So if I don't put locks on my doors, when someone walks into my house...
That's not how wireless works. Your house does not continually broadcast to the street and other areas "There's a house here! Here's how you get to the front door! You'll need a DHCP badge to get any service from the butler, here's one you can use...", etc, etc.
A more fitting analogy would be if you were to establish a public establishment (a bar, for example), advertise a grand opening, and then someone walks into your bar...
and makes a 1-900 call on my phone, eats some of the food in my fridge, takes a dump in my crapper, sits on my couch and watches cable...
Kinds changes things, doesn't it? Your bartender likely has a specific policy about allowing your patrons to make 1-900 calls, the fridge is likely behind the door to the kitchen, or at least behind the bar (both are understood to be access control mechanisms) but you probably don't mind too much about the peanuts on the bar, allowing others to use the WC is a given, so is sitting on the furnature and watching the telly.
...and otherwise utilizes my home without authorization, they're not stealing right?
If they're doing it without authorization, then they're stealing. If they're doing it with authorization, they are your guests. Wireless (and other computerized) services offer you (as the host) a common, difinitive, simple, clear and automatic method to unambiguously differentiate between those you would consider thieves and those you would consider guests. All you have to do is use it.
Here's another one of life's little secrets; if you want people to cooperate and do what you want, you have to at least tell them what you want. If I were to visit your house, I believe I'd find ample clues as to whether or not I'm invited in, if I can grab a beer from the fridge, etc. If I need to make a phone call, I'll ask. If it has to be a 1-900 call, I'll ask that too. Your (presumed) wireless access point can (and does) answer the questions my wireless card asks, and can implement whatever policy you (as the administrator) see fit.
Because, there are steps I can take and since I haven't it must be that I *want* people to do this. Or if I don't, it's my own damn fault for not being smart enough to put a lock on my door...and use it.
It's no different than assuming that people will see the actions you have taken and the steps you could have, but didn't take and deciding that you don't want people to do this. You can't expect people to read your mind.
I respectully disagree. Not putting locks on doors, building fences, or requiring authorization on WAPs may be a dumb thing to do because you *know* someone's going to take advantage sooner or later. But those taking advantage of my lapse in judgement are still breaking the law.
Then in the same spirit, I would respectfully request that you do leave some signal for those of us that might misinterpret your actions.
If you don't want we accessing your AP, that's your call entirely. I have no intention to take that which you would not willingly give. But I don't read minds. If I honestly can't tell the difference between someone intentionally offering a service freely and someone inadvertently offering a service freely, I'm likely to interpret the situation in the manner which is most favorable to me. And I'd submit most people will do the same. A simple tech note in the broadcast saying "private access point" will stop me (perhaps not others) but if you won't even exercise that due dilligence, you must accept some of the blame.
So actually, what Nokia is saying is that sitting outside a company and using their bandwidth is stealing and not actually the act of warchalking.
That granted, it still begs a question. Suppose I run my wireless access point with the intention of providing free access as a courtsey to those who choose to access the net in my area. Are the people who access my AP thieves? If they arent; how do they know that they aren't? Have the people who warchalk the site done anything (other than minor graffiti) wrong?
We can translate the question into a more common domain: If I read a newspaper by the light of Billboard, or shelter from the rain under the Tailor Shop canopy as I pass to the Butcher shop, or sip from a company's water fountain, am I guilty of theft?
If I'm "accessing someone elses network wirelessly, where no authorization was required", am I a their, or a happy customer? And how am I supposed to know the difference?
These are not "unauthorized users", because the AP can enforce authorization, but the entity which owns the AP has chosen (or is too clueless) to not require any. I can't think of a better way to distinguish between access which is being provided as a courtsey (and doesn't requite "authorization" and access which is "for use by authorized personnel only" and requires authorization.
I don't agree with people who assert that the loss of service due to "people you didn't know about" using your network wirelessly amounts to theft. If you are responsible for a site, you can keep people from accessing it wirelessly if you want to.
Many companies use fences and locked doors to keep Joe Public from going where they are not wanted, and cameras to keep track of who is going where in those cases where seperating the authorized from the unauthorized is not otherwise fesible. Similar tools exist for the wireless environment and they generally work even better. You just might have to hire a clued network admin (just like you hired a clued fence installer and survelliance camera installer) but the results are just as good.
It's fairly easy to generate truly random numbers in small quantities, but getting a sizable quantity of cryptographically true, cryptographically secure, cryptographically random numbers has always been a bit difficult. You almost have to do it in hardware, and you almost have to use something which is both isolated from external interference (so others can't load your dice) and doesn't bleed its information externally (so you can be sure you are the only one who knows the number). The first requirement rules out most things which rely on the external environment for input (like EM radiation). Add to this a third requirement for lots of randomness, (which rules out things like thermal junctions, or number of NT bluescreens per day) and a simple problem becomes hard.
Remember, in this context the common definition of "random" meaning "I don't understand how it works" doesn't cut it. You need true "completely unpredictable by anyone" randomness for many security applications.
To quote the lead paragraph from the WorldTechTribune article:
...is Sun hypocritically hoping to create an illegal monopoly of their own by giving StarOffice 6 to students for free?
This doesn't make sense. One could illegally <do anything> and so by extension could illegally create a monopoly or perhaps the author meant that Sun appears to be hoping to create a monopoly which they then might then intend to illegally maintain, but I don't understand the concept of "...create an illegal monopoly...". Are there jurisdictions where simply creating or having a monopoly is considered to be illegal?
That has the makings for a great Month Python skit: a failing company in a desperate act to save itself, goes out-of-business, leaving it's successful competitor owning a monopoly on the market, requiring that they be declared illegal and shutdown, at which point the failing business returns as the new market leader. (only to discover that they now own a monopoly on the market and are henceforth declared illegal, shutdown, etc. Thereafter, any business which tries to cash in on that market becomes the monopoly provider and is immediately shutdown....
Personally, I think I'd be more willing to use someone else's access point (and pay for it) if I could be assured that no one was accessing for free.
