More likely we'd say its from Pakistan and go all Iraq on their ass, especially in light of the recent embarrassing Wikileaks about ISI's double-crossing us. BR>I though being able to "double cross" foreign (and sometimes their own) governments was an employee requirement for all such entities. CIA, MI5/6, Mossad, ISI, FSB, ASIS, CSIC, etc, etc
In the UK, there used to be two cable companies which merged, bought Virgin Mobile and with it the rights to use the Virgin brand across their entire business.
Actually there used to be a fairly large number of independent cable companies, who also provided telephone lines in more or less in direct competition with BT. These started to merge eventually leaving only NTL and Telewest. A side effect of these mergers was that companies who had been quite activly expanding their networks (or at least putting in ductwork) stopped doing so. IIRC There were even cases of merged companies losing records of their external plant.
Even after the creation of "Virgin Media" it took a long for "Telewest" and "NTL" to go away especially on their business telecoms side.
Go ahead and make an order. Your pizza may require reheating on arrival though.
They'd probably want to order from the Auckland store. Though I wasn't able to find how much Air New Zealand would want for shipping a pizza across the Pacific or if the US authorities would allow it to leave LAX.
Pizza delivery service regularly calls because they can't find the clearly marked house on the clearly marked street.
Why? Because the leading GPS service places the house at the wrong end of the street, and if the GPS doesn't match the terrain, these idiots believe the GPS.
I've heard stories of people who have turned straight into brick walls or worse because their GPS told them, but before I moved here, I discounted these stories as wild exaggerations. Now I'm not so sure anymore.
Maybe the Darwin Awards website should sponsor a GPS system which tells people to drive off a cliff:) There are also cases of truckers getting stuck on roads clearly signed as unsuitable through using inappropriate GPS maps.
Without having even read a local driver's handbook, I managed to get only 3 wrong on the written "test" - stumped only by two roadsigns that I'd never seen anything like anywhere before (and haven't even seen any of while driving here) and a question whose "correct" answer I maintain was wrong (do pedestrians have right of way with no marked crossing)
That's because you get the issue of "jaywalking" a concept from North America which just dosn't exist elsewhere. In Europe you'd typically find that pedestrians always have right of way over motor vehicles. Probably they also have right of way over horse drawn vehicles
In Germany there's no speed limits but there's plenty of polizei on the roads. You can burn past a patrol car at 200mph, no problem, but if they see you tailgating, hogging a lane, using a phone or doing anything other than paying attention tot he road and driving the car they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. It works like a charm, Germany is one of the nicest places in the world to drive.
In other parts of Europe you instead have mechanical enforcement of speed limits, thing is that is all that speed/safety cameras can do. Which also ignores the many stupid/dangerous ways in which cars can be operated within the speed limit.
It sometimes amazes me in this age of data mining that there is not a database of every statement every major public figure has made on every issue kept by major new organizations.
Especially of anyone seeking re-election. This appears to be another issue where the "blogsphere" is ahead of the "Mainstream Media".
I stand by my attack on news organizations: They all suck and a comedy show is better at their job than they are.
"Comedy" has been a way of presenting news which is politically sensitive/incorrect for a very long time. Dosn't really matter if it's hand drawn political cartoon or a current TV show. Make something "funny" and many (but not all) topics which are taboo can be addressed.
I'm not American, but before Iraq I used to feel like the USA was if not a complete white knight, at least the least-worst big power in the world.
Even in the time of the "Cold War" it's unclear if the USA qualifies at "least worst" in comparison with the USSR. Even discounting the toppling of democratic governments there are issues such as apartheid and McCarthyism.
On the other hand, the United States claims to be whiter than white, and claims to value freedom and all the rest. Therefore, it is much more significant when you can prove the US government is saying one thing, but in reality is sending people for torture, lying to the electorate, doing things at the behest of energy company executives etcetera.
