"It amazes me that a book such as this could be banned, yet car service manuals can be sold in most bookstores."
Well you see, car manuals don't deal with the black arts of technology that need be kept secreted away to protect the sanctity of Licensing Agreements.
In order to insure this sanctity, you must command total control. Which of course requires that you exclusively own that property so that you may unleash a horde of briefcase toting henchman to act as enforcers across the land.
So, when you purchase an "Xbox" or other such item you actually only purchase a license to use it but not actual ownership of that physical unit. And of course, not being a property owner, you have no rights other than the right to use as the License states.
Man, I can smell this from a mile and pheeeeeeew man, is it coming on strong.
So we see this M$ media blitz waving it's little flags and banners about their new security features which then prove to be UTTERLY USELESS, or an annoyance to attackers at most.
I mean it's not like BackOriface and a bevy of other trojans don't allow a freakin screen capture! So all one has to do is trojan+screencap and with a little photoshop majik viola: the secure window skin.
Wonder how long it will take trojan writers to create a tool to automate that on all your hosts?
That's about what it shapes up to. The bigger is better paradigm vs the pipsqueak with features galore.
But I want to hold out till iPod v4 to see if they get wireless sharing. Maybe they will, may they wont, but Apple seems to be all about it's wireless networking, and being able to network ipods and other apple products on a wireless node would be uber-cool and possibly a new way to interact.
Future scenario: Sitting on the BART doing the commute, scanning wireless networks and getting a list of users online... "ahhh, qtCh1k" *click* listen to her playlist and send a message over an embedded version of ichat.
Far fetched? Nahhh.. just a matter of time. I mean, I'm already doing that with my G4 laptop, the cafe I go to in SF has a large population of other OS X users and they even provide a free wireless service and with iTunes4, we can now stream our music libraries and chat with rendezvous via the LAN.
In the last couple weeks I've amassed a few servers and a client network so, I've had no choice but to become a sysadmin. Which is not what I consider myself (I'm a graphic designer/Web App Programmmer) but, for the sake of responsibility, I find myself fast becoming one.
So I welcome any such article as the one posted here to help better educate me and get me up to date on the even the most mundane of utilities (I hadn't even heard of nessus/netcat)
I'm not a fresh unix convert or technically challenged, it's just that my occupation has demanded that I focus on front end and applicational development rather than network security and monitoring.
So to get by I've been using very basic common sense like running firewalls for port blocking, not running insecure services such as telnet and in the event that i have to (one of my servers is a multiuser webhost so I had to turn FTP on) research and run a more secure variant of that service (for FTP I opted for vsftpd over wu/pro)
And for security, besides my basic IP Masquerading and port blocking firewall (ya, it's that basic, I'm no guru) I run tripwire, which I run a sanity check daily as well as run snort.
This config runs on everyting from my OS X laptop to the RH9 boxes for dev/production serving and seems "ok" for the moment.
I do plan on evaluating/installing some kernal level patches to the RH boxen such as grsecurity but I thought I'd use this topic to fish for pointers as I am also looking for some good educational material such as IP/Network configuration and indepth material on properly setting up an ironclad DMZ. So if anyone has some highly recommended links or knows of soome good books on amazon to point out or even comments to make here to give some pointers, i'd be much appreciative.
Back in the day, the commoners were only allowed to read the bible. People were persecuted for writing books with "subversive" or "heretical" thoughts and others for reading them. Scientists and scholars alike lived under the yoke of the church.
Fast forward back to today. We are on the precipace of a technological dark age. Basic freedoms are being summarily dismissed when it comes to anything "technological" under the guise of "Intellectual Property and Copywrite Protection" as well as "Security Considerations"
Think I'm paranoid? Maybe, but here's a couple quick comparisons:
1600AD: All one has to do is cry " Witch!!" and the accused was immediately persecuted.
2003AD: All one has to say is "MP3 Pirate!!!" And that person is immediately subject to persecution.
1632AD: Galileo's The Dialogue Concerning the Chief World Systems was printed -- The ideas in this book leads to his arrest/trail/imprisonment
2001AD: Dmitry Sklyarov arrested for writing software that was alleged to violate the DMCA
Ironic ain't it:)
A great opportunity missed?
on
SCO DOS'ed
·
· Score: 1
The only thing suprising about this event is that it hadn't already happened. So I'm suprised that security firms weren't tripping over themselves weeks ago to gain cooperative access to SCO's servers to better analyze the attack and try out new counter-measures to thwart it with.
