Modify the genetic structure to contain some sort of information inside it and somehow make that part immutable. Then just plant those seeds around the planet and if the plant ends up successful, people can read your data after 2000 years with no problem. Or even after longer periods of time, eg. the fern, hedgehog, alligator etc.
Charles Sheffield had a story based on that specific idea. How do you leave a message that will least millions or billions of years? You make it self replicating and massively redundant. So you stick it in DNA. Then at some future time a living species may be able to decifier the message. It's a short story in the book "Dancing with Myself." Probably it's also an idea that has popped up in other writers as well.
On the downside, the drives are relatively slow (ca. 300Kb/sec writing, ca. 800Kb/sec reading)
They don't have to be slow reading. Think about a high resolution digital photograph of the entire disk. It's just a matter of interepting it. Nothing dictates that the same method of reading the data be used in future times.
Technically it's possible to take a picture of a track on a vinyl LP and then use image analisys to play it back. In fact I'm surprised that nobody has done this already. Seems like you could point a laser beam into the grooves and then use the reflected light to recreate the audio signal, thus reducing the amount of wear and tear on the record. A lot of collectors would probably love this. Maybe I should go into business...:)
Many of the compressed media formats have a resiliance to loss. Look at mp3s for example. You can lose a block and all you get is a short burst of noise. The overall signal is still retained. Same goes with DVDs. DVDs are in fact a lot more tolerant of errors than other digital formats.
A trade off is available: you design your compession algo so that a given amount of error will only affect a given amount of data. If you have enough data, then a loss is damaging but not terminal.
Encryption becoming a problem for future generations isn't reliant upon the US relaxing crypto export rules. It's perfectly legit for me to use a 64 kbit key on my data, I just can't export the software to a country not on the "ok" list. I can publish the algo in a book, describe it in a natural language and ship it anywhere I want.
Advances in information technology may reduce the complexity of understanding unknown data formats.
It's also interesting to think about possible directed evolutionary changes and how they can affect the way we store and transmit information. Look at audio data. Nature uses analog wave through a medium to transmit signal to the ear. The ear has developed the techniques to translate that information into a form that the brain understands. FHG did a bunch of research and determined that a lot of the information provided isn't necessary to convey the same concept (mp3). Given that they have developed this perceptual knowledge base of what we can hear, it's possibly only a matter of time until we learn to process that information directly and do not require the translation from the "minimal" dataset to the "natural" data set. There's a lot of implications that I can't see right now, but may really change the way we think about information and communication.
How many millions of tree's worth of redundant paper do we have in cold storage, just in case someone needs it?
...
The answer is simple. If it is of relevance, and people want to keep it (remember Oliver North ?), then people will keep it. People will judge the value, and take appropriate action.
One problem is that the next generation may not care about a particular piece of data, but the one after that would find that data invaluable.
My parents have recently gotten into geneology and I find it very interesting as well. The thing is is that we continually find people who didn't write down their parents or grandparents names, because they "knew" that information. But two or three generations on and you don't know your great grandparents were, where they lived, or anything else about them and their lives.
People who keep regular journals, even of the most mundane and day-to-day activities and events are invaluable to those who are trying to find out about their lives. Trivial information provides glue that ties historical events into perspective and show how things relate to the individual and not just what is represented by the history books.
Well. The more serious of these problems in W2K is not in the kernel. If you only want to consider Linux as the OS, then I'm willing to bet that an NT system with nothing but NTOSKernel.DLL on it is as secure as Linux, if not more so. It's pointless to argue that this problem isn't in "Linux" or that "Linux" is more secure, if you are only considering the kernel! You have nothing if you only have a kernel. You should be comparing apples and apples, not apples and a grape seed.
Microsoft has a better patch distribution system. At least they will if they provide something like the Windows Update site that is available in 98. That's something the the various Linux distros really really need. Also, the speed of releases for security patches with 98 has been admirable. If they keep that pace with W2K then they will easily be competative with the level of service provided by the various Linux distros.
Erm. No offense but RH 6.1 certainly is an operating system, at least in the same sense that W2K and all of it's associated components are an operating system.
Additionally, at least one of the bugs is *not* to be in the NT kernel proper: the serious one was in Index Server. The less serious one appears to be in another information service, but may be in the kernel. The referenced article is not clear. These certainly are less severe than the remote root exploit available in lpr/lpd under RH 6.1.
Err, upon reading that footnote, I see that it may be poorly worded. Just note that a lot of people are arrested and jailed until a trial based upon the propisition that they are guilty (ie. the law enforcement agent caught them in the act.) And once you are at that point you often are subject to searches and numerous other personal and legal violations.
