Am I missing the API call that allows me to remotely spawn a thread in _another_process_, in fact a _system_process_, thus evading detection? This is something that is at issue here. It is significantly more difficult under *NIX to hide yourself from someone who knows what he/she is doing. I can see that vnc, telnetd, or sshd is running. Once I see that it is running, I can terminate it, and take measures to ensure that the attack is not repeated.
K, so internal flamewars are not nice. BSD and Linux are both great OSs. NT is not. Let's take a look at where the bias sits on this article though.
The big deal here is all about the licenses BSD vs. GPL. The BSD license does not protect open source.
The article, and the accompanying poll suggest that creativity is stifled by the GPL. Let's take a look it this statement... It relies on the statement that creativity can only be spawned by monetary profit. It also relies on the statement that monetary profit can only be spawned by proprietary software. The conclusion that they draw, then, is that Linux allows no proprietary kernel modifications, thus no profit, thus no creativity. This line of reasoning has been shown to be false - in fact, both of the precepts have been shown to be false. In fact the level of creativity and innovation in non-proprietary software is higher than or the same of that in proprietary software. Why, then, would we allow somebody to proprietarize and close development on the kernel, when proprietarization improves nothing and causes problems (like kernel fork, slow bug-fixes, etc.)?
So where is the bias? Can GPL'd software fit into Microsoft's business model and have modifications closed and proprietarized? No. Can BSD software fit into Microsoft's model and be proprietarized? Yes.
So if you buy into the BSD license, think about that quote from Ben Franklin that fortune gives us all the time. If you buy into the BSD license, you are sacrificing liberty for the sake of short term stability. Please, help us to innovate on a truly perennial open source system.
...that the fiber/copper is in the ground _because_ of government interference - that the reason the Bells and Cable companies have all of the fiber/copper in the ground is because of government interference.
I am not suggesting that the government should force these companies to _give_ away access to the lines. I _am_ saying, however, that the companies with fiber/copper in the ground have not been very forthcoming in giving fair prices for use of the infrastructure.
My point is very simple. You still have not addressed it.
There are two products here - the infrastructure and the services provided on that infrastructure. The companies with the infrastructure are using it to block out the companies that only want to provide the services. The same situation is there whether you're talking about cable companies and copper or phone companies and fiber - the only reason the phone companies let anyone else onto their network is because they were ordered to.
... I think, was that in this business, first to market is last to market. This has less to do with the cost of laying fiber than market penetration. For most of the market, there is little to no incentive to switch to a new cable company laying fiber. That company can then not justify the cost of laying fiber for a small proportion of customers who _do_ need the improved service, etc.
That said, I think the difficult situation here is that we have two different products - the provision of communications infrastructure (fiber/cable to your doorstep) and the provision of internet service/content. Now, what we've got is a company that has a monopoly (regardless of how it got it) in the home broadband communications infrastructure and cable television content provision markets. This company is attempting to leverage its monopoly in these markets in order to obtain a monopoly in home broadband Internet/content services.
"He mentions that most people won't buy it until after Y2K. That would be a mistake, last I heard 95 and 98 were not Y2K compliant, and that NT was only fully compliant with SP5, which I have heard is fairly unstable."
Take a look at it from a IS manager's perspective - better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't. Any company serious about computing has already completed Y2K testing. These companies know what their vulnerabilities are (for the most part), if they were to switch at the end of this year they would be throwing away all of their prior testing, without sufficient time to test new stuff. If you're testing critical stuff, it's necessary for the integrity of your tests that you're not trying to hit a moving target.
I would personally expect a sharp downturn in sales of server/enterprise software (systems and applications layers) in the last half of this year as a direct result of this so-called "Y2K freeze." I don't know of any major companies that are going to be purchasing critical software in the next 9 or so months...
Bill Gates himself even shilled OS/2 and that it would beat Windows... As late as 1989, Microsoft was talking publicly about stopping Windows development by mid 1990, in favor of OS/2.
As for Nicholas Petreley, he is the "editorial director of LinuxWorld"... He continues to write well thought out, if somewhat religious;-), defenses of Linux.
I started with Linux with Volkerding's "Slackware 96" book and CD set... (kernel 2.0.0) Mind you, I had some experience with Solaris, IRIX , etc... Most of the stuff was irrelevant to me, but on scanning through it recently, it covered all of the really useful starters, and didn't really deal heavily with development. I believe Volkerding's still releasing a new book with each new release of Slackware. With the exception of rpm's (should be using source tgz's anyway) and the RH net setup thingys, it covered just about everything you need to know to get going. I know Chapters up here (Calgary, Canada) stocks a large number of beginner to intermediate Linux books - Just go into a big bookstore, like Chapters or Indigo - most of the books are reasonable.
