Here's a hint: Stop tossing us unnecessary crap like network configuration tools for Desktop Environment A, B, and C.
Similarly many distributions assume that pppd & kppp are essential components. Which simply isn't true...
My grandparents and my aunt both use Windows, and they still can't figure even half of it out. It doesn't matter what version; people who aren't tuned in to computers are either going to get it or they won't. No amount of helping them along or gentle pushes is going to change that. If someone has the drive to learn, they will.
But we don't expect drivers to be their own car mechanics. Setting up networking, default locale, paper size, etc. Isn't really an end user task. In many cases Windows users end up relying on someone else to set things up so they can use it...
Configuration should be minimized... The user should have to make as/few/ decisions as possible. It's the developer's responsibility to figure out which options should be on, and which should be off -- they're the experts.
Actually it's a job for the system administrator/manager. Since they are likely to have rather more idea about what the machine/network is intended for. The developer can't possibly know what the default paper size, language, spelling dictionary or locale should be. The end user shouldn't have to...
To give users so much configuration choices is a sign of weakness on the developer's part, that they don't or can't make the tough decisions that must be made.
How is an end user even ment to know what a "proxy server" even is? There also needs to be a distinction between "tweaking" configuration (e.g. desktop wallpaper) and settings which will cause things to break. "Break" includes jamming up printers with documents intended to be printed on strange size paper, users getting all their menus in a language they cannot read, etc.
I say start with a very basic default interface that almost anyone will understand. Something like the Window's Media Center machines, though maybe not quite that simple.
At the same time, give all the UI options you want but bury them from the initial interface. Keep them out of sight from the people who will never ever intentionally change their interface. The more obscure and detailed the UI options get, the farther down from the initial interface you bury them. Don't like how deep you have to dig to get to these fancy shmancy options? Put in another option to "dig up" all the UI tools permanently, something like an advanced mode.
You also need a central configuration which can disable the ability of users to change something, possibly even their ability to even see that there is something which could be changable. Including selectivly by uid and group membership.
I'd agree that most people don't change the defaults *much,*
The defaults do need to be reasonably easily changable. Whatever RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, SuSE, Xamian, etc came up with as a default may well not be suitable for your organisation.
Ok, so, I have about 100 users in a large department all using linux
I have over 10 times as many users.
I want an environment that doesn't require a computer degree to configure and operate it. Note -- my users are nearly all PhDs in Physics, or are on their way to obtaining a PhD in Physics,
Most of my users are far too young to have PhDs. Even the handful who do arn't that computer literate. What's needed is something which will just work. Menus and desktops where users can add their own links, but cannot delete standard options. Things like web browser proxies really need to be not user alterable. Similarly with the likes of email details (certain students would find sending email as osama@terrorist.org to be ammusing). It's easier to set up mutt (or even sqwebmail) to "just work" than kmail or messenger. What is it with Mozilla and the randomly named.slt directories? It makes using a wrapper script so much harder than with Netscape 4.
However, while administration benefits have been clear, adoption on the desktop has been slow to none, simply because there hasn't been a good, simple, and intuitive WIMP interface available for use on Linux for those who think of their computers as tools to do their day jobs and not in terms of a lifestyle or a political statement.
Also it needs to be remembered that most users are simply users not "power users". They shouldn't need to know what a proxy server is (and what "port" it is on); what a "browser plugin" is what their email address is (KDE virtually always gets its guess wrong); what "POP3", "IMAP", "mbox", "Maildir", "mh", mean; etc. What's needed for them to be able to log into a machine having only been given a username and password. If they run a web browser there are global configuration files for proxy, plugin and home page settings. Only if they change their home page or add special plugins (assuming the sysadmin allows this) is a local file even created. Similarly if they run a mail app there is a global configuration saying how to create an outgoing email address, typically user@domain where "domain" may well not be the output of "hostname" or the FQDN, where to look for incomming mail and what format(s) to check.
And they were right to to so. Different UI levels are a bad idea
It isn't that simple, in some cases they can be useful. In other cases, especially corporate networks, too much user control can be a bad thing. But exactly what is the "right" level of both default setting and user control is a matter for individual organisations.
...like what KDE offers a user on their first login?
But does it have the option for the user not to be offered this option? Whilst there is plenty of end user documentation there is something of a lack of sysadmin documentation. e.g. setting default desktops and menus. Which is obviously possible, since different Linux distributions have different KDE and Gnome defaults. KDE even has systemwide configuration files... Where are the Gnome and KDE admin configuration guides?