Then again, the whitehats are probably as pissed off as the blackhats and fig'd having SCO nuked off the net would probably be a good thing.
...or perhaps the whitehat did try to offer help, but SCO fig'd their lawers would do a better job protecting them.:)
Using a tangible reference that can't easily be guessed/produced by a non-authorized party is a great idea in data security.
However, it seems flawed since you have to: a) determine a method to reference the objects to their locked data if you use multiple objects as associations.
b) determine a method to securely store that object
c) Raise the question of the uniqueness of that object.
So for this to work, you'd have to create a secured storage location and a means to remember each items association. And then each time you created a new object of association, you'd have to ask "Is this object unique or could someone easiliy go and obtain a comparable object to use in it's place?"
So while it's a novel idea and most worthy of continued R&D, it is not yet a practical solution as it only adds a layer of security that raises it's own potential security risks.
I could see an offshoot of this solution using imaging software to create complex patterns at the time of encryption that would be apparant noise to the human eye, but be read easily by a machine. These images could be small and stored on a memory stick. This method would be difficult to reproduce as the image itself would be based off the encrypted bits + the encryption key and stored on an external device. But unless they developed a biometric access mechanism(thumbprint scanning etc) on the access point or memory stick itself, there would still be the problems in secure storage/handling of the key.
But regardless, it is good to see new approaches to an age old problem.
ok, so maybe the word "endorsed" is a tad bit strong and I apologize if the judges ruling has left me a bit exuberant, but the recording industry has in fact stated that apples music service is an ideal and promising solution. The original article is lost to the archives at the latimes.com but can be referenced however the full transcript costs $$ at this time.
So while you are correct in saying that no "official endorsement" exists, the prevailing attitude being shown publicly towards apples venture is positive and does express interest in it's future.
Damn this mornings news just made my level of cynicism toward the judicial system drop severely.
Of course the RIAA/MPAA will appeal, probably for years over this.
BUT: This judgement was not a pesonal call nor without precident. The reasoning stated by the judge is based on laws that are over 20 years old now and fimiliar with many federal circuit judges AND the SC itself. So this ruling does give me a genuine sense of satisfaction because it does in fact weaken the RIAA/MPAA position in court substantially. The RIAA/MPAA have of course seen this coming. That is why we see their new tactic of going after the individual. And I say that's fine because as large and big as they are, in a year or two of court cases and a mountain of legal fees, they will have to stop and think of a way to change with the innovation rather than trying to kill innovation itself.
Maybe Apple will show them the light. It hasn't yet launched, but Apples solution is already endorsed by the RIAA/MPAA and IMHO stands a good chance of proving successfull in the marketplace. Being an OS X convert, I am waiting eagerly to be able to pay for that service.
By 2010, The CEO of The United States of Microsoft (USM$) will in desperation allow Open Source Software on a controlled scale after global uprising due to a worldwide security breach that leaves all computers of the USM$ Licensed Nations and their users under control of the terrorist group known as the "Penguin Underground" who appearantly exploited the "Universal DRM" utility that provided root access designated to "trusted authorities" of the USM$ to monitor user activity and insure the well being of all Intellectual Property Worldwide. This group will be on a volunteer basis as an offshoot of the Neighborhood terrorist Watch and authorised tto create software to fight the terrorist threat.
In other 2010 news: The corporate practice of employee cranial augmentation is suspected of casing a global health threat according to reseachers after a 2 year study into the prolonged effect of implants in users selected worldwide. In a presentation to the USM$ Scientific Work Group, Dr. Yacob-Saleem Okawa Miller has alleged that Cranial Implants can cause Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD) due to degradation of the cellular structure of cloned stem-cells over a long period of use. At the time of this report the Fedaral Department of Biotech has stated that it is unaware of any such negative effects but will "look into the matter".
Heh... The great thing is that in 8 years, NO ONE will remember any such predictions and if they do, they'd come across as idiots for beleiving a word of it.