I don't think so... The problem with CGI on NT is with NT's hideous process model.
Why would I want to use a proprietary port of a proprietary standard on my Linux box? Why would I limit my choices by using a "standard" that runs on relatively few OSs?
Stability and robustness are not just about how a system behaves when there's nothing wrong. Stability and robustness include how a system behaves when presented with problems. As for "running some strange random program from a noname dev shop," there are few (user space) things that I've seen choke a *NIX system that hard, regardless of who developped them. I vastly dislike the Microsoft apologist method of blaming any and all problems on third party hardware or software. An operating system should behave properly, even where an application does not.
While I believe that a CGI vs. ASP comparison might be interesting, from a maintenance perspective, ASP is a piss-poor answer. I wouldn't suggest that _anybody_ should lock themselves into a proprietary closed standard that limits them to _1_ operating system. The reason this can become a big problem comes alongside with your second paragraph. The fact is, that in any sufficiently complex real-world application, your web server is really only a small part of the equation. Your back end needs to be there. Why would you limit what you can put on the back end by tying the (relatively unimportant) front end to a specific operating system?
Any developers who use "MS-designed dynamic content method[s]" are making life more difficult for them and their successors, when they need to look at other non-MS solutions. Essentially this person has tied future developers to one of a) stay with MS for all eternity b) Redesign the site ground up. If you were an IS manager, how would you respond to that?
"1. I don't think it is unreasonable to attempt to limit the use of a scare public resource to activities which are beneficial to the community."
Then support things like time limits and the like, that _actually_ deal with the issue of fair allocation of scarce resources. Censorship is _never_ about scarcity. Censorship does not address this concern.
"I (personally, as an individual with an opinion and a vote - not a veto) don't consider free access to porn an acceptable use for public money."
And I, personally, don't see capital punishment as an acceptable use for public money. I also don't see the implementation of censorship as an acceptable use for public money. The _lack_ of censorship does NOT have an impact on the amount of money spent. The same amount of money is going to be spent whether the user is downloading porn or doing bible research. However, both of my examples above _do_ have an associated increase in financial costs borne by the taxpayers.
"2. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to do whatever you like in your own home. I just don't want to pay for it."
What anyone does in their own home was NEVER at issue here.
"3. I'm not proposing myself as the censor. You'd probably be better at it:-)"
Perhaps. But only because I'd be bound _not_ to censor.
"4. I understand the technical limitations of filtering software. I was talking on an philosophical level."
The technical limitations are FUNDAMENTAL limitations of any system of censorship, whether implemented by software, or by human intervention. There have been many attempts, in many parts of the world to define effectively pornography and obscenity. I'm not aware of any such appropriate definition.
"You can't legislate morality. And unlike the response that said, "Morality is a personal trait, not a template with which to make law." I do believe that law must derive from morality. Would you like to live under the rule of immoral laws?"
I would certainly not wish to live under immoral laws. However, I find amoral or at least secular laws to be significantly preferable to laws based on one religion.
"at least [Christians] have a motive for trying to do more than meet their own selfish ambitions."
As do many conscientious Muslims, atheists and agnostics. Christians do not have a monopoly on the moral high ground.
"I'd prefer it if schools and libraries and other places I fund through my taxes were trying to help me in my efforts to raise my kids morally, rather than hinder me."
Providing information, showing the good and bad of mankind can not hinder your efforts to raise your kids morally. The only way that people can learn to run their lives morally is to see what is moral and what is immoral. If you insist that the government should protect your children through censorship, _you_ are hindering _my_ attempts to raise my kids morally.
"What do you all have against teaching children to focus on thoughts that are righteous and pure, and trying to protect them from what is impure?"
Censorship does not protect kids from what is impure. The only thing that can protect kids from that which is impure is critical thinking. If you are unable to teach your kids to deal in a moral manner with impure things, your kids will not deal in a moral manner with impure things.
Another/. Christian reader who supports the separation of Church and State.
There are more people out there who will support strong encryption and privacy than will support free speech. Take a look at the Slashdot community - a community which is biased towards freedom and privacy. There are few here who would support key escrow or other encryption restrictions, and yet there appear to be many who are willing to abandon freedom of speech.