Sorry, I've got to disagree with you. Until it's in the boxes on the shelves, it's not finalized. But there's little point in arguing about it since we'll probably not be able to reach a happy middle ground.
Let's not forget the other bit of wisdom: never run a x.0 version of any software.
All new software has problems. The bigger the evolutionary step, the bigger the problems. Expect more. But don't be rectal about it. No OS is immune. How long has RH 6.1 been out? Couple months? And yet there's a list of 9 or 10 security fixes (that include several remote root exploits) up on RedHat's web site.
And regardless of people arguing that this is supposed to be ready for "prime time" the fact is, it's not shipping and any rational IT professional will recognize that that means *BETA*.
Wow three people who came up with the "innocent until proven guilty [1]" argument. Don't you all realize that he has been proven guilty? They decided to drop the charges because of the long hassle he's had awaiting trial.
Why do you even give a shit about Mitnicks rights? He's had a long history demonstrating that he doesn't give a shit about yours. Societies work when everybody adheres to the same rules. Jails infringe upon criminals rights because they have shown that they aren't willing to respect the rights of others. Very similar situation here.
Finally, having an investigator examine Mitnick's hard drive is a a lot different than publishing the contents on the front page of the NYT. There's been a lot of times when people have been coerced or tricked into giving up information that is relevant to a criminal case. This isn't a lot different than that either.
[1] Innocent until proven guilty is not about whether people's rights are violated during investigation. It's a matter of whether people are punished without a legal trial.
Nobody ever said or asked anything about their practices as far as I know so unless you go out and actively look for things that might be yours not too many people are going to care to look for this. It really sucks since you put in all the effort and then some schmuck that runs a sweat shop programming company makes money off of you. If anything, that's what would burn me about it happening.
I know this particular paragraph refers to your own work, but in the context of your previous paragraph you do realize that bit BSD and the X Consortium released their code under licenses that specifically allowed this to happen? And they probably understand licensing issues as well as anybody at the FSF. So it's probably safe to assume that the sentiment expressed (that of some schmuck making money off your work is a sucky thing) is probably not one shared by the people in your examples.
Bits in your binary will always be indentical. Like 0x85 will always be indentical to 0x85. On a somewhat large scale things will vary depending on what changes were made. Adding a single C statement to an inner loop can change the code for the rest of the function and will potentially cause a significant difference in the resulting binary image. Using different compilers will result in massive differences and using something as simple as a different optimization option can also result in a completely different object code.
Code auditing is typically done by hand by an expert witness that is paid under observation of the court. The binary almost never enters into the situation at all.
They should give it back with the stipulation that any illegally acquired material must be removed. If at some future point they find out that he has not complied, they should put him away for life. Sure he's had some rights violated by the government. But what about the rights of others that he has violated? Maybe they should make part of the whole issue, that he must personally contact each individual whose right's he has infringed and apologize in person and find out what he can do to make restitution. It's pretty damned inconsiderate of him to act all hurt.
Optionally they can just wipe the hardware completely. It's not like they give drugs, weapons, and such back to people when they let them out. If Mitnick isn't willing to demonstrate that the material on the drives is legit, then the assumption that it's illegit isn't too far off base. Or just stomp all over the drive with some nice little random garbage. It's not like he can demonstrate any actual damage since he's the only one who knows what's on there.
AC posting allows an educated professional like me to swear like a thug in public. I say fucken keep it.
First off, you sound like an ambulance chaser trying to justify his decision to leech off the teet of the productive portions of society.
Secondly, you must not be overly educated if you don't know that most of the upper crust, semi-working class (politians, CEOs, etc.) have more vile mouths than your average hardened criminal.
Thirdly, posting as an AC is no more in public than hiding in your closet.
Fourthly, lawsuits are not particularily indicative of freedom, unless you mean the freedom to fuck over anyone who has less money than yourself. Or the freedom to run roughshod over the rights of others because they don't have enough money to stick it to you in a court of law.
Actually McDonalds does have a policy regarding the temperature of their coffee. It's pretty low, something like 130 F. You'll get a burn, but nothing excessively severe. At the McDonalds in question the manager decided that 180 F was more appropriate since it kept the coffee fresher longer.
And as has already been pointed out, the lady asked for medical bills only. The punitive damages came by way of the jury.