So hey... I can believe programming jobs will double by 2010, but I'd wager largely that the average wage would rival a starbucks employee. C'mon, let's face it, by 2010 a 10 year old will be able to program a simple website and database... of course under the authority and watchful eye of the USM$ Web Services Bureau Youth Education Program.
I have to say I'm impressed with what appears to be a very good product for handhelds.
I can't wait to start seeing micro-editing and remixing suites available as well, I'm sure it will only be a short time before we have the ability to DJ or Master Music on a handheld as we do on a laptop today.
Also, what about effects? It shouldn't take much doing to convert that application into say a reverb or delay peddle. An all in one solution for applying Delay/Distortion/Flange/Phaser/Reverb/EQ would quickly find itself in virtually all performers eqpt bag in a heart beat.
from the Ashcroft article: "Allowing $8,000 in tax dollars to be spent on drapes to conceal two semi-nude statues that often appeared behind the attorney general during press conferences in the Great Hall of the Department of Justice. Ironically, the two statues represent "The Spirit of Justice" and "The Majesty of Law."
Ironic indeed, in fact most telling. Ashcroft in his post 9/11 reign of the DOJ has done more to hide the doings of the DOJ and execution of it's commandments from the public than any other Attorney General in our nations history.
Being that he is the mind behind "secret search warrants", "secret evidence" and "secret imprisonment", it is quite fitting that he display this by making the representitive figures of his office "secret" as well.
If M$ got their hands on Universal, we could all pretty much kiss free use good-bye.
And I don't even think it would be a true bidding war, I think a lot of it would be "buddy buddy" talks within the RIAA as a peer consesus that M$ is good and Apple bad. Since I'm sure the RIAA and Universals shareholders would ardently support a greater partnership with a corporation that specializes in proprietary formats and who is heading up a coup d'etat on the users rights to own their machine.
In a twisted sense, such an organization that controlled a major media producer as well as the mechanism for media playback and the operating system for that mechanism to be run on is an easy target for an anti-trust. But, we've already seen how effective the US Federal Judges are at punishing M$...
But maybe, just maybe it will all finally hit close enough to home when a Fed. Judge buys a CD and find they can't play it without having a winCE device with windows media player installed that we might finally see some justice in action....just maybe.
Man, I hope this post isn't FUD, but I am feeling fearful of the possible repercussions I as a consumer would experience if the articles speculation were to come true.
So, hey, everyone go help Apple, buy some stock and pump them up! Apple has done more than just say "Rip-Mix-Burn". They have built some great software to make professional quality media production easy and affordable and they are staunchly against DRM on their platform. Though I know many on/. still hold a grudge against Apple based upon the Macs of the mid-90's, OS X is a Unice, Apple has embraced and aided OSS and Apple is a great commercial alternative to wintel.
Personally, I think OS X has a better a chance of replacing Moms desktop that Linux does. And as it should. Let's see Linux replace Windows in the server market and OS X replace windows in the desktop market.
Personally, I thought it was a great article that really shows just how rapidly the internet has changed the way we think/act/say/do in a converstational or consensual manner.
In fact I think it's fairly obvious that we can expect to see even more of this mode of consensual decision making as communication devices continue to permeate our culture. For example: I have a G4 tiBook, it has rendezvous which in turn is supported by an app called Hydra that allows multiple users to edit a single document real-time. And that is a fairly obvious and straight forward model. I believe that within 2-3 years the notion of 1 user/computer will be old hat and many tasks will be done as part of a consensus.
Imagine a team of genetic research scientists in the year 2007. They run Linux workstations and perform calculations to create a designer genome for the creation of a bacteria to use as an eco-friendly solvent. While they work, their CPU/HD and memory are all shared via the net and they are able to operate asynchronously on the same problem via this distributed architecture. Of course any distributed architecture amongst real-time users would require chat. So this small team could also allow in research fellows and peers to help guide and assist them in their work. And now we see an environment just like the one written up. But here, a chat user could influence the course of R&D, by trolling accordingly, they could cause the scientists to follow their friends research while shunning other research by those they do not favor personally. And as such, would likely follow a similar killing floor for college research papers to be applied and praised or ignored out right WITHOUT even being read.
As you can see today hyper-communication causes people to act without doing any research and as technology progresses it won't get better. In fact far worse in the respect of it's cultural permeation and impact but hopefully better if tools made available to quantify and qualify data may be equally as ubiquitous in the coming age.
