I'm not sure if more research and/or more computer science will solve the problem.
What problem are you talking about? Their research found that the current structure of the internet is extremely resilient to random attacks. Yes, co-ordinated attacks against key routers could work, but every network has some vulnerability, and the best solution is probably just to make sure the few key routers are well-protected and hidden. As Mark Twain says,
The fool says, "don't put all your eggs in one basket," whereas the wise man says, "go ahead, but watch that basket!"
There's no problem that needs to be solved, so I don't know where you're going with this "Not to sound anti-business" rant. The current chaotic approach to building network infrastructure works great, just like many natural systems.
As a senior undergraduate in combined honours physics and computer science, I hereby pronounce you a moron. The researchers first talk about the structure of the web (hyperlinks, etc.), then they talk about the physical structure (Achilles Heel, virus threshold, etc.). You must have missed the transition, Mullusk.
The interesting thing is that both the web and the physical network follow this power-law structure (or scale-free, as the "Physics Boys" call it).
Oh, don't think it's possible to study the physical structure of the internet? I'd like to introduce you to a new and powerful tool called traceroute [yes, that was sarcasm]. BTW, you can buy maps of the internet from ThinkGeek, in case traceroute is too much for you.
I think Code Red (and Sircam, which your average Joe will probably lump together with Code Red in his mind) will be the virus that breaks the camel's back. It's gotten constant publicity, it's coming back for a second round, and this time, it wants blood.
What will happen? I don't know, but here are some possibilities:
Revolt against Microsoft software. We'd all love for this to happen, but their PR machine is probably too good. Still, we can always hope people realize that MS bears a large part of the responsibility here.
Lawsuit. Assuming the virus writers aren't found, the next logical targets will be Microsoft, and owners of a large number of infected hosts. Why it probably won't happen: suing Microsoft over this draws attention to the fact that your company's computer systems are insecure, and that your admins were too lazy/stupid to install the patch. Microsoft can always hide behind their patch, which was available well in advance, and claim that "everyone knows that bugs happen, and it's up to admins to keep up to date" (never mind that this contradicts their own marketing material--when has inconsistency ever stopped marketing before?). Suing somebody with a large bunch of infected hosts is also silly, since, to be infected by them, you have to be just as inept as them.
Government Intervention. Some state governors may push silly state bills, but they'll be irrelevant. What would really get interesting is if the Feds pass some sort of laws, either making people responsible for keeping their systems secure, or defining what kind of liability software manufacturers are exposed to in these circumstances (i.e., can you sue MS? For how much?). Why it probably won't happen. With Congress and Bush on vacation, not much will get done in at least the next month, and things will probably have come to a head before then. Only if this round does serious damage (perhaps the world's biggest DDoS against some high-profile targets, like Akamai), and another generation of Code Red pops up in September (just in time to catch all those college PCs with their pirated copies of Windows 2000 Server and high bandwidth), will this become a real possibility.
Internet Collapses. I really doubt it, I just had to say it to satisfy Cringley:-) Seriously, though, things may get slow, but I have a feeling vigilante efforts (counter-worms, Apache scripts that reboot infected attacking Win boxes, etc.) will keep this from happening.
So, which will it be, folks? This would make a great SlashPoll.
Skylarov has become an unwilling pawn in a political game. In two earlierposts, I talked about why Skylarov shouldn't be made into a posterboy for the anti-DMCA lobby. A bunch of people replied, saying that no such thing was happening, and that the protestors were just trying to get him free.
Then I see this post, moderated up to 5, Insightful, saying that we shouldn't free Skylarov early, because he's more valuable as a weapon against the DMCA if he's in jail. Don't you just love all these people are willing to sacrifice an individual in the name of "individual rights"? What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.
DMCA isn't (or shouldn't be) Skylarov's problem. He's Russian, not American, and he didn't vote for the politicians who passed DMCA. Sacrificing him to fight it is just plain wrong. Maybe, if he was American, we could justify such a sacrifice as "his duty to the country" or some such other nonsense, but this is just sickening.
To all those fighting to free Skylarov, keep up the good work. To the rest of you, maybe it's time you gave things a good long thinking over.
What a lot of people don't realize when the criticize Big Pharmaceutical Companies is that they tried giving cheap drugs to Africa. They got nothing but crap for it.
At least one of the big names out there (I'm sorry, I can't remember which) had a program whereby they sold expensive drugs to Third-World countries at cost or very close to cost. Guess what happened? A bunch of Americans got pissed off that they had to pay more for their drugs (blah blah... ripping off Americans... blah blah), and wrote their Congressmen. The result was a law allowing and encouraging other companies to re-import cheap drugs from the Third World. Of course, the drug companies then had to stop their program.
Drug companies spend a higher percentage of their revenues on R&D than any other industry. If they couldn't make a profit off new drugs (which they are able to only thanks to patents), they wouldn't develop anything new. The result would be widespread disease, as bacteria become resistant to our current antibiotics, and no new ones come down the pipe.