The meaning of conservatism has been perverted. Conservatives in North America now seek not to maintain the status quo. Conservatives in North America seek to roll back the clock.
You begin your argument by falling into the same unfortunate trap most fiscal conservatives fall into. Under the guise of fiscal responsibility ("I don't want my money..."), you suggest that we should censor the Internet to save tax dollars. This statement is ludicrous, as is pointed out further down the thread, as porn downloaders do not increase the costs of the connection. Further, your response to that criticism was to point out the scarcity of the PCs. That is bunk just the same. Porn downloaders do not increase the scarcity of PCs any more than researchers, game players, or web surfers. There are other means of dealing with these challenges (time limits, etc.) that do not challenge freedom of speech.
You contradict yourself: "I don't believe that the internet should be censored...they should be prepared to pay for it." The fact is, costs (sometimes prohibitive) do constitute a form of censorship. If the government were to begin charging fees for every person attending a demonstration at the Washington memorial ('It's on taxpayer owned land, why should I have to pay for a bunch of malcontents to complain?') - what do you think the effect would be?
You show yourself to be completely out of touch at the end of your article. You suggest that you don't believe there is "any censoring software out there [that] can filter out potentially dangerous political ideas, whereas filtering out porn is slightly easier." Leaving aside technical problems for a moment, let's consider that statement.
You are asserting implicitly here that 'dangerous political ideas' can be easily and objectively separated from 'porn'. I would suggest that this is simply not the case. There have been many influential books which have been attacked as 'smut' or 'porn' when they were initially released. There have been many books that were suppressed ostensibly to protect people from 'smut' and 'porn', while in reality their suppression was used to control the _ideas_ presented. Do you presume to be the one who tells the difference between "Virgin and the Gipsy" and "Hustler"? Can you objectively and completely lay out the rules that seperate pornography from art or any other protected speech?
Which, of course, leads us to the technical aspect. The fundamental problem with filtering software is the fundamental problem with software in general. This is why we don't have artificial intelligence. If we cannot express in clear English the distinctions between pornography and protected speech, we cannot build software that can distinguish between pornography and protected speech. We will end up producing software that filters some protected speech. I find it _vastly_ more offensive that my tax dollars would (and do) go to censoring some protected speech, than that publicly funded institutions choose not to censor pornography.
Elizabeth Dole has simply proven that she's as clueless as her husband ever was. Much as it pains me to say this - Gore is the choice...
Take a look at man bash, man ls, man cat, man tar, man cp, man dd under Linux... Take a look at your compiler, and associated development tools. In terms of tools external to the kernel in the average Linux distribution, the biggest sources are GNU (FSF) and Berkeley...
Without GNU tools, you could boot most free OS's, but you'd be hard pressed to do anything useful with them.
Much as we may not agree with some of rms' ideological stances, he and his organization have done a great deal for our OS's.
Read before you post...
on
RMS Responds
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It may be a good idea that, before you get on rms' case about issues like this, that you hang out in www.fsf.org (or your own copy of emacs) for a while. There is a great deal of reading material there that deals with the origins and goals of the free software foundation.
Now, as for "worked for 15 years to develop a free UNIXand has nothing to show for it," this statement is simply ludicrous. rms and the FSF always had a different approach to the problem than did Linus. The FSF concentrated on producing the tools that make an operating system _useful_, rather than concentrating solely on the kernel (they also had a kernel called Hurd, but that's another story). The FSF produced many of the vast numbers of tools that make development under and use of Linux possible - tools like gcc, gdb, GIMP, make, standard libraries, standard command line tools, the bash shell, various games, tar, and of course, _emacs_.
The tools that the FSF is known for are tools that transcend the Linux kernel, and that are more important than any one operating system. They are tools that will be here well after Linux and *BSD are gone. The FSF has provided us with many of the tools that we could take for granted on a commercial OS, but which didn't exist under Linux (or Windows/DOS for that matter).
So, hey, before you slam RMS, you think you may want to do some reading to get a clue as to what you're speaking about?
... Microsoft hasn't yet legally been found to be a monopoly. That is one of the things that DOJ has to establish (and I believe they will). The other thing DOJ has to establish is that Microsoft used/uses illegal product tying prohibited by the Sherman Act. So no, it's not a question of a bunch of whiners making up rules. It's Microsoft broke preexisting rules. They are finally being taken to task for it.
Firstly, the DOJ case... I believe that Microsoft will lose this. I don't believe, however, that there will be a sufficient remedy applied. As stated in another thread, I believe the best remedy here is a long drawn out trial and appeals process. That said, I believe the damage to MS has been done, and will become evident within the next six months.