Well, the FBI seems to have found a new form of crack with those "secret warrants" -- which of course prevent anyone witnessing their being carried out from disclosing they were carried out and subjects the parties to such warrants to being jailed indefinantly under secret charges.
Can we say "police state"?
So, who's surprised that these "temporary losses of freedom" are now on the fast track to being the new mandate to lead to farther reaching Federal policies? Sure now it's terrorists, but then becomes a model for dealing with "potential" murderers, rapists,drug dealers...
I strongly urge every one here who is a US citizen to write email and/or snail mail to their state senators TODAY. Forward the links to everyone you know and urge them to do the same.
Maybe now that her site is feeling the power of the geek, she'll feel inspired to make an icon for the fabled slashdot effect to commemorate the tormenting of her poor webserver.
"But with U.S. signal interceptors targeting satphone transmissions to locate Iraqi military commanders, analysts worry that phone calls from civilians could appear as beacons for bombers."
And this makes good sense. Last thing the Gov't wants is for an embedded CNN correspondant and their unit getting fragged live on prime time coverage. (though I'm sure Fox wouldn't mind, due to ratings and all) because a guided munition homed in on their location while broadcasting.
Let's face it, though our bombs are smarter, war is still hell. We have no way of knowing the precise location of friendlies and enemies at any given time and some international reporters have already been killed by US ground troops.
"If you were to prosecute someone and give them three years, I think this would act as a deterrent.... I'm not out to get the kids, I'm out to get their attention."
3 years worth of attention, no... no one's out to get anyone. I'm sure this will help guide all those zit faced college kids by teaching them valuable new "real llife" skills in prison like "run from the shower posse" and "servitude for protection" in our friendly neighborhood prison system.
But seriously: while I can see and on somedays even care about the RIAA's plight, jailtime for downloading is clearly not the answer we need. How about court enforced licensing? Set it up so if you do get cought downloading those evil unlicensed MP3's, you pay $1 per track proven to be downloaded to the RIAA and then a $20.00 court fee and it's a turnstile system ala traffic court.
This way the cities win, the RIAA get's it's $$ and the poor user who downloaded can walk away warm and fuzzy knowing they now legitmately have "rights to listen" to the MP3 they got popped for.
Me thinks that if US Intelligence shows that China is really prepping for a moon base it will cause the US and EU to get their asses in gear to build their own moon base to save face and ensure equal dibs on mineral and property rights, much less military presence to thwart any potential domanance over the US and the world via the new military theatre of space.
You buy the machine, you know it has Windows installed BEFORE you buy it, now you want to march up and down a lawn demanding a refund.
I am hard pressed to think of a lamer excuse for protest than this.
Get some dignity people!
Fact is, if you are soooo 1337 you can build a machine to your liking that will have whatever OS you want, and if you were really 1337, you'd make like Torvolds and roll your own.
Aren't there better things to protest this week like the Skylerov trial and other thefts of personal liberty ala DMCA?
C'mon... reading that article was less informative than a longterm weather forecast, no need to read too deep here, it's mostly fluff.
Sure, many of us including myself have extreme pause in trusting the Trusted Computing Initiatives being pushed by wintel. But, this particular article provides no new insight and is just pep-rally talk and should not be taken all too seriously.
Maybe this article is good to raise the issue for CTO's to get some reports drafted on Alternative OS/Hardware means. Apple, though still on the higher end of the price factor is strongly against much of the DRM and "trusted" computing alliance. And with more focus on "Office Killers" for Linux and other OS's I think that by the time TCPA and Co. hits the streets there will be plenty of other solutions available. Time however, will tell just how many there will be.
Well of course, that's why I"just say NO" to themes. OS themes, browser themes, any theme at all besides the defaults they come with.
Not because I don't like themes, but they are version specific for each release... and having to drop/change themes with each new release seems like more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.
Maybe someday in the not so distant future, they will build a theme utility that will adjust theme graphics to match the current GUI... but I doubt it.
Ya, Connectix's Virtual PC x86/FAT32 emulation, let's me run a fully licensed version of WinXP Professional right here on OS 10.2.1, damn cool, it runs on top of OS X so I can test my HTML/Flash output from PHP/Perl code running on OS X's install of Apache, MySQL and Postgres, without requiring a "dual boot"
Can WinXP or any other flavor of Windows run OS X on top of itself? Hell no!