To all those completely opposed to IP: I agree with you that there are many flaws with the current IP system, mainly that they grant patents for obvious garbage, that the term of copyright is too long, and that consumers are losing their share of the rights. Nonetheless, can you propose a system that will still encourage drug companies to make new drugs, yet doesn't involve some kind of IP? Take a close look at your system--is it Communism of some form ('cause we've tried that one a bunch of times, and it's not too hot).
I have yet to see a system that will still encourage free enterprise to innovate, that does not involve IP. We create this notion of "intellectual property" to allow the free market to allocate intellectual resources the same way it does physical ones (it's pretty darn good with physical resources, so it at least seemed like a good idea). Anybody got any better ideas?
What did he do and where did he do it?
Was that illegal? Do the laws of the U.S.A. apply there?
He tried to distribute and sell a circumvention device at a convention in the United States of America. Selling or distributing circumvention devices is illegal under the DMCA. It's irrelevant where he wrote it because he tried to distribute it in the US. Yes, federal laws of the United States apply in the United States. I made this all clear in my original post.
"First, they came for the 'evil Russian hackers'... but I wasn't an evil Russian hacker... so.. "
Again, you misunderstand me. I'm all for freeing Dmitri. I'm just very leery of turning him into a posterboy. You're right that Adobe picked the battleground, and, while we let them do that, we're at the disadvantage. I realize that most people here are just trying to get him free, but there's a very real danger that this could turn into an anti-DMCA crusade that forgets about poor Skylarov while he rots in prison. That's what I'm worried about.
If he is indicted for creating a tool, that activity was not done on US soil and US courts have no jurisdiction over it. On the other hand, if he is indicted for what he said at the convention, then it is a clear 1st Amendment case
He was indicted for neither of those violations of the DMCA. What he did that got him in hot water was try to sell and distribute a circumvention device in the US. If he hadn't been selling or distributing anything, he'd probably not be in any trouble, or at least not as much.
I've been wondering about this for a while, so I'm going to ask everyone (and nobody in particular): is Dmitry Skylarov a good choice as posterboy in the anti-DMCA fight? I'm beginning to think he's not, and here are my reasons, in no particular order:
1) Dmitry is not American. Now, I'm not American either, so I'm not knocking non-US citizens, but keep in mind that it's the attention and votes of the American people that matter in fixing the DMCA. They're naturally going to be more concerned about fellow Americans than somebody from a country which was their mortal enemy a decade or so ago.
2) Dmitry is a "hacker". I'm fully aware that this term is misused and twisted by the press, but it's still an issue we have to contend with. Dmitry is not some sweet old lady who could be your grandmother; he's a young guy with 'scary techie skills', and people will feel less sympathy for him because of that. Also, evil Russian Hacker has almost become a cliche, thanks to Hollywood and the rest of the media.
3) Dmitry was trying to make a profit. He wasn't just giving a talk--he was trying to sell his software. The software circumvented Adobe's eBook content access control. Selling circumvention devices is clearly against the DMCA. People are not going to be very sympathetic to a guy arrested for trying to make a profit by breaking the law, even if it is a stupid law.
4) Dmitry just wants to go home. I bet the poor guy really misses his family, doesn't give a shit about messed-up American laws, and just wants to be back on Russian soil. Is it really right for us to politicize his imprisonment if it's not the best thing for him? Sure, we should be trying to get him free, but, by turning this into war-on-DMCA, we guarantee that what might have otherwise been a low-profile case that quietly got dismissed becomes a landmark legal battle that could drag on for years.
What we really need is for an average Joe to get busted doing something that's clearly right, even if it is illegal under DMCA. Then we'll be able to prove how absurd and dangerous the law is to average Americans. By using Dmitry, we hurt his chances of going home, and we risk losing and setting a bad precedent. We must pick our battles carefully.
You won't ever, EVER be adding ANY new components to that bad boy
I've added VRAM, RAM, a new hard drive, an external IDE CD-RW drive (OK, it wasn't supposed to be an external drive, but it was a fairly easy hack), and a water-cooling system to my iMac (it's one of the early models that came with a noisy fan). I thought about adding a new graphics card/RAID controller (yes, they exist--Formac made them), but decided I had no use for it. Whoever says iMacs aren't upgradeable just doesn't appreciate a challenge:-) Then there's the guy who upgraded his iMac to a 19" monitor (he sort of transplanted the guts)....
But seriously, I would think that concrete would be a lousy thermal conductor. Sure, you could probably run for a day before the concrete warmed up to be dangerously hot inside, but then you'd have to let it cool off for a day before you could use it again. You'd probably want to embed a water-cooling system...
If the Macrovision copy protection works as described, people using Mac OS 9 and later will probably be screwed. Mac OS 9 uses the "digital path" (previous versions used the analog path). Disclaimer: I think the switch to digital path happened with OS 9. It could have been 8.6, though.
