We need to stop working just to accomplish the minimal functionality desired and start testing the hell out of our software to ensure that it's secure.
Everyone has two complaints about the software he/she uses:
It's not secure/stable enough
It doesn't have enough features
No one accepts, that the enhancement of one leads to a degradation of the other one. Cisco has a nice approach (at least they had it during my ISP days): There is a feature rich version and a stability oriented version. The pick is yours.
a few weeks ago there were such carts in a supermarket here in Kiel (Germany). You could see customer jump in surprise when those carts started babbling. After a short period of time the customers knew, which carts were equipped with such devices and avoided them. Soon all those carts were removed from the store.
As i even dislike store clerks who try to talk to me unasked, i may not be the right person to judge this idea;-). But if those carts become standard issue, my wire cutter would too.
I thought at least the Slashdot editors were smarter and more ethical than this.
Removing those links would not serve any usefull purpose but would set an indecent precedent. Anyone able to handle eDonkey or relatives already finds the file in plenty. But i think, postings with links to it should be moderated down not up.
They will fine the DVD consortium for region coding. I'm sure that it's cheaper to buy american DVDs than the the euro ones that are likely released much later.
Strangely not. At least it wasn't cheaper in the U.S. last year (when i last visited SF). It may have changed recently. DVDs cost currently around 18 Euro, movie hits up to 25 Euro. LotR (2 DVDs) came out for 17 Euro. Currently i can only compare
Amazon.com with Amazon.de and Amazon.de is cheaper (while Amazon itself isn't cheap).
But the advantage of being an US customer lays in choice instead of pricing. The movies available increased severly last year but still are less than 20% of the choices in the US. Therefor i pay the higher prices of Amazon.com (postage and import tax coming on top).
And your version of Half-Life slightly altered as well, from a similar law IIRC?
Half-Life was edited too, but for other reasons. Computer games are rated for youth compatability and they omitted some blood to avoid an "R" rating. But there are patches to fix this ("blood patches" are available nearly for every shooter sold here).
Counterstrike has been a huge issue. There has been a school shooting (worse than Littleton) recently. At the same time, there was the rating of Counterstrike. As it turned out, the "killer" (16 years old) has a copy of Counterstrike (some newspaper wrote, that he "trained with it"). When the comission turned down the motion to rate counterstrike "R", the politicians were in an uproar and were talking about stricter laws.
All this discussions are very complex, most topics are highly political and the decision makers are free of clues. I love it:-(.
Yours, Martin
P.S. I'm lobbying against internet censorship for years, but as shareholder of an (small) ISP i may be biased;-).
Germany being forbidden to discuss Nazism is like Christians being forbidden from discussing the Crusades.
Please distinguish: It is not forbidden to discuss it, it is even encouraged to discuss it. It is forbidden to use the symbol of "criminal organisations" (SS, NSDAP, Swastika) without appropiate context. I discussed Nazism in my oral exam (a theme i selected) in my final high school year and it scored the best mark in oral exams that year;-).
Examples:
Illustrate your term paper with photos of 1936 which show the swastika flags over the city: no problem
Design a computer game where all enemies show SS badges: problem
Use a Swastika as background image for your home page: problem
Write a web page over the usage of Swastikas in history even showing examples of recent german history: no problem
There is even a logic behind it, even if i do not agree with it. The main reasoning is: the constituion does not protect action which aim at the abolition of the constitution. As the Nazism
was the breakdown of constitutionalism, the uncritical showup their symbols is considered as action against the consitutuion.
I think it doesn't make sense to continue "Yes, they are". Give me an email address and some time and i'll give you the pointers.
About our history, i know more than it is good for a sound sleep;-). I don't think the "censorship" rules make sense today, but i at least understand the reasoning behind it. And some of them made sense in their time (pre-internet, post-war). Some of the censorship rules result directly from the lessons learned. History teaches you a lot, but it is not unambigous.
About "fighting in wars": I neither did nor intend to do. There are issues i would be willing to fight for, but i still hope it can be avoided. But i think we're still very aware of the war in the results. The city i live in was a submarine harbour and the post-war photos look like Hiroshima and Nagasaki (100% destruction in the city center, 70% in the city including suburbs). We still have evacuations or road blocks about once a month for bomb defusing (and those were dumb ones, they had only to explode) and if you have an eye for it, you see a lot of (fixed) bomb damages.