An as far as M$ software, I have IE, Office and Windows Media Player right here on my Mac as OS X native apps... so what's their point?
I switched 3 weeks ago, and I've loved the Mac, all the multimedia tools of the PC world, but on a real OS! And to be quite honest, I haven't even bothered to boot my old PC since, mainly because I haven't missed a damn thing on my Mac vs the PC.
Slashdot Mirror
"It amazes me that a book such as this could be banned, yet car service manuals can be sold in most bookstores."
:)
Well you see, car manuals don't deal with the black arts of technology that need be kept secreted away to protect the sanctity of Licensing Agreements.
In order to insure this sanctity, you must command total control. Which of course requires that you exclusively own that property so that you may unleash a horde of briefcase toting henchman to act as enforcers across the land.
So, when you purchase an "Xbox" or other such item you actually only purchase a license to use it but not actual ownership of that physical unit. And of course, not being a property owner, you have no rights other than the right to use as the License states.
And you thought the dark ages were over
Man, I can smell this from a mile and pheeeeeeew man, is it coming on strong.
So we see this M$ media blitz waving it's little flags and banners about their new security features which then prove to be UTTERLY USELESS, or an annoyance to attackers at most.
I mean it's not like BackOriface and a bevy of other trojans don't allow a freakin screen capture! So all one has to do is trojan+screencap and with a little photoshop majik viola: the secure window skin.
Wonder how long it will take trojan writers to create a tool to automate that on all your hosts?
*Point-Click-Spoof*
That's about what it shapes up to.
The bigger is better paradigm vs the pipsqueak with features galore.
But I want to hold out till iPod v4 to see if they get wireless sharing. Maybe they will, may they wont, but Apple seems to be all about it's wireless networking, and being able to network ipods and other apple products on a wireless node would be uber-cool and possibly a new way to interact.
Future scenario: Sitting on the BART doing the commute, scanning wireless networks and getting a list of users online... "ahhh, qtCh1k" *click* listen to her playlist and send a message over an embedded version of ichat.
Far fetched? Nahhh.. just a matter of time.
I mean, I'm already doing that with my G4 laptop, the cafe I go to in SF has a large population of other OS X users and they even provide a free wireless service and with iTunes4, we can now stream our music libraries and chat with rendezvous via the LAN.
In the last couple weeks I've amassed a few servers and a client network so, I've had no choice but to become a sysadmin. Which is not what I consider myself (I'm a graphic designer/Web App Programmmer) but, for the sake of responsibility, I find myself fast becoming one.
So I welcome any such article as the one posted here to help better educate me and get me up to date on the even the most mundane of utilities (I hadn't even heard of nessus/netcat)
I'm not a fresh unix convert or technically challenged, it's just that my occupation has demanded that I focus on front end and applicational development rather than network security and monitoring.
So to get by I've been using very basic common sense like running firewalls for port blocking, not running insecure services such as telnet and in the event that i have to (one of my servers is a multiuser webhost so I had to turn FTP on) research and run a more secure variant of that service (for FTP I opted for vsftpd over wu/pro)
And for security, besides my basic IP Masquerading and port blocking firewall (ya, it's that basic, I'm no guru) I run tripwire, which I run a sanity check daily as well as run snort.
This config runs on everyting from my OS X laptop to the RH9 boxes for dev/production serving and seems "ok" for the moment.
I do plan on evaluating/installing some kernal level patches to the RH boxen such as grsecurity but I thought I'd use this topic to fish for pointers as I am also looking for some good educational material such as IP/Network configuration and indepth material on properly setting up an ironclad DMZ. So if anyone has some highly recommended links or knows of soome good books on amazon to point out or even comments to make here to give some pointers, i'd be much appreciative.
Back in the day, the commoners were only allowed to read the bible. People were persecuted for writing books with "subversive" or "heretical" thoughts and others for reading them. Scientists and scholars alike lived under the yoke of the church.
:)
Fast forward back to today.
We are on the precipace of a technological dark age.
Basic freedoms are being summarily dismissed when it comes to anything "technological" under the guise of "Intellectual Property and Copywrite Protection" as well as "Security Considerations"
Think I'm paranoid?
