Sorry for the "stupid" question in the subject line, but so far I (as an European citizen) was told that the USA is a democratic system. So I guess that the US citizens should be able to express their discomfort about RFID tagging in the upcoming elections. Just a thought of a naive European...
If one can afford a PC spends an amount of money for that thing. Its something he sees, it has a sort of visible value. And usually it comes bundled with an operating system from a well known firm.
The software price is something else. Why the hell shall someone pay lots of $$$$ for a piece of software that can be copied easily. Especially since he has to pay, but the producer of the software product refuses to be liable for any problems that result in using this thing. So people see that they are just there to pay and to increase the profits of the software company.
Cheaper PCs won't solve this problem. And I know that its much more difficult to lower the hardware price because the margin in hardware is just a few percent for every unit sold. The big profit seems to be in software... deliver something that doesn't work, charge the user like hell and then refuse to make it work.
And BTW: Its not a problem at all since there is a lot of free open source software availabe for everyone. So all what Microsoft is going for is to lower the price of (PC+Software) without losing their profits.
From http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/gmdss/epirb.ht m:
Satellite detection range is limited for these EPIRBs (satellites must be within line of sight of both the EPIRB and a ground terminal for detection to occur),
My god, the architecture of buildings in Oregon must really be "sub-standard", assuming that usually you operate your TV set inside a house with a roof and walls... Usually that also means "no line of sight to satellites". But maybe walls and roofs there are very thin...
Q: Speaking of security, Internet Explorer has had well-publicized holes...
Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software. ...
Q: Might you add anti-virus/spyware protection in Windows?
Gates: It's not a thing you build in. You have to offer a service. There are third parties who are doing a good job. We're always taking a hard look, but we don't have any concrete plans.
So if I get this right the problem with security is that I download third party software and Mr. Gates thinks that it can be solved by third party service (which means probably downloading third party anti-virus software). Now I clearly understand why the problem is never solved...
As I recall, it also came from a tech who didn't do his job right in rebooting the machine that handled the software.
So in other words the life of airplane passengers is depending on the fact if a computer is rebooted manually or not. Thank god nothing really bad happened during this radio outage, otherwise some smartass would have blamed it on the tech that forgot to reboot.
The main problem is obviously we're relying on systems and procedures that never have been tested under emergency conditions.
So far I was never scared to board a plane, but now I am. Especially after learning that air traffic communciation relies on something that I abandoned at home because of security reasons.
If someone is to blame, then the authority that gave permisson to run such systems without proper testing. The question still arising is if this will have consequences. AFAIK there were 5 incidents where the safety distance between planes was violated... shouldn't the FAA invstigate this and enforce procedures to avoid those sort of incidents in the future?
90%+ of the market is Windows. To support your 10% slice of the market is vastly more expensive per sale.
But on the other way round you have 2 options:
Supporting those 10% in a lousy way and probably lose them because customers get pissed of by your Linux support policy
Supporting those 10% in a good way and increasing your sales because customers that got pissed off by other companies now buy your product because of the good support
Its sometimes really annoying to see companies complain about little markets but doing not a damn to develop those markets. And they should be aware, that sales of Linux desktop PC are growing, so if they are not waking up they will lose in the long run.
On November 5 1999 we had the "Burn all GIFs" day because of patent issues. Shall we announce a "Burn all JPEGs" day because of Microsoft security issues now and switch all to PNG?
First question: Which of the hundreds of distros do I use? Hundreds of different answers.
Simple answer: Use the distribution that an experienced friend of yours is using.
Second question: If they are all Linux, why will this application run on one but not the other? Development geek speak.
That will also happen to you when you use Windows. While Linux offers you the "dependency hell" Windows invites you to "DLL hell". And in my multilingual family I also had situations in which an extension package for a Windows app that was localized for Germany didn't run on the base package that was localized for Italy. No, the problems are just different under Windows, but they still exist.
Third question: Of the hundreds of choices of this particular application, which is best? Hundreds of naswers and then a massive flame war.
So what's your point here? Is having the choice so bad? If I want to travel from New York to San Francisco I can also do a hundred of different routes... or I do the Microsoft highway and pay the big toll for it while other roads are toll free and even maybe going through a much more beautiful landscape...