Really, napalm is just sticky gasoline. It worked so well in vietnam because they could spray the shit everywhere and it would stick to the jungle and burn it down. It's really not any more volatile or dangerous than regular gasoline.
Actually the gelling agent makes it a lot less volatile. Which, together with its stickyness, makes it more likely to set other things on fire and cause injury.
However that may be, outlawing them seems to be going a bit too far. A determined terrorist doesn't need a kit to build a bomb or even a crude missile.
A determined terrrist isn't going to be concerned about bombs or missiles being legal to build in the first place.
Agreed. I really doubt that Amazon or Priceline have been stricken with no Web presence or e-mail. Are there any companies that use a.uk.co domain for something besides misspellings?
Why should Colombia be covering for people's misspellings in the first place? It's not as if there is a treaty covering the existance of.uk.co.
I'm sickened by the so-called "tradeoff" between freedom and security. Thus far _none_ of the restricted freedoms would have stopped 9-11.
Even if something might appear to have stopped them, had it been in place before that date they could have attempted to work around it.
What's next? Not publishing vulnerabilities in a nearby power plants since a terrorist may exploit them? Excuse me, what about the local populus need to know about the problem?
IIRC there is something in PATRIOT II along this line about chemical plants. Apparently hiding the details of what they do is more important than the interests of the people who live next to them or making sure that emergency services know what protective clothing they need and what injuries are likely to need treating, should something go wrong.
Underestimating the terrorists on 9/11? The real problem was overestimating them afterwards. We still have not come to terms with the massive damage a poorly equiped, poorly educated, poorly organized, enemy can do to our country. If we had, reforming the INS would be job number one, not reorganizing CIA and FBI flowcharts for the department of Homeland Security.
What about NORAD? Huge quantities of money poured into a mountain in Colorado and they utterly fail to cope with the first live threat they get. These are the people who claim to be able to track Santa Claus, but somehow manage to lose 4 hijacked airliners.
The susceptability of the main support structure to fire (it was known not to conform to typical building standards) was considered to be such an important issue after the 1993 bombing that the fireproofing of the main support structures was actully being upgraded at the time of the 9/11 attack.
If it was considered that important why was it still being upgraded 8 years later. Not that it would have made much difference since the fire protection material was not blast resistant.
I recently read a popular Frederick Forsythe novel written in 1972, The Dogs of War I think, that discussed dirty bombs.
Shooting down an airliner with a man portable missile system isn't original either it appears in Clive Cussler's "Night Probe" written 20 years ago. Using an airliner as an improvised cruise missile is the climax of the book of "The Running Man" with the pilot of "The Lone Gunmen" being one of the best examples of life imitating art. If you want something really scary there is "To Howard Hughes: A Modest Proposal", written by Joe Haldeman. Most of the ideas are probably already widely known.
See, when you PGP encrypt some text, it is only possible to encrypt it to one person (one public key). That's just how it works, it's inherent in the encryption methods used; however, PGP and GPG get around this by duplicating the entire message for each public key that it is encrypted to.
My point is that if you had a mailing list with 1000 subscribers, and you wanted to encrypt it, you'd basically be increasing the size of the encrypted message 1000-fold, because you need 1000 copies of the message, each encrypted to a given recipient. Obviously, this isn't feasable...
Actually it's trivial. You encrypt with a private key then anyone who has the public key can decrypt it. This is how PGP/GPG signing of a message works. You have a checksum encrypted with a private key, when you receive the message the software attempts to decrypt the checksum then compare it with what it has calculated the checksum to be. If the decryption fails the message isn't from the claimed source, if the checksum fails it has been altered.
What I'd like to see in the patent system would be a kind of brainstorming. When a patent is applied for, the problem the patent is intended to solve has to be posed (in engineering terms). A group of 5-10 engineers who are well versed in the field of the patent gets a day each (or in a group) to figure out possible solutions to the problem. If anyone comes up with a solution close to the patent the invention is declared trivial and unpatentable, and the solution and any other ideas the engineers have are entered in a database as prior unpatentable art, against which any further patent applications are compared for triviality.
You'd also need qualified people to both express the problem in the appropriate terms (which would soon put a stop to applications attempting make up their own jargon to make something appear "innovative"). Also you need experts to make the judgement as to if something is similar enough, including checking a database.
