"Its the the must see, romping fun-fest of the year!" -- Billy-Joe, XXXKZ - Backwoods Radio
"Now that I've seen [movie], my entire existance as a human being is fullfilled! You should KILL yourself if you don't see [movie]!" -- Joe, Joe's Photocopied Press
You always have to consider the source of a review. The product being reviewd makes little difference; be it movies or software, its all the same. Linux certainly doesn't change this.
Sure Linux involves some nice ideals and a great bunch of developers. But now its a part of the software industry. Bias can exist because of a good product. But it will also be bought.
Any industry is littered with "product reviews" that are either thinly edited company press releases, or produced by publications/authors who shy away from the negative aspects of the product under scrutiny. This is where organizations with a thourough, fair, and unbiased reputation shine. Think Consumer Reports.
This is also the power of community forums such as Slashdot. Want to know if the posted story is marketing fluff? The technical community favoring sites like this are often all too keen to share with you their own insight. Burried in the midst of joking, rants, and half-baked opinions will be good arguments on various points concerning the topic in question. The truth becomes available for personal consideration.
Without going too far on a Jon Katz tangent - THIS is why sites such as Slashdot is truely "new media" and ZDNet is just another form of publication.
Fair Use is a pain in the RIAA's side. They'd be glad to have that bit of copyright law burried, yet it prevails - and not for a lack of effort on the RIAA's part.
Sift through a few of the older Slashdot articles on SDMI. There are some real gems in there that point to the SDMI format providing a technical "fix" to fair use that the courts refuse to change. One specific example is the dislike the RIAA has for the public's right to make a tape copy of a CD to play in their car stereo.
At one point, RIAA's home page had a FAQ that stated any form of music copying with a home computer was illeagal. That would make MP3 recordings of copyrighted music illeagal whether you distributed them or made them for personal use. Interestingly, I wasn't able to find the link after a quick scan through the RIAA's site - either I didn't look hard enough or the RIAA is taking on a different tone.
What's even more interesting is Hatch asking specific questions of fair use that the RIAA has used as examples of illegal activity or specifically faught against in the past.
This issue revolves around one or more developers trying to be compensated for their efforts.
...
Is it worth saving the money for the license? Are you *really* saving money?
Is software good because it does not include a price tag? I understand this point and even agree with it to an extent. However, I think it is the incorrect focus of too many people looking at Open Source progects.
Of course a lack of a price tag alone does not make a software package better than its commercial counterparts. The old standard is that "freeware isn't worth money." The statement is an over-simplification, but it has some truth in it. Its not a matter of price - its a matter of functionality. Price is simply a factor - and of differing weight depending on your available funds and ability to negotiate a license.
I'm currently working on progect with a major US company in comparing SSH2 to OpenSSH as a company standard. The ability to negotiate a license and the available funds is not a major issue - price is a relatively minor factor. Its become a very heated debate with those involved. OpenSSH is holding its own very well against its commercial counterpart. The only failing so far is less support for Windows environments. Again, its a matter of functionality.
In the end, if the company ends up with the commercial SSH2 package we'll still see OpenSSH showing up in the environment. There are a lot of technical users who strongly support it. The only difference the lack of a price tag makes in this scenario is that those who support OpenSSH will be able to deploy it without justifying additional cost.
And there's the subtle point missed by those who fixate on prace tags - Open Source does not live or die by cost.
Here in Austin there's a company advertising their "DSL Cable Modem Technology."
Isn't that texas.net?
They're a hoot. Commercials seem to specifically target the AOL customer base. Policies and actions support users who pay, but don't use, the service. "DSL Cable Modem Technology" fits right in with their ideal customer base.
But I think that online is *not* the way to get to know someone/ask someone out.
I met a girl in the mid 80s on a multi-line BBS MUD. We teamed up to solve some of the puzzles and spent untold hours gaming online. A few phone conversations revealed that she lived about an hour away. We met on "neutral ground" for dinner and a movie. Despite some awkwardness from a real life meeting, we hit it off quite well.
Tomorrow will be our 11th Anniversary.
Its been a great marriage strengthened by life on several continents, twice as many cities, a war, and a handful of other life experiences. I'm more than grateful for the chance to interact with the people behind the dim glow of text, a computer, and a MODEM.
i was wondering why they are throwing money into a PR thing like this - whether they are rallying the subculture, or trying to create one..
I don't think you'll have to look TOO hard to find a pro-Microsoft subculture. Its not all that odd of a concept. Allow me two examples...
I remember when Microsoft was the underdog. They took on IBM. In court. And won. Shock. The little guy wins one - yay Microsoft! It was all different in the '80s. It was the birth of the microcomputer industry. I'm sure there are more than a few players in today's industry that started back then and have kept a narrow focus on Microsoft in order to keep up with the changes. Those folks are going to have a different nostalgia and a different perspective.
It was the early 90s and my po-dunk town finally managed public net access. A friend of mine caught on quickly to the whole web thing and promptly produced his first web page. At the bottom read "Escape the Net - use Microsoft Internet Explorer!" It was a call to arms against the Big Evil Netscape. And Microsoft was the champion underdog. While I didn't share his opinion, I did find it interesting that my friend (an otherwise intelligent individualist) came to that conclusion.
So are there Microsoft supporters? Of course. Situations change. Perceptions change. Truth becomes fluid. And that's why there is propoganda - pushing "the truth" despite fact.