The marketplace has been made aware of the myriad options available to them. They've been made aware that they don't _all_ have to use the same OS. Windows 98 was released, buggy as all hell. NT4 SP 4 and 5 have been released, buggy as all hell. Due to code bloat, we have no reason to believe that W2K won't be just as buggy as hell. From the stories I've seen on the W2K release candidates, we're looking at a 60-40 split in backwards compatibility for W2K. Further, we're looking at a W2K release right in the middle of the time when most of the big money is Y2K frozen.
So what's going to happen in the next few months? My suggestion is simple - W2K is released as a buggy pile of $#!+. MS doesn't get the big dollars from Y2K-locked businesses. MS gets desktop customers pissed at them for bugginess. W2K's numbers are disappointing. MS shares drop as shareholders lose confidence and head over to Red Hat, which is increasing in market share. Red Hat's share price climbs, adding attention to Linux, increasing Linux market share.
... of the trial and associated appeals process are huge. Microsoft will be highly unlikely to unleash their anticompetitive tactics while this process continues. IBM, Compaq and other OEMs and M$ "partners" (see "Barbarians led by Bill Gates" about this word) will be allowed to provide their customers with choices so long as M$ is in court.
There have been claims from Microsoft's lawyers on the subject of remedies. They have suggested that no remedies are necessary, because Microsoft has changed its behaviour. What really must be asked in light of this comment is how much can we trust a change of behaviour in the middle of a trial? Do you really believe that if M$ gets off, that it won't go back to its old practices?
Perhaps the best remedy in this case is to continually keep M$ in the courts. They have proven that they can't be trusted while they're not in the courts. They've also shown that they are willing to temporarily adjust their tactics while in trial, so as to look better in the eyes of the court.
So what it all comes down to is this. Take every opportunity while Microsoft is embroiled in this case to promote your choice of operating system. Stand up and publicly support Linux, BeOs, *BSD, whatever. Take advantage of the fact that Microsoft's FUD guns are cooling their heels in court. Read the Linux advoicacy HOWTOs. Use them to support your OS. Do something to attack this unhealthy monopoly.
... by the fact that my parents and I had to purchase a Microsoft OS with our systems, when competing OS's existed (2 pentium laptops, P2, 486 Dx4/100, 486DX33 laptop, 486 DX 33). I was harmed, as was the rest of the industry, by the stifling monopoly effects on innovation. I was harmed by the fact that in order to make money in this industry, I have to develop for an inferior platform.
Fact is, nobody but Microsoft has gained from their monopoly tactics in the last five to ten years.
...that you saw a single application cause a kernel panic (I haven't)? When was the last time you saw NT do the same (NT did to me today)? When was the last time you were forced to reboot a Linux system in order to install software?
I don't think you quite get the point. The point about NT is not that the apps are unstable. Anybody can produce unstable apps for any OS. The point is that the OS is unstable. A standard unprivileged app should not be able to take the entire freakin' system down with it.
Now, as for success (the market-share kind), you are correct that quality is not the only factor at work here. I would suggest that it is also not currently a major factor at work. The fact is that the capitalist system has encouraged a dangerous cycle. The capitalist system relies on a _perception_ of quality or a _perception_ of value. Unfortunately, too many people have been duped into believing that market success means high value, and get sucked into a massive vortex ocf self propagating circular logic... (Product A has much market share, it must be good, person buys product A, increasing its market share more...)
We need to break this cycle. We need to ensure that the perception of value comes not from within this vortex, but rather from objective measures of value that have little to do with capitalist theory.
It seems odd that there has been no speculation here or on the ABCNews forum of the importance of the last 4 columns of the right side... It may make sense that the first 27 columns form a Vigniere grid 26*26 square, plus top header, side header (as indicated by a number of people). But what about the other 4...
What have we got in these 4 columns... Excluding the header (ABCD), we have 26 rows of 4, or 104 characters. If we accept the suggestion (ostensibly from the CIA) that the last 97 characters of te left side are encrypted using a one time pad that is the Vigniere square, we still need a key (presumably one letter for each letter to decrypt). Do the last 4 columns of the right side provide this key?
Consider that the word KRYPTOS has 7 characters, the message we're trying to decrypt has 97, and the block we're looking at has 104...
Just a naive attempt at a guess at a starting point;-)...