Just a personal rant, but I'm tired of paying to share a system with freeloaders, and watching the freeloaders destroy it. I'm ready to sign-up for an internet-like networking service where everyone has to pay per packet. In my mind, that would stop spammers cold, end all of the "peer-to-peer music/warez/movies pirating" debates, (no one is going to shell out serious cash and take a chance on jail time just to set up a web site offering the latest Celine Dion MP3) and eliminate banner ads as well. (And people who fail to clean-up their Klez infections might find the resulting bill an adequate reminder.) It would probably bee a boon for privacy as well, as anyone getting paid for the service they offer is not going to risk losing a paying customer by doing something stooopid like frivolously forwarding their customer's email to Ashcroft, or selling their customer's web-browsing habits to some Viagra marketer.
It would probably mean more judicious use of Flash (and graphics in general) and no one is going to pay to serve-up a 1.2Mb homepage background when a 1200 byte background would work just as well and cost 10,000 times less per page view.
Why then should he assume that you have Acrobat Reader installed? It's every bit as reasonable to assume that they have Microsoft Office Document Readers installed.
No, it isn't. (And if you'll excuse my saying so, you're letting your prejudice show...)
PDF-format files are stored in an open format. You can get a viewer for PDF-format files for just about any hardware and operating system ever invented, and if there isn't one available for the hardware and operating system you want to read it on, you can create your own. You don't even need Adobe's permission to create it.
More to the point, you could create a reader for a computer and operating system invented tomorrow, even if Adobe were to cease to exist today. Even if the resulting viewer resulted in a negative impact to Adobe's profits (if, for example, it served a market they would otherwise profit by serving).
Compare to the collection of Microsoft Office Document Readers available from the web site you cite. Those are provided by Microsoft only for the operating systems they choose, and only supported to the extent they deem necessary. I couldn't locate any which were for an operating system other than MacOS or 16/32bit Windows, are there any? Unless Microsoft finds it profitable to invest the time and resources into supporting a hardware/OS you wish to use, it will not be supported. This also presupposes that Microsoft remains able to offer such support; a sudden Enron-style bankrupcy could kill support for even the profitable ones.
Basic communication tenets stipulate that both sides negotiate communication parameters to the greatest common denominator. Since the open PDF format can be supported on any platform, and Microsoft's format cannot, then a sender who does not otherwise know the receivers capabilities should assume the PDF is more acceptable than the alternative you suggest.
Not everyone runs on x86 (or even PPC). Even those who do are not always running a Microsoft (or other supported) operating system. You seem to be under the impression that Windows is the only thing which matters?
...we would see the specs for word & excel published within the next 11 months.
No. More likely, you see a week of "We haven't heard about that declaration, so we can't comment..." followed by a couple weeks of "we're discussing our options..." followed by a "Of course, we'll publish our specs as soon as we have them ready..." followed by several months of "they're not ready yet, but you can be sure we will meet the deadline..." right up to the deadline. At that point, M$ will refuse to publish the spec and see who blinks.
So let me ask you this: Pretend you are the CTO of a sizable organization. You've been given the authority to issue such an untimatium to M$: publish your specs or we will refuse to use your software, any you have the authority to back up that threat. Up until the point of the deadline, you were assured that M$ would be publishing their spec. But now the deadline is here and you have to either blink (and continue to use M$ products even though you said you wouldn't) or call their bluff and declare that their products cannot be used within the organization you lead; all employees must find some other way to get their jobs done without creating any new documents in M$-proprietary format, without accessing any documents previously stored in a M$ proprietary format, without using any M$ tools, without communicating with any customer except through open protocols (if they send you a.doc document, you have to send it back and ask them to comvert it), without bidding on any job which ways "submit bids in M$Word
format...", etc.
Who do you think would blink?
Large organizations are more addicted to Microsoft than they care to admit to themselves. CTO's have spent half a decade getting high on Microsoft at the company's expense. I have yet to hear any kind of viable corporate-level Microsoft exit strategy which did not involve a half-decade of planning and lead time. Fact it, most large organizations will never break their Microsoft dependence. Instead, they'll continue paying the Microsoft tax and doing things the Microsoft way (as if no other way exists) until they are bankrupt, or swallowed-up by a leaner and more flexible organization which has no tolerance for their Microsoft addiction.
Re:Fraud is still a crime
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"Squishy" DRM?
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Technically, it would not be illegal unless I redistributed the copy of your copyrighted work, presuming the original was a legitimately purchased copy. First Sale doctrine says I can do whatever I want with a legitimately purchased recording . (But even that is somewhat dependent on the exact type of "recording" we're discussing.) At any rate, I think we agree that the simple act of duplicating and distributing someone elses copyrighted work is illegal, regardless of wether the copyright notice or the "unique ID" has been filed off or not.
But if it's just as illegal either way, what point does it serve to have a unique ID? The "unique ID" becomes just another Interpol notice for people to ignore or edit out. If it does nothing to make it harder to distribute illegal copies then the only effect will be the unintended side effect.
The only thing this might buy a publisher is an answer to the question "Is the proliferation of digital copies the result of many people with each providing a few copies of a work, or rather the work of a few individiuals providing most of the copies of the work?"
This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record ("record" in copyright law refers to a copy of a recording) but doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin. I find it an appropriate compromise, as long as there's a way for any individual copyright owner to mark a record for free redistribution.
Sounds great in principle, until you start thinking about it. Let's go over this again:
Who's "unique identifier" is on the original? Who gets prosecuted when I download a record with a MPAA unique id on it? Or maybe I have to give them my name, address and SSN before they'll give an original to me?
Maybe the unique identifier identifies the equipment which made the copy (hardware) or the person who was logged-in and using that equipment (through a software tie-in).
If you sell me your old system, then a bunch of copies show up with that unique identifier on them, who goes to jail? What about if your system was stolen? Can you be prosecuted for copies made on a system stolen from you? Maybe your box was just rooted for a few minutes? What if you haven't even unpacked the system but someone forges your hardware tag onto a record? Are you that sure no one had access to it before you got your hands on it?
Imagine the mess one Klez would create...