As opposed to the behests of sugar and fruit companies. This isn't actually anything new historical examples going back at least as far as the mid 19th century. Yet there are still people who believe things along the lines of "Even if this happened 20/30 years ago, the current people in charge are better". Many of them will still believe this even if it can be shown that the current people are associated with, the offspring of, even the exact same people who were in charge a few decades ago. No doubt their opposite numbers in China think the Chinese government is perfect:) Personally I'm not convinced that politicians have improved since Roman times. It's a combination of power corrupting and power tending to attract the corrupt/corruptable.
Security through obscurity is essentially no security at all. BR>When you have large numbers of devices you don't even have obscurity.
The only thing that should be secret is the private encryption key that is uniquely associated with the remote control, which should be under strict physical security at all times.
For an implanted device you don't even require the "remote" to be that remote. Especially if you have a device powered by batteries which cannot be recharged in place.
What you say? There's no encryption implemented in these devices? That's a big problem whether the code is open or not.
When it comes to cryptography proprietary software is a problem. Even if those writing it don't try to invent their own (typically worthless) algorithm it's very hard to verify if their implimentation is correct. It can be hard enough even with OSS.
Most of us wouldn't know where to get our hands on a new or used pacemaker to begin reverse engineering it.
Considering that such devices would be considered "hazmat" in the case of cremation quite possibly even in a grave there's a quite obvious place to look.
While possible, it's highly unlikely. These companies aren't proprietary software companies. They're medical device companies. They don't sell software, they sell medical devices. While the software is an integral part of the device, it's just one piece of many. These companies simply don't think of the software as a separate entity.
In which case what is the point of their using proprietary software in the first place?
But the real world is full of the unexpected, and putting a CPU in a device makes its response to the unexpected potentially much more complex. How complex? As complex as a faulty algorithm could be. And you'll never catch that fault if the algorithm looks right to casual inspection and passes the tests you happen to have contrived.
An issue certainly not helped if it's possible to put what amounts to a general purpose OS into an embeded device. Which adds much unnecessary complexity which may avoid being tested at all.
But in a universe of software that is safe enough for a reasonable person to trust, there are bound to be quite a few horrible mistakes. The vast majority of proprietary software will be fine, but when there is a problem, there are two issues we have to consider. The first is that the software developer's management has a conflict of interest. If it doesn't kill that many people (or hasn't killed anyone yet), they might choose to hide a defect and fix it in the next release. The second is that the software developer's engineers may not be able to find the fault, because it reflects deficiencies in their thinking and technique. Fresh eyes, free of any preconception are needed.
It's quite possible that a major fault maybe very obvious to many people may be overlooked by those involved in the project because they are "too close to the problem"; it's outside of their specialty (security and cryptography being issues raised in the original article); etc.
From the number of FOSS projects I've seen die on the vine because the developers drift away to other interests or just drift away, I'm not certain that FOSS is any better.
It's rather more difficult to find out when something similar happens with proprietary software. Nor is it easy to identify proprietary software which really should have "died" for various reasons. Including being superceded by a better tool, being of very poor quality, etc.
The GPL is a licence which gives you permission to copy provided you meet certain conditions. If you don't agree to those conditions, then basic copyright law applies - you can't copy at all except where it is covered by fair use, so if you don't comply, it becomes a software piracy case. This is strengthened by the fact that if you copy without complying with the GPL, then according to the GPL you lose the rights to copy under its terms,
Actually where the GPL applies is passing a copy to another party. You can make as many copies as you like, whatever kind of entity "you" might be, so long as applicable law considers you to be a "person" or equivalent.
Declaring the GPL invalid doesn't help Cisco use Busybox without the copyright owner's permission.
They are free to use the software, since the GPL is not an EULA. The GPL is primarily concerned with distribution to third parties. Anyone, including the largest "corporate people" on the planet, can run whatever GPL software they like without there being an issue.
The Busybox cases are not GPL cases, they are straightforward software piracy cases just the same as the guy who sells dodgy copies of Microsoft Office at car boot sales.
Whilst there's no difference with the sellers here there is a difference between the buyers. If you buy a "dodgy copy" (assuming there is any other kind) of Microsoft Office then you are also a "pirate". If you acquire a pirated copy of any GPL software then you are free to make use of it. You only become a pirate if you start distributing to others without complying with the GPL. There are also situations such as corporate mergers where such "piracy" may only briefly exist. Copyright holders tend to be most concerned with commercial pirates though.