[ Warning: Off topic ] Don't forget.church and.religion. Various endevours in the past (v-chip, CDA, CDA-II, PICT, etc.) all attempt to classify a very specific group of categories, things like violence, nudity, sexuality, language, etc. The v-chip is legally mandated to exist in all new TVs to come onto the market. The cost of doing this is being passed onto the consumer. As a non-parent I don't feel too excited about paying for a feature I don't want. When I do become a parent I don't think that it is appropriate that people other than myself decide which types of influences can be filtered for my children. It should be perfectly reasonable, for example, for me to not want my child to watch Sunday morning evangelical shows. Or Sesame Street for that matter.
Most 'professional' places have sys admins. A free OS makes 'turnkey' a unique proposition as well, no? As for 'professional' support, you've been able to get that for a long time (even before SGI, IBM, VA, or Redhat came along). Your arguments are nonsense.
They are prefectly valid arguments. In my experience there's not been a professional unix admin in most small scale digital design houses. As far as a free os making turnkey a unique proposition, well that's ludicrous. It's impossible to pair up your average linux dist with any particular machine and have it "just work" with the full feature set. Support is more than paying some consultant to come and do backups and installs and kluge some scripts together. Support at this level is when someone guarantees that their product will work and when there are problems they are willing to put a man in your shop in less than 24 hours to make it work again.
Have you seen the amount of work SGI and IBM have been putting into Linux lately? You completely miss the point...
No I don't miss the point. I'm seeing one large company that is putting capital into research. I see another company looking for a way off the sinking ship. When the big names are putting as much into Linux as they are into their flagship products, then we'll re-assess the support situation.
Because it was posted by an AC. And because it was just a clipping of the FAQ. Everybody should have been able to find the same information on the sgi site.
It's unlikely that the Linux market for a software package that lists in the many thousands of dollars is going to even approach the size of the Sun or SGI markets. You can't just look at the random numbers that are put out as "Linux users" since those (beyond being basically +/- 50%) numbers count people who most typically aren't going to buy a software package that costs $50 let alone one that cost $15,000. You've got to look at the professional market. In that location you have a lot of artists, etc. that don't particularily feel the need to admin their own box, or get into the nitty-gritty of unix and would rather have a turnkey system with professional support from the vendor (both for the hardware and software.)
[ nobody say Redhat or VA Linux or such. they still aren't in the same league as Sun, SGI, HP, IBM, et. al. ]
Ignorant fuckwit. Cops are people too. If you respect them and treat them like you would anybody else, they react in kind. If you're a fucking criminal and pull a gun on them, threaten their families, scream obscenities, run away, etc. then you are going to get the same sort of reaction from a cop that you would from any other individual. Except that the cop can't easily back down if he wants to continue supporting his family.
Interfaces don't need to be intuitive to be good. vi has a splendid interface. The average unix shell has spectacular interface. Sure you're never going to see an book about either in the "Interfaces for Idiots" series. Comparatively, you'll also never see an interface (GUI or non-) that has a easy learning curve for the beginner that doesn't become unnecessarily complex and unweildy for the power user.
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Charles Sheffield had a story based on that specific idea. How do you leave a message that will least millions or billions of years? You make it self replicating and massively redundant. So you stick it in DNA. Then at some future time a living species may be able to decifier the message. It's a short story in the book "Dancing with Myself." Probably it's also an idea that has popped up in other writers as well.
They don't have to be slow reading. Think about a high resolution digital photograph of the entire disk. It's just a matter of interepting it. Nothing dictates that the same method of reading the data be used in future times.
Technically it's possible to take a picture of a track on a vinyl LP and then use image analisys to play it back. In fact I'm surprised that nobody has done this already. Seems like you could point a laser beam into the grooves and then use the reflected light to recreate the audio signal, thus reducing the amount of wear and tear on the record. A lot of collectors would probably love this. Maybe I should go into business...
Many of the compressed media formats have a resiliance to loss. Look at mp3s for example. You can lose a block and all you get is a short burst of noise. The overall signal is still retained. Same goes with DVDs. DVDs are in fact a lot more tolerant of errors than other digital formats.
A trade off is available: you design your compession algo so that a given amount of error will only affect a given amount of data. If you have enough data, then a loss is damaging but not terminal.
Encryption becoming a problem for future generations isn't reliant upon the US relaxing crypto export rules. It's perfectly legit for me to use a 64 kbit key on my data, I just can't export the software to a country not on the "ok" list. I can publish the algo in a book, describe it in a natural language and ship it anywhere I want.
Advances in information technology may reduce the complexity of understanding unknown data formats.