Frankly I find it rather interesting that Germany is censoring and banning pro-Nazi sites and literature that it doesn't agree with. Gee, sounds rather familiar to a Germany of the past..
The laws currently are quite old and go back to the
military goverment by the U.S. and allies. The theory behind it is, that allowing the publication of it would offer new insults to the victims.
The laws are quite useless in the internet age. But nobody asks them removed because it would look like
as the person asking would be in favour of such information.
I think the other way round (humans with pig genes) has already been implemented successfully. At least i met some cases in which this would offer a perfect explanation.
I think the global warming effect is still underestimated. Tourism will be our (or our children) least problem.
The global warming will have a severe effect on the agriculture. This will increase the pressure to migrate to other parts of the world. This will not increase political stability nor peacefullness. It is to be remembered that big migrations around the year 400 finished off the roman empire without breaking sweat. These (too) were caused by clima changes.
Higher temperatures mean "more" energy in the weather system. This increases the affected areas, probability and intensity of hurricanes and other "extreme weather situations".
There is no question of "if" this will be happening but only "when". We may still affect duration and intensity, but I have only little hope.
i think Jackson did a good work inside the court
room and a bad one outside. It was quite clear from the beginning, that there would be an appeal. In that case he should have tried everything to make it waterproof. But with the interviews he served a broadside of grapeshot to his own cause.
It may be a pitty that you may be right but saying so can put you wrong. But that's life.
I doubt it. A bandwidth of 1mbps means about 8MB per
minute. On a 700MB CD you'll have around 90 minutes
video. This is one movie (and not even that with
LoTR).
I think someone was a little bit overoptimistic:-).
>>Whitfield Diffie is Sun's chief security officer, and co-invented public-key cryptography.
>Actually, Ralph Merkle invented public-key cryptography (too). Merkle's article was SUBMITTED first, though the Diffie-Hellman article was PUBLISHED first while Merkle's was still going through the review process.
As far as i know, neither of them was the first. The first was some british scientist paid by the british army. So he wasn't allowed to publish it.
If anyone is interested in names and dates, i can
look it up.
And surprise surprise, they immediately got raided by the FBI.
Sounds like darwins principles at work.
Is there something like the darwin award for companies? In that case, making an unauthorized security scan of army computers and bragging in the press about it, clearly qualifies for it (like climbing into a tigers cage to pet them does for humans).
Back to serious: If you're in the security business, only talk to the press when your customer wants it and pays for it.
it is perfectly legal to make a "private use" copy
of a DVD. It is even legal to give it a friend for
free. At least, this is all legal here in germany
(by now).
So, all this will be still possible later? Well, i'm
completely happy;-).
> How will extras on the disc make you consider buying it rather than copying it ? Unless of course you can fit slightly less on a DVD-RW- I haven't kept up on the features of the various DVD writable formats.
First of all, the lack of space (4.7GB compared to 9.4GB of a normal DVD) forces you omitt some stuff. Usually you have to recode longer movies to fit on a DVD-R(W). After you recoded it, it is difficult to restore menus and jumps to certain chapters. After copying, in most cases you only got a video on a DVD.
Wrong, it has collapsed long since. I don't know any one who hasn't a region free DVD player and nearly every one of my friends has one.
Even copying DVDs isn't exactly unheard of. As the
prices for DVD-R(W) approach 2$ per disk, it will
get more frequent if there isn't a value add in buying the original DVD (cut scenes, making of, etc.).
i think the case should be dropped but i think also, that the security consultant forgot about rule one:
Analyze the security or check for holes only when you got hired for it by the affected company. Don't rely on a spoken permission, get it written
Even then you may spend a miserable weekend trying
to calm down the CEO of a company several hundred times the size of your company. Believe me, the more permissions you have, the better. In my case, after three days i got all involved managers back from the trees back down to the ground. But only because we observed this rule.
From a business point of view: There are people out there (like me), who try to make a living by checking for such things. If you do it, be sure to get paid for. Otherwise it's unfair competition. And being paid for is as good as a permission.
Another hint: avoid press at any costs. They don't get it. My experiences are, that most journalists won't even get the spelling of your name right. They will try to add sex&crime because it makes their article more interesting. This isn't good for your reputation.
