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User: Passacaglia

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  1. At least stop calling it the PATRIOT act on USA PATRIOT Act Survives Amendment Attempt · · Score: 1

    It's just so Orwellian.

  2. Obligatory Orwell quote on Dept. of Homeland Security Says to Stop Using IE · · Score: 1

    "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink."

  3. Re:Mr 640k and unimportant internet on Gates: Hardware, Not Software, Will Be Free · · Score: 1

    Yeah, this guy's predictive powers have been totally awesome. Just last month he was saying, 'viruses are good'. Then he was at Harvard at the beginning of March talking about the brave new world of computing in the coming decade - which he backed up by showing the audience a watch that would alert him when he got spam.

    I mean, the writers for The Jetsons had a better handle on the future than Bill.

  4. Re:Code rewrites going to be needed? on AMD Could Profit from Buffer-Overflow Protection · · Score: 1

    I recall disassembling ms basic, the original one, in 1979. I wish I could remember the exact instruction sequence, but there was a jump into the _middle_ of an instruction - one branch was to a two-byte instruction, like ldy #value, the other was to a one-byte instruction, like rol, and #value was equal to the opcode for rol.

    Of course, in those days, memory was very expensive, and this maneuver saved you 2.3 cents. This piece of software was a miracle of compression, a thing of beauty in its way.

  5. Never mind slot machines on Voting Machines Vs. Slot Machines · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about state lottery systems and machines? Almost nationwide, these outfits are audited & controlled to a degree which shows where our real priorities are.

  6. Re:What the...? on Belkin Routers Route Users to Censorware Ad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Uh. . . Clem" was the answer given by a character on a Firesign Theatre record We're all Bozos on this Bus, circa 1970, when asked by a computer for his name.

  7. Viruses, whitelists, & spam on P2P Spam? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's logical for spamware writers to turn to viruses, but not necessarily to propagate spam, but as a way to cull addresses and acceptable headers for spams to those addresses. This will enable them to penetrate whitelists, and even Bayesian filters which use headers as fodder for analysis.

    My personal email address, which I reveal to almost no one, has now been spread across the world because it was in the address book of someone who opened SoBig.

  8. Re:I think we speak for all of us: on SCO: Code Proof Analyzed, Linus Interviewed · · Score: 1

    Then there's the Intel manuals, showing the pins involved in multi-processor systems, and how to use them, and the programming model. There's no black magic here.

  9. Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... on Putting the TV Broadcast Spectrum to Better Use? · · Score: 1

    I would get cable if I didn't have to deal with any monopolies. . .

    I wish that all cities & towns had contracted with a cable _laying_ company, the way they do with public roads, and then let any content provider (who wants to pay for the bandwidth) use the cable. Any money left over goes to public services, maybe even Internet bandwidth for residents.

    But as it is, cable is no bargain; bad service, escalating prices, bundling, the usual bag of monopolist tricks.

  10. Re:Centralising security on Passport for Linux On the Way · · Score: 1

    Even if centralized security is stipulated to be a good thing, Passport makes no sense. Passport is a lot like Kerberos, in that you have password servers, and services which ask for tickets which you got from the password servers; and the whole thing runs out in the open, where anyone in the world with packet sniffing software can intercept the whole exchange. The problem with this is that Kerberos only makes sense when those who control the services also control the password servers. Kerberos at MIT makes sense, because the printers and file servers and wiring and power are all provided by MIT, so they definitely should control the password servers. On the Web, however, MS wants to turn this relationship upside-down: by virtue of controlling the password servers, they want to gain control the Web. (Imagine if MS could cut off any Web-based business if they didn't toe the MS line).

    There are other models of centralized or distributed security that make more sense for the Web. See David Wheeler's essay on email security based on secure DNS. It seems to me these ideas could be extended to provide authentication on the Web without extending more power to those who have no standing to wield it (I'm talking about MS)

  11. Ironic quote from de Tocqueville himself: on ADTI Whitepaper Released · · Score: 1

    "In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned."

    Alexis de Tocqueville

    In the United States in the 21st century, this is clearly manifested by resistance to a sensible tool like the GPL.

  12. "A certain amount of tolerance?" on ReplayTV Users Sue Hollywood · · Score: 1

    Just how much tolerance, exactly? You feel you have even a _little_ say about when I go to the bathroom?

    Go ahead, dig your own grave nice and deep. . .