On the other hand, Apple might be using CD-ROMs capable of interpolating over uncorrectable audio errors even when using the digital path. If so, Macs will be the computers of choice for ripping (G4s do rip quickly....)
I gleefully await the descent of the hordes of Mac Faithful upon the RIAA and Macrovision...
The entire physics community practically considered the "discovery" a joke at the time.
You're wrong on two counts. First of all, CERN never claimed "discovery", only a probability of discovery if LEP continued to operate. Second, the entire physics community did not consider it a joke. My physics department (UBC--one of the two largest in Canada) was rooting for CERN. I imagine your department, or at least that particular high energy person, was part of the Fermilab coalition, and you just witnessed the usual scientific rivallry.
SSH Secure Shell 3.0 isn't made by Microsoft, and yet it has a super-trivial remote security hole. Guys, it's not April 1, knock it off.
But seriously, folks, this just goes to show mistakes can happen to anybody. Open source may be your best protection, but even it's not perfect (remember that recent OpenBSD local root hole?).
How fast does each machine compile the same program using gcc? (Mac OS X and pretty much all distro's of Linux ship with it, so it is an easy test to run).
That's not a good comparison, unless most of what you do is compile. IIRC, compiling for RISC processors (i.e., the G4) is more work than compiling for CISC processors (x86). In other words, even though you're compiling the same program, the Mac has a harder task. Try copying a CD track to AIFF or WAV on your hard drive, then time ripping from that. That gives you a good measure of HD speed, general IO, memory speed, and processor speed. Of course, make sure your Mac has a ripper optimized for AltiVec (and a similarly optimized version on the PC).
In your first few paragraphs, you've basically described the premise of the movie Gattaca. If you haven't already seen it, rent it now--it's a beautiful film.
Now I have to ask you--just to play devil's advocate--what is so horrific about genetically "better" people being more successful (never mind how they got to be genetically better)? That's the essence of evolution, the way we came to be human. The only difference is how the genetic change is happening. If you think having some people be "better" than others is wrong, I suggest you read Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron". I just know I'm going to get flamed for this, with people complaining about how the "better" genes are getting allocated. Well, how do you propose to allocate them? Lottery? Government program (please no!)? Corporations (I don't have to worry about anybody on/. supporting this)?
Now that the human population is so large, and travel prevents the isolation of small groups capable of sustaining genetic drift, and social security nets prevent "unsuccessful" people from dying out or being unable to reproduce (and possibly even encourage them to reproduce), I can't see any other way for human evolution to happen.
Of course, we have to be very careful to avoid the dangers of "eugenics" and other forms of disguised racism. The best way to avoid that is to not have any sort of large, organized program. Just leave it up to parents what they want to do, and, if necessary, have the government subsidize it for poor parents.
Finally, if you still think it's wrong to be able to buy "better" genes for your children, I've got a thought experiment for you:
Suppose I happened to be born with exceptionally good genes. Excellent health, 20/10 vision, 170+ IQ, good looks, the works. Now suppose I wanted to sell my (super)-sperm. There's nothing fantastic about it--sperm banks already exist, and nobody raises much of a fuss. Now suppose I were an average joe, but had modified my germ-line cells to produce the super-sperm mentioned previously. Is it now wrong? Why? What's the difference?
Now, as for nanomachines, yes, letting governments have them would be a bad call. I think the best possible solution would be the nano-equivalent of Free Software. Eric Drexler and others have already thought of a lot of this stuff, and are working on answers to your concerns. Also, check out the transhumanist philosophy. There used to be a website at www.transhumanism.org, but it appears to be down.
You can't hide from the future--you can only prepare for it.
My beef comes when they try to pretend it's not an ad, and this is *already* illegal!
I'm not aware of the exact details of this law, but, assuming you're correct, I'd say it's an unnecessary law. I don't have any trouble figuring out what's an ad and what's not, and, if I did find a site that confused me in that way, I wouldn't use it. It's that simple.
Why do we need government involvement? To protect morons from themselves? If newspapers or search engines want to do that kind of crap, they'll quickly get a bad reputation (just look at what we all think of MSN), and only the lusers will use them.
In all cases, there's exactly one D/A conversion--either at the CD-ROM drive, at the sound card, or at the speakers.
Oops, my bad. It just means the conversion occurs closer to the speakers, so you (theoretically) get better sound. The inside of your computer is electrically noisy, so it's best to keep things digital while they're in there.
I'm not too sure about the details here, but I knowApple switched CD playback mechanisms with a fairly recent OS release (either 8.6, 9.0, or 9.1), and I know it went from analog-out from the CD drive to digital-out. Why did they do it? I'm not entirely sure--I can only guess. At least it doesn't suck much CPU time (1.5%).
But should it be our job to try to figure out whether or not something is authentic information or merely an ad
In a word, yes. If a search engine gives you crappy results, find another one. No irreparable damage has been done. No contracts have been broken. There's no need for government regulation. Should we regulate against ketchup potato chips because somebody doesn't like how they taste? NO! If you don't like them, you can buy another brand. The situation might be different if you could only buy ketchup chips (or only use MSN), but that's hardly the case.