Unless they used some of that 10 billion dollars to have the GPL declared invalid, or something to that effect. Yes, it's nonsensical, but $10 billion can help finance a lot of campaigns, plenty of astroturfers, and an army of lawyers, so I'm not so sure they couldn't do it.
How much would it cost to but the entire music and "movie" industries (probably quite a few proprietary software companies too) together with their existing (worldwide) copyright lobbying system? Who would otherwise oppose a "new kid" on "their turf"...
Here are 2 other examples of harmless words that are filtered by DansGuardian (which is the filter we use in my company, and probably the one used here):
Nice to see the "Scunthorpe Effect" is still going strong:)
However the same issue of confusion applies in any situation where it matters whether you're creating a derivative work or not. With proprietary software, that means people "take the easy way out" and avoid doing anything with the software that could possibly be derivative. The only time the issue doesn't matter is when the license is so liberal it doesn't matter if your work is derivative or not because you can just repackage it with whatever license you want anyway.
I suspect that there is quite a degree of piracy in the proprietary world, especially where distribution is binary only.
If a policeman walking down the road sees you shooting a gun at your girlfriend through the window with the open blinds he will damn sure rush in and intervene. "Plain sight" is not covered by the 4th ammendment
But the police officer can't see through a blind or other than visible light.
and broadcast data is much closer to "plain sight" than thermal imagery from INSIDE the house.
If anything thermal imagery is rather closer to "plain sight" since it is possible to wear a machine which will turn what isn't usually visible light into visible light. However you can't easily do this with 2.4/5GHz signals.
Slashdot Mirror
More likely we'd say its from Pakistan and go all Iraq on their ass, especially in light of the recent embarrassing Wikileaks about ISI's double-crossing us.
BR>I though being able to "double cross" foreign (and sometimes their own) governments was an employee requirement for all such entities. CIA, MI5/6, Mossad, ISI, FSB, ASIS, CSIC, etc, etc
Can you quantify what "big risks" are involved in running a successful financial firm?
Or even one which has failed badly. e.g. the banks who needed to be bailed out by various governments.
In the UK, there used to be two cable companies which merged, bought Virgin Mobile and with it the rights to use the Virgin brand across their entire business.
Actually there used to be a fairly large number of independent cable companies, who also provided telephone lines in more or less in direct competition with BT. These started to merge eventually leaving only NTL and Telewest. A side effect of these mergers was that companies who had been quite activly expanding their networks (or at least putting in ductwork) stopped doing so. IIRC There were even cases of merged companies losing records of their external plant. Even after the creation of "Virgin Media" it took a long for "Telewest" and "NTL" to go away especially on their business telecoms side.
Go ahead and make an order. Your pizza may require reheating on arrival though.
They'd probably want to order from the Auckland store. Though I wasn't able to find how much Air New Zealand would want for shipping a pizza across the Pacific or if the US authorities would allow it to leave LAX.
Their server would execute any SQL query sent to it. The SQL queries were hard coded into the Flash objects they used.
:)
Pity the first extra command sent to it wasn't a DROP DATABASE
Pizza delivery service regularly calls because they can't find the clearly marked house on the clearly marked street.
:) There are also cases of truckers getting stuck on roads clearly signed as unsuitable through using inappropriate GPS maps.
Why? Because the leading GPS service places the house at the wrong end of the street, and if the GPS doesn't match the terrain, these idiots believe the GPS.
I've heard stories of people who have turned straight into brick walls or worse because their GPS told them, but before I moved here, I discounted these stories as wild exaggerations. Now I'm not so sure anymore.
Maybe the Darwin Awards website should sponsor a GPS system which tells people to drive off a cliff
...is why the hell some outfits feel the need to collect that much information about you just to sell you some food.
Maybe the ability to collect and store this came as standard with the system. With nobody ever bothering to ask if it was needed.