  13. Dig this. . . on Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Privacy · · Score: 1

    I had just closed my account at yahoo when I got the e-mail telling me they were selling me out, unless I opted out of 13 categories of abuse. . .I went to the privacy link in the e-mail - but I couldn't get there, 'cause my account was closed! So I've been getting spammed silly since.

  14. Better as a cautionary tale. . . on MS Pressuring NW Schools: Pay Up, Or Face Audit · · Score: 1

    It is probably too late for the Oregon school district. . .I intend to follow this case, and find out in the end how much $$ they have to fork over to MS; them I'm going to the school districts here in Massachusetts, and ask them, "Can you afford MS software, at any price?" Prudent administrators should dump MS like tea into a harbor.

  15. Re:Windows IS modular:error in your comment on Declawing Windows: Impossible? · · Score: 1

    The states are not, in fact, seeking any damages other than reimbursement of their legal costs in pursuing this case.

  16. Re:Uhh... no; more data on MS: Use the Source, Luke! · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the lab where I work at MIT, we were given 2 high-end Dell boxes with NT on them. We purchased 5 IBM machines, Win98 installed whether we wanted it or not. Only one of these machines now has an MS OS still installed; Linux has nearly wiped out the competition here.

    There's a Solaris cluster in the basement of our building, and an MS NT lab; four out of every five times I walk down that corridor, the NT lab is empty. The Solaris cluster is never empty.

  17. Then no broadband for me on FCC: Cable ISPs Need Not Give Competitors Access · · Score: 1

    I don't need any more monopolies in my life.

  18. Stooping to Microsoft's level on Borking Outlook Express · · Score: 1

    is stooping low indeed.

  19. PBS's Frontline on Review: Black Hawk Down · · Score: 3, Insightful

    did a piece on the rangers' escape from Mogadishu; it also dealt with the disappointment felt by the military when the operation was considered by the administration to be a failure, because they _did_ get their man, and their frustration when they were pulled out of Somalia. But the best part, and what made this the best Frontline ever, was that the story was told mainly by the rangers themselves. These dudes were totally amazing - articulate, intelligent, down-to-earth, just talking about what happened to them and their friends, and their narrative made this the most powerful Frontline ever. See it if you can.

  20. Links for the motivated; on Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions · · Score: 1

    If you're inspired to become a gadfly to those who think they can turn you into a consuming conforming ruminant:

    First off, check out Dennis Powell's advice on responding to the DOJ's attempt to give the Internet to MS.

    Never let your senator or congressperson do anything that concerns you and your liberties without hearing from you.

    I've never seen Common Cause mentioned here, but they are a real lobbying group who deserve your support and dollars, have done so for decades.

  21. Pls omit the THINK MAN bull**it, or don't respond on MS Oversight Committee Hopeful Stephen Satchell Answers · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    message

  22. Question 7: I disagree on MS Oversight Committee Hopeful Stephen Satchell Answers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    MS was really stagnant during the MS-DOS days, and would probably have been supplanted if not for the per-processor licenses.

    To really and truly 'deprive them of the fruits of their anticompetitive behavior' would mean pushing them out of existence - something few would want, but it leaves that part of the judgement utterly subjective - unfortunately.

  23. Re:Qt if you need Win32 on GTK-- vs. QT · · Score: 1

    I've been doing a GUI for an app which was Motif, and I've been using GTK+, because it's under LGPL, unlike QT, which is GPL or pay. Last Friday, just to see, I ported the GUI to windows. Took fifteen minutes, and everything worked perfectly - even my xpm icons were rendered correctly, and the 3-button mouse functions. The widgets are drawn using GDK drawing functions, rather than using the widgets from the widget-set-with-no-name that is bolted to the windows kernel, so that the usability problems of that widget set don't appear in your app ( Like the scrollbar indicators which pop to their original position if the pointer momentarily goes out of the scrollbar trough).

    In short, portability is not a problem with GTK+, it's fast (on Linux and Windows), and version 1.2 is well-organized (don't know about v. 2)

  24. Exactly on MS Sez Hailstorm To Play Nice With Others · · Score: 1

    Running a version of Kerberos on the Internet makes sense for some applications, perhaps e-commerce; as long as the people running the authentication servers are competent about reliability and security, and those people must be trustworthy, and not have conflicts of inerest over privacy.

    Microsoft should be nowhere near those servers.

  25. I'm surprised. . . on Hotmail Servers Shut Down by Code Red · · Score: 1

    Their spokesperson is admitting they were infected. This is just the sort of thing MS usually lies about.