/me wonders how many people against this are the same people who snap at the people who run this site for editorializing what is supposed to be news. [snip] So which is it?
I assume you're referring to my recent post in which I criticize an editor (Michael, I think it was) for blatant political comments in a story. You're forgetting that I never called for FTC regulation of Slashdot. There's a huge fucking difference between telling somebody he's being a stupid asshole and asking the government to regulate him or his website.
Right now, some of the Slashdot editors annoy me, and so I complain in the hopes that they'll change. I still find the site entertaining, so I still come here. If Slashdot got stupider than I was willing to put up with, I would leave. I would not, under any circumstances, call for FTC regulation of Slashdot.
If you stop to think for a second, you'll see that my views on this matter are entirely consistent. Please think very carefully before you ask for government to get involved in the Internet--you'll probably never get back the freedoms you lose.
Who cares if lusers use MSN? Google does a good business, it's free, and it works really well. If lusers want to use MSN, then that's their punishment. Eventually, they'll figure things out and switch to google. There's nothing stopping them. On the other hand, maybe some people use MSN because it's actually the best thing out there for their needs. Maybe they like the integrated content on the MSN site (something google doesn't have). Who are you to take away their choice?
In all likelyhood, if the FTC steps in to regulate search engines, it will make things terribly complicated and fuck up good search engines like Google. Why do that when it's unnecessary? Giving people easy choices is good enough. It's not the government's responsibility to protect stupid people from making bad choices. You can lead a horse to water...
Disclaimer: I've never used MSN. I have no idea if it sucks or is better than Google. I'm debating under the assumption that nysus is correct in calling MSN a "crap engine".
Who here uses anything but Google? Hey you, you in the back, what the hell are you doing with Excite? Just put AltaVista down, and nobody will get hurt. Come on, Nader. Anybody who's not a newbie or a moron uses Google, and Google clearly marks their ads. I'm amazed the other search engines are still in business. Maybe they won't be much longer (CMGI is AltaVista's parent corp.).
This is the free market taking care of things without government intervention. There's a prefectly good alternative (Google), it's free, and it's honest. Why complain to the FTC when you could just use Google? Caveat emptor, and all.
...to build a suitcase bomb and smuggle it in to the US, why hasn't anybody done it? I suspect it's actually quite hard to find the people with the technical know-how to machine the parts (not many people want to work with stuff as toxic as plutonium), build the ultra-fast electronics needed to control detonation, and figure out the physics. I also suspect that the CIA, et al, do a better job than we know at stopping terrorist groups trying to pull that kind of shit.
Thank you for supporting me in this debate. I haven't had time to step in until now, and it's nice to have some support once in a while.
I sincerely doubt that particle accelerator lab custodians are being instructed in the finer points of fissionable material detection.
Actually, they do train custodians if they're working in potentially high-radiation areas, but I'm not a custodian. I'm a senior undergraduate student in combined honours physics and computer science, currently working at a particle accelerator for the summer. I'm conducting an experiment to do range straggling measurements of Lithium-8 in various metallic films. Results will be used to determine the London penetration depth of various superconductors... Of course, that's getting off-topic.
Somebody else said that plutonium and uranium decay by alpha decay, and therefore wouldn't produce any gamma rays to detect. While it is true that they decay by emission of alpha particles, they (and all other alpha decays) also produce gamma rays. We could detect those through the walls of a truck or shipping container, and possibly even through the walls of a cargo ship, with the kind of detectors I mentioned earlier. Heck, it might even be possible to detect the kind of near-critical arrangement of fissionable material you find in a bomb from satellite, although I don't know. It would certainly have a distinctive signature, with short bursts of intense activity (near-critical produces chains of fission reactions that peter out eventually, instead of increasing exponentially as in a supercritical system).
China is afraid of NMD because: [snip]
Yes, yes, thank you for explaining this to these people. Of course, I'm sure they think it's bad that the US would be able to intervene to protect Taiwan from a Communist China attack... Damn Imperialists, trying to protect those evil people struggling for democracy from the kind and benevolent communists.;-)
As for the Human Rights Commission
Yes, another good point. Why does anybody care any more? The UN is masturbation for Euroweenies who think they matter. If Sudan is on the Human Rights Commission, it's pretty useless.
It's because the audio is already analog by the time it hits your sound card - your system never sees the bits. The cd-rom drive contains the hardware to act as a player, and outputs analog audio on a separate wire to the sound card, which plays the analog audio directly.
Ever since MacOS 9 (I think), the MacOS has handled CD audio digitally. The digital data goes into memory (DMA, I hope), and is converted into analog by the sound chip as with any other digital sound signal. The advantage is that, if you have digital speakers, there's no unnecessary D-to-A conversion.
