You can already use whatever phone you want on a carrier's network, provided that it meets the necessary technical requirements (e.g., you can't use a GSM phone on a CDMA network). I bought my own GSM phone from a source other than Cingular, and signed up for a Cingular plan that came with a free phone. I pulled the SIM from the free phone, and put it in the phone I wanted to use. Works fine. And I have the free phone as a backup in case my regular phone breaks.
Before GSM I used TDMA, and since that didn't have a SIM card, I just called the carrier and told them the ESN of the phone I was switching too. CDMA works the same way.
Batteries in a device for a long time = high risk of battery leakage. (Not charge leakage, electrolyte leakage)
Batteries usually only start leaking when they get low. Long battery life thus means that for any particular period of time, there is actually less chance of battery leakage.
I don't wan't "honorary" citizenship. I'd make a pledge, and would even be willing to put money in escrow, for actual citizenship, complete with passport.
And before someone flames me about it, yes, I do realize that currently no other country recognizes Sealand as a sovereign nation, so the passport wouldn't be of any practical value.
The best analogy I can think of is GM saying you can only put 'genuine GM' parts in their cars.
Actually, this suit is more analagous to GM saying that a third-party manufacturer can't stamp the phrase "Genuine GM" on their parts. I think most people would agree that it is reasonable for GM to have an interest in preventing that.
It would become an issue if the GM car could somehow detect the "Genuine GM" stamp on the part, and refuse to run if the stamp is not present. I think this is what AutoCAD is doing with their TrustedDWG, though I could be mistaken.
If that is what AutoCAD is trying to do, there is legal precedent in favor of the third party. In Sega vs. Accolade, Sega sued because Accolade was incorporating elements into their games that indicated to the Sega Genesis platform that the game was made by Sega. The court ruled that Accolade could do this, even though it might ordinarily be an infringement of Sega's copyrights and trademarks, because Sega had deliberately designed the Genesis platform such that it would not run any games without the elements in question. They observed that the use of those elements served no purpose other than to lock out competition.
calling people who delight in overcoming barriers imposed by software
There's a big difference between overcoming barriers on the one hand, and vandalism, theft and fraud on the other. The people that commit the latter are not "hackers", they are criminals, and need to be dealt with accordingly.
stupid "crackers" for 20 years hasn't managed to convince the media to stop confusing hackers and computer criminals
That the media confuses the two only demonstrates that the media is ignorant (willfully or otherwise). The media calling a bunch of miscreants "hackers" does not make them hackers.
2600's biennial conference in New York has featured people like the Woz, Stallman, Bruce Schneier, and Matt Blaze.
I didn't make any disparaging remarks about 2600, so I'm not sure why you're even bringing it up. I read 2600 magazine from time to time. Some of the content seems to be from hackers. Some isn't. The fact that they invite some really intelligent people to speak at their conferences has little or nothing to do with the issue at hand.
There are very smart, creative, ethical people doing things that you malign.
I don't care how smart or creative they are. If what they do is break into other people's computers, steal data, deface web sites, distribute malware, or use botnets for spamming or DDoS attacks, they aren't "hackers", they're criminals.
They should be worried about people that break into computers. Such people are "wannabes", not hackers. They may have some of the skills that would be suited to becoming a hacker, but they don't have the true hacker mentality, which is about building things, not breaking them. As ESR states, "being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer."
As many of you know, the JPEG image compression is actually proprietary
Actually, it was only claimed to be proprietary. The patent office rejected most of the patent claims, and AFAIK Forgent did not successfully win any court cases that upheld the validity of the remaining claim(s). Settling out of court doesn't establish any legal presumption of validity.
You're confused; their "evil bit" wasn't ever turned off. They only appeared to be less evil (and more innovative) than Microsoft. If you choose the lesser of two evils, you still get evil.
[Disclaimer: I was once an Apple employee, but I didn't speak for them back then, and I certainly don't now.]
I haven't checked the cited sections of the US Code, but it doesn't appear to me that he violated any of the cited sections of the CFR. It's possible that a third party might have, without his knowledge, used the boarding pass generator to violate these regulations.