Slashdot Mirror
Am I missing the API call that allows me to remotely spawn a thread in _another_process_, in fact a _system_process_, thus evading detection? This is something that is at issue here. It is significantly more difficult under *NIX to hide yourself from someone who knows what he/she is doing. I can see that vnc, telnetd, or sshd is running. Once I see that it is running, I can terminate it, and take measures to ensure that the attack is not repeated.
... I don't think so.
K, so internal flamewars are not nice. BSD and Linux are both great OSs. NT is not. Let's take a look at where the bias sits on this article though.
The big deal here is all about the licenses BSD vs. GPL. The BSD license does not protect open source.
The article, and the accompanying poll suggest that creativity is stifled by the GPL. Let's take a look it this statement... It relies on the statement that creativity can only be spawned by monetary profit. It also relies on the statement that monetary profit can only be spawned by proprietary software. The conclusion that they draw, then, is that Linux allows no proprietary kernel modifications, thus no profit, thus no creativity. This line of reasoning has been shown to be false - in fact, both of the precepts have been shown to be false. In fact the level of creativity and innovation in non-proprietary software is higher than or the same of that in proprietary software. Why, then, would we allow somebody to proprietarize and close development on the kernel, when proprietarization improves nothing and causes problems (like kernel fork, slow bug-fixes, etc.)?
So where is the bias? Can GPL'd software fit into Microsoft's business model and have modifications closed and proprietarized? No. Can BSD software fit into Microsoft's model and be proprietarized? Yes.
So if you buy into the BSD license, think about that quote from Ben Franklin that fortune gives us all the time. If you buy into the BSD license, you are sacrificing liberty for the sake of short term stability. Please, help us to innovate on a truly perennial open source system.
...that the fiber/copper is in the ground _because_ of government interference - that the reason the Bells and Cable companies have all of the fiber/copper in the ground is because of government interference.
I am not suggesting that the government should force these companies to _give_ away access to the lines. I _am_ saying, however, that the companies with fiber/copper in the ground have not been very forthcoming in giving fair prices for use of the infrastructure.
My point is very simple. You still have not addressed it.
There are two products here - the infrastructure and the services provided on that infrastructure. The companies with the infrastructure are using it to block out the companies that only want to provide the services. The same situation is there whether you're talking about cable companies and copper or phone companies and fiber - the only reason the phone companies let anyone else onto their network is because they were ordered to.
... I think, was that in this business, first to market is last to market. This has less to do with the cost of laying fiber than market penetration. For most of the market, there is little to no incentive to switch to a new cable company laying fiber. That company can then not justify the cost of laying fiber for a small proportion of customers who _do_ need the improved service, etc.
That said, I think the difficult situation here is that we have two different products - the provision of communications infrastructure (fiber/cable to your doorstep) and the provision of internet service/content. Now, what we've got is a company that has a monopoly (regardless of how it got it) in the home broadband communications infrastructure and cable television content provision markets. This company is attempting to leverage its monopoly in these markets in order to obtain a monopoly in home broadband Internet/content services.
"He mentions that most people won't buy it until after Y2K. That would be a mistake, last I heard 95 and 98 were not Y2K compliant, and that NT was only fully compliant with SP5, which I have heard is fairly unstable."
Take a look at it from a IS manager's perspective - better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't. Any company serious about computing has already completed Y2K testing. These companies know what their vulnerabilities are (for the most part), if they were to switch at the end of this year they would be throwing away all of their prior testing, without sufficient time to test new stuff. If you're testing critical stuff, it's necessary for the integrity of your tests that you're not trying to hit a moving target.
I would personally expect a sharp downturn in sales of server/enterprise software (systems and applications layers) in the last half of this year as a direct result of this so-called "Y2K freeze." I don't know of any major companies that are going to be purchasing critical software in the next 9 or so months...
Bill Gates himself even shilled OS/2 and that it would beat Windows... As late as 1989, Microsoft was talking publicly about stopping Windows development by mid 1990, in favor of OS/2.
;-), defenses of Linux.
As for Nicholas Petreley, he is the "editorial director of LinuxWorld"... He continues to write well thought out, if somewhat religious
I started with Linux with Volkerding's "Slackware 96" book and CD set... (kernel 2.0.0) Mind you, I had some experience with Solaris, IRIX , etc... Most of the stuff was irrelevant to me, but on scanning through it recently, it covered all of the really useful starters, and didn't really deal heavily with development. I believe Volkerding's still releasing a new book with each new release of Slackware. With the exception of rpm's (should be using source tgz's anyway) and the RH net setup thingys, it covered just about everything you need to know to get going. I know Chapters up here (Calgary, Canada) stocks a large number of beginner to intermediate Linux books - Just go into a big bookstore, like Chapters or Indigo - most of the books are reasonable.