Macs will either be able to rip these CDs, or they won't be able to play them. Seeing as Mac users are a particularly rabid bunch (perhaps even more rabid than Linux users), it will be funny to see what happens when they Mac-attack the big recording studios.
Slashdot Mirror
What problem are you talking about? Their research found that the current structure of the internet is extremely resilient to random attacks. Yes, co-ordinated attacks against key routers could work, but every network has some vulnerability, and the best solution is probably just to make sure the few key routers are well-protected and hidden. As Mark Twain says, There's no problem that needs to be solved, so I don't know where you're going with this "Not to sound anti-business" rant. The current chaotic approach to building network infrastructure works great, just like many natural systems.
As a senior undergraduate in combined honours physics and computer science, I hereby pronounce you a moron. The researchers first talk about the structure of the web (hyperlinks, etc.), then they talk about the physical structure (Achilles Heel, virus threshold, etc.). You must have missed the transition, Mullusk.
The interesting thing is that both the web and the physical network follow this power-law structure (or scale-free, as the "Physics Boys" call it).
Oh, don't think it's possible to study the physical structure of the internet? I'd like to introduce you to a new and powerful tool called traceroute [yes, that was sarcasm]. BTW, you can buy maps of the internet from ThinkGeek, in case traceroute is too much for you.
How the hell did that guy get modded up, anyway?
Didn't say it was a good idea. I just said it could happen. I'm sure MS would love it, because it would destroy Linux.
I think Code Red (and Sircam, which your average Joe will probably lump together with Code Red in his mind) will be the virus that breaks the camel's back. It's gotten constant publicity, it's coming back for a second round, and this time, it wants blood.
:-) Seriously, though, things may get slow, but I have a feeling vigilante efforts (counter-worms, Apache scripts that reboot infected attacking Win boxes, etc.) will keep this from happening.
What will happen? I don't know, but here are some possibilities:
Revolt against Microsoft software. We'd all love for this to happen, but their PR machine is probably too good. Still, we can always hope people realize that MS bears a large part of the responsibility here.
Lawsuit. Assuming the virus writers aren't found, the next logical targets will be Microsoft, and owners of a large number of infected hosts. Why it probably won't happen: suing Microsoft over this draws attention to the fact that your company's computer systems are insecure, and that your admins were too lazy/stupid to install the patch. Microsoft can always hide behind their patch, which was available well in advance, and claim that "everyone knows that bugs happen, and it's up to admins to keep up to date" (never mind that this contradicts their own marketing material--when has inconsistency ever stopped marketing before?). Suing somebody with a large bunch of infected hosts is also silly, since, to be infected by them, you have to be just as inept as them.
Government Intervention. Some state governors may push silly state bills, but they'll be irrelevant. What would really get interesting is if the Feds pass some sort of laws, either making people responsible for keeping their systems secure, or defining what kind of liability software manufacturers are exposed to in these circumstances (i.e., can you sue MS? For how much?). Why it probably won't happen. With Congress and Bush on vacation, not much will get done in at least the next month, and things will probably have come to a head before then. Only if this round does serious damage (perhaps the world's biggest DDoS against some high-profile targets, like Akamai), and another generation of Code Red pops up in September (just in time to catch all those college PCs with their pirated copies of Windows 2000 Server and high bandwidth), will this become a real possibility.
Internet Collapses. I really doubt it, I just had to say it to satisfy Cringley
So, which will it be, folks? This would make a great SlashPoll.
Skylarov has become an unwilling pawn in a political game. In two earlier posts, I talked about why Skylarov shouldn't be made into a posterboy for the anti-DMCA lobby. A bunch of people replied, saying that no such thing was happening, and that the protestors were just trying to get him free.
Then I see this post, moderated up to 5, Insightful, saying that we shouldn't free Skylarov early, because he's more valuable as a weapon against the DMCA if he's in jail. Don't you just love all these people are willing to sacrifice an individual in the name of "individual rights"? What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.
DMCA isn't (or shouldn't be) Skylarov's problem. He's Russian, not American, and he didn't vote for the politicians who passed DMCA. Sacrificing him to fight it is just plain wrong. Maybe, if he was American, we could justify such a sacrifice as "his duty to the country" or some such other nonsense, but this is just sickening.
To all those fighting to free Skylarov, keep up the good work. To the rest of you, maybe it's time you gave things a good long thinking over.
What a lot of people don't realize when the criticize Big Pharmaceutical Companies is that they tried giving cheap drugs to Africa. They got nothing but crap for it.
At least one of the big names out there (I'm sorry, I can't remember which) had a program whereby they sold expensive drugs to Third-World countries at cost or very close to cost. Guess what happened? A bunch of Americans got pissed off that they had to pay more for their drugs (blah blah... ripping off Americans... blah blah), and wrote their Congressmen. The result was a law allowing and encouraging other companies to re-import cheap drugs from the Third World. Of course, the drug companies then had to stop their program.