The CFR 49 regulations say that:
You can't make a fraudulent or intentionally false statement in any application for an identification medium. He didn't. Since he didn't hand a generated boarding pass to a TSA officer, he didn't make any application.
You can't make a fraudulent or intentionally false entry in a record that is kept, made, or used to show compliance with this subchapter. He didn't, as the generated boarding pass was not presented to a TSA agent to be used as a record.
You can't make a reproduction or alteration, for fraudulent purpose, of any report, record, security program, access medium, or identification medium issued under this subchapter. He didn't attempt to use a generated boarding pass to get through security or onto a plane, nor did he induce any third party to do so, thus he had no fraudulent purpose.
You can't tamper or interfere with, compromise, modify, attempt to circumvent, or cause a person to tamper or interfere with, compromise, modify, or attempt to circumvent any security system, measure, or procedure implemented under this subchapter. He didn't modify or tamper with a real boarding pass, nor make any attempt to circumvent the boarding pass procedure, so he's clear on this one too.
You can't enter, or be present within, a secured area, AOA, SIDA or sterile area without complying with the systems, measures, or procedures being applied to control access to, or presence or movement in, such areas. He didn't.
You can't use, allow to be used, or cause to be used, any airport-issued or airport-approved access medium or identification medium that authorizes the access, presence, or movement of persons or vehicles in secured areas, AOA's, or SIDA's in any other manner than that for which it was issued by the appropriate authority under this subchapter. He didn't use an airport-issued or airport-approved access medium or identifaction medium. He made his own.
From the article: 'Hardware virtualization, as recently introduced by Intel and AMD, is very powerful technology. It's my personal opinion that this technology has been introduced a little bit too early, before the major operating system vendors were able to redesign their systems so that they could make a conscious use of this technology, hopefully preventing its abuse.'
If chips weren't available (publicly, not just a few samples to big OS vendors), the OS vendors wouldn't have bothered to even start thinking about what to do with it.
Anyhow, the scare over hardware-VM-based malware scare is overblown. It was entirely possible to write VM malware without hardware VM support, just as VMware can provide virtual machines using software only, on systems without hardware VM support.
The only way to avoid such malware is to either not let it get onto your computer in the first place, or make sure it's running in a tight enough security environment that it can't get down to the bare metal. If you system isn't secure enough to prevent software from modifying the MBR or OS files, and prevent it from running at "ring 0", there's not a damn thing you can do.
Naturally, Windows is normally installed so that the main user has adminsistrative access, which means that any software he or she downloads can do exactly those kinds of potentially destructive operations.
By contrast, real operating systems are normally installed such that the user is not privileged by default.
Ultimately, it call comes down to how smart and well-educated the end user is. If the malware can trick the user into providing privileged access, all bets are off.
No, but the fact that they were published with no copyright notice back when that was a legal requirement in the US does mean that they are now in the public domain.
No but it stops you contributing under GPL2. If you have a GPL2 application and someome commits a *single* item of GPL3 code to one of your dependent libraries your choice is to change to GPL3 or stop using that library.
I don't follow. If I'm maintaining or distributing a library that is covered by GPLv2, no one is forcing me to accept a contribution that is under the GPLv3.
I've never included the "or any later version" clause in my GPL notices, but I will probably switch to GPLv3 once it is finalized.
but there is the issue of the rest of the toolchain (gcc, binutils, etc.)
So what if the next release of GCC or Binutils is under the GPLv3? That won't prevent Red Hat (or anyone else) from including it in a Linux distribution, or from using it to compile the binaries for that distribution.
PS eric your calculator emulators are breaching copyright law. I hope HP sues you into the ground.
You are presumably referring to Nonpareil. Please explain to me what copyrights I am infringing. I've researched this fairly carefully and do not believe that I'm infringing any copyrights, at least in the U.S. But if I'm mistaken, I'd like to know the details. Feel free to email me; my email address is not hard to find.
Linux is going to stick with GPLv2 regardless of what the FSF does with GPLv3. That has little to do with Linus disliking GPLv3, and much do to with not being able to track down all the contributors and get them to agree to a license change.