Other supporters realized how a black box would help them if a drunk driver hit them & it was his word against them. The black box would tell the truth.
Again as I wrote in my other message: If a blackbox would somehow know that the driver is drunk then it should block the car's function so that the drunken driver is definitely not able to enter a road! That and only that will increase safety, all other things are post mortem analysis and won't make traffic safer.
So the question is can a blackbox increase security?
To answer it lets look at the potential risks and accident causes:
Drunken driver: If the blackbox could record that the driver is drunk, then it SHOULD also be able to disable the car's ignition to prevent the drunken driver from entering the road. If its not able to record that, there is no advantage for the case of drunk drivers
Speeding: Of course a blackbox could record the speed at which an accident happens. But usually there are enough traces to find that out anyway. And detmining the safe speed is not only a function of velocity but also a function of environment (road conditions, weather, sight). Is the blackbox able to record environmental data as well? I think no so it won't increase security.
Reckless drivers: In Germany there was a driver taken to court that scared a young woman from the hiqhway by closing up with high speed. The woman hit a tree and she and her baby died. But will a blackbox have recorded that incident? No... so no increase in security.
Other accidents: 2 cars crash at an intersection, both drivers say the traffic light for them was "green". How can a blackbox solve this issue... it can't unless it perfectly also records the state of all traffic lights and signs that you're passing.
The concept of the blackbox is coming from the airplane industry. Here it makes sense, because people care much less if a plane with 200 passengers crashes as if Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones cars crash together. And the media a plane is moving in is just air, ok, with also some environmental variables, but those are maybe just a few. And a plane won't immediately crash if it leaves its flight path at 200 mp/h, a car will transform itself into a wreckage if it leaves the road at this speed.
So to really increase the security by recording facilities you need to get a feedback from the records. For example if whenever you get fuel the car's blackbox transmits all GPS coordinates with the according velocity vectors to the authorities it would be easy to determine if you were violationg speed limits. The feedback could then be charged to your credit card. But nobody would like to live in such a world that has more control over you than Orwell had ever imagined in his worst nighmtares.
So from my point of view a blackbox for cars is just a matter to make cars more expensive. It won't increase safety in any way.
Actually looking for a new cell phone I wouldn't even consider buying such a thing for the following reasons:
I personally don't need or want a megapixel camera in my cellphone. And some industries agree with me and won't let me enter their facilities with photographic equipment
I don't see a use of Linux on a phone... or shall I run an Apache on it with live pictures from the internal camera updated every minute so that people can see where I'm walking or the inside of my pocket?:-)
If the first priority was to do a mail sync with a proprietary product then the "Linux"
is just a marketing gag. Note in this context that they are saying "microsoft mail server not client.
I still don't know about features that I'm looking for as "long standby time", "long and good organized voice recording", "triband" and "secure bluetooth apps".
And last not least I really wonder if todays "smartphones" are smart enough to make simple phone calls with them.
1. Publish your mainboard BIOS as Open Source 2. Wait for people to compile their own BIOS 3. Charge customers for flashing a working BIOS back on the ROMs.
No, I don't need a car with lots of complex things inside. I want a car that works reliable and that allows me to fix simple "bugs" by myself. But today a car mechanican needs more to be a computer operator than a wrench operator.
Every complex piece of hard or software that is not there can't break. Actually German newstickers have a story about BMW that has to call back a lot of cars to the factory because a fault in the on board electronics can cause a loss of steering or breaking power.
Now just imagine a Windows(R) powered car. In the case of a crash I don't want an stupid clip to appear and ask me if I want that the airbag is released. And a steering that reacts to spoken commands will crash very quickly when my wife is driving since she sometimes mistakes "left" and "right".:-)
Doesn't one billion PCs sound a little high considering that the vast majority of the world's population doesn't have access to a telephone?
You're right. The other interesting question is how does someone that has no online-connection and not even access to a telephone registers his Windows XP...
So far you could spot a viurs author by the "evidence" that he had the source code of the virus on his PC. Now everybody has the source. I guess we need bigger jails soon.
"That would be directly equivalent to somebody going to an ATM and getting money out without putting any in,"
What??? I always thought that the bank people are filling the ATMs with money... and now I read that this is customers duty... well, thanks anyway to the unknown people that put their money in the ATM so that I can get it out...