Drug companies spend a higher percentage of their revenues on R&D than any other industry. If they couldn't make a profit off new drugs (which they are able to only thanks to patents), they wouldn't develop anything new. The result would be widespread disease, as bacteria become resistant to our current antibiotics, and no new ones come down the pipe.
To all those completely opposed to IP: I agree with you that there are many flaws with the current IP system, mainly that they grant patents for obvious garbage, that the term of copyright is too long, and that consumers are losing their share of the rights. Nonetheless, can you propose a system that will still encourage drug companies to make new drugs, yet doesn't involve some kind of IP? Take a close look at your system--is it Communism of some form ('cause we've tried that one a bunch of times, and it's not too hot).
I have yet to see a system that will still encourage free enterprise to innovate, that does not involve IP. We create this notion of "intellectual property" to allow the free market to allocate intellectual resources the same way it does physical ones (it's pretty darn good with physical resources, so it at least seemed like a good idea). Anybody got any better ideas?
What did he do and where did he do it?
Was that illegal? Do the laws of the U.S.A. apply there?
He tried to distribute and sell a circumvention device at a convention in the United States of America. Selling or distributing circumvention devices is illegal under the DMCA. It's irrelevant where he wrote it because he tried to distribute it in the US. Yes, federal laws of the United States apply in the United States. I made this all clear in my original post.
"First, they came for the 'evil Russian hackers'... but I wasn't an evil Russian hacker... so.. "
Again, you misunderstand me. I'm all for freeing Dmitri. I'm just very leery of turning him into a posterboy. You're right that Adobe picked the battleground, and, while we let them do that, we're at the disadvantage. I realize that most people here are just trying to get him free, but there's a very real danger that this could turn into an anti-DMCA crusade that forgets about poor Skylarov while he rots in prison. That's what I'm worried about.
If he is indicted for creating a tool, that activity was not done on US soil and US courts have no jurisdiction over it. On the other hand, if he is indicted for what he said at the convention, then it is a clear 1st Amendment case
He was indicted for neither of those violations of the DMCA. What he did that got him in hot water was try to sell and distribute a circumvention device in the US. If he hadn't been selling or distributing anything, he'd probably not be in any trouble, or at least not as much.
I've been wondering about this for a while, so I'm going to ask everyone (and nobody in particular): is Dmitry Skylarov a good choice as posterboy in the anti-DMCA fight? I'm beginning to think he's not, and here are my reasons, in no particular order:
1) Dmitry is not American. Now, I'm not American either, so I'm not knocking non-US citizens, but keep in mind that it's the attention and votes of the American people that matter in fixing the DMCA. They're naturally going to be more concerned about fellow Americans than somebody from a country which was their mortal enemy a decade or so ago.
2) Dmitry is a "hacker". I'm fully aware that this term is misused and twisted by the press, but it's still an issue we have to contend with. Dmitry is not some sweet old lady who could be your grandmother; he's a young guy with 'scary techie skills', and people will feel less sympathy for him because of that. Also, evil Russian Hacker has almost become a cliche, thanks to Hollywood and the rest of the media.
3) Dmitry was trying to make a profit. He wasn't just giving a talk--he was trying to sell his software. The software circumvented Adobe's eBook content access control. Selling circumvention devices is clearly against the DMCA. People are not going to be very sympathetic to a guy arrested for trying to make a profit by breaking the law, even if it is a stupid law.
4) Dmitry just wants to go home. I bet the poor guy really misses his family, doesn't give a shit about messed-up American laws, and just wants to be back on Russian soil. Is it really right for us to politicize his imprisonment if it's not the best thing for him? Sure, we should be trying to get him free, but, by turning this into war-on-DMCA, we guarantee that what might have otherwise been a low-profile case that quietly got dismissed becomes a landmark legal battle that could drag on for years.
What we really need is for an average Joe to get busted doing something that's clearly right, even if it is illegal under DMCA. Then we'll be able to prove how absurd and dangerous the law is to average Americans. By using Dmitry, we hurt his chances of going home, and we risk losing and setting a bad precedent. We must pick our battles carefully.
That is my humble opinion, folks...
Damn, I wish /. could let you insert pictures.
Are you sure about that? cough*goatse*cough
You won't ever, EVER be adding ANY new components to that bad boy
:-) Then there's the guy who upgraded his iMac to a 19" monitor (he sort of transplanted the guts)....
I've added VRAM, RAM, a new hard drive, an external IDE CD-RW drive (OK, it wasn't supposed to be an external drive, but it was a fairly easy hack), and a water-cooling system to my iMac (it's one of the early models that came with a noisy fan). I thought about adding a new graphics card/RAID controller (yes, they exist--Formac made them), but decided I had no use for it. Whoever says iMacs aren't upgradeable just doesn't appreciate a challenge
But seriously, I would think that concrete would be a lousy thermal conductor. Sure, you could probably run for a day before the concrete warmed up to be dangerously hot inside, but then you'd have to let it cool off for a day before you could use it again. You'd probably want to embed a water-cooling system...