No. As a member, you can use the facts to make informed decisions of your own. Meanwhile, we'll still count your membership towards our number of supporters on issues we lobby for despite whatever conclusions you make on your own.
I wonder if this is not just more PR designed to encourage stricter computer crime legislation and get NASA more funding for IT security.
I have to say that I ultimately agree. One should consider that the episode of the BBC show Panorama, where this report comes from, is specifically discussing computer security as a weak point in Western defense. Secondly, the story itself seems a bit over stated.
I think a bit of a background perspective would help a lot in considering the "truth" to this story.
Let's make our first assumption in that the center being discussed in Johnson Space Center, home of Mission Control. JSC has become one of the more network security aware centers within the NASA environment in recent years. That's not to say there aren't problems. JSC is one of the few that is at least aware of a network security clue train and occasionally buys a ticket and takes a ride. When they'll actually begin buying monthly passes is another question.
JSC confronts many of the same technical vulnerability issues other research institutions face. This means that much of JSC is ultimately vulnerable (hint to Joe Scriptkiddy - taking a NASA engineer's under-administered Linux test box is neither proof of any real skill, nor is it particularly enlightening to NASA officials). JSC is aware of this and treats Mission Control with extra precautions. Truly mission critical hardware is not going to be manipulated directly by Internet traffic. That's not to say that a network attack of some kind can't have some effect on a mission. And here's a key point. Even a minor effect provides a politician with plenty of fuel to fan the fires of hysteria. And don't expect it all from our elected officials. NASA is ran by politicians.
NASA (and ultimately JSC) network vulnerability is due to more than technical issues. There's a cultural clash within the security framework internal to JSC, NASA, and very likely many other Governmental institutions. Network security policy is being formed by old-guard "physical security" personnel. Network security is a fast-changing and alien environment to many of these officials. The technical targets shift at a rapid rate, and new ways of thinking often challenge old standbys (IE: debunking security through obscurity). Unfortunately, many physical security concepts do not transfer well to the new network security environment. There are occasional flashes of insight... and many more attempts to cling to the old, better-known environment.
One example of this is the penchant for prosecution. Its amazing to watch an organization bemoan a lack of funding to support security administration of an environment, then light up at the opportunity to pull production equipment offline and spend untold amounts of money and man hours to track down a script kiddy for defacing a minor internal web site. Spending funding on preventing the incident in the first place seems to get lost somewhere in the upper echelons.
So if today's mission control is safe from Joe Scriptkiddy, where'd this incident come from? 1997. In my experience, the mid 90's were way before the network security clue train - there wasn't even tracks laid down. It wasn't until the end of the decade that network security began to show up as a serious issue and positive steps were being made to do something about the situation. 1997? History.
So sure, NASA could use some improvement of their network security environment. And they certainly could use the funding. But to say there's lives on the line - that's political kindling to pass legislation and cook up some National Infrastructure Protection Center funding.
But admit it -- computers didn't become big business until Bill Gates got copyright protection on BASIC back in the early 80's. Then computers took off.
I believe you're leaving out a very important part of history. BASIC didn't make computers successful. Sure. Now your hobbiest computer could be used to do something - but what? Fiddle with code. Great for the hobbiest. But that's hardly making "home computers" (or "microcomputers") a large, common market.
For the home computer market to expand, it needed a lot of customers. Not just hobbiests. Buisnesses, followed by people buying computers for home due to exposure to them at work. But why would business be interested in a microcomputer? You needed a killer app.
That killer app was VisiCalc. If you look a bit in to its histor y, you'll find that VisiCalc was that killer app. It quickly paid for itself by reducing errors and reducing hours spent crunching numbers. VisiCalc was THE reason for a business to buy a microcomputer. What was once scoffed at as a non-serious hobbiest toy suddenly became a valuable tool and spawned a whole new industry. BASIC didn't do that, much less copyright law.
I know, you think this is flame-bait, but I'm serious. Free software is good to get things going, but copyright makes it big business and if you look at companies like IBM or Sony, big business can innovate and often does a damn better job than what comes out of somebody's garage.
Take a look at the IT industry. Look at big names such as Apple, Cisco, Sun. Where did these massive corporations spawn? From very humble "garage" beginnings. Even VisiCalc was developed in an attic of a rented apartment.
Sure... things have changed since then for all those companies. And Corporations are able to do things on an amazing scale - something required to make some innovations and manufacture products. But so much of what we enjoy today does not exist because of corporate innovation - it exists because a corporation has expanded on the innovative work done in somebody's garage. Without that work, there would be little for corporations to offer.
The Internet is all about obtaining information. If someone wants to find out whether Gillette or Schick is testing on lab rats, they shouldn't have to muddle through parody sites to get their information.
How would one find the desired site when there's millions to sift through?
Second link: "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)". There's your site. No parodies or differing political opinions to get in your way.
What a concept. Perhapse more people could use sites like Yahoo to find the information they need without blindly pounding out key combinations as URLs. Oh wait. They do.
The page gets it right when it says: "Note that this has nothing to do with computer (or phone) hacking (which we call "cracking")."
How right of you to point to MIT for origions to the "hacker" name! And the quote is a nice point, but an even better explanation can be found when you follow the link to their FAQ . There you will find the following:
Aren't hackers the people that break into computer networks?