This might lead to long lines again in the baggage terminal and can cost the airline more, but does this make sense?
Of course it will make sense for all the people that use standard uniform bags without a name tag because they are "tagged with RFID anyway". So if they start quarreling about who's bag it is they can check it.
Usually the dollar bill shows a picture of an US preisident. Can we assume, that sooner or later the US president will be a Linux penguin. Well, it can't be worse than a stupid cowboy from Texas.:-)
So, can I release my genes under the GPL? Or will I have to find a different license?
Releasing your genes under the GPL would mean that everyone can take them, use them,modify them and give the modified genes back to you. I wonder if you really want that.
And IMHO its a proof that this world is crazy if some companies think they have a right to patent life. Just imagine that in the long run this would mean you have to pay license fees for fucking.:-)
I'd like to listen to that report, but unfortunately I did not yet discover how I am supposed to playback a WMA file (Windows Media Player format) on my Debian box.:-(
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot Darl McBride on your list. I bet he would be happy to have finally code snippets that prove that intelectual property was stolen. :-)
... now lets hope that in the next step we extend the arrest to sellers of Windows binary code.
Sorry for the "stupid" question in the subject line, but so far I (as an European citizen) was told that the USA is a democratic system. So I guess that the US citizens should be able to express their discomfort about RFID tagging in the upcoming elections. Just a thought of a naive European...
The software price is something else. Why the hell shall someone pay lots of $$$$ for a piece of software that can be copied easily. Especially since he has to pay, but the producer of the software product refuses to be liable for any problems that result in using this thing. So people see that they are just there to pay and to increase the profits of the software company.
Cheaper PCs won't solve this problem. And I know that its much more difficult to lower the hardware price because the margin in hardware is just a few percent for every unit sold. The big profit seems to be in software... deliver something that doesn't work, charge the user like hell and then refuse to make it work.
And BTW: Its not a problem at all since there is a lot of free open source software availabe for everyone. So all what Microsoft is going for is to lower the price of (PC+Software) without losing their profits.
Satellite detection range is limited for these EPIRBs (satellites must be within line of sight of both the EPIRB and a ground terminal for detection to occur),
My god, the architecture of buildings in Oregon must really be "sub-standard", assuming that usually you operate your TV set inside a house with a roof and walls... Usually that also means "no line of sight to satellites". But maybe walls and roofs there are very thin...
Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.
Q: Might you add anti-virus/spyware protection in Windows?
Gates: It's not a thing you build in. You have to offer a service. There are third parties who are doing a good job. We're always taking a hard look, but we don't have any concrete plans.
So if I get this right the problem with security is that I download third party software and Mr. Gates thinks that it can be solved by third party service (which means probably downloading third party anti-virus software). Now I clearly understand why the problem is never solved...
like e.g. making Microsoft Windows secure? :-)
SCNR
So in other words the life of airplane passengers is depending on the fact if a computer is rebooted manually or not. Thank god nothing really bad happened during this radio outage, otherwise some smartass would have blamed it on the tech that forgot to reboot.
The main problem is obviously we're relying on systems and procedures that never have been tested under emergency conditions.
So far I was never scared to board a plane, but now I am. Especially after learning that air traffic communciation relies on something that I abandoned at home because of security reasons.
If someone is to blame, then the authority that gave permisson to run such systems without proper testing. The question still arising is if this will have consequences. AFAIK there were 5 incidents where the safety distance between planes was violated... shouldn't the FAA invstigate this and enforce procedures to avoid those sort of incidents in the future?
But on the other way round you have 2 options:
Its sometimes really annoying to see companies complain about little markets but doing not a damn to develop those markets. And they should be aware, that sales of Linux desktop PC are growing, so if they are not waking up they will lose in the long run.
On November 5 1999 we had the "Burn all GIFs" day because of patent issues. Shall we announce a "Burn all JPEGs" day because of Microsoft security issues now and switch all to PNG?
Simple answer: Use the distribution that an experienced friend of yours is using.
Second question: If they are all Linux, why will this application run on one but not the other? Development geek speak.
That will also happen to you when you use Windows. While Linux offers you the "dependency hell" Windows invites you to "DLL hell". And in my multilingual family I also had situations in which an extension package for a Windows app that was localized for Germany didn't run on the base package that was localized for Italy. No, the problems are just different under Windows, but they still exist.