I don't think so... The problem with CGI on NT is with NT's hideous process model.
Why would I want to use a proprietary port of a proprietary standard on my Linux box? Why would I limit my choices by using a "standard" that runs on relatively few OSs?
Stability and robustness are not just about how a system behaves when there's nothing wrong. Stability and robustness include how a system behaves when presented with problems. As for "running some strange random program from a noname dev shop," there are few (user space) things that I've seen choke a *NIX system that hard, regardless of who developped them. I vastly dislike the Microsoft apologist method of blaming any and all problems on third party hardware or software. An operating system should behave properly, even where an application does not.
While I believe that a CGI vs. ASP comparison might be interesting, from a maintenance perspective, ASP is a piss-poor answer. I wouldn't suggest that _anybody_ should lock themselves into a proprietary closed standard that limits them to _1_ operating system. The reason this can become a big problem comes alongside with your second paragraph. The fact is, that in any sufficiently complex real-world application, your web server is really only a small part of the equation. Your back end needs to be there. Why would you limit what you can put on the back end by tying the (relatively unimportant) front end to a specific operating system?
Any developers who use "MS-designed dynamic content method[s]" are making life more difficult for them and their successors, when they need to look at other non-MS solutions. Essentially this person has tied future developers to one of a) stay with MS for all eternity b) Redesign the site ground up. If you were an IS manager, how would you respond to that?
"1. I don't think it is unreasonable to attempt to limit the use of a scare public resource to activities which are beneficial to the community."
:-)"
Then support things like time limits and the like, that _actually_ deal with the issue of fair allocation of scarce resources. Censorship is _never_ about scarcity. Censorship does not address this concern.
"I (personally, as an individual with an opinion and a vote - not a veto) don't consider free access to porn an acceptable use for public money."
And I, personally, don't see capital punishment as an acceptable use for public money. I also don't see the implementation of censorship as an acceptable use for public money. The _lack_ of censorship does NOT have an impact on the amount of money spent. The same amount of money is going to be spent whether the user is downloading porn or doing bible research. However, both of my examples above _do_ have an associated increase in financial costs borne by the taxpayers.
"2. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to do whatever you like in your own home. I just don't want to pay for it."
What anyone does in their own home was NEVER at issue here.
"3. I'm not proposing myself as the censor. You'd probably be better at it
Perhaps. But only because I'd be bound _not_ to censor.
"4. I understand the technical limitations of filtering software. I was talking on an philosophical level."
The technical limitations are FUNDAMENTAL limitations of any system of censorship, whether implemented by software, or by human intervention. There have been many attempts, in many parts of the world to define effectively pornography and obscenity. I'm not aware of any such appropriate definition.
"You can't legislate morality. And unlike the response that said, "Morality is a personal trait, not a template with which to make law." I do believe that law must derive from morality. Would you like to live under the rule of immoral laws?"
/. Christian reader who supports the separation of Church and State.
I would certainly not wish to live under immoral laws. However, I find amoral or at least secular laws to be significantly preferable to laws based on one religion.
"at least [Christians] have a motive for trying to do more than meet their own selfish ambitions."
As do many conscientious Muslims, atheists and agnostics. Christians do not have a monopoly on the moral high ground.
"I'd prefer it if schools and libraries and other places I fund through my taxes were trying to help me in my efforts to raise my kids morally, rather than hinder me."
Providing information, showing the good and bad of mankind can not hinder your efforts to raise your kids morally. The only way that people can learn to run their lives morally is to see what is moral and what is immoral. If you insist that the government should protect your children through censorship, _you_ are hindering _my_ attempts to raise my kids morally.
"What do you all have against teaching children to focus on thoughts that are righteous and pure, and trying to protect them from what is impure?"
Censorship does not protect kids from what is impure. The only thing that can protect kids from that which is impure is critical thinking. If you are unable to teach your kids to deal in a moral manner with impure things, your kids will not deal in a moral manner with impure things.
Another
There are more people out there who will support strong encryption and privacy than will support free speech. Take a look at the Slashdot community - a community which is biased towards freedom and privacy. There are few here who would support key escrow or other encryption restrictions, and yet there appear to be many who are willing to abandon freedom of speech.
The meaning of conservatism has been perverted. Conservatives in North America now seek not to maintain the status quo. Conservatives in North America seek to roll back the clock.