And who hands out the unique identifiers? Do I have to "get one" or can I just make one up? Can anyone get one? Can I build my own computer still and get a "these copies were made by me" unique identifier for it for free, or does some organization get to choose which people are approved to create innovative technology? What if I typo my unique id while I'm entering it into the ROM and "accidentally" enter an unregistered/untracable one (or perhaps yours;-) instead?
Can I make a copy of your (copyrighted) work, then mark it as "for free redistribution"?
Who keeps the database of which unique ID's belong to which people owning which copy-capable machines? And how big of a "publisher" do I have to be before I can request a copy of that database "...just to make sure no one is illegally sharing copies of my pickle song..."?
Are we really ready to treat CD burners (and anything that can create a digital copy in general) as being more dangerous than firearms? Should we stamp a serial number on each one, require owners to register, file a report if it's ever sold or stolen, no transportation across state lines, background checks for potential purchasers? etc)? Heck, I can cite a link to a web site showing you how to build a gun, but it's illegal to refer you to a website with DeCSS.
Computers make poor policy implementers. Heck, half the time we can't get them to run their own software correctly, and it's been written by people who understand software. What is fair use again? We still haven't figured out a clean-cut way to decide what's allowable and what isn't, and we want some $50 CD-RW to be judge and jury?
Piracy (if you care to call it that) is a social problem and it must be addressed as a social problem; a technical solution cannot be a complete solution.
What's the point of having all the market share if very few people make not very much money on it?
Nothing, if your view of importance involves only money.
But some people play this game only to build the best web server possible. The Apache project includes a lot of these types of people, and right now (according to Netcraft) they're winning.
But don't worry too much. If you select web servers based on how many people make how much money off you, then you can still choose (what I presume to be) the leader by that criteria.
Rather than the key, you have the challenge which the software used on that invocation.
Sniff the IDE bus and you've got the key.
Better to call it the response to the particular challenge for that invocation. Useful, but not a complete compromise.
The decryption algorithm has to be unencrypted and easily disassembleable on the disk for this to work in a standard reader.
The decryption algorithm needs only the ability to say if a given response is one of the possible results from the challenge it issued. It does not need to have the ability to generate a response given the challenge. A one-way hash can do this.
But, you're on the right track. Once you can issue arbitrary challenges and record the responses, you are a long way toward determining the key used by hash function, or building a challenge response registry, or a challenge response server, or launching a chineese lottery attack on the function.
Then again, why bother? Just patch over the function that makes the challenge and move along.
The real problem is not a technical one, but a sociological one.
You can't change a CD into a dongle without changing the CD into a dongle. And once you've changed the CD into a dongle, it's no longer a CD. If you're customers think they are buying a CD they will expect it to act like a CD and you'll get complaints when it doesn't. If you explain to them that you're not really delivering a CD, but rather a dongle which makes their CDROM drive useless whenever they're running your application, then they'll ask "why don't you just give me a dongle?"
If you've got a rock-solid hardware DRM solution, why do you want to tie it to the software at all? Why do you care if they're reading from an original CD or a copy if you know the dongle is legit? I should be able to make a bit-perfect copy of the CD onto a CD-R which won't run (because of the missing challenge-response layer), and use that copy to run the application even if the original disk is hopelessly scratched, provided the C-R layer is intact. The data and the dongle have no business being tied together.
And if your hardware DRM solution isn't rock solid, don't create a business model which assumes it is.
In a world where all hardware has DRM and all operating systems enforce DRM, would I still be able to run Linux in vmWare? It won't be allowed to access that "impervious copyright content area" on my hard drive, but it won't need to either.
If so, why can't I share pirated DVD's with my friends through P2P running on my (virtual) Linux box, and watch ripped DVD's on my (virtual) TiVo? And DRM has accomplished nothing.
Or if I can't, then all the MPAA and RIAA and Microsoft Palladium assurances that I can still run whatever programs I want on my computer are pure bunk, and a DRM-enabled computer will both prevent you from accessing data which is copyrighted, but also prevent you from running unapproved programs on non-copyrighted data.
(It won't just be vmWare. On a bored day long ago, I once implemented a binary-to-7-segment decoder as an Excel spreadsheet, and had a flip-flop-based timing circuit implemented as a configuration of cells in Life. If these feats are possible as a lark, then creating a program to perform an illegal function using whatever tools we are
For the most part, Tim's got this right. We shouldn't mandate that every piece of software used in the public sector be open source. Taken to an absurd end, that would mean government employees can't wear digital watches, because almost all of them use some sort of software, and none of it is open source.;-)
We certainly need to mandate that the public interfaces be public, even if we don't mandate that the private methods and functions be open.
And it is bad form to place restrictions on what software can be selected; that's a precedent as likely to be turned against us as to work for us. And beside, the Open Source movement doesn't need it.
But even Tim seems to have missed a critical point; software is unlike any other product that an organization can use because software embeds loyalty. A wristwatch can be poor quality, inefficient, overpriced, ineffective, broken, or ijust plain faulty. But a wristwatch cannot be corrupt. It cannot know who it's manufacturer is and alter it's functioning to promote other products by it's manufacturer nor degrade the functions of competitors. But a computer can, and Microsoft has shown both the technical capability and the willingness to use such techniques to promote their own products. In this respect, allowing a Microsoft product to perform a function within our government is the same as allowing a known corrupt politician to hold government office. Other proprietary software products have the potential for such corrupt behavior as well, but they shouldn't be restricted for potential corrupt behavior any more than a candidate should be.
Look, I don't know about you, but I'd be very hesitant to allow a someone known for corrupt behavior in the past and currently facing sentencing on felony anti-trust charges to hold office no matter how much more efficient than the next candidate he might be. It just sets a bad precedent. That's not the kind of government I want to live under.
Why should you and/or government not be able to choose software a, b, or c and have it write an open and compatable file?
Why? Well, since you asked....
You want to be careful about stepping over the line into the realm where government uses legislative power to dictate that the software must support a certain format. That's a dangerous place for a government to tread. In my opinion, let the software developers decide what the file format should be, and even if it should be open.