If the Macrovision copy protection works as described, people using Mac OS 9 and later will probably be screwed. Mac OS 9 uses the "digital path" (previous versions used the analog path). Disclaimer: I think the switch to digital path happened with OS 9. It could have been 8.6, though.
On the other hand, Apple might be using CD-ROMs capable of interpolating over uncorrectable audio errors even when using the digital path. If so, Macs will be the computers of choice for ripping (G4s do rip quickly....)
I gleefully await the descent of the hordes of Mac Faithful upon the RIAA and Macrovision...
The entire physics community practically considered the "discovery" a joke at the time.
You're wrong on two counts. First of all, CERN never claimed "discovery", only a probability of discovery if LEP continued to operate. Second, the entire physics community did not consider it a joke. My physics department (UBC--one of the two largest in Canada) was rooting for CERN. I imagine your department, or at least that particular high energy person, was part of the Fermilab coalition, and you just witnessed the usual scientific rivallry.
SSH Secure Shell 3.0 isn't made by Microsoft, and yet it has a super-trivial remote security hole. Guys, it's not April 1, knock it off.
But seriously, folks, this just goes to show mistakes can happen to anybody. Open source may be your best protection, but even it's not perfect (remember that recent OpenBSD local root hole?).
How fast does each machine compile the same program using gcc? (Mac OS X and pretty much all distro's of Linux ship with it, so it is an easy test to run).
That's not a good comparison, unless most of what you do is compile. IIRC, compiling for RISC processors (i.e., the G4) is more work than compiling for CISC processors (x86). In other words, even though you're compiling the same program, the Mac has a harder task. Try copying a CD track to AIFF or WAV on your hard drive, then time ripping from that. That gives you a good measure of HD speed, general IO, memory speed, and processor speed. Of course, make sure your Mac has a ripper optimized for AltiVec (and a similarly optimized version on the PC).
Now I have to ask you--just to play devil's advocate--what is so horrific about genetically "better" people being more successful (never mind how they got to be genetically better)? That's the essence of evolution, the way we came to be human. The only difference is how the genetic change is happening. If you think having some people be "better" than others is wrong, I suggest you read Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron". I just know I'm going to get flamed for this, with people complaining about how the "better" genes are getting allocated. Well, how do you propose to allocate them? Lottery? Government program (please no!)? Corporations (I don't have to worry about anybody on
Now that the human population is so large, and travel prevents the isolation of small groups capable of sustaining genetic drift, and social security nets prevent "unsuccessful" people from dying out or being unable to reproduce (and possibly even encourage them to reproduce), I can't see any other way for human evolution to happen.
Of course, we have to be very careful to avoid the dangers of "eugenics" and other forms of disguised racism. The best way to avoid that is to not have any sort of large, organized program. Just leave it up to parents what they want to do, and, if necessary, have the government subsidize it for poor parents.
Finally, if you still think it's wrong to be able to buy "better" genes for your children, I've got a thought experiment for you:
Now, as for nanomachines, yes, letting governments have them would be a bad call. I think the best possible solution would be the nano-equivalent of Free Software. Eric Drexler and others have already thought of a lot of this stuff, and are working on answers to your concerns. Also, check out the transhumanist philosophy. There used to be a website at www.transhumanism.org, but it appears to be down.
You can't hide from the future--you can only prepare for it.
My beef comes when they try to pretend it's not an ad, and this is *already* illegal!
I'm not aware of the exact details of this law, but, assuming you're correct, I'd say it's an unnecessary law. I don't have any trouble figuring out what's an ad and what's not, and, if I did find a site that confused me in that way, I wouldn't use it. It's that simple.
Why do we need government involvement? To protect morons from themselves? If newspapers or search engines want to do that kind of crap, they'll quickly get a bad reputation (just look at what we all think of MSN), and only the lusers will use them.
In all cases, there's exactly one D/A conversion--either at the CD-ROM drive, at the sound card, or at the speakers.
Oops, my bad. It just means the conversion occurs closer to the speakers, so you (theoretically) get better sound. The inside of your computer is electrically noisy, so it's best to keep things digital while they're in there.
I'm not too sure about the details here, but I knowApple switched CD playback mechanisms with a fairly recent OS release (either 8.6, 9.0, or 9.1), and I know it went from analog-out from the CD drive to digital-out. Why did they do it? I'm not entirely sure--I can only guess. At least it doesn't suck much CPU time (1.5%).
But should it be our job to try to figure out whether or not something is authentic information or merely an ad
/me wonders how many people against this are the same people who snap at the people who run this site for editorializing what is supposed to be news. [snip] So which is it?
In a word, yes. If a search engine gives you crappy results, find another one. No irreparable damage has been done. No contracts have been broken. There's no need for government regulation. Should we regulate against ketchup potato chips because somebody doesn't like how they taste? NO! If you don't like them, you can buy another brand. The situation might be different if you could only buy ketchup chips (or only use MSN), but that's hardly the case.