... this is a complex issue.
You begin your argument by falling into the same unfortunate trap most fiscal conservatives fall into. Under the guise of fiscal responsibility ("I don't want my money..."), you suggest that we should censor the Internet to save tax dollars. This statement is ludicrous, as is pointed out further down the thread, as porn downloaders do not increase the costs of the connection. Further, your response to that criticism was to point out the scarcity of the PCs. That is bunk just the same. Porn downloaders do not increase the scarcity of PCs any more than researchers, game players, or web surfers. There are other means of dealing with these challenges (time limits, etc.) that do not challenge freedom of speech.
You contradict yourself: "I don't believe that the internet should be censored...they should be prepared to pay for it." The fact is, costs (sometimes prohibitive) do constitute a form of censorship. If the government were to begin charging fees for every person attending a demonstration at the Washington memorial ('It's on taxpayer owned land, why should I have to pay for a bunch of malcontents to complain?') - what do you think the effect would be?
You show yourself to be completely out of touch at the end of your article. You suggest that you don't believe there is "any censoring software out there [that] can filter out potentially dangerous political ideas, whereas filtering out porn is slightly easier." Leaving aside technical problems for a moment, let's consider that statement.
You are asserting implicitly here that 'dangerous political ideas' can be easily and objectively separated from 'porn'. I would suggest that this is simply not the case. There have been many influential books which have been attacked as 'smut' or 'porn' when they were initially released. There have been many books that were suppressed ostensibly to protect people from 'smut' and 'porn', while in reality their suppression was used to control the _ideas_ presented. Do you presume to be the one who tells the difference between "Virgin and the Gipsy" and "Hustler"? Can you objectively and completely lay out the rules that seperate pornography from art or any other protected speech?
Which, of course, leads us to the technical aspect. The fundamental problem with filtering software is the fundamental problem with software in general. This is why we don't have artificial intelligence. If we cannot express in clear English the distinctions between pornography and protected speech, we cannot build software that can distinguish between pornography and protected speech. We will end up producing software that filters some protected speech. I find it _vastly_ more offensive that my tax dollars would (and do) go to censoring some protected speech, than that publicly funded institutions choose not to censor pornography.
Elizabeth Dole has simply proven that she's as clueless as her husband ever was. Much as it pains me to say this - Gore is the choice...
Take a look at man bash, man ls, man cat, man tar, man cp, man dd under Linux... Take a look at your compiler, and associated development tools. In terms of tools external to the kernel in the average Linux distribution, the biggest sources are GNU (FSF) and Berkeley...
Without GNU tools, you could boot most free OS's, but you'd be hard pressed to do anything useful with them.
Much as we may not agree with some of rms' ideological stances, he and his organization have done a great deal for our OS's.
It may be a good idea that, before you get on rms' case about issues like this, that you hang out in www.fsf.org (or your own copy of emacs) for a while. There is a great deal of reading material there that deals with the origins and goals of the free software foundation.
Now, as for "worked for 15 years to develop a free UNIXand has nothing to show for it," this statement is simply ludicrous. rms and the FSF always had a different approach to the problem than did Linus. The FSF concentrated on producing the tools that make an operating system _useful_, rather than concentrating solely on the kernel (they also had a kernel called Hurd, but that's another story). The FSF produced many of the vast numbers of tools that make development under and use of Linux possible - tools like gcc, gdb, GIMP, make, standard libraries, standard command line tools, the bash shell, various games, tar, and of course, _emacs_.
The tools that the FSF is known for are tools that transcend the Linux kernel, and that are more important than any one operating system. They are tools that will be here well after Linux and *BSD are gone. The FSF has provided us with many of the tools that we could take for granted on a commercial OS, but which didn't exist under Linux (or Windows/DOS for that matter).
So, hey, before you slam RMS, you think you may want to do some reading to get a clue as to what you're speaking about?
Habitat for Humanity actually _is_ a single legal incorporated entity...
... Microsoft hasn't yet legally been found to be a monopoly. That is one of the things that DOJ has to establish (and I believe they will). The other thing DOJ has to establish is that Microsoft used/uses illegal product tying prohibited by the Sherman Act. So no, it's not a question of a bunch of whiners making up rules. It's Microsoft broke preexisting rules. They are finally being taken to task for it.
I've always found _American_ beer to be swill...
Firstly, the DOJ case... I believe that Microsoft will lose this. I don't believe, however, that there will be a sufficient remedy applied. As stated in another thread, I believe the best remedy here is a long drawn out trial and appeals process. That said, I believe the damage to MS has been done, and will become evident within the next six months.