Third question: Of the hundreds of choices of this particular application, which is best? Hundreds of naswers and then a massive flame war.
So what's your point here? Is having the choice so bad? If I want to travel from New York to San Francisco I can also do a hundred of different routes... or I do the Microsoft highway and pay the big toll for it while other roads are toll free and even maybe going through a much more beautiful landscape...
Again as I wrote in my other message: If a blackbox would somehow know that the driver is drunk then it should block the car's function so that the drunken driver is definitely not able to enter a road! That and only that will increase safety, all other things are post mortem analysis and won't make traffic safer.
To answer it lets look at the potential risks and accident causes:
The concept of the blackbox is coming from the airplane industry. Here it makes sense, because people care much less if a plane with 200 passengers crashes as if Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones cars crash together. And the media a plane is moving in is just air, ok, with also some environmental variables, but those are maybe just a few. And a plane won't immediately crash if it leaves its flight path at 200 mp/h, a car will transform itself into a wreckage if it leaves the road at this speed.
So to really increase the security by recording facilities you need to get a feedback from the records. For example if whenever you get fuel the car's blackbox transmits all GPS coordinates with the according velocity vectors to the authorities it would be easy to determine if you were violationg speed limits. The feedback could then be charged to your credit card. But nobody would like to live in such a world that has more control over you than Orwell had ever imagined in his worst nighmtares.
So from my point of view a blackbox for cars is just a matter to make cars more expensive. It won't increase safety in any way.
- I personally don't need or want a megapixel camera in my cellphone. And some industries agree with me and won't let me enter their facilities with photographic equipment
- I don't see a use of Linux on a phone... or shall I run an Apache on it with live pictures from the internal camera updated every minute so that people can see where I'm walking or the inside of my pocket?
:-)
- If the first priority was to do a mail sync with a proprietary product then the "Linux"
is just a marketing gag. Note in this context that they are saying "microsoft mail server not client.
- I still don't know about features that I'm looking for as "long standby time", "long and good organized voice recording", "triband" and "secure bluetooth apps".
And last not least I really wonder if todays "smartphones" are smart enough to make simple phone calls with them.1. Publish your mainboard BIOS as Open Source
2. Wait for people to compile their own BIOS
3. Charge customers for flashing a working BIOS back on the ROMs.
Easy, isn't it?
Every complex piece of hard or software that is not there can't break. Actually German newstickers have a story about BMW that has to call back a lot of cars to the factory because a fault in the on board electronics can cause a loss of steering or breaking power.
Now just imagine a Windows(R) powered car. In the case of a crash I don't want an stupid clip to appear and ask me if I want that the airbag is released. And a steering that reacts to spoken commands will crash very quickly when my wife is driving since she sometimes mistakes "left" and "right". :-)
You're right. The other interesting question is how does someone that has no online-connection and not even access to a telephone registers his Windows XP...
So far you could spot a viurs author by the "evidence" that he had the source code of the virus on his PC. Now everybody has the source. I guess we need bigger jails soon.
What??? I always thought that the bank people are filling the ATMs with money... and now I read that this is customers duty... well, thanks anyway to the unknown people that put their money in the ATM so that I can get it out...
Of course it will make sense for all the people that use standard uniform bags without a name tag because they are "tagged with RFID anyway". So if they start quarreling about who's bag it is they can check it.
Usually the dollar bill shows a picture of an US preisident. Can we assume, that sooner or later the US president will be a Linux penguin. Well, it can't be worse than a stupid cowboy from Texas. :-)
Paying doesn't necessarily mean "transfer of money", it can also mean giving some content back. YMMV.
Maybe the Pentium Floating Point Bug is still not fixed... :-)
Releasing your genes under the GPL would mean that everyone can take them, use them,modify them and give the modified genes back to you. I wonder if you really want that.
And IMHO its a proof that this world is crazy if some companies think they have a right to patent life. Just imagine that in the long run this would mean you have to pay license fees for fucking. :-)
I'd like to listen to that report, but unfortunately I did not yet discover how I am supposed to playback a WMA file (Windows Media Player format) on my Debian box. :-(