Maybe, but here's a couple quick comparisons:
1600AD: All one has to do is cry " Witch!!" and the accused was immediately persecuted.
2003AD: All one has to say is "MP3 Pirate!!!" And that person is immediately subject to persecution.
1632AD: Galileo's The Dialogue Concerning the Chief World Systems was printed -- The ideas in this book leads to his arrest/trail/imprisonment
2001AD: Dmitry Sklyarov arrested for writing software that was alleged to violate the DMCA
Ironic ain't it
Then again, the whitehats are probably as pissed off as the blackhats and fig'd having SCO nuked off the net would probably be a good thing.
Using a tangible reference that can't easily be guessed/produced by a non-authorized party is a great idea in data security.
However, it seems flawed since you have to:
a) determine a method to reference the objects to their locked data if you use multiple objects as associations.
b) determine a method to securely store that object
c) Raise the question of the uniqueness of that object.
So for this to work, you'd have to create a secured storage location and a means to remember each items association.
And then each time you created a new object of association, you'd have to ask "Is this object unique or could someone easiliy go and obtain a comparable object to use in it's place?"
So while it's a novel idea and most worthy of continued R&D, it is not yet a practical solution as it only adds a layer of security that raises it's own potential security risks.
I could see an offshoot of this solution using imaging software to create complex patterns at the time of encryption that would be apparant noise to the human eye, but be read easily by a machine. These images could be small and stored on a memory stick. This method would be difficult to reproduce as the image itself would be based off the encrypted bits + the encryption key and stored on an external device. But unless they developed a biometric access mechanism(thumbprint scanning etc) on the access point or memory stick itself, there would still be the problems in secure storage/handling of the key.
But regardless, it is good to see new approaches to an age old problem.
ok, so maybe the word "endorsed" is a tad bit strong and I apologize if the judges ruling has left me a bit exuberant, but the recording industry has in fact stated that apples music service is an ideal and promising solution. The original article is lost to the archives at the latimes.com but can be referenced however the full transcript costs $$ at this time.
So while you are correct in saying that no "official endorsement" exists, the prevailing attitude being shown publicly towards apples venture is positive and does express interest in it's future.
Damn this mornings news just made my level of cynicism toward the judicial system drop severely.
Of course the RIAA/MPAA will appeal, probably for years over this.
BUT: This judgement was not a pesonal call nor without precident. The reasoning stated by the judge is based on laws that are over 20 years old now and fimiliar with many federal circuit judges AND the SC itself. So this ruling does give me a genuine sense of satisfaction because it does in fact weaken the RIAA/MPAA position in court substantially.
The RIAA/MPAA have of course seen this coming. That is why we see their new tactic of going after the individual.
And I say that's fine because as large and big as they are, in a year or two of court cases and a mountain of legal fees, they will have to stop and think of a way to change with the innovation rather than trying to kill innovation itself.
Maybe Apple will show them the light. It hasn't yet launched, but Apples solution is already endorsed by the RIAA/MPAA and IMHO stands a good chance of proving successfull in the marketplace. Being an OS X convert, I am waiting eagerly to be able to pay for that service.
Seems though the RIAA succeeded in crushing it in doing so it has created a cultural icon that shall be remembered for years, even decades to come.
:)
Now, if we could just form a religion based upon the cat-like diety, perhaps we could defeat the DMCA as a form of freedom of Religion
By 2010, The CEO of The United States of Microsoft (USM$) will in desperation allow Open Source Software on a controlled scale after global uprising due to a worldwide security breach that leaves all computers of the USM$ Licensed Nations and their users under control of the terrorist group known as the "Penguin Underground" who appearantly exploited the "Universal DRM" utility that provided root access designated to "trusted authorities" of the USM$ to monitor user activity and insure the well being of all Intellectual Property Worldwide. This group will be on a volunteer basis as an offshoot of the Neighborhood terrorist Watch and authorised tto create software to fight the terrorist threat.
In other 2010 news: The corporate practice of employee cranial augmentation is suspected of casing a global health threat according to reseachers after a 2 year study into the prolonged effect of implants in users selected worldwide. In a presentation to the USM$ Scientific Work Group, Dr. Yacob-Saleem Okawa Miller has alleged that Cranial Implants can cause Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD) due to degradation of the cellular structure of cloned stem-cells over a long period of use. At the time of this report the Fedaral Department of Biotech has stated that it is unaware of any such negative effects but will "look into the matter".
