response to the issue is to add more bandwidth to the Internet.
As far as they're concerned, it's one of the costs of doing business as a college these days.
Privacy Manager from Pacific Bell/SBC. I pay $4 a month, and no longer get ANY telemarketer calls. It's been about a year now of completely telemarketer-free calls. The service is not intended to actually stop telemarketers, but through a serendipitous technical issue, it does. (I will not explain further, since it is largely due to security through obscurity.) If you are an SBC customer, or the customer of a company that offers a similar service, get it NOW!
I used to get about 8 telemarket calls a day, and had completely stopped answering the phone. At the end of the day, I would check the answering machine for real calls and call everyone back. Now I actually have a phone again, not an attention-demanding marketing tool.
US Copyright law extends as far as the US has influence in the world.
This has nothing to do with US copyright law and everything to do with international copyright law. I do not defend the RIAA, but feel obliged to note that copyright law is extended *both* directions through international treaty. IANAL, but I at least understand that US copyrights are honored elsewhere, and foreign copyrights are honored in the US. At least in theory, and excluding "pirate" countries and countries without at least a modicum of stability.
It's truly obnoxious the way the RIAA chooses to defend its copyrights. But the implication that the US is somehow overstepping its bounds by going after pirates outside its borders is ludicrous. These "foreign" countries have *agreed* to protect the copyrights of US entities, just as the US has agreed to protect theirs. It's the RIAA's heavy handed tactics that are the problem, not their belief that they have the right to protect their copyrighted works.
What's really in question is the legal interpretation of copyrights outside the US with regard to file sharing. To that end, the US can only work within the confines of the legal systems of the countries in question. They may display an excess of testosterone when dealing with the legal systems of these countries, but in the end the say is not that of the US legal system. The DMCA does not apply because it is not recognized internationally.
You're thinking of John Gilmore.
D'oh!! You're right, I'm an idiot. All negative moderations of my original post gratefully accepted! I sure am glad Slashdot is anonymous.
*Sheepish grin*
I actually like Dan Gillmor. I've email-chatted with him in the past and love his column. Sorry Dan.
I've been using the Internet since the early 80's. I also have learned to change with the times rather than become a dinosaur. There is little or no reason for open relays, and this ain't the good old days any more. (This in response to the first comment).
As for him keeping an open relay to permit "anonymous mail", that's not what I understood. From statements made on his web site, it looks like he has an open relay so his friends can send mail from wherever they are in the world at any time. If that's the only reason, there is NO EXCUSE for the open relay. There are many solutions to facilitate this. If he wants to allow anonymous mail... well, there ain't no such thing. You can always be traced through IP address and other means. Regardless, if you want to, you can always go to your public library, Internet cafe, or whatever, and send email directly to your victim with any number of tools. That's about as anonymous as it gets. No need for a Gillmore anon mail server.
I just want to hear the reason and rationalization from the horse's mouth. I truly am perplexed and want to hear the real reason, not supposistions by commenters on Slashdot. That is why I posed the question.
Dan, you are often referred to as one of the voices of power in IT, freedom on the Internet, etc. But, I have a hard time swallowing that in light of your much-publicised problems with Verio regarding your open SMTP relay. Can you please explain the logic behind your actins to us rabid anti-spammers here on Slashdot? Specifically, why keep an open SMTP relay which can be (and has been) used by spammers to propogate their evil (and sue your ISP for the right to run said SMTP relay) when there are numerous secure methods of SMTP relaying out there? Was this simply a matter of principle, or was there actually some technical reason for not wanting to deploy a secure relaying method?
Ebay is not shy when it comes to stomping people who infringe on "their" IP. It would only serve them right to get stomped.
It is irrelevant that the guy didn't sue ebay until they were successful. It makes little sense to sue someone for damages unless they have money to sue for. It also costs a *lot* of money to sue. This guy's company is small time. A small company has to think *real* hard before suing a large company. You have to have lots of available cash and/or a lawyer who will work on contingency (and they will only do that if the defendant has deep pockets and the case is a strong one).
You have to pick your battles carefully, unless you have unlimited legal power, such as if you're ebay, Micro$oft, etc.