Maybe to the rest of the world. Many of us at MIT call those who break into (crack) computer systems "crackers." At MIT, a "hacker" is someone who does some sort of interesting and creative work at a high intensity level. This applies to anything from writing computer programs to pulling a clever prank that amuses and delights everyone on campus.
And there's the crux of the problem. The "hacking" culture is generally a creative one - if a bit unorthodox. MIT, and other hotbeds of activity, generated their own culture way before the media dreamed it would devote so much front-page ink to computer issues.
The vandalism and network attacks that so often are labled as "hacks" have little to do with this creative culture. No wonder "hackers" would rather the media latch on to another buzzphrase for their headlines.
It's like an onion in a bushel of apples. Someone might notice that it looks and tastes different, but peel away its layers, and there's nothing there.
...therefore, onions don't exist. It was all a collective misidentification. Go back to your apples.
-- The Apple Growers Almanac
(...now... if we could figure out how to put banner adds on each layer of the onion and get them to peel away each layer... yea... we'd be on to something...)
Some people in the "corporate" world just want to take adventage in other's people work.
While I feel this is a perfectly true statement, I also fear there is another thing to consider. A misunderstanding. Confusion born of ignorance and not "getting it".
The whole Open Source concept (ie: freedom, not beer) escapes a great deal of people. They seem to waffle at the philisophical, as well as technical, aspects of Open Source. What they focus on instead is software that you can buy cheaply OR download for free. Corporate business types are especially prone to this. The end result? Open Source software is labled as "freeware".
Freeware? Beer! Grab.
Freeware has a whole different "feel" to it - from the old "get what you pay for" mentality to the free lunch crowd. The GPL must cause a great deal of confusion for these folks when they're eventually forced to look over it again.
On a semi-related side note... some of those in the industry do not help matters. SUN, for example, seems to enjoy labeling anything GPL as "freeware". You'd think they know better. In fact, I suspect they do.
And as for books, check out the Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, by Elizabeth Moon.
I've read a book or two of the series. Good stuff. It might be noted that Elizabeth Moon was an officer in the US Marines. Her books seem to reflect some of her military experiences coupled with a fairly well done "realistic" fantasy setting.
But is this limited to computer games, or does it extend to other activities? I would argue that any competitive activity will lead to increased aggression over my normal, fairly passive self.
Years ago, I knew guy in the Air Force who was a part of the Security Police squadron. It was a complete mismatch for his personality - he was a very quiet, reserved, and non-aggressive type (proof that one shouldn't join the military in "general purpose" - insist that your recruiter sign you up for a specific job that you think you'll like).
During exercises, he was on the base aggressor team. Personnel in various non-combat roles would be trained to augment base defense (one day you're a clerk, the next you're in a concrete bunker overlooking a field). The aggressor team would attack the augmentee's positions as part of the exercise.
There was a particularly annoying young lady that my friend was unable to ferret out. Time was ticking. The pressure built and he went after her with everything he had. He tossed a smoke grenade at the bunker and lit up her MILES gear as she staggered away from her position.
There was some hand-smacking for tossing ordnance at another person. Not the safest thing to do. And probably quite unpleasant. But my friend was much harder on himself. He was quite horrified at his own actions. "I wanted to take her out so bad. I mean... my God... I was salivating!"
The heat of the moment.
We all like to think we know ourselves. We have our boundaries that we feel comfortable with. There are logical reasons behind what we will and won't do. But to say we know exactly what we'll do while under the pressure of a dire moment is deluding ourselves. We may crumble. Or we may unleash a force we didn't know our psyche contained. And quite often, the situation may call for the actions that force enables us to do. Our survival may be dependent on it.
Taste is an individualistic thing. We all like different things. And perhaps nostalgia plays a strong role. To each their own. Having said that... I hated the DnD cartoon.
Oh. I was plenty excited about it when I had first heard that they were creating it. I awaited eagerly for a Sat. morning rendition of a cherished hobby. Warriors, magic users, elves, and dwarves... battling horrific creatures found crawling the dank passages of a dungeon or perhaps narrowly escaping an ambush of Orcs in a dark forest. Adventure. Puzzles. Fantastic tales and amazing, treasured artifacts. All the stuff of good Fantasy.
That's not what the DnD cartoon delivered.
What we got was a popular commercial property shoe-horned in to the typical American cartoon formula: regular kids get dumped in to a strange world, are each given a unique power, and fight a bad guy for whom all the events in this strange world seem to revolve around.
Homogenized action-figure selling fun. As much story line and complexity as He-Man.
Oh. Boy. How. Exciting. And. New.
And what a waste of the "Dungeons and Dragons" name.
One can only hope that the DnD movie due out won't fall in to Yet Another Formula.
I remember the pamphlets my grandparents sent me from their church. All about the evils and dangers of "Dungeons and Dragons". Pretty much chock-full of misinformation. And a good life lesson - even those we know and trust can be mislead by their good intentions.
Thankfully, my parents also showed enough concern to take a look at the games I was playing. Although they weren't wholey thrilled at them (being a bit more "mature" in subject then they liked), they did note that it didn't do any harm. Eventually, they were more concerned that I would upset my grandparents than DnD ruining my life.
Its actually rather interesting how the anti-DnD crowd could manipulate fears. I met my future inlaws and wife on a local MUD. My inlaws were big puzzle and adventure game fans. Yet a couple of years later, my mother-in-law had attended one of these "education seminars" at the local school and began voicing concern over role playing games. I was shocked. Here was a paper-and-pen version of what she herself had enjoyed for as long as I knew her. And yet she was concerned for the safety of her own daughter (not the one I married). I had a long discussion with her and eventually her own experience kicked in and the paranoia droped down a few notches.