I assume you're referring to my recent post in which I criticize an editor (Michael, I think it was) for blatant political comments in a story. You're forgetting that I never called for FTC regulation of Slashdot. There's a huge fucking difference between telling somebody he's being a stupid asshole and asking the government to regulate him or his website.
Right now, some of the Slashdot editors annoy me, and so I complain in the hopes that they'll change. I still find the site entertaining, so I still come here. If Slashdot got stupider than I was willing to put up with, I would leave. I would not, under any circumstances, call for FTC regulation of Slashdot.
If you stop to think for a second, you'll see that my views on this matter are entirely consistent. Please think very carefully before you ask for government to get involved in the Internet--you'll probably never get back the freedoms you lose.
Who cares if lusers use MSN? Google does a good business, it's free, and it works really well. If lusers want to use MSN, then that's their punishment. Eventually, they'll figure things out and switch to google. There's nothing stopping them. On the other hand, maybe some people use MSN because it's actually the best thing out there for their needs. Maybe they like the integrated content on the MSN site (something google doesn't have). Who are you to take away their choice?
In all likelyhood, if the FTC steps in to regulate search engines, it will make things terribly complicated and fuck up good search engines like Google. Why do that when it's unnecessary? Giving people easy choices is good enough. It's not the government's responsibility to protect stupid people from making bad choices. You can lead a horse to water...
Disclaimer: I've never used MSN. I have no idea if it sucks or is better than Google. I'm debating under the assumption that nysus is correct in calling MSN a "crap engine".
Who here uses anything but Google? Hey you, you in the back, what the hell are you doing with Excite? Just put AltaVista down, and nobody will get hurt. Come on, Nader. Anybody who's not a newbie or a moron uses Google, and Google clearly marks their ads. I'm amazed the other search engines are still in business. Maybe they won't be much longer (CMGI is AltaVista's parent corp.).
This is the free market taking care of things without government intervention. There's a prefectly good alternative (Google), it's free, and it's honest. Why complain to the FTC when you could just use Google? Caveat emptor, and all.
...to build a suitcase bomb and smuggle it in to the US, why hasn't anybody done it? I suspect it's actually quite hard to find the people with the technical know-how to machine the parts (not many people want to work with stuff as toxic as plutonium), build the ultra-fast electronics needed to control detonation, and figure out the physics. I also suspect that the CIA, et al, do a better job than we know at stopping terrorist groups trying to pull that kind of shit.
Thank you for supporting me in this debate. I haven't had time to step in until now, and it's nice to have some support once in a while.
;-)
I sincerely doubt that particle accelerator lab custodians are being instructed in the finer points of fissionable material detection.
Actually, they do train custodians if they're working in potentially high-radiation areas, but I'm not a custodian. I'm a senior undergraduate student in combined honours physics and computer science, currently working at a particle accelerator for the summer. I'm conducting an experiment to do range straggling measurements of Lithium-8 in various metallic films. Results will be used to determine the London penetration depth of various superconductors... Of course, that's getting off-topic.
Somebody else said that plutonium and uranium decay by alpha decay, and therefore wouldn't produce any gamma rays to detect. While it is true that they decay by emission of alpha particles, they (and all other alpha decays) also produce gamma rays. We could detect those through the walls of a truck or shipping container, and possibly even through the walls of a cargo ship, with the kind of detectors I mentioned earlier. Heck, it might even be possible to detect the kind of near-critical arrangement of fissionable material you find in a bomb from satellite, although I don't know. It would certainly have a distinctive signature, with short bursts of intense activity (near-critical produces chains of fission reactions that peter out eventually, instead of increasing exponentially as in a supercritical system).
China is afraid of NMD because: [snip]
Yes, yes, thank you for explaining this to these people. Of course, I'm sure they think it's bad that the US would be able to intervene to protect Taiwan from a Communist China attack... Damn Imperialists, trying to protect those evil people struggling for democracy from the kind and benevolent communists.
As for the Human Rights Commission
Yes, another good point. Why does anybody care any more? The UN is masturbation for Euroweenies who think they matter. If Sudan is on the Human Rights Commission, it's pretty useless.
It's because the audio is already analog by the time it hits your sound card - your system never sees the bits. The cd-rom drive contains the hardware to act as a player, and outputs analog audio on a separate wire to the sound card, which plays the analog audio directly.
Ever since MacOS 9 (I think), the MacOS has handled CD audio digitally. The digital data goes into memory (DMA, I hope), and is converted into analog by the sound chip as with any other digital sound signal. The advantage is that, if you have digital speakers, there's no unnecessary D-to-A conversion.
Macs will either be able to rip these CDs, or they won't be able to play them. Seeing as Mac users are a particularly rabid bunch (perhaps even more rabid than Linux users), it will be funny to see what happens when they Mac-attack the big recording studios.
Oh, sure, plutonium and uranium decay by alpha decay, but they both still produce gamma rays during the decay process. Look it up...
Also, it takes a lot of lead to stop all the gamma (and lead is fucking heavy).