If you stumble over a hole by accident. Leave it, don't even poke. Inform the affected organisation at a technical level as silently as you can (and describe why it was an accident). If they don't act, keep quiet. You may bang your head against the wall if it helps you, but leave them.
> it will be a slug on the next generation of games
Nope, high end notebooks are not equal to a hard core gamers PC, but they are not three steps back.
I'm using a Dell Inspiron 8200 and up to now, i haven't encountered any gaming problem. Even Jedi Knight II works at 1600*1200 resolution without a flicker;-).
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone has two complaints about the software he/she uses:
No one accepts, that the enhancement of one leads to a degradation of the other one. Cisco has a nice approach (at least they had it during my ISP days): There is a feature rich version and a stability oriented version. The pick is yours.
Martin
a few weeks ago there were such carts in a supermarket here in Kiel (Germany). You could see customer jump in surprise when those carts started babbling. After a short period of time the customers knew, which carts were equipped with such devices and avoided them. Soon all those carts were removed from the store.
As i even dislike store clerks who try to talk to me unasked, i may not be the right person to judge this idea ;-). But if those carts become standard issue, my wire cutter would too.
Yours, Martin
Removing those links would not serve any usefull purpose but would set an indecent precedent. Anyone able to handle eDonkey or relatives already finds the file in plenty. But i think, postings with links to it should be moderated down not up.
Yours, Martin
I miss:
Don't you miss that ones too?
Yours, Martin
Strangely not. At least it wasn't cheaper in the U.S. last year (when i last visited SF). It may have changed recently. DVDs cost currently around 18 Euro, movie hits up to 25 Euro. LotR (2 DVDs) came out for 17 Euro. Currently i can only compare Amazon.com with Amazon.de and Amazon.de is cheaper (while Amazon itself isn't cheap).
But the advantage of being an US customer lays in choice instead of pricing. The movies available increased severly last year but still are less than 20% of the choices in the US. Therefor i pay the higher prices of Amazon.com (postage and import tax coming on top).
Yours, Martin
Half-Life was edited too, but for other reasons. Computer games are rated for youth compatability and they omitted some blood to avoid an "R" rating. But there are patches to fix this ("blood patches" are available nearly for every shooter sold here).
Counterstrike has been a huge issue. There has been a school shooting (worse than Littleton) recently. At the same time, there was the rating of Counterstrike. As it turned out, the "killer" (16 years old) has a copy of Counterstrike (some newspaper wrote, that he "trained with it"). When the comission turned down the motion to rate counterstrike "R", the politicians were in an uproar and were talking about stricter laws.
All this discussions are very complex, most topics are highly political and the decision makers are free of clues. I love it :-(.
Yours, Martin
P.S. I'm lobbying against internet censorship for years, but as shareholder of an (small) ISP i may be biased ;-).
Please distinguish: It is not forbidden to discuss it, it is even encouraged to discuss it. It is forbidden to use the symbol of "criminal organisations" (SS, NSDAP, Swastika) without appropiate context. I discussed Nazism in my oral exam (a theme i selected) in my final high school year and it scored the best mark in oral exams that year ;-).
Examples:
There is even a logic behind it, even if i do not agree with it. The main reasoning is: the constituion does not protect action which aim at the abolition of the constitution. As the Nazism was the breakdown of constitutionalism, the uncritical showup their symbols is considered as action against the consitutuion.
Yours, Martin
I forgot my email address: martinseeger..de@@ms (invert user name and domain, dots and @ are doubled).
I think it doesn't make sense to continue "Yes, they are". Give me an email address and some time and i'll give you the pointers.
About our history, i know more than it is good for a sound sleep ;-). I don't think the "censorship" rules make sense today, but i at least understand the reasoning behind it. And some of them made sense in their time (pre-internet, post-war). Some of the censorship rules result directly from the lessons learned. History teaches you a lot, but it is not unambigous.
About "fighting in wars": I neither did nor intend to do. There are issues i would be willing to fight for, but i still hope it can be avoided. But i think we're still very aware of the war in the results. The city i live in was a submarine harbour and the post-war photos look like Hiroshima and Nagasaki (100% destruction in the city center, 70% in the city including suburbs). We still have evacuations or road blocks about once a month for bomb defusing (and those were dumb ones, they had only to explode) and if you have an eye for it, you see a lot of (fixed) bomb damages.