The trouble is, there IS a bit of truth to be found in this fear. The film Mazes and Monsters was supposedly (loosely) based off of a real-life event (students ran live-action roleplaying games in the university's steam tunnels, one snapped). I've met a rare handfull of people who might be candidates for more such movies. For a very, very small few there might be some kind of danger. But then, I would question whether it is DnD or something else that has put them in that state of mind.
For me and thousands of others, role playing games have been (and sometimes still are) a constructive and enjoyable form of entertainment.
For hundreds of "professionals" and morally charged do-gooders activities like role playing (and Quake as a different example) is an unknown - best get it all with the same brush.
HTML is only easily searchable if your doc is stored in one big HTML document! AFAIK none of the popular browsers can search multiple HTML documents in any reasonable fashion.
There are several stand-alone HTML search utilities available. There's one that was mentioned several times the last time CDROM book collections were mentioned (unfortunately, I forget what was suggested - a bit of searching will probably turn it up).
Having said all that... O'Reilly includes their own java-based search engine with their CD Bookshelf series. And their offerings are a series of individual HTML files.
So yea... you don't need to have one fat file to search if you're willing to put a bit of extra effort in to it (or provide the tools as part of the documentation).
2. They'll never trust anything that's free. And I mean free as in price. "Anything that isn't expensive must suck" is the general mindset here.
You're not alone. I work in a large government facility and see the same bias. Its generally held by "old school" types who have a hard time differing between "open source" and "freeware". Freeware is junk. It can't be trusted. At least, that's the claim.
Its interesting to note that one line manager had expressed this bias during a discussion on SSH. The recommendation was to go with SSH1 until various issues with SSH2 have been ironed out. The manager in question had a hard time understanding this - SSH1 was "freeware". How could it be better than SSH2?
The latest meeting we had went back to this theme and our favorite line manager stood up and announced that he is beginning to change his mind. It was hard for him to do, he admited. And yes, while being biased against "free" software was an antiquated concept... its still a very real bias a lot of the old line managers have to deal with. And overcome.
As a side note, its always fun to refer to your bosses as "antiquated" in open meetings.
But back to the point... this bias is changing. Not everywhere. Not quickly. But the recent hype around Linux is doing Good Things even if Linux doesn't end up saving the world.
I couldn't disagree more. Come on people, what is the ultimate goal for handhelds in your world? In 10 years, do you want us al to be using Palm MCXXIII's with 24-bit color and wireless internet but still running minimalist PIM software?
Or, do you want a device that is a gameboy, cellphone, MP3 player, memo pad, PDA, camcorder, phaser:), etc. all in one slim form factor?
When I first got a Palm device a couple of years ago, I was shocked when I later saw Palm's marketing material. If I had seen just that, I would never have bought a Pilot. A fancy electronic rolodex and notepad - an executive's toy. Bah. Not for me.
But despite what the marketing fluff claimed, I hadn't bought a PIM. I had bought a slick device that developers were busy hacking all kinds of odd and interesting hardware and software for. While the standard apps ARE amazingly valuable, there are other 3rd party apps that also earn their (and the Palm device's) keep. Everything and the kitchen sink? If it's done well, load it on.
Microsoft incorporates into the Pocket PC's many of the things that ultimately I dream of using in my PDA. They are *far* ahead of the game technologically speaking. But their implementation sucks (at least it did in WinCE, and the C|Net review suggests it still suffers from those problems).
Well... yea. Implementation. That's the rub. Its a nice thought to say MS is ahead of the tech game... but if their offering isn't implemented properly, is it REALLY ahead? I don't think so.
Palm has succeeded for some very good reasons - they're functional. They work. They weren't the first PDAs available. They weren't able to leverage success in other markets. And they went against some stiff competition. Yet, they still come out on top. Palm's approach to functionality may not LOOK sexy to some people (I personally subscribe to the concept of "less is more") but its usefull.
Other attempts at PDA design have missed that very same mark.
Newcomers to the PDA scene would do well to take a good look at Palm's leasons learned. I think the subtle point here is that a Palm device CAN have tons of nifty gadgets hanging off of it - but it is not a replacement for your choice of computing platform. Its an extension to your desktop (or laptop as the case may be). It allows your data to be a bit more mobile. Perhapse it also enables you to do some things (manipulate a small amount of data, play a game, pull down a map, etc) on the move. But that's the limitation.
There are tasks that a PDA just isn't right for. Trying to force a PDA to do those tasks is an exercise in futility and a path to a failed product offering.
Many people reading Slashdot, maybe. How many people in the normal population have this view, though? I'll give you a clue, it's somewhere in the single digits.
I used to completely agree to this. The public are sheep, I would say, and of COURSE they have no idea what's really going on. They love Microsoft due to ignorance. While that still holds true in many cases, I no longer think it universal. I have two observations to support this change in mind.
First off, have you seen the recent fuzzy-feeling Microsoft commercial? Bill Gates looks like he's in a kids' school computer lab. He talks about when he and is friends decided to harness the power of the home computer and make lives better for everyone. And he expresses his hope to have the freedom to inovate in the future. Its a nice public opinion piece. No products... unless you count positive public opinion of Microsoft as one. I feel that there's a good reason for this add to show up on primetime TV.