The government must still demand open file formats, but no one is compelled to write their software in a particular way.
The funny thing is, for some types of software, there is no open format to choose from.
Then you say to the vendors: "There doesn't seem to be an open format. I guess the first vendor to publish their complete format spec gets the contract..." and watch them fall all over themselves to be the one vendor who claims the huge government contract and doesn't have to re-write their software to work with somebody elses format.
Or, let them decide that they don't wan't to give-up their proprietary format, and instead make it in the private sector.
The power to make laws is not the only power a goverment wields.
I hate to find myself defending Microsoft and it's allies, but I think the main problem they have is that GPL'd software can't be commercially sold or incorporated in commercial software.
Here we go again.
Software released under the terms of the GPL is identical to software released under any other license (including BSD and any of the various Microsoft licenses) in this resepct: you can incorproate it into commercial code, but only if you agree to the license terms. The specific terms vary from case to case, but it's the same for any licensed software. In order to incorporate Microsoft's code in your commercial product, you'd have to arrange a license with them which is likely to cost you a pretty penny, and could also include terms the give Microsoft ownership of your code.
It would be just as incorrect for me to state that Microsoft's licensing scheme is choose your favorite derogative because I can't afford to pay them the money they demand.
Anytime you use someone elses software, you have to abide by the terms they demand. You don't like my terms? Then don't use my code. Which part of this are you having problems understanding?
You do seem to be defending Microsoft when you insist that Microsoft should be allowed to dictate the terms of use for thsir own software, then deny the same rights to the Free Software community.
How can you possibly be for an open source only law? Isn't America the land of the free? As in freedom not free code! Restrictions are just bad.
If the job requireds a certain function that a certain tool can't perform, don't select that tool for the that job. Simple common sense. The particular software licensing scheme or proprietary/non-proprietary aspect of it's design has nothing to do with it.
Similarly, if the job requires a certain performance that the license prohibits (even if the tool itself is capable) then the choice of that license by the tool's manufacturer leaves that tool out of the bidding for that job. The manufacturer can always choose to build tools under a different license, if he wants, and the choice of license should remain with the manufacturer. But if the manufacturer decides, for example, to use a license which does not allow his software to be run on mainframe (VMS) systems, and the job demands the software run on such a mainframe, then that particular software is not in the running.
I also don't hear any sane arguments against demanding that the protocols, interfaces, and file formats used in public sector systems be open. This was one of the key points the Peruvian Congressman made; democracy demands this much. This also seems to be one of the points the Software Choice people seem to gloss over.
The problem arises when discussing tasks in the public sector; functions performed on behalf of the taxpayer (that's me) or for the benefit of the taxpayer. Unlike private industry, every one of us is a stakeholder in our own government. We have both the right and responsibility to ensure that the tools we employ are capable of performing the tasks required by the job effectively, efficiently, and in a manner which meets our requirements for the task to be performed. The information (data) already belongs to us (collectively) and we need to ensure that we exercise due dilligence in our stewardship over that data. But in order to do that, we need to ensure that the processes (code) which operate on that data perform correctly, in the same was that we demand that civil service employees don't use governmental office supplies to run their own home businesses.
But with software, it's often difficult to seperate the code from the data. This is true even in systems where the design is to keep them seperate. Some manufacturers have chosen (and were within their rights to do so, IMHO) to blur the line between the data and the code. [One side effect of this is that email messages (data) have become viruses (code), another is that you can't tell where the operating system stops and the web browser begins.]
For use in the public sector therefore, software should not only have clean, clear and well defined interfaces, use only open and public protocols, and require fully defined and specified file formats, (so that the data is always open and accessible) but the functions and procedures of the programs themselves (the code) should be open to verification and scrutiny as well.
This is not to say that all software used in the public sector should be Open Source, but we should certainly demand that the sources be open. If Microsoft can figure out how to both open their sources and build tools which meet the requirements of the task to be performed, they should not be barred from bidding on that contract (except perhaps under the "felons can't bid on government contracts" doctrine, but I digress...) but if they can't (or if they choose not to) then we shouldn't change the task requirements to suit them. Other companies (such as Apple and IBM) have figured out how to meet the openness requirements.
We need to demand openness from our government in every case where secrecy is not critical to national security; the tenets of democracy demand that. As the governed, we should require our contractors to disclose the methods they use to perform the tasks we've hired them to do. If they want secrecy, then they should be content to earn their living in the private sector. In the same vein, since we demand openness, we may have to be willing to settle for a little less efficiency (that has not been proven) or a little more cost (unproven as well). When you consider how much our forefathers gave to obtain the freedom we enjoy today, I think you'll agree it's a small price to pay for continued freedom.
I wonder what would happen if all the geeks got together and lobbied Congress to pass a law banning people from having both Internet/computers and Television/Video/DVD in their home. People would be required to pick one of the other only. Can't have both.
That would stop the "Napsterization" of the home entertainment industry as well as any other proposal I've heard.
I wonder which one people would choose? I wonder if the MPAA would be willing to support such a law? Probably not. But then I guess they know what's good for them.
This is just like the Cola Wars after NewCoke was introduced; they don't care how much bad publicity they get so long as they're getting publicity.
If you're trying to retrain, my first advice is to unlearn some of what you've learned in your 33 years of silence. Don't try to rely too much on the Internet for speech and listening training. The online world is a great place for a deaf person (since so little of it lives on the audio channel) but for learning to hear, there's no place like the Real World.
I'd recommend venturing out into places where speech is the local currency. Find someplace where the people are not busy and obligated to be there and talk to them. For example, head into the local WalMart. Say hello to the greeter and ask where the shoes or restrooms are. (I'm sure you already know, but you'll have the spoken answer to compare.)
Flea Markets are another good resource for this; you'll not only learn to understand the variety of speech, but to recognise words among the noises of a crowd.
Another example; phone the friendly people who answer a phone for a living; pizza order takers, airline reservation clerks and (I'm gonna get modded down for this) tech support bobs. These are people who make a living by understanding others and communicating clearly.