It's also interesting to think about possible directed evolutionary changes and how they can affect the way we store and transmit information. Look at audio data. Nature uses analog wave through a medium to transmit signal to the ear. The ear has developed the techniques to translate that information into a form that the brain understands. FHG did a bunch of research and determined that a lot of the information provided isn't necessary to convey the same concept (mp3). Given that they have developed this perceptual knowledge base of what we can hear, it's possibly only a matter of time until we learn to process that information directly and do not require the translation from the "minimal" dataset to the "natural" data set. There's a lot of implications that I can't see right now, but may really change the way we think about information and communication.
One problem is that the next generation may not care about a particular piece of data, but the one after that would find that data invaluable.
My parents have recently gotten into geneology and I find it very interesting as well. The thing is is that we continually find people who didn't write down their parents or grandparents names, because they "knew" that information. But two or three generations on and you don't know your great grandparents were, where they lived, or anything else about them and their lives.
People who keep regular journals, even of the most mundane and day-to-day activities and events are invaluable to those who are trying to find out about their lives. Trivial information provides glue that ties historical events into perspective and show how things relate to the individual and not just what is represented by the history books.
I'd love to counter this, but I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with that particular form of entertainment. Or something.
Well. The more serious of these problems in W2K is not in the kernel. If you only want to consider Linux as the OS, then I'm willing to bet that an NT system with nothing but NTOSKernel.DLL on it is as secure as Linux, if not more so. It's pointless to argue that this problem isn't in "Linux" or that "Linux" is more secure, if you are only considering the kernel! You have nothing if you only have a kernel. You should be comparing apples and apples, not apples and a grape seed.
Microsoft has a better patch distribution system. At least they will if they provide something like the Windows Update site that is available in 98. That's something the the various Linux distros really really need. Also, the speed of releases for security patches with 98 has been admirable. If they keep that pace with W2K then they will easily be competative with the level of service provided by the various Linux distros.
Erm. No offense but RH 6.1 certainly is an operating system, at least in the same sense that W2K and all of it's associated components are an operating system.
Additionally, at least one of the bugs is *not* to be in the NT kernel proper: the serious one was in Index Server. The less serious one appears to be in another information service, but may be in the kernel. The referenced article is not clear. These certainly are less severe than the remote root exploit available in lpr/lpd under RH 6.1.
Err, upon reading that footnote, I see that it may be poorly worded. Just note that a lot of people are arrested and jailed until a trial based upon the propisition that they are guilty (ie. the law enforcement agent caught them in the act.) And once you are at that point you often are subject to searches and numerous other personal and legal violations.
Sorry, I've got to disagree with you. Until it's in the boxes on the shelves, it's not finalized. But there's little point in arguing about it since we'll probably not be able to reach a happy middle ground.
Let's not forget the other bit of wisdom: never run a x.0 version of any software.
Have a good one.
All new software has problems. The bigger the evolutionary step, the bigger the problems. Expect more. But don't be rectal about it. No OS is immune. How long has RH 6.1 been out? Couple months? And yet there's a list of 9 or 10 security fixes (that include several remote root exploits) up on RedHat's web site.
And regardless of people arguing that this is supposed to be ready for "prime time" the fact is, it's not shipping and any rational IT professional will recognize that that means *BETA*.
Wow three people who came up with the "innocent until proven guilty [1]" argument. Don't you all realize that he has been proven guilty? They decided to drop the charges because of the long hassle he's had awaiting trial.
Why do you even give a shit about Mitnicks rights? He's had a long history demonstrating that he doesn't give a shit about yours. Societies work when everybody adheres to the same rules. Jails infringe upon criminals rights because they have shown that they aren't willing to respect the rights of others. Very similar situation here.
Finally, having an investigator examine Mitnick's hard drive is a a lot different than publishing the contents on the front page of the NYT. There's been a lot of times when people have been coerced or tricked into giving up information that is relevant to a criminal case. This isn't a lot different than that either.
[1] Innocent until proven guilty is not about whether people's rights are violated during investigation. It's a matter of whether people are punished without a legal trial.
I know this particular paragraph refers to your own work, but in the context of your previous paragraph you do realize that bit BSD and the X Consortium released their code under licenses that specifically allowed this to happen? And they probably understand licensing issues as well as anybody at the FSF. So it's probably safe to assume that the sentiment expressed (that of some schmuck making money off your work is a sucky thing) is probably not one shared by the people in your examples.
Bits in your binary will always be indentical. Like 0x85 will always be indentical to 0x85. On a somewhat large scale things will vary depending on what changes were made. Adding a single C statement to an inner loop can change the code for the rest of the function and will potentially cause a significant difference in the resulting binary image. Using different compilers will result in massive differences and using something as simple as a different optimization option can also result in a completely different object code.
Code auditing is typically done by hand by an expert witness that is paid under observation of the court. The binary almost never enters into the situation at all.