The marketplace has been made aware of the myriad options available to them. They've been made aware that they don't _all_ have to use the same OS. Windows 98 was released, buggy as all hell. NT4 SP 4 and 5 have been released, buggy as all hell. Due to code bloat, we have no reason to believe that W2K won't be just as buggy as hell. From the stories I've seen on the W2K release candidates, we're looking at a 60-40 split in backwards compatibility for W2K. Further, we're looking at a W2K release right in the middle of the time when most of the big money is Y2K frozen.
So what's going to happen in the next few months? My suggestion is simple - W2K is released as a buggy pile of $#!+. MS doesn't get the big dollars from Y2K-locked businesses. MS gets desktop customers pissed at them for bugginess. W2K's numbers are disappointing. MS shares drop as shareholders lose confidence and head over to Red Hat, which is increasing in market share. Red Hat's share price climbs, adding attention to Linux, increasing Linux market share.
... of the trial and associated appeals process are huge. Microsoft will be highly unlikely to unleash their anticompetitive tactics while this process continues. IBM, Compaq and other OEMs and M$ "partners" (see "Barbarians led by Bill Gates" about this word) will be allowed to provide their customers with choices so long as M$ is in court.
There have been claims from Microsoft's lawyers on the subject of remedies. They have suggested that no remedies are necessary, because Microsoft has changed its behaviour. What really must be asked in light of this comment is how much can we trust a change of behaviour in the middle of a trial? Do you really believe that if M$ gets off, that it won't go back to its old practices?
Perhaps the best remedy in this case is to continually keep M$ in the courts. They have proven that they can't be trusted while they're not in the courts. They've also shown that they are willing to temporarily adjust their tactics while in trial, so as to look better in the eyes of the court.
So what it all comes down to is this. Take every opportunity while Microsoft is embroiled in this case to promote your choice of operating system. Stand up and publicly support Linux, BeOs, *BSD, whatever. Take advantage of the fact that Microsoft's FUD guns are cooling their heels in court. Read the Linux advoicacy HOWTOs. Use them to support your OS. Do something to attack this unhealthy monopoly.
... by the fact that my parents and I had to purchase a Microsoft OS with our systems, when competing OS's existed (2 pentium laptops, P2, 486 Dx4/100, 486DX33 laptop, 486 DX 33). I was harmed, as was the rest of the industry, by the stifling monopoly effects on innovation. I was harmed by the fact that in order to make money in this industry, I have to develop for an inferior platform.
Fact is, nobody but Microsoft has gained from their monopoly tactics in the last five to ten years.
...that you saw a single application cause a kernel panic (I haven't)? When was the last time you saw NT do the same (NT did to me today)? When was the last time you were forced to reboot a Linux system in order to install software?
I don't think you quite get the point. The point about NT is not that the apps are unstable. Anybody can produce unstable apps for any OS. The point is that the OS is unstable. A standard unprivileged app should not be able to take the entire freakin' system down with it.
Now, as for success (the market-share kind), you are correct that quality is not the only factor at work here. I would suggest that it is also not currently a major factor at work. The fact is that the capitalist system has encouraged a dangerous cycle. The capitalist system relies on a _perception_ of quality or a _perception_ of value. Unfortunately, too many people have been duped into believing that market success means high value, and get sucked into a massive vortex ocf self propagating circular logic... (Product A has much market share, it must be good, person buys product A, increasing its market share more...)
We need to break this cycle. We need to ensure that the perception of value comes not from within this vortex, but rather from objective measures of value that have little to do with capitalist theory.
It's IT management software for large high end enterprise situations... Take a look at their webpage (cited in the article).
It seems odd that there has been no speculation here or on the ABCNews forum of the importance of the last 4 columns of the right side... It may make sense that the first 27 columns form a Vigniere grid 26*26 square, plus top header, side header (as indicated by a number of people). But what about the other 4...
;-)...
What have we got in these 4 columns... Excluding the header (ABCD), we have 26 rows of 4, or 104 characters. If we accept the suggestion (ostensibly from the CIA) that the last 97 characters of te left side are encrypted using a one time pad that is the Vigniere square, we still need a key (presumably one letter for each letter to decrypt). Do the last 4 columns of the right side provide this key?
Consider that the word KRYPTOS has 7 characters, the message we're trying to decrypt has 97, and the block we're looking at has 104...
Just a naive attempt at a guess at a starting point