Above all, don't worry that other people may have problems understanding you; anyone who's lived for a day in this world has encountered people who have trouble making themselves understood. I get callers all the time who can't speak clearly or can't understand what I say no matter how clearly (or how loudly, or how many times) I say it. Sometimes the problem is language or accent, sometines it's a physical problem, sometings it's just bad phone lines, or the effects of one party or the other being drunk. (Um, that didn't come out right.)
Also, understand that the skills you've learned to communicate when you could not hear means that you can now out-communicate most of the people in the world, even if verbal communication is not your strong suit. Be gracious; don't put the rest of us to shame.
Is there some way you could unlist yourself. Since you can unlist yourself from the Telephone book and other non-gov lists I'm guessing they have have no legal right to list you after you ask to be unlisted?
That's part of the stickiness of this problem. Yes, you should be able to "unlist" certain information, maybe not all (Mr. Banker, please forget the mortgage I took out last week...) but some reasonable subset.
The problem is, does that mean I now need to forget that lowtekneq once said:
If I lived in a country where I would earn the same living if I was a Doctor, Laywer, Garbage Man, or Unemployed Jaggoff, I would choose to be an Unemployed Jaggoff.
Will you indulge a different question?
Suppose you lived in a country where you would earn the same living if you were a Doctor, Laywer, Garbage Man, or Unemployed Jaggoff. But suppose choosing to be a Doctor would also give you an opportunity to do "doctory" things like research diseases, cure people, or man a trauma unit; opportunities which would not be available to non doctors. Suppose being a Laywer, had similar benefits appropriate for that field. Would you forgo your interests on the principle of avoiding work?
"Greed" (to use your term) can be an important motivator, but it's not the only possible one. But perhaps we've made the mistake of making greed too important of a motivator. Wouldn't it be a shame if the next great Doctor were right now seeing his career wash down the drain because he can earn a better living as an "nemployed Jaggoff"?
They really don't have an option. Assuming an unbiased judge, if they force the judge to make a judgement, any judgement would be more expensive that just about anything they could offer for an out-of-court settlement. If there is a judgement, it must be one "in the public interest".
On the other hand, if there is a consent decree, there's no restriction on what the terms of such a consent decree must be.
What bothers me is that the consent decree route is supposed to be an incentive for a defendent to avoid the cost and time of a trial. It hardly makes sense for them to consent at this point, unless they know it's the only way to avoid a harsh judgement.
The nice thing about this license, the license is in an editable text field: if there's a term of the license you don't agree with, just delete it.
In fact, before I downloaded the stuff, I deleted the entire license and replaced it with something like "No restrictions; anything goes." I'm sure there are even more clever edits out there. Heck, visit today just to accept the license.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not how wireless works. Your house does not continually broadcast to the street and other areas "There's a house here! Here's how you get to the front door! You'll need a DHCP badge to get any service from the butler, here's one you can use...", etc, etc.
A more fitting analogy would be if you were to establish a public establishment (a bar, for example), advertise a grand opening, and then someone walks into your bar...
Kinds changes things, doesn't it? Your bartender likely has a specific policy about allowing your patrons to make 1-900 calls, the fridge is likely behind the door to the kitchen, or at least behind the bar (both are understood to be access control mechanisms) but you probably don't mind too much about the peanuts on the bar, allowing others to use the WC is a given, so is sitting on the furnature and watching the telly.
If they're doing it without authorization, then they're stealing. If they're doing it with authorization, they are your guests. Wireless (and other computerized) services offer you (as the host) a common, difinitive, simple, clear and automatic method to unambiguously differentiate between those you would consider thieves and those you would consider guests. All you have to do is use it.
Here's another one of life's little secrets; if you want people to cooperate and do what you want, you have to at least tell them what you want. If I were to visit your house, I believe I'd find ample clues as to whether or not I'm invited in, if I can grab a beer from the fridge, etc. If I need to make a phone call, I'll ask. If it has to be a 1-900 call, I'll ask that too. Your (presumed) wireless access point can (and does) answer the questions my wireless card asks, and can implement whatever policy you (as the administrator) see fit.
It's no different than assuming that people will see the actions you have taken and the steps you could have, but didn't take and deciding that you don't want people to do this. You can't expect people to read your mind.
Then in the same spirit, I would respectfully request that you do leave some signal for those of us that might misinterpret your actions.
If you don't want we accessing your AP, that's your call entirely. I have no intention to take that which you would not willingly give. But I don't read minds. If I honestly can't tell the difference between someone intentionally offering a service freely and someone inadvertently offering a service freely, I'm likely to interpret the situation in the manner which is most favorable to me. And I'd submit most people will do the same. A simple tech note in the broadcast saying "private access point" will stop me (perhaps not others) but if you won't even exercise that due dilligence, you must accept some of the blame.
It's fairly easy to generate truly random numbers in small quantities, but getting a sizable quantity of cryptographically true, cryptographically secure, cryptographically random numbers has always been a bit difficult. You almost have to do it in hardware, and you almost have to use something which is both isolated from external interference (so others can't load your dice) and doesn't bleed its information externally (so you can be sure you are the only one who knows the number). The first requirement rules out most things which rely on the external environment for input (like EM radiation). Add to this a third requirement for lots of randomness, (which rules out things like thermal junctions, or number of NT bluescreens per day) and a simple problem becomes hard.
Remember, in this context the common definition of "random" meaning "I don't understand how it works" doesn't cut it. You need true "completely unpredictable by anyone" randomness for many security applications.
This doesn't make sense. One could illegally <do anything> and so by extension could illegally create a monopoly or perhaps the author meant that Sun appears to be hoping to create a monopoly which they then might then intend to illegally maintain, but I don't understand the concept of "...create an illegal monopoly...". Are there jurisdictions where simply creating or having a monopoly is considered to be illegal?
That has the makings for a great Month Python skit: a failing company in a desperate act to save itself, goes out-of-business, leaving it's successful competitor owning a monopoly on the market, requiring that they be declared illegal and shutdown, at which point the failing business returns as the new market leader. (only to discover that they now own a monopoly on the market and are henceforth declared illegal, shutdown, etc. Thereafter, any business which tries to cash in on that market becomes the monopoly provider and is immediately shutdown....