The reason is simple. The public is beginning to sour towards Microsoft.
Last year I told this story here but I'll go ahead and tell it again as it still applies...
I was sitting at my desk when someone in the office space behind me began loudly bitching about Microsoft. Was it a fellow Unix admin browsing Slashdot and having a go at some trendy MS bashing? Was it one of my NT admin friends who make their living from supporting one of the nation's largest Microsoft installations... but still grumble at various failings of the products?
No.
The loud complaints were being issued by a decisively non-technical budget analyst who had just lost her work to Windows instability. She stared at a blue screen blaming Microsoft for her woes.
Think about this for a minute. The point is subtle, but a major one. A year or so earlier, she probably would have blamed computers. But now its no longer computers that are at fault - it was the products from Microsoft that caused her grief.
The cracks in Microsoft's public relations wall are beginning to show. There's no flood of public outcry yet; you're just as likely to run in to people on the street who either do not care or don't know anything but Windows. You're always going to find people who very deturminely support Windows and Microsoft. But more and more, I'm finding people who hold Microsoft in a less favorable light.
I have a fond memories of the F-4G having spent a handfull of years working on and/or around the aircraft (Electronic Warfare - specifically the AN/APR-47 RHAW system, AN/ALE-40 Flar/Chaff, and AN/ALQ-131 or AN/ALQ-184 ECM Pods).
Interesting mission. There's a few bits of lore that aren't mentioned by the above resources that might be applied to this discussion (decoy / defensive hosts).
Wild Weasel aircraft didn't need a drone to be usefull. Quite often they flew in hunter/killer pairs with other airframes (the last teams to fly were F-16 and F-4G teams). This meant the Wild Weasel aircraft themselves were often the target for ground weapons systems. The first Electronic Warfare Officer who was approuched during Vietnam with the mission replied (forgive me if I murder the quote):
"You want me to sit behind a stick jockey who thinks he's invincible, flying in an aircraft to hunt weapons systems designed to shoot down aircraft? You've GOT to be shitting me!"
The first Wild Weasel patches have a picture of a weasel with a shocked expression and the letters YGTBSM.
This quote seems to fit in with the question of how wise it is to deploy decoys in your environment.
However, there's also another interesting tidbit out of Wild Weasel history. At the beginning of hostilities during the Gulf War, Wild Weasel aircraft escorted most missions and decimated Iraqi air defence systems. This defense lead to a high demand for Wild Weasel escorts - more demand than available aircraft.
Commanders took a gamble. It was noted that enemy SAM and AAA sites would shut down immediately on discovering F-4 radar signitures in the area. So some missions got F-4C (unarmed reconnaissance aircraft) escorts. Since the F-4Cs were indistinguishable from their deadly F-4G cousins, F-4Cs were able to effectively supress enemy weapons systems by their mere pressence.
I suppose you could propose the question - if enough decoy systems show up in the environment, would it make potential attackers a bit jumpy if they couldn't tell the real from the decoys?
What the hell is propaganda? Where is the link? Where is the background information?
There's an amazing function that Slashdot supports - called Search. You can find previous mentions of almost any subject. You might find that there's quite a bit about Propaganda to be found.
Granted, this may not be the instant satisfaction all-on-a-silver-plater style that the web tends to foster these days. But I'm sure this kind of adversity will build character.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure Linux involves some nice ideals and a great bunch of developers. But now its a part of the software industry. Bias can exist because of a good product. But it will also be bought.
Any industry is littered with "product reviews" that are either thinly edited company press releases, or produced by publications/authors who shy away from the negative aspects of the product under scrutiny. This is where organizations with a thourough, fair, and unbiased reputation shine. Think Consumer Reports.
This is also the power of community forums such as Slashdot. Want to know if the posted story is marketing fluff? The technical community favoring sites like this are often all too keen to share with you their own insight. Burried in the midst of joking, rants, and half-baked opinions will be good arguments on various points concerning the topic in question. The truth becomes available for personal consideration.
Without going too far on a Jon Katz tangent - THIS is why sites such as Slashdot is truely "new media" and ZDNet is just another form of publication.
Sift through a few of the older Slashdot articles on SDMI. There are some real gems in there that point to the SDMI format providing a technical "fix" to fair use that the courts refuse to change. One specific example is the dislike the RIAA has for the public's right to make a tape copy of a CD to play in their car stereo.
At one point, RIAA's home page had a FAQ that stated any form of music copying with a home computer was illeagal. That would make MP3 recordings of copyrighted music illeagal whether you distributed them or made them for personal use. Interestingly, I wasn't able to find the link after a quick scan through the RIAA's site - either I didn't look hard enough or the RIAA is taking on a different tone.
What's even more interesting is Hatch asking specific questions of fair use that the RIAA has used as examples of illegal activity or specifically faught against in the past.
Of course a lack of a price tag alone does not make a software package better than its commercial counterparts. The old standard is that "freeware isn't worth money." The statement is an over-simplification, but it has some truth in it. Its not a matter of price - its a matter of functionality. Price is simply a factor - and of differing weight depending on your available funds and ability to negotiate a license.
I'm currently working on progect with a major US company in comparing SSH2 to OpenSSH as a company standard. The ability to negotiate a license and the available funds is not a major issue - price is a relatively minor factor. Its become a very heated debate with those involved. OpenSSH is holding its own very well against its commercial counterpart. The only failing so far is less support for Windows environments. Again, its a matter of functionality.