Heh...
The great thing is that in 8 years, NO ONE will remember any such predictions and if they do, they'd come across as idiots for beleiving a word of it.
So hey... I can believe programming jobs will double by 2010, but I'd wager largely that the average wage would rival a starbucks employee. C'mon, let's face it, by 2010 a 10 year old will be able to program a simple website and database... of course under the authority and watchful eye of the USM$ Web Services Bureau Youth Education Program.
I have to say I'm impressed with what appears to be a very good product for handhelds.
I can't wait to start seeing micro-editing and remixing suites available as well, I'm sure it will only be a short time before we have the ability to DJ or Master Music on a handheld as we do on a laptop today.
Also, what about effects?
It shouldn't take much doing to convert that application into say a reverb or delay peddle. An all in one solution for applying Delay/Distortion/Flange/Phaser/Reverb/EQ would quickly find itself in virtually all performers eqpt bag in a heart beat.
from the Ashcroft article:
"Allowing $8,000 in tax dollars to be spent on drapes to conceal two semi-nude statues that often appeared behind the attorney general during press conferences in the Great Hall of the Department of Justice. Ironically, the two statues represent "The Spirit of Justice" and "The Majesty of Law."
Ironic indeed, in fact most telling.
Ashcroft in his post 9/11 reign of the DOJ has done more to hide the doings of the DOJ and execution of it's commandments from the public than any other Attorney General in our nations history.
Being that he is the mind behind "secret search warrants", "secret evidence" and "secret imprisonment", it is quite fitting that he display this by making the representitive figures of his office "secret" as well.
And we all know who'd win a bidding war.
...just maybe.
/. still hold a grudge against Apple based upon the Macs of the mid-90's, OS X is a Unice, Apple has embraced and aided OSS and Apple is a great commercial alternative to wintel.
If M$ got their hands on Universal, we could all pretty much kiss free use good-bye.
And I don't even think it would be a true bidding war, I think a lot of it would be "buddy buddy" talks within the RIAA as a peer consesus that M$ is good and Apple bad. Since I'm sure the RIAA and Universals shareholders would ardently support a greater partnership with a corporation that specializes in proprietary formats and who is heading up a coup d'etat on the users rights to own their machine.
In a twisted sense, such an organization that controlled a major media producer as well as the mechanism for media playback and the operating system for that mechanism to be run on is an easy target for an anti-trust. But, we've already seen how effective the US Federal Judges are at punishing M$...
But maybe, just maybe it will all finally hit close enough to home when a Fed. Judge buys a CD and find they can't play it without having a winCE device with windows media player installed that we might finally see some justice in action.
Man, I hope this post isn't FUD, but I am feeling fearful of the possible repercussions I as a consumer would experience if the articles speculation were to come true.
So, hey, everyone go help Apple, buy some stock and pump them up! Apple has done more than just say "Rip-Mix-Burn". They have built some great software to make professional quality media production easy and affordable and they are staunchly against DRM on their platform. Though I know many on
Personally, I think OS X has a better a chance of replacing Moms desktop that Linux does. And as it should. Let's see Linux replace Windows in the server market and OS X replace windows in the desktop market.
Guess not in LA.
Personally, I thought it was a great article that really shows just how rapidly the internet has changed the way we think/act/say/do in a converstational or consensual manner.
In fact I think it's fairly obvious that we can expect to see even more of this mode of consensual decision making as communication devices continue to permeate our culture.
For example: I have a G4 tiBook, it has rendezvous which in turn is supported by an app called Hydra that allows multiple users to edit a single document real-time. And that is a fairly obvious and straight forward model. I believe that within 2-3 years the notion of 1 user/computer will be old hat and many tasks will be done as part of a consensus.
Imagine a team of genetic research scientists in the year 2007. They run Linux workstations and perform calculations to create a designer genome for the creation of a bacteria to use as an eco-friendly solvent. While they work, their CPU/HD and memory are all shared via the net and they are able to operate asynchronously on the same problem via this distributed architecture. Of course any distributed architecture amongst real-time users would require chat. So this small team could also allow in research fellows and peers to help guide and assist them in their work. And now we see an environment just like the one written up. But here, a chat user could influence the course of R&D, by trolling accordingly, they could cause the scientists to follow their friends research while shunning other research by those they do not favor personally.