Just a personal rant, but I'm tired of paying to share a system with freeloaders, and watching the freeloaders destroy it. I'm ready to sign-up for an internet-like networking service where everyone has to pay per packet. In my mind, that would stop spammers cold, end all of the "peer-to-peer music/warez/movies pirating" debates, (no one is going to shell out serious cash and take a chance on jail time just to set up a web site offering the latest Celine Dion MP3) and eliminate banner ads as well. (And people who fail to clean-up their Klez infections might find the resulting bill an adequate reminder.) It would probably bee a boon for privacy as well, as anyone getting paid for the service they offer is not going to risk losing a paying customer by doing something stooopid like frivolously forwarding their customer's email to Ashcroft, or selling their customer's web-browsing habits to some Viagra marketer.
It would probably mean more judicious use of Flash (and graphics in general) and no one is going to pay to serve-up a 1.2Mb homepage background when a 1200 byte background would work just as well and cost 10,000 times less per page view.
No, it isn't. (And if you'll excuse my saying so, you're letting your prejudice show...)
PDF-format files are stored in an open format. You can get a viewer for PDF-format files for just about any hardware and operating system ever invented, and if there isn't one available for the hardware and operating system you want to read it on, you can create your own. You don't even need Adobe's permission to create it.
More to the point, you could create a reader for a computer and operating system invented tomorrow, even if Adobe were to cease to exist today. Even if the resulting viewer resulted in a negative impact to Adobe's profits (if, for example, it served a market they would otherwise profit by serving).
Compare to the collection of Microsoft Office Document Readers available from the web site you cite. Those are provided by Microsoft only for the operating systems they choose, and only supported to the extent they deem necessary. I couldn't locate any which were for an operating system other than MacOS or 16/32bit Windows, are there any? Unless Microsoft finds it profitable to invest the time and resources into supporting a hardware/OS you wish to use, it will not be supported. This also presupposes that Microsoft remains able to offer such support; a sudden Enron-style bankrupcy could kill support for even the profitable ones.
Basic communication tenets stipulate that both sides negotiate communication parameters to the greatest common denominator. Since the open PDF format can be supported on any platform, and Microsoft's format cannot, then a sender who does not otherwise know the receivers capabilities should assume the PDF is more acceptable than the alternative you suggest.
Not everyone runs on x86 (or even PPC). Even those who do are not always running a Microsoft (or other supported) operating system. You seem to be under the impression that Windows is the only thing which matters?
No. More likely, you see a week of "We haven't heard about that declaration, so we can't comment..." followed by a couple weeks of "we're discussing our options..." followed by a "Of course, we'll publish our specs as soon as we have them ready..." followed by several months of "they're not ready yet, but you can be sure we will meet the deadline..." right up to the deadline. At that point, M$ will refuse to publish the spec and see who blinks.
So let me ask you this: Pretend you are the CTO of a sizable organization. You've been given the authority to issue such an untimatium to M$: publish your specs or we will refuse to use your software, any you have the authority to back up that threat. Up until the point of the deadline, you were assured that M$ would be publishing their spec. But now the deadline is here and you have to either blink (and continue to use M$ products even though you said you wouldn't) or call their bluff and declare that their products cannot be used within the organization you lead; all employees must find some other way to get their jobs done without creating any new documents in M$-proprietary format, without accessing any documents previously stored in a M$ proprietary format, without using any M$ tools, without communicating with any customer except through open protocols (if they send you a .doc document, you have to send it back and ask them to comvert it), without bidding on any job which ways "submit bids in M$Word
format...", etc.
Who do you think would blink?
Large organizations are more addicted to Microsoft than they care to admit to themselves. CTO's have spent half a decade getting high on Microsoft at the company's expense. I have yet to hear any kind of viable corporate-level Microsoft exit strategy which did not involve a half-decade of planning and lead time. Fact it, most large organizations will never break their Microsoft dependence. Instead, they'll continue paying the Microsoft tax and doing things the Microsoft way (as if no other way exists) until they are bankrupt, or swallowed-up by a leaner and more flexible organization which has no tolerance for their Microsoft addiction.
But if it's just as illegal either way, what point does it serve to have a unique ID? The "unique ID" becomes just another Interpol notice for people to ignore or edit out. If it does nothing to make it harder to distribute illegal copies then the only effect will be the unintended side effect.
The only thing this might buy a publisher is an answer to the question "Is the proliferation of digital copies the result of many people with each providing a few copies of a work, or rather the work of a few individiuals providing most of the copies of the work?"
Sounds great in principle, until you start thinking about it. Let's go over this again:
Who's "unique identifier" is on the original? Who gets prosecuted when I download a record with a MPAA unique id on it? Or maybe I have to give them my name, address and SSN before they'll give an original to me?
Maybe the unique identifier identifies the equipment which made the copy (hardware) or the person who was logged-in and using that equipment (through a software tie-in).
If you sell me your old system, then a bunch of copies show up with that unique identifier on them, who goes to jail? What about if your system was stolen? Can you be prosecuted for copies made on a system stolen from you? Maybe your box was just rooted for a few minutes? What if you haven't even unpacked the system but someone forges your hardware tag onto a record? Are you that sure no one had access to it before you got your hands on it?
Imagine the mess one Klez would create...
And who hands out the unique identifiers? Do I have to "get one" or can I just make one up? Can anyone get one? Can I build my own computer still and get a "these copies were made by me" unique identifier for it for free, or does some organization get to choose which people are approved to create innovative technology? What if I typo my unique id while I'm entering it into the ROM and "accidentally" enter an unregistered/untracable one (or perhaps yours ;-) instead?
Can I make a copy of your (copyrighted) work, then mark it as "for free redistribution"?
Who keeps the database of which unique ID's belong to which people owning which copy-capable machines? And how big of a "publisher" do I have to be before I can request a copy of that database "...just to make sure no one is illegally sharing copies of my pickle song..."?