In the end, if the company ends up with the commercial SSH2 package we'll still see OpenSSH showing up in the environment. There are a lot of technical users who strongly support it. The only difference the lack of a price tag makes in this scenario is that those who support OpenSSH will be able to deploy it without justifying additional cost.
And there's the subtle point missed by those who fixate on prace tags - Open Source does not live or die by cost.
They're a hoot. Commercials seem to specifically target the AOL customer base. Policies and actions support users who pay, but don't use, the service. "DSL Cable Modem Technology" fits right in with their ideal customer base.
Tomorrow will be our 11th Anniversary.
Its been a great marriage strengthened by life on several continents, twice as many cities, a war, and a handful of other life experiences. I'm more than grateful for the chance to interact with the people behind the dim glow of text, a computer, and a MODEM.
YMMV.
I remember when Microsoft was the underdog. They took on IBM. In court. And won. Shock. The little guy wins one - yay Microsoft! It was all different in the '80s. It was the birth of the microcomputer industry. I'm sure there are more than a few players in today's industry that started back then and have kept a narrow focus on Microsoft in order to keep up with the changes. Those folks are going to have a different nostalgia and a different perspective.
It was the early 90s and my po-dunk town finally managed public net access. A friend of mine caught on quickly to the whole web thing and promptly produced his first web page. At the bottom read "Escape the Net - use Microsoft Internet Explorer!" It was a call to arms against the Big Evil Netscape. And Microsoft was the champion underdog. While I didn't share his opinion, I did find it interesting that my friend (an otherwise intelligent individualist) came to that conclusion.
So are there Microsoft supporters? Of course. Situations change. Perceptions change. Truth becomes fluid. And that's why there is propoganda - pushing "the truth" despite fact.
No. As a member, you can use the facts to make informed decisions of your own. Meanwhile, we'll still count your membership towards our number of supporters on issues we lobby for despite whatever conclusions you make on your own.
I think a bit of a background perspective would help a lot in considering the "truth" to this story.
Let's make our first assumption in that the center being discussed in Johnson Space Center, home of Mission Control. JSC has become one of the more network security aware centers within the NASA environment in recent years. That's not to say there aren't problems. JSC is one of the few that is at least aware of a network security clue train and occasionally buys a ticket and takes a ride. When they'll actually begin buying monthly passes is another question.
JSC confronts many of the same technical vulnerability issues other research institutions face. This means that much of JSC is ultimately vulnerable (hint to Joe Scriptkiddy - taking a NASA engineer's under-administered Linux test box is neither proof of any real skill, nor is it particularly enlightening to NASA officials). JSC is aware of this and treats Mission Control with extra precautions. Truly mission critical hardware is not going to be manipulated directly by Internet traffic. That's not to say that a network attack of some kind can't have some effect on a mission. And here's a key point. Even a minor effect provides a politician with plenty of fuel to fan the fires of hysteria. And don't expect it all from our elected officials. NASA is ran by politicians.
NASA (and ultimately JSC) network vulnerability is due to more than technical issues. There's a cultural clash within the security framework internal to JSC, NASA, and very likely many other Governmental institutions. Network security policy is being formed by old-guard "physical security" personnel. Network security is a fast-changing and alien environment to many of these officials. The technical targets shift at a rapid rate, and new ways of thinking often challenge old standbys (IE: debunking security through obscurity). Unfortunately, many physical security concepts do not transfer well to the new network security environment. There are occasional flashes of insight... and many more attempts to cling to the old, better-known environment.
One example of this is the penchant for prosecution. Its amazing to watch an organization bemoan a lack of funding to support security administration of an environment, then light up at the opportunity to pull production equipment offline and spend untold amounts of money and man hours to track down a script kiddy for defacing a minor internal web site. Spending funding on preventing the incident in the first place seems to get lost somewhere in the upper echelons.
So if today's mission control is safe from Joe Scriptkiddy, where'd this incident come from? 1997. In my experience, the mid 90's were way before the network security clue train - there wasn't even tracks laid down. It wasn't until the end of the decade that network security began to show up as a serious issue and positive steps were being made to do something about the situation. 1997? History.
So sure, NASA could use some improvement of their network security environment. And they certainly could use the funding. But to say there's lives on the line - that's political kindling to pass legislation and cook up some National Infrastructure Protection Center funding.
For the home computer market to expand, it needed a lot of customers. Not just hobbiests. Buisnesses, followed by people buying computers for home due to exposure to them at work. But why would business be interested in a microcomputer? You needed a killer app.
That killer app was VisiCalc. If you look a bit in to its histor y, you'll find that VisiCalc was that killer app. It quickly paid for itself by reducing errors and reducing hours spent crunching numbers. VisiCalc was THE reason for a business to buy a microcomputer. What was once scoffed at as a non-serious hobbiest toy suddenly became a valuable tool and spawned a whole new industry. BASIC didn't do that, much less copyright law.
Take a look at the IT industry. Look at big names such as Apple, Cisco, Sun. Where did these massive corporations spawn? From very humble "garage" beginnings. Even VisiCalc was developed in an attic of a rented apartment.Sure... things have changed since then for all those companies. And Corporations are able to do things on an amazing scale - something required to make some innovations and manufacture products. But so much of what we enjoy today does not exist because of corporate innovation - it exists because a corporation has expanded on the innovative work done in somebody's garage. Without that work, there would be little for corporations to offer.