Without having even read a local driver's handbook, I managed to get only 3 wrong on the written "test" - stumped only by two roadsigns that I'd never seen anything like anywhere before (and haven't even seen any of while driving here) and a question whose "correct" answer I maintain was wrong (do pedestrians have right of way with no marked crossing)
That's because you get the issue of "jaywalking" a concept from North America which just dosn't exist elsewhere. In Europe you'd typically find that pedestrians always have right of way over motor vehicles. Probably they also have right of way over horse drawn vehicles
In Germany there's no speed limits but there's plenty of polizei on the roads. You can burn past a patrol car at 200mph, no problem, but if they see you tailgating, hogging a lane, using a phone or doing anything other than paying attention tot he road and driving the car they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. It works like a charm, Germany is one of the nicest places in the world to drive.
In other parts of Europe you instead have mechanical enforcement of speed limits, thing is that is all that speed/safety cameras can do. Which also ignores the many stupid/dangerous ways in which cars can be operated within the speed limit.
It sometimes amazes me in this age of data mining that there is not a database of every statement every major public figure has made on every issue kept by major new organizations.
Especially of anyone seeking re-election. This appears to be another issue where the "blogsphere" is ahead of the "Mainstream Media".
I stand by my attack on news organizations: They all suck and a comedy show is better at their job than they are.
"Comedy" has been a way of presenting news which is politically sensitive/incorrect for a very long time. Dosn't really matter if it's hand drawn political cartoon or a current TV show. Make something "funny" and many (but not all) topics which are taboo can be addressed.
I'm not American, but before Iraq I used to feel like the USA was if not a complete white knight, at least the least-worst big power in the world.
Even in the time of the "Cold War" it's unclear if the USA qualifies at "least worst" in comparison with the USSR. Even discounting the toppling of democratic governments there are issues such as apartheid and McCarthyism.
On the other hand, the United States claims to be whiter than white, and claims to value freedom and all the rest. Therefore, it is much more significant when you can prove the US government is saying one thing, but in reality is sending people for torture, lying to the electorate, doing things at the behest of energy company executives etcetera.
:)
As opposed to the behests of sugar and fruit companies. This isn't actually anything new historical examples going back at least as far as the mid 19th century.
Yet there are still people who believe things along the lines of "Even if this happened 20/30 years ago, the current people in charge are better". Many of them will still believe this even if it can be shown that the current people are associated with, the offspring of, even the exact same people who were in charge a few decades ago. No doubt their opposite numbers in China think the Chinese government is perfect
Personally I'm not convinced that politicians have improved since Roman times. It's a combination of power corrupting and power tending to attract the corrupt/corruptable.
Security through obscurity is essentially no security at all.
BR>When you have large numbers of devices you don't even have obscurity.
The only thing that should be secret is the private encryption key that is uniquely associated with the remote control, which should be under strict physical security at all times.
For an implanted device you don't even require the "remote" to be that remote. Especially if you have a device powered by batteries which cannot be recharged in place.
What you say? There's no encryption implemented in these devices? That's a big problem whether the code is open or not.
When it comes to cryptography proprietary software is a problem. Even if those writing it don't try to invent their own (typically worthless) algorithm it's very hard to verify if their implimentation is correct. It can be hard enough even with OSS.
Most of us wouldn't know where to get our hands on a new or used pacemaker to begin reverse engineering it.
Considering that such devices would be considered "hazmat" in the case of cremation quite possibly even in a grave there's a quite obvious place to look.
While possible, it's highly unlikely. These companies aren't proprietary software companies. They're medical device companies. They don't sell software, they sell medical devices. While the software is an integral part of the device, it's just one piece of many. These companies simply don't think of the software as a separate entity.
In which case what is the point of their using proprietary software in the first place?
But the real world is full of the unexpected, and putting a CPU in a device makes its response to the unexpected potentially much more complex. How complex? As complex as a faulty algorithm could be. And you'll never catch that fault if the algorithm looks right to casual inspection and passes the tests you happen to have contrived.
An issue certainly not helped if it's possible to put what amounts to a general purpose OS into an embeded device. Which adds much unnecessary complexity which may avoid being tested at all.