Are we really ready to treat CD burners (and anything that can create a digital copy in general) as being more dangerous than firearms? Should we stamp a serial number on each one, require owners to register, file a report if it's ever sold or stolen, no transportation across state lines, background checks for potential purchasers? etc)? Heck, I can cite a link to a web site showing you how to build a gun, but it's illegal to refer you to a website with DeCSS.
Computers make poor policy implementers. Heck, half the time we can't get them to run their own software correctly, and it's been written by people who understand software. What is fair use again? We still haven't figured out a clean-cut way to decide what's allowable and what isn't, and we want some $50 CD-RW to be judge and jury?
Piracy (if you care to call it that) is a social problem and it must be addressed as a social problem; a technical solution cannot be a complete solution.
You tell me what the camera default resolution is, and I'll tell you what resolution most people will be shooting at most of the time.
Nothing, if your view of importance involves only money.
But some people play this game only to build the best web server possible. The Apache project includes a lot of these types of people, and right now (according to Netcraft) they're winning.
But don't worry too much. If you select web servers based on how many people make how much money off you, then you can still choose (what I presume to be) the leader by that criteria.
Rather than the key, you have the challenge which the software used on that invocation.
Better to call it the response to the particular challenge for that invocation. Useful, but not a complete compromise.
The decryption algorithm needs only the ability to say if a given response is one of the possible results from the challenge it issued. It does not need to have the ability to generate a response given the challenge. A one-way hash can do this.
But, you're on the right track. Once you can issue arbitrary challenges and record the responses, you are a long way toward determining the key used by hash function, or building a challenge response registry, or a challenge response server, or launching a chineese lottery attack on the function.
Then again, why bother? Just patch over the function that makes the challenge and move along.
The real problem is not a technical one, but a sociological one.
You can't change a CD into a dongle without changing the CD into a dongle. And once you've changed the CD into a dongle, it's no longer a CD. If you're customers think they are buying a CD they will expect it to act like a CD and you'll get complaints when it doesn't. If you explain to them that you're not really delivering a CD, but rather a dongle which makes their CDROM drive useless whenever they're running your application, then they'll ask "why don't you just give me a dongle?"
If you've got a rock-solid hardware DRM solution, why do you want to tie it to the software at all? Why do you care if they're reading from an original CD or a copy if you know the dongle is legit? I should be able to make a bit-perfect copy of the CD onto a CD-R which won't run (because of the missing challenge-response layer), and use that copy to run the application even if the original disk is hopelessly scratched, provided the C-R layer is intact. The data and the dongle have no business being tied together.
And if your hardware DRM solution isn't rock solid, don't create a business model which assumes it is.
Neat idea, though, you gotta admit.
Not quite. Think about this for a moment....
In a world where all hardware has DRM and all operating systems enforce DRM, would I still be able to run Linux in vmWare? It won't be allowed to access that "impervious copyright content area" on my hard drive, but it won't need to either.
If so, why can't I share pirated DVD's with my friends through P2P running on my (virtual) Linux box, and watch ripped DVD's on my (virtual) TiVo? And DRM has accomplished nothing.
Or if I can't, then all the MPAA and RIAA and Microsoft Palladium assurances that I can still run whatever programs I want on my computer are pure bunk, and a DRM-enabled computer will both prevent you from accessing data which is copyrighted, but also prevent you from running unapproved programs on non-copyrighted data.
(It won't just be vmWare. On a bored day long ago, I once implemented a binary-to-7-segment decoder as an Excel spreadsheet, and had a flip-flop-based timing circuit implemented as a configuration of cells in Life. If these feats are possible as a lark, then creating a program to perform an illegal function using whatever tools we are
We certainly need to mandate that the public interfaces be public, even if we don't mandate that the private methods and functions be open.
And it is bad form to place restrictions on what software can be selected; that's a precedent as likely to be turned against us as to work for us. And beside, the Open Source movement doesn't need it.
But even Tim seems to have missed a critical point; software is unlike any other product that an organization can use because software embeds loyalty. A wristwatch can be poor quality, inefficient, overpriced, ineffective, broken, or ijust plain faulty. But a wristwatch cannot be corrupt. It cannot know who it's manufacturer is and alter it's functioning to promote other products by it's manufacturer nor degrade the functions of competitors. But a computer can, and Microsoft has shown both the technical capability and the willingness to use such techniques to promote their own products. In this respect, allowing a Microsoft product to perform a function within our government is the same as allowing a known corrupt politician to hold government office. Other proprietary software products have the potential for such corrupt behavior as well, but they shouldn't be restricted for potential corrupt behavior any more than a candidate should be.
Look, I don't know about you, but I'd be very hesitant to allow a someone known for corrupt behavior in the past and currently facing sentencing on felony anti-trust charges to hold office no matter how much more efficient than the next candidate he might be. It just sets a bad precedent. That's not the kind of government I want to live under.
Why? Well, since you asked....
You want to be careful about stepping over the line into the realm where government uses legislative power to dictate that the software must support a certain format. That's a dangerous place for a government to tread. In my opinion, let the software developers decide what the file format should be, and even if it should be open.
The government must still demand open file formats, but no one is compelled to write their software in a particular way.
Then you say to the vendors: "There doesn't seem to be an open format. I guess the first vendor to publish their complete format spec gets the contract..." and watch them fall all over themselves to be the one vendor who claims the huge government contract and doesn't have to re-write their software to work with somebody elses format.
Or, let them decide that they don't wan't to give-up their proprietary format, and instead make it in the private sector.
The power to make laws is not the only power a goverment wields.
Here we go again.
Software released under the terms of the GPL is identical to software released under any other license (including BSD and any of the various Microsoft licenses) in this resepct: you can incorproate it into commercial code, but only if you agree to the license terms. The specific terms vary from case to case, but it's the same for any licensed software. In order to incorporate Microsoft's code in your commercial product, you'd have to arrange a license with them which is likely to cost you a pretty penny, and could also include terms the give Microsoft ownership of your code.