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=peta
Second link: "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)". There's your site. No parodies or differing political opinions to get in your way.
What a concept. Perhapse more people could use sites like Yahoo to find the information they need without blindly pounding out key combinations as URLs. Oh wait. They do.
The vandalism and network attacks that so often are labled as "hacks" have little to do with this creative culture. No wonder "hackers" would rather the media latch on to another buzzphrase for their headlines.
-- The Apple Growers Almanac
(...now... if we could figure out how to put banner adds on each layer of the onion and get them to peel away each layer... yea... we'd be on to something...)
I think Tux would make a better Morpheus then Neo.
First, you must come to realize... there IS no OS...
The whole Open Source concept (ie: freedom, not beer) escapes a great deal of people. They seem to waffle at the philisophical, as well as technical, aspects of Open Source. What they focus on instead is software that you can buy cheaply OR download for free. Corporate business types are especially prone to this. The end result? Open Source software is labled as "freeware".
Freeware? Beer! Grab.
Freeware has a whole different "feel" to it - from the old "get what you pay for" mentality to the free lunch crowd. The GPL must cause a great deal of confusion for these folks when they're eventually forced to look over it again.
On a semi-related side note... some of those in the industry do not help matters. SUN, for example, seems to enjoy labeling anything GPL as "freeware". You'd think they know better. In fact, I suspect they do.
Highly recommended.
During exercises, he was on the base aggressor team. Personnel in various non-combat roles would be trained to augment base defense (one day you're a clerk, the next you're in a concrete bunker overlooking a field). The aggressor team would attack the augmentee's positions as part of the exercise.
There was a particularly annoying young lady that my friend was unable to ferret out. Time was ticking. The pressure built and he went after her with everything he had. He tossed a smoke grenade at the bunker and lit up her MILES gear as she staggered away from her position.
There was some hand-smacking for tossing ordnance at another person. Not the safest thing to do. And probably quite unpleasant. But my friend was much harder on himself. He was quite horrified at his own actions. "I wanted to take her out so bad. I mean... my God... I was salivating!"
The heat of the moment.
We all like to think we know ourselves. We have our boundaries that we feel comfortable with. There are logical reasons behind what we will and won't do. But to say we know exactly what we'll do while under the pressure of a dire moment is deluding ourselves. We may crumble. Or we may unleash a force we didn't know our psyche contained. And quite often, the situation may call for the actions that force enables us to do. Our survival may be dependent on it.
And it may scare us after the fact.
Oh. I was plenty excited about it when I had first heard that they were creating it. I awaited eagerly for a Sat. morning rendition of a cherished hobby. Warriors, magic users, elves, and dwarves... battling horrific creatures found crawling the dank passages of a dungeon or perhaps narrowly escaping an ambush of Orcs in a dark forest. Adventure. Puzzles. Fantastic tales and amazing, treasured artifacts. All the stuff of good Fantasy.
That's not what the DnD cartoon delivered.
What we got was a popular commercial property shoe-horned in to the typical American cartoon formula: regular kids get dumped in to a strange world, are each given a unique power, and fight a bad guy for whom all the events in this strange world seem to revolve around.
Homogenized action-figure selling fun. As much story line and complexity as He-Man.
Oh. Boy. How. Exciting. And. New.
And what a waste of the "Dungeons and Dragons" name.
One can only hope that the DnD movie due out won't fall in to Yet Another Formula.
Thankfully, my parents also showed enough concern to take a look at the games I was playing. Although they weren't wholey thrilled at them (being a bit more "mature" in subject then they liked), they did note that it didn't do any harm. Eventually, they were more concerned that I would upset my grandparents than DnD ruining my life.
Its actually rather interesting how the anti-DnD crowd could manipulate fears. I met my future inlaws and wife on a local MUD. My inlaws were big puzzle and adventure game fans. Yet a couple of years later, my mother-in-law had attended one of these "education seminars" at the local school and began voicing concern over role playing games. I was shocked. Here was a paper-and-pen version of what she herself had enjoyed for as long as I knew her. And yet she was concerned for the safety of her own daughter (not the one I married). I had a long discussion with her and eventually her own experience kicked in and the paranoia droped down a few notches.
The trouble is, there IS a bit of truth to be found in this fear. The film Mazes and Monsters was supposedly (loosely) based off of a real-life event (students ran live-action roleplaying games in the university's steam tunnels, one snapped). I've met a rare handfull of people who might be candidates for more such movies. For a very, very small few there might be some kind of danger. But then, I would question whether it is DnD or something else that has put them in that state of mind.
For me and thousands of others, role playing games have been (and sometimes still are) a constructive and enjoyable form of entertainment.
For hundreds of "professionals" and morally charged do-gooders activities like role playing (and Quake as a different example) is an unknown - best get it all with the same brush.
Having said all that... O'Reilly includes their own java-based search engine with their CD Bookshelf series. And their offerings are a series of individual HTML files.
So yea... you don't need to have one fat file to search if you're willing to put a bit of extra effort in to it (or provide the tools as part of the documentation).
Its interesting to note that one line manager had expressed this bias during a discussion on SSH. The recommendation was to go with SSH1 until various issues with SSH2 have been ironed out. The manager in question had a hard time understanding this - SSH1 was "freeware". How could it be better than SSH2?