But in a universe of software that is safe enough for a reasonable person to trust, there are bound to be quite a few horrible mistakes. The vast majority of proprietary software will be fine, but when there is a problem, there are two issues we have to consider. The first is that the software developer's management has a conflict of interest. If it doesn't kill that many people (or hasn't killed anyone yet), they might choose to hide a defect and fix it in the next release. The second is that the software developer's engineers may not be able to find the fault, because it reflects deficiencies in their thinking and technique. Fresh eyes, free of any preconception are needed.
It's quite possible that a major fault maybe very obvious to many people may be overlooked by those involved in the project because they are "too close to the problem"; it's outside of their specialty (security and cryptography being issues raised in the original article); etc.
From the number of FOSS projects I've seen die on the vine because the developers drift away to other interests or just drift away, I'm not certain that FOSS is any better.
It's rather more difficult to find out when something similar happens with proprietary software. Nor is it easy to identify proprietary software which really should have "died" for various reasons. Including being superceded by a better tool, being of very poor quality, etc.
The GPL is a licence which gives you permission to copy provided you meet certain conditions. If you don't agree to those conditions, then basic copyright law applies - you can't copy at all except where it is covered by fair use, so if you don't comply, it becomes a software piracy case. This is strengthened by the fact that if you copy without complying with the GPL, then according to the GPL you lose the rights to copy under its terms,
Actually where the GPL applies is passing a copy to another party. You can make as many copies as you like, whatever kind of entity "you" might be, so long as applicable law considers you to be a "person" or equivalent.
Declaring the GPL invalid doesn't help Cisco use Busybox without the copyright owner's permission.
They are free to use the software, since the GPL is not an EULA. The GPL is primarily concerned with distribution to third parties. Anyone, including the largest "corporate people" on the planet, can run whatever GPL software they like without there being an issue.
The Busybox cases are not GPL cases, they are straightforward software piracy cases just the same as the guy who sells dodgy copies of Microsoft Office at car boot sales.
Whilst there's no difference with the sellers here there is a difference between the buyers. If you buy a "dodgy copy" (assuming there is any other kind) of Microsoft Office then you are also a "pirate".
If you acquire a pirated copy of any GPL software then you are free to make use of it. You only become a pirate if you start distributing to others without complying with the GPL. There are also situations such as corporate mergers where such "piracy" may only briefly exist. Copyright holders tend to be most concerned with commercial pirates though.
Unless they used some of that 10 billion dollars to have the GPL declared invalid, or something to that effect. Yes, it's nonsensical, but $10 billion can help finance a lot of campaigns, plenty of astroturfers, and an army of lawyers, so I'm not so sure they couldn't do it.
How much would it cost to but the entire music and "movie" industries (probably quite a few proprietary software companies too) together with their existing (worldwide) copyright lobbying system? Who would otherwise oppose a "new kid" on "their turf"...
http://kyon.pl/img/16258,oil,map,.html
Strange map which omits a sizable part of the planet.
Here are 2 other examples of harmless words that are filtered by DansGuardian (which is the filter we use in my company, and probably the one used here):
:)
Nice to see the "Scunthorpe Effect" is still going strong
However the same issue of confusion applies in any situation where it matters whether you're creating a derivative work or not. With proprietary software, that means people "take the easy way out" and avoid doing anything with the software that could possibly be derivative. The only time the issue doesn't matter is when the license is so liberal it doesn't matter if your work is derivative or not because you can just repackage it with whatever license you want anyway.
I suspect that there is quite a degree of piracy in the proprietary world, especially where distribution is binary only.
If a policeman walking down the road sees you shooting a gun at your girlfriend through the window with the open blinds he will damn sure rush in and intervene. "Plain sight" is not covered by the 4th ammendment
But the police officer can't see through a blind or other than visible light.
and broadcast data is much closer to "plain sight" than thermal imagery from INSIDE the house.
If anything thermal imagery is rather closer to "plain sight" since it is possible to wear a machine which will turn what isn't usually visible light into visible light. However you can't easily do this with 2.4/5GHz signals.