Dear DirectTV Inc, I would like to request that you stop sending signals onto my property. If you do not I will be forced to decrypt them and analyze them in the interest on nation security.
Alternativly you could send them an invoice for rent.
The way I see it they are selling information that only has illegal application.
No such entity, the same information would also enable someone to identify that application taking place. Also it can easily provide mays to stop it happening.
Don't download data on how to steal shit, and you won't get in trouble.
No stealing involved here, unless the people involved were distributing the content they had recieved there wouldn't be any copyright violation involved either. People with an approved reciever could just as easily enguage in copyright violation anyway.
The "you beamed your signals at me" argument is so invalid it hurts. Unless DirecTV is purposely directing its signals at your house, you have no legal standing to believe that DirecTV somehow wants you to use those signals.
The thing is that DirecTV are operating as a television broadcaster whilst attempting to use business model which makes more sense applied to some kind of circuit switched technology.
The part of this that bothers me is that the folks doing this profited from it.
People who make and sell televison recievers generally intend to make a profit. Even if they have no connection with TV broadcasters.
The end result of allowing this to stand is a reduced incentive to provide content. For example, if I put up a satellite and anyone else can legally decrypt the info and sell it for less while I try to recoup my investment in the satellite, why would I send the satellite up there?
Business does not come with a guarentee to make money, even to cover your overheads. Even if a specific business model has turned a profit for years it may not do so in future. Effectivly what is going on here is broadcast television. Which can be sucessfully funded either. By selling airtime for advertisments, funded by the state from general taxation, funded by money the state collects from anyone with receiving hardware (whereever it came from including self manufacture) or by requesting donations.
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Here's a hint: Stop tossing us unnecessary crap like network configuration tools for Desktop Environment A, B, and C.
Similarly many distributions assume that pppd & kppp are essential components. Which simply isn't true...
My grandparents and my aunt both use Windows, and they still can't figure even half of it out. It doesn't matter what version; people who aren't tuned in to computers are either going to get it or they won't. No amount of helping them along or gentle pushes is going to change that. If someone has the drive to learn, they will.
But we don't expect drivers to be their own car mechanics. Setting up networking, default locale, paper size, etc. Isn't really an end user task. In many cases Windows users end up relying on someone else to set things up so they can use it...
Configuration should be minimized ... The user should have to make as /few/ decisions as possible. It's the developer's responsibility to figure out which options should be on, and which should be off -- they're the experts.
Actually it's a job for the system administrator/manager. Since they are likely to have rather more idea about what the machine/network is intended for. The developer can't possibly know what the default paper size, language, spelling dictionary or locale should be. The end user shouldn't have to...
To give users so much configuration choices is a sign of weakness on the developer's part, that they don't or can't make the tough decisions that must be made.
How is an end user even ment to know what a "proxy server" even is?
There also needs to be a distinction between "tweaking" configuration (e.g. desktop wallpaper) and settings which will cause things to break. "Break" includes jamming up printers with documents intended to be printed on strange size paper, users getting all their menus in a language they cannot read, etc.
It is more efficient to have the scroll bars on the left because the mouse spends the majority of the time on the left side.
For both right and left handed users?
Of course this changes when you have a language that reads from right to left.
The most used language is Chinese, with 1/4 of the world's population. Also Arabic is used by a lot of people.
I say start with a very basic default interface that almost anyone will understand. Something like the Window's Media Center machines, though maybe not quite that simple.
At the same time, give all the UI options you want but bury them from the initial interface. Keep them out of sight from the people who will never ever intentionally change their interface. The more obscure and detailed the UI options get, the farther down from the initial interface you bury them. Don't like how deep you have to dig to get to these fancy shmancy options? Put in another option to "dig up" all the UI tools permanently, something like an advanced mode.
You also need a central configuration which can disable the ability of users to change something, possibly even their ability to even see that there is something which could be changable. Including selectivly by uid and group membership.
I'd agree that most people don't change the defaults *much,*
The defaults do need to be reasonably easily changable. Whatever RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, SuSE, Xamian, etc came up with as a default may well not be suitable for your organisation.
Ok, so, I have about 100 users in a large department all using linux
.slt directories? It makes using a wrapper script so much harder than with Netscape 4.
I have over 10 times as many users.