It would be just as incorrect for me to state that Microsoft's licensing scheme is choose your favorite derogative because I can't afford to pay them the money they demand.
Anytime you use someone elses software, you have to abide by the terms they demand. You don't like my terms? Then don't use my code. Which part of this are you having problems understanding?
You do seem to be defending Microsoft when you insist that Microsoft should be allowed to dictate the terms of use for thsir own software, then deny the same rights to the Free Software community.
If the job requireds a certain function that a certain tool can't perform, don't select that tool for the that job. Simple common sense. The particular software licensing scheme or proprietary/non-proprietary aspect of it's design has nothing to do with it.
Similarly, if the job requires a certain performance that the license prohibits (even if the tool itself is capable) then the choice of that license by the tool's manufacturer leaves that tool out of the bidding for that job. The manufacturer can always choose to build tools under a different license, if he wants, and the choice of license should remain with the manufacturer. But if the manufacturer decides, for example, to use a license which does not allow his software to be run on mainframe (VMS) systems, and the job demands the software run on such a mainframe, then that particular software is not in the running.
I also don't hear any sane arguments against demanding that the protocols, interfaces, and file formats used in public sector systems be open. This was one of the key points the Peruvian Congressman made; democracy demands this much. This also seems to be one of the points the Software Choice people seem to gloss over.
The problem arises when discussing tasks in the public sector; functions performed on behalf of the taxpayer (that's me) or for the benefit of the taxpayer. Unlike private industry, every one of us is a stakeholder in our own government. We have both the right and responsibility to ensure that the tools we employ are capable of performing the tasks required by the job effectively, efficiently, and in a manner which meets our requirements for the task to be performed. The information (data) already belongs to us (collectively) and we need to ensure that we exercise due dilligence in our stewardship over that data. But in order to do that, we need to ensure that the processes (code) which operate on that data perform correctly, in the same was that we demand that civil service employees don't use governmental office supplies to run their own home businesses.
But with software, it's often difficult to seperate the code from the data. This is true even in systems where the design is to keep them seperate. Some manufacturers have chosen (and were within their rights to do so, IMHO) to blur the line between the data and the code. [One side effect of this is that email messages (data) have become viruses (code), another is that you can't tell where the operating system stops and the web browser begins.]
For use in the public sector therefore, software should not only have clean, clear and well defined interfaces, use only open and public protocols, and require fully defined and specified file formats, (so that the data is always open and accessible) but the functions and procedures of the programs themselves (the code) should be open to verification and scrutiny as well.
This is not to say that all software used in the public sector should be Open Source, but we should certainly demand that the sources be open. If Microsoft can figure out how to both open their sources and build tools which meet the requirements of the task to be performed, they should not be barred from bidding on that contract (except perhaps under the "felons can't bid on government contracts" doctrine, but I digress...) but if they can't (or if they choose not to) then we shouldn't change the task requirements to suit them. Other companies (such as Apple and IBM) have figured out how to meet the openness requirements.
We need to demand openness from our government in every case where secrecy is not critical to national security; the tenets of democracy demand that. As the governed, we should require our contractors to disclose the methods they use to perform the tasks we've hired them to do. If they want secrecy, then they should be content to earn their living in the private sector. In the same vein, since we demand openness, we may have to be willing to settle for a little less efficiency (that has not been proven) or a little more cost (unproven as well). When you consider how much our forefathers gave to obtain the freedom we enjoy today, I think you'll agree it's a small price to pay for continued freedom.
That would stop the "Napsterization" of the home entertainment industry as well as any other proposal I've heard.
I wonder which one people would choose? I wonder if the MPAA would be willing to support such a law? Probably not. But then I guess they know what's good for them.
This is just like the Cola Wars after NewCoke was introduced; they don't care how much bad publicity they get so long as they're getting publicity.
If you're trying to retrain, my first advice is to unlearn some of what you've learned in your 33 years of silence. Don't try to rely too much on the Internet for speech and listening training. The online world is a great place for a deaf person (since so little of it lives on the audio channel) but for learning to hear, there's no place like the Real World.
I'd recommend venturing out into places where speech is the local currency. Find someplace where the people are not busy and obligated to be there and talk to them. For example, head into the local WalMart. Say hello to the greeter and ask where the shoes or restrooms are. (I'm sure you already know, but you'll have the spoken answer to compare.)
Flea Markets are another good resource for this; you'll not only learn to understand the variety of speech, but to recognise words among the noises of a crowd.
Another example; phone the friendly people who answer a phone for a living; pizza order takers, airline reservation clerks and (I'm gonna get modded down for this) tech support bobs. These are people who make a living by understanding others and communicating clearly.
Above all, don't worry that other people may have problems understanding you; anyone who's lived for a day in this world has encountered people who have trouble making themselves understood. I get callers all the time who can't speak clearly or can't understand what I say no matter how clearly (or how loudly, or how many times) I say it. Sometimes the problem is language or accent, sometines it's a physical problem, sometings it's just bad phone lines, or the effects of one party or the other being drunk. (Um, that didn't come out right.)
Also, understand that the skills you've learned to communicate when you could not hear means that you can now out-communicate most of the people in the world, even if verbal communication is not your strong suit. Be gracious; don't put the rest of us to shame.
That's part of the stickiness of this problem. Yes, you should be able to "unlist" certain information, maybe not all (Mr. Banker, please forget the mortgage I took out last week...) but some reasonable subset.
The problem is, does that mean I now need to forget that lowtekneq once said:
(Is this post really off-topic?)
On the other hand, if there is a consent decree, there's no restriction on what the terms of such a consent decree must be.
What bothers me is that the consent decree route is supposed to be an incentive for a defendent to avoid the cost and time of a trial. It hardly makes sense for them to consent at this point, unless they know it's the only way to avoid a harsh judgement.
The nice thing about this license, the license is in an editable text field: if there's a term of the license you don't agree with, just delete it.
In fact, before I downloaded the stuff, I deleted the entire license and replaced it with something like "No restrictions; anything goes." I'm sure there are even more clever edits out there. Heck, visit today just to accept the license.
Your imagination may vary.