The latest meeting we had went back to this theme and our favorite line manager stood up and announced that he is beginning to change his mind. It was hard for him to do, he admited. And yes, while being biased against "free" software was an antiquated concept... its still a very real bias a lot of the old line managers have to deal with. And overcome.
As a side note, its always fun to refer to your bosses as "antiquated" in open meetings.
But back to the point... this bias is changing. Not everywhere. Not quickly. But the recent hype around Linux is doing Good Things even if Linux doesn't end up saving the world.
But despite what the marketing fluff claimed, I hadn't bought a PIM. I had bought a slick device that developers were busy hacking all kinds of odd and interesting hardware and software for. While the standard apps ARE amazingly valuable, there are other 3rd party apps that also earn their (and the Palm device's) keep. Everything and the kitchen sink? If it's done well, load it on.
Well... yea. Implementation. That's the rub. Its a nice thought to say MS is ahead of the tech game... but if their offering isn't implemented properly, is it REALLY ahead? I don't think so.Palm has succeeded for some very good reasons - they're functional. They work. They weren't the first PDAs available. They weren't able to leverage success in other markets. And they went against some stiff competition. Yet, they still come out on top. Palm's approach to functionality may not LOOK sexy to some people (I personally subscribe to the concept of "less is more") but its usefull.
Other attempts at PDA design have missed that very same mark.
Newcomers to the PDA scene would do well to take a good look at Palm's leasons learned. I think the subtle point here is that a Palm device CAN have tons of nifty gadgets hanging off of it - but it is not a replacement for your choice of computing platform. Its an extension to your desktop (or laptop as the case may be). It allows your data to be a bit more mobile. Perhapse it also enables you to do some things (manipulate a small amount of data, play a game, pull down a map, etc) on the move. But that's the limitation.
There are tasks that a PDA just isn't right for. Trying to force a PDA to do those tasks is an exercise in futility and a path to a failed product offering.
First off, have you seen the recent fuzzy-feeling Microsoft commercial? Bill Gates looks like he's in a kids' school computer lab. He talks about when he and is friends decided to harness the power of the home computer and make lives better for everyone. And he expresses his hope to have the freedom to inovate in the future. Its a nice public opinion piece. No products... unless you count positive public opinion of Microsoft as one. I feel that there's a good reason for this add to show up on primetime TV.
The reason is simple. The public is beginning to sour towards Microsoft.
Last year I told this story here but I'll go ahead and tell it again as it still applies...
I was sitting at my desk when someone in the office space behind me began loudly bitching about Microsoft. Was it a fellow Unix admin browsing Slashdot and having a go at some trendy MS bashing? Was it one of my NT admin friends who make their living from supporting one of the nation's largest Microsoft installations... but still grumble at various failings of the products?
No.
The loud complaints were being issued by a decisively non-technical budget analyst who had just lost her work to Windows instability. She stared at a blue screen blaming Microsoft for her woes.
Think about this for a minute. The point is subtle, but a major one. A year or so earlier, she probably would have blamed computers. But now its no longer computers that are at fault - it was the products from Microsoft that caused her grief.
The cracks in Microsoft's public relations wall are beginning to show. There's no flood of public outcry yet; you're just as likely to run in to people on the street who either do not care or don't know anything but Windows. You're always going to find people who very deturminely support Windows and Microsoft. But more and more, I'm finding people who hold Microsoft in a less favorable light.
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/annex /an10a.htm
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/annex /an10a.htm
I have a fond memories of the F-4G having spent a handfull of years working on and/or around the aircraft (Electronic Warfare - specifically the AN/APR-47 RHAW system, AN/ALE-40 Flar/Chaff, and AN/ALQ-131 or AN/ALQ-184 ECM Pods).
Interesting mission. There's a few bits of lore that aren't mentioned by the above resources that might be applied to this discussion (decoy / defensive hosts).
Wild Weasel aircraft didn't need a drone to be usefull. Quite often they flew in hunter/killer pairs with other airframes (the last teams to fly were F-16 and F-4G teams). This meant the Wild Weasel aircraft themselves were often the target for ground weapons systems. The first Electronic Warfare Officer who was approuched during Vietnam with the mission replied (forgive me if I murder the quote):
The first Wild Weasel patches have a picture of a weasel with a shocked expression and the letters YGTBSM.This quote seems to fit in with the question of how wise it is to deploy decoys in your environment.
However, there's also another interesting tidbit out of Wild Weasel history. At the beginning of hostilities during the Gulf War, Wild Weasel aircraft escorted most missions and decimated Iraqi air defence systems. This defense lead to a high demand for Wild Weasel escorts - more demand than available aircraft.
Commanders took a gamble. It was noted that enemy SAM and AAA sites would shut down immediately on discovering F-4 radar signitures in the area. So some missions got F-4C (unarmed reconnaissance aircraft) escorts. Since the F-4Cs were indistinguishable from their deadly F-4G cousins, F-4Cs were able to effectively supress enemy weapons systems by their mere pressence.
I suppose you could propose the question - if enough decoy systems show up in the environment, would it make potential attackers a bit jumpy if they couldn't tell the real from the decoys?
Granted, this may not be the instant satisfaction all-on-a-silver-plater style that the web tends to foster these days. But I'm sure this kind of adversity will build character.
An enterprising coder can fork the code today and create OpenCPHack. ;)