I want an environment that doesn't require a computer degree to configure and operate it. Note -- my users are nearly all PhDs in Physics, or are on their way to obtaining a PhD in Physics,
Most of my users are far too young to have PhDs. Even the handful who do arn't that computer literate.
What's needed is something which will just work. Menus and desktops where users can add their own links, but cannot delete standard options. Things like web browser proxies really need to be not user alterable. Similarly with the likes of email details (certain students would find sending email as osama@terrorist.org to be ammusing). It's easier to set up mutt (or even sqwebmail) to "just work" than kmail or messenger.
What is it with Mozilla and the randomly named
However, while administration benefits have been clear, adoption on the desktop has been slow to none, simply because there hasn't been a good, simple, and intuitive WIMP interface available for use on Linux for those who think of their computers as tools to do their day jobs and not in terms of a lifestyle or a political statement.
Also it needs to be remembered that most users are simply users not "power users". They shouldn't need to know what a proxy server is (and what "port" it is on); what a "browser plugin" is what their email address is (KDE virtually always gets its guess wrong); what "POP3", "IMAP", "mbox", "Maildir", "mh", mean; etc. What's needed for them to be able to log into a machine having only been given a username and password. If they run a web browser there are global configuration files for proxy, plugin and home page settings. Only if they change their home page or add special plugins (assuming the sysadmin allows this) is a local file even created. Similarly if they run a mail app there is a global configuration saying how to create an outgoing email address, typically user@domain where "domain" may well not be the output of "hostname" or the FQDN, where to look for incomming mail and what format(s) to check.
And they were right to to so. Different UI levels are a bad idea
It isn't that simple, in some cases they can be useful. In other cases, especially corporate networks, too much user control can be a bad thing. But exactly what is the "right" level of both default setting and user control is a matter for individual organisations.
...like what KDE offers a user on their first login?
But does it have the option for the user not to be offered this option? Whilst there is plenty of end user documentation there is something of a lack of sysadmin documentation.
e.g. setting default desktops and menus. Which is obviously possible, since different Linux distributions have different KDE and Gnome defaults. KDE even has systemwide configuration files...
Where are the Gnome and KDE admin configuration guides?
Really, napalm is just sticky gasoline. It worked so well in vietnam because they could spray the shit everywhere and it would stick to the jungle and burn it down. It's really not any more volatile or dangerous than regular gasoline.
Actually the gelling agent makes it a lot less volatile. Which, together with its stickyness, makes it more likely to set other things on fire and cause injury.
Having skipped arson 101, could someone tell me what happens when you mix gasoline and soap and light it?
It's better known as "napalm".
However that may be, outlawing them seems to be going a bit too far. A determined terrorist doesn't need a kit to build a bomb or even a crude missile.
A determined terrrist isn't going to be concerned about bombs or missiles being legal to build in the first place.
imagine dealer.co could do quite nicely though
cia.co might also get quite a bit of money.
Agreed. I really doubt that Amazon or Priceline have been stricken with no Web presence or e-mail. Are there any companies that use a .uk.co domain for something besides misspellings?
.uk.co.
Why should Colombia be covering for people's misspellings in the first place? It's not as if there is a treaty covering the existance of
whilst I sympathise with your sentiment there, if a company is successful in keeping low level writes secret, how will we know?
How long before a virus writer uses the same technique...
I'm sickened by the so-called "tradeoff" between freedom and security. Thus far _none_ of the restricted freedoms would have stopped 9-11.
Even if something might appear to have stopped them, had it been in place before that date they could have attempted to work around it.
What's next? Not publishing vulnerabilities in a nearby power plants since a terrorist may exploit them? Excuse me, what about the local populus need to know about the problem?
IIRC there is something in PATRIOT II along this line about chemical plants. Apparently hiding the details of what they do is more important than the interests of the people who live next to them or making sure that emergency services know what protective clothing they need and what injuries are likely to need treating, should something go wrong.
Underestimating the terrorists on 9/11? The real problem was overestimating them afterwards. We still have not come to terms with the massive damage a poorly equiped, poorly educated, poorly organized, enemy can do to our country. If we had, reforming the INS would be job number one, not reorganizing CIA and FBI flowcharts for the department of Homeland Security.
What about NORAD? Huge quantities of money poured into a mountain in Colorado and they utterly fail to cope with the first live threat they get. These are the people who claim to be able to track Santa Claus, but somehow manage to lose 4 hijacked airliners.