They should give it back with the stipulation that any illegally acquired material must be removed. If at some future point they find out that he has not complied, they should put him away for life. Sure he's had some rights violated by the government. But what about the rights of others that he has violated? Maybe they should make part of the whole issue, that he must personally contact each individual whose right's he has infringed and apologize in person and find out what he can do to make restitution. It's pretty damned inconsiderate of him to act all hurt.
Optionally they can just wipe the hardware completely. It's not like they give drugs, weapons, and such back to people when they let them out. If Mitnick isn't willing to demonstrate that the material on the drives is legit, then the assumption that it's illegit isn't too far off base. Or just stomp all over the drive with some nice little random garbage. It's not like he can demonstrate any actual damage since he's the only one who knows what's on there.
"You spell it potato, VP. Quayle spells it potatoe..."
Amatuer.
First off, you sound like an ambulance chaser trying to justify his decision to leech off the teet of the productive portions of society.
Secondly, you must not be overly educated if you don't know that most of the upper crust, semi-working class (politians, CEOs, etc.) have more vile mouths than your average hardened criminal.
Thirdly, posting as an AC is no more in public than hiding in your closet.
Fourthly, lawsuits are not particularily indicative of freedom, unless you mean the freedom to fuck over anyone who has less money than yourself. Or the freedom to run roughshod over the rights of others because they don't have enough money to stick it to you in a court of law.
Actually McDonalds does have a policy regarding the temperature of their coffee. It's pretty low, something like 130 F. You'll get a burn, but nothing excessively severe. At the McDonalds in question the manager decided that 180 F was more appropriate since it kept the coffee fresher longer.
And as has already been pointed out, the lady asked for medical bills only. The punitive damages came by way of the jury.
[ Warning: Off topic ] Don't forget .church and .religion. Various endevours in the past (v-chip, CDA, CDA-II, PICT, etc.) all attempt to classify a very specific group of categories, things like violence, nudity, sexuality, language, etc. The v-chip is legally mandated to exist in all new TVs to come onto the market. The cost of doing this is being passed onto the consumer. As a non-parent I don't feel too excited about paying for a feature I don't want. When I do become a parent I don't think that it is appropriate that people other than myself decide which types of influences can be filtered for my children. It should be perfectly reasonable, for example, for me to not want my child to watch Sunday morning evangelical shows. Or Sesame Street for that matter.
They are prefectly valid arguments. In my experience there's not been a professional unix admin in most small scale digital design houses. As far as a free os making turnkey a unique proposition, well that's ludicrous. It's impossible to pair up your average linux dist with any particular machine and have it "just work" with the full feature set. Support is more than paying some consultant to come and do backups and installs and kluge some scripts together. Support at this level is when someone guarantees that their product will work and when there are problems they are willing to put a man in your shop in less than 24 hours to make it work again.
No I don't miss the point. I'm seeing one large company that is putting capital into research. I see another company looking for a way off the sinking ship. When the big names are putting as much into Linux as they are into their flagship products, then we'll re-assess the support situation.
Different opinions I guess.
Because it was posted by an AC. And because it was just a clipping of the FAQ. Everybody should have been able to find the same information on the sgi site.
It's unlikely that the Linux market for a software package that lists in the many thousands of dollars is going to even approach the size of the Sun or SGI markets. You can't just look at the random numbers that are put out as "Linux users" since those (beyond being basically +/- 50%) numbers count people who most typically aren't going to buy a software package that costs $50 let alone one that cost $15,000. You've got to look at the professional market. In that location you have a lot of artists, etc. that don't particularily feel the need to admin their own box, or get into the nitty-gritty of unix and would rather have a turnkey system with professional support from the vendor (both for the hardware and software.)
[ nobody say Redhat or VA Linux or such. they still aren't in the same league as Sun, SGI, HP, IBM, et. al. ]
Ignorant fuckwit. Cops are people too. If you respect them and treat them like you would anybody else, they react in kind. If you're a fucking criminal and pull a gun on them, threaten their families, scream obscenities, run away, etc. then you are going to get the same sort of reaction from a cop that you would from any other individual. Except that the cop can't easily back down if he wants to continue supporting his family.
Two things: silicone breast implants (and cosmetic surgery in general) and an out of control legal system.
Serious.
Interfaces don't need to be intuitive to be good. vi has a splendid interface. The average unix shell has spectacular interface. Sure you're never going to see an book about either in the "Interfaces for Idiots" series. Comparatively, you'll also never see an interface (GUI or non-) that has a easy learning curve for the beginner that doesn't become unnecessarily complex and unweildy for the power user.