GPLv3 is not going to cause any trouble for Linux vendors. It's certainly not going to "kill the Linux Revolution". There is nothing in GPLv2 or GPLv3 that prevents a Linux distribution from containing various programs under various licenses, just as Linux distributions today contain code under GPLv2, BSD, MIT, and other licenses.
And GPLv3 doesn't make Stallman himself any more or less relevant that he's been in the past.
The only point of bone-headed sensationalist reporting like this is to try to sell more copies of the magazine. Next month they'll tell us the GPLv3 will contribute to global warming, and the following month that it will promote slavery.
In other words a lofty purpose does negate the crime, it's right there written into the law.
Assuming that Turnitin has a "lofty purpose" (which I do not concede), their service still fails to meet the factors for fair use. Specificlaly, they fale the "purpose and character of use" factor, since their use is of a commercial nature (Turnitin makes money by copying copyrighted works), and the "amount and substantiality" factor, since they store the entire paper rather than excerpts from it.
The court may not be a "computer", but it also is not supposed to disregard the law just because the defendant has good intentions. It is the job of the legislature to craft the laws such that they permit the things that are desirable, and ban the things that are undesirable.
If the court does choose to disregard the law, that is grounds for an appeal.
Not that I consider them an authoritative source, but Turnitin's own FAQ has this to say about Fair Use:
The United States government has established rough guidelines for determining the nature and amount of work that may be "borrowed" without explicit written consent. These are called "fair use" laws, because they try to establish whether certain uses of original material are reasonable. The laws themselves are vague and complicated. Below we have condensed them into some rubrics you can apply to help determine the fairness of any given usage.
The nature of your use.
If you have merely copied something, it is unlikely to be considered fair use. But if the material has been transformed in an original way through interpretation, analysis, etc., it is more likely to be considered "fair use."
The amount you've used.
The more you've "borrowed," the less likely it is to be considered fair use. What percentage of your work is "borrowed" material? What percentage of the original did you use? The lower the better.
The effect of your use on the original
If you are creating a work that competes with the original in its own market, and may do the original author economic harm, any substantial borrowing is unlikely to be considered fair use. The more the content of your work or its target audience differs from that of the original, the better.
You're saying that the college stating that they will give me an F in the class if I don't submit my papers to Turnitin does not constitute "threat of harm"?
I don't have any contract with the college which requires that I submit my course work to any third party. And the only reason I have a so-called contract with Turnitin is because of the threat of harm by the college.
Slashdot Mirror
Before GSM I used TDMA, and since that didn't have a SIM card, I just called the carrier and told them the ESN of the phone I was switching too. CDMA works the same way.
And before someone flames me about it, yes, I do realize that currently no other country recognizes Sealand as a sovereign nation, so the passport wouldn't be of any practical value.
It would become an issue if the GM car could somehow detect the "Genuine GM" stamp on the part, and refuse to run if the stamp is not present. I think this is what AutoCAD is doing with their TrustedDWG, though I could be mistaken.
If that is what AutoCAD is trying to do, there is legal precedent in favor of the third party. In Sega vs. Accolade, Sega sued because Accolade was incorporating elements into their games that indicated to the Sega Genesis platform that the game was made by Sega. The court ruled that Accolade could do this, even though it might ordinarily be an infringement of Sega's copyrights and trademarks, because Sega had deliberately designed the Genesis platform such that it would not run any games without the elements in question. They observed that the use of those elements served no purpose other than to lock out competition.
Tastes like no chees I've ever tasted.
They should be worried about people that break into computers. Such people are "wannabes", not hackers. They may have some of the skills that would be suited to becoming a hacker, but they don't have the true hacker mentality, which is about building things, not breaking them. As ESR states, "being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer."
[Disclaimer: I was once an Apple employee, but I didn't speak for them back then, and I certainly don't now.]
With whom did he conspire? It's not a conspiracy if the other party is purely hypothetical.
I haven't checked the cited sections of the US Code, but it doesn't appear to me that he violated any of the cited sections of the CFR. It's possible that a third party might have, without his knowledge, used the boarding pass generator to violate these regulations.