The susceptability of the main support structure to fire (it was known not to conform to typical building standards) was considered to be such an important issue after the 1993 bombing that the fireproofing of the main support structures was actully being upgraded at the time of the 9/11 attack.
If it was considered that important why was it still being upgraded 8 years later. Not that it would have made much difference since the fire protection material was not blast resistant.
I recently read a popular Frederick Forsythe novel written in 1972, The Dogs of War I think, that discussed dirty bombs.
Shooting down an airliner with a man portable missile system isn't original either it appears in Clive Cussler's "Night Probe" written 20 years ago. Using an airliner as an improvised cruise missile is the climax of the book of "The Running Man" with the pilot of "The Lone Gunmen" being one of the best examples of life imitating art. If you want something really scary there is "To Howard Hughes: A Modest Proposal", written by Joe Haldeman.
Most of the ideas are probably already widely known.
See, when you PGP encrypt some text, it is only possible to encrypt it to one person (one public key). That's just how it works, it's inherent in the encryption methods used; however, PGP and GPG get around this by duplicating the entire message for each public key that it is encrypted to.
My point is that if you had a mailing list with 1000 subscribers, and you wanted to encrypt it, you'd basically be increasing the size of the encrypted message 1000-fold, because you need 1000 copies of the message, each encrypted to a given recipient. Obviously, this isn't feasable...
Actually it's trivial. You encrypt with a private key then anyone who has the public key can decrypt it.
This is how PGP/GPG signing of a message works. You have a checksum encrypted with a private key, when you receive the message the software attempts to decrypt the checksum then compare it with what it has calculated the checksum to be. If the decryption fails the message isn't from the claimed source, if the checksum fails it has been altered.
What I'd like to see in the patent system would be a kind of brainstorming. When a patent is applied for, the problem the patent is intended to solve has to be posed (in engineering terms). A group of 5-10 engineers who are well versed in the field of the patent gets a day each (or in a group) to figure out possible solutions to the problem. If anyone comes up with a solution close to the patent the invention is declared trivial and unpatentable, and the solution and any other ideas the engineers have are entered in a database as prior unpatentable art, against which any further patent applications are compared for triviality.
You'd also need qualified people to both express the problem in the appropriate terms (which would soon put a stop to applications attempting make up their own jargon to make something appear "innovative"). Also you need experts to make the judgement as to if something is similar enough, including checking a database.
Dear DirectTV Inc, I would like to request that you stop sending signals onto my property. If you do not I will be forced to decrypt them and analyze them in the interest on nation security.
Alternativly you could send them an invoice for rent.
You own the property, not the air above it.
IIRC up to a few hundred feet the air is your airspace.
Planes may fly over your house. Satellite transmissions do not go 'through' anything. You can block em with a sheet of newspaper.
A satellite reciever is either part of your property or attached to someone elses private property with their permission.
The way I see it they are selling information that only has illegal application.
No such entity, the same information would also enable someone to identify that application taking place. Also it can easily provide mays to stop it happening.
Don't download data on how to steal shit, and you won't get in trouble.
No stealing involved here, unless the people involved were distributing the content they had recieved there wouldn't be any copyright violation involved either. People with an approved reciever could just as easily enguage in copyright violation anyway.
The "you beamed your signals at me" argument is so invalid it hurts. Unless DirecTV is purposely directing its signals at your house, you have no legal standing to believe that DirecTV somehow wants you to use those signals.
The thing is that DirecTV are operating as a television broadcaster whilst attempting to use business model which makes more sense applied to some kind of circuit switched technology.
The part of this that bothers me is that the folks doing this profited from it.
People who make and sell televison recievers generally intend to make a profit. Even if they have no connection with TV broadcasters.
The end result of allowing this to stand is a reduced incentive to provide content. For example, if I put up a satellite and anyone else can legally decrypt the info and sell it for less while I try to recoup my investment in the satellite, why would I send the satellite up there?
Business does not come with a guarentee to make money, even to cover your overheads. Even if a specific business model has turned a profit for years it may not do so in future.
Effectivly what is going on here is broadcast television. Which can be sucessfully funded either. By selling airtime for advertisments, funded by the state from general taxation, funded by money the state collects from anyone with receiving hardware (whereever it came from including self manufacture) or by requesting donations.