Yours, Martin
The laws currently are quite old and go back to the military goverment by the U.S. and allies. The theory behind it is, that allowing the publication of it would offer new insults to the victims.
The laws are quite useless in the internet age. But nobody asks them removed because it would look like as the person asking would be in favour of such information.
Yours, Martin
I think the other way round (humans with pig genes) has already been implemented successfully. At least i met some cases in which this would offer a perfect explanation.
Martin
I hope he knows such trips to conferences may last longer than expected. Instead of bodyguards he should be guarded by lawyers.
Yours, Martin
I think the global warming effect is still underestimated. Tourism will be our (or our children) least problem.
There is no question of "if" this will be happening but only "when". We may still affect duration and intensity, but I have only little hope.
Yours, Martin
i think Jackson did a good work inside the court room and a bad one outside. It was quite clear from the beginning, that there would be an appeal. In that case he should have tried everything to make it waterproof. But with the interviews he served a broadside of grapeshot to his own cause.
It may be a pitty that you may be right but saying so can put you wrong. But that's life.
Yours, Martin
I think someone was a little bit overoptimistic :-).
Yours, Martin
>Actually, Ralph Merkle invented public-key cryptography (too). Merkle's article was SUBMITTED first, though the Diffie-Hellman article was PUBLISHED first while Merkle's was still going through the review process.
As far as i know, neither of them was the first. The first was some british scientist paid by the british army. So he wasn't allowed to publish it. If anyone is interested in names and dates, i can look it up.
Yours, Martin
Worries about which side pays you are clearly second priotity :-).
Martin
Sounds like darwins principles at work.
Is there something like the darwin award for companies? In that case, making an unauthorized security scan of army computers and bragging in the press about it, clearly qualifies for it (like climbing into a tigers cage to pet them does for humans).
Back to serious: If you're in the security business, only talk to the press when your customer wants it and pays for it.
Yours, Martin
it is perfectly legal to make a "private use" copy of a DVD. It is even legal to give it a friend for free. At least, this is all legal here in germany (by now).
So, all this will be still possible later? Well, i'm completely happy ;-).
Yours, Martin
First of all, the lack of space (4.7GB compared to 9.4GB of a normal DVD) forces you omitt some stuff. Usually you have to recode longer movies to fit on a DVD-R(W). After you recoded it, it is difficult to restore menus and jumps to certain chapters. After copying, in most cases you only got a video on a DVD.
Yours, Martin
Wrong, it has collapsed long since. I don't know any one who hasn't a region free DVD player and nearly every one of my friends has one.
Even copying DVDs isn't exactly unheard of. As the prices for DVD-R(W) approach 2$ per disk, it will get more frequent if there isn't a value add in buying the original DVD (cut scenes, making of, etc.).
Yours, Martin
i think the case should be dropped but i think also, that the security consultant forgot about rule one:
Analyze the security or check for holes only when you got hired for it by the affected company. Don't rely on a spoken permission, get it written
Even then you may spend a miserable weekend trying to calm down the CEO of a company several hundred times the size of your company. Believe me, the more permissions you have, the better. In my case, after three days i got all involved managers back from the trees back down to the ground. But only because we observed this rule.
From a business point of view: There are people out there (like me), who try to make a living by checking for such things. If you do it, be sure to get paid for. Otherwise it's unfair competition. And being paid for is as good as a permission.
Another hint: avoid press at any costs. They don't get it. My experiences are, that most journalists won't even get the spelling of your name right. They will try to add sex&crime because it makes their article more interesting. This isn't good for your reputation.
If you stumble over a hole by accident. Leave it, don't even poke. Inform the affected organisation at a technical level as silently as you can (and describe why it was an accident). If they don't act, keep quiet. You may bang your head against the wall if it helps you, but leave them.
I know, it's hard to bear.
Yours, Martin
Martin
> it will be a slug on the next generation of games
;-).
Nope, high end notebooks are not equal to a hard core gamers PC, but they are not three steps back.
I'm using a Dell Inspiron 8200 and up to now, i haven't encountered any gaming problem. Even Jedi Knight II works at 1600*1200 resolution without a flicker
CU,
Martin
Hi,
Napster has been dead for such a long time, that not only the business model stinks.
CU,
Martin