The CFR 49 regulations say that:
You can't make a fraudulent or intentionally false statement in any application for an identification medium. He didn't. Since he didn't hand a generated boarding pass to a TSA officer, he didn't make any application.
You can't make a fraudulent or intentionally false entry in a record that is kept, made, or used to show compliance with this subchapter. He didn't, as the generated boarding pass was not presented to a TSA agent to be used as a record.
You can't make a reproduction or alteration, for fraudulent purpose, of any report, record, security program, access medium, or identification medium issued under this subchapter. He didn't attempt to use a generated boarding pass to get through security or onto a plane, nor did he induce any third party to do so, thus he had no fraudulent purpose.
You can't tamper or interfere with, compromise, modify, attempt to circumvent, or cause a person to tamper or interfere with, compromise, modify, or attempt to circumvent any security system, measure, or procedure implemented under this subchapter. He didn't modify or tamper with a real boarding pass, nor make any attempt to circumvent the boarding pass procedure, so he's clear on this one too.
You can't enter, or be present within, a secured area, AOA, SIDA or sterile area without complying with the systems, measures, or procedures being applied to control access to, or presence or movement in, such areas. He didn't.
You can't use, allow to be used, or cause to be used, any airport-issued or airport-approved access medium or identification medium that authorizes the access, presence, or movement of persons or vehicles in secured areas, AOA's, or SIDA's in any other manner than that for which it was issued by the appropriate authority under this subchapter. He didn't use an airport-issued or airport-approved access medium or identifaction medium. He made his own.
Anyhow, the scare over hardware-VM-based malware scare is overblown. It was entirely possible to write VM malware without hardware VM support, just as VMware can provide virtual machines using software only, on systems without hardware VM support.
The only way to avoid such malware is to either not let it get onto your computer in the first place, or make sure it's running in a tight enough security environment that it can't get down to the bare metal. If you system isn't secure enough to prevent software from modifying the MBR or OS files, and prevent it from running at "ring 0", there's not a damn thing you can do.
Naturally, Windows is normally installed so that the main user has adminsistrative access, which means that any software he or she downloads can do exactly those kinds of potentially destructive operations.
By contrast, real operating systems are normally installed such that the user is not privileged by default.
Ultimately, it call comes down to how smart and well-educated the end user is. If the malware can trick the user into providing privileged access, all bets are off.
Oops, I mean Scott of the Sahara.
No, but the fact that they were published with no copyright notice back when that was a legal requirement in the US does mean that they are now in the public domain.
I've never included the "or any later version" clause in my GPL notices, but I will probably switch to GPLv3 once it is finalized.
I am using code from HP in Nonpareil. It is code that was in the public domain. I have copyrighted the derived work.
Linux is going to stick with GPLv2 regardless of what the FSF does with GPLv3. That has little to do with Linus disliking GPLv3, and much do to with not being able to track down all the contributors and get them to agree to a license change. GPLv3 is not going to cause any trouble for Linux vendors. It's certainly not going to "kill the Linux Revolution". There is nothing in GPLv2 or GPLv3 that prevents a Linux distribution from containing various programs under various licenses, just as Linux distributions today contain code under GPLv2, BSD, MIT, and other licenses. And GPLv3 doesn't make Stallman himself any more or less relevant that he's been in the past. The only point of bone-headed sensationalist reporting like this is to try to sell more copies of the magazine. Next month they'll tell us the GPLv3 will contribute to global warming, and the following month that it will promote slavery.
The world exports only a tiny amount of oil, and of that only a completely insignificant fraction has left the solar system.
I'd worry far more about the oil we use on-planet.
http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/Download/catego ry3.html#2
The older, Japan only model is there too. As well as various other interesting products.
The court may not be a "computer", but it also is not supposed to disregard the law just because the defendant has good intentions. It is the job of the legislature to craft the laws such that they permit the things that are desirable, and ban the things that are undesirable.
If the court does choose to disregard the law, that is grounds for an appeal.
Why should I let someone else make money on my college papers, if they aren't valuable?
A better reference on Fair Use is available from Stanford University.
I don't have any contract with the college which requires that I submit my course work to any third party. And the only reason I have a so-called contract with Turnitin is because of the threat of harm by the college.