And as such, would likely follow a similar killing floor for college research papers to be applied and praised or ignored out right WITHOUT even being read.
As you can see today hyper-communication causes people to act without doing any research and as technology progresses it won't get better. In fact far worse in the respect of it's cultural permeation and impact but hopefully better if tools made available to quantify and qualify data may be equally as ubiquitous in the coming age.
Well, the FBI seems to have found a new form of crack with those "secret warrants" -- which of course prevent anyone witnessing their being carried out from disclosing they were carried out and subjects the parties to such warrants to being jailed indefinantly under secret charges.
Can we say "police state"?
So, who's surprised that these "temporary losses of freedom" are now on the fast track to being the new mandate to lead to farther reaching Federal policies?
Sure now it's terrorists, but then becomes a model for dealing with "potential" murderers, rapists,drug dealers...
I strongly urge every one here who is a US citizen to write email and/or snail mail to their state senators TODAY.
Forward the links to everyone you know and urge them to do the same.
Maybe now that her site is feeling the power of the geek, she'll feel inspired to make an icon for the fabled slashdot effect to commemorate the tormenting of her poor webserver.
"But with U.S. signal interceptors targeting satphone transmissions to locate Iraqi military commanders, analysts worry that phone calls from civilians could appear as beacons for bombers."
And this makes good sense.
Last thing the Gov't wants is for an embedded CNN correspondant and their unit getting fragged live on prime time coverage. (though I'm sure Fox wouldn't mind, due to ratings and all) because a guided munition homed in on their location while broadcasting.
Let's face it, though our bombs are smarter, war is still hell.
We have no way of knowing the precise location of friendlies and enemies at any given time and some international reporters have already been killed by US ground troops.
One OS to rule them all,
One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.
And thus began an age of darkness.
Linus, it is now your quest to take the OS and cast it back to the fires of Redmond.
"If you were to prosecute someone and give them three years, I think this would act as a deterrent. ... I'm not out to get the kids, I'm out to get their attention."
3 years worth of attention, no... no one's out to get anyone.
I'm sure this will help guide all those zit faced college kids by teaching them valuable new "real llife" skills in prison like "run from the shower posse" and "servitude for protection" in our friendly neighborhood prison system.
But seriously: while I can see and on somedays even care about the RIAA's plight, jailtime for downloading is clearly not the answer we need. How about court enforced licensing?
Set it up so if you do get cought downloading those evil unlicensed MP3's, you pay $1 per track proven to be downloaded to the RIAA and then a $20.00 court fee and it's a turnstile system ala traffic court.
This way the cities win, the RIAA get's it's $$ and the poor user who downloaded can walk away warm and fuzzy knowing they now legitmately have "rights to listen" to the MP3 they got popped for.
Thank you China for putting man back on the moon.
Me thinks that if US Intelligence shows that China is really prepping for a moon base it will cause the US and EU to get their asses in gear to build their own moon base to save face and ensure equal dibs on mineral and property rights, much less military presence to thwart any potential domanance over the US and the world via the new military theatre of space.
You buy the machine, you know it has Windows installed BEFORE you buy it, now you want to march up and down a lawn demanding a refund.
I am hard pressed to think of a lamer excuse for protest than this.
Get some dignity people!
Fact is, if you are soooo 1337 you can build a machine to your liking that will have whatever OS you want, and if you were really 1337, you'd make like Torvolds and roll your own.
Aren't there better things to protest this week like the Skylerov trial and other thefts of personal liberty ala DMCA?
Talk about fiddling while Rome burns....
C'mon... reading that article was less informative than a longterm weather forecast, no need to read too deep here, it's mostly fluff.
Sure, many of us including myself have extreme pause in trusting the Trusted Computing Initiatives being pushed by wintel. But, this particular article provides no new insight and is just pep-rally talk and should not be taken all too seriously.
Maybe this article is good to raise the issue for CTO's to get some reports drafted on Alternative OS/Hardware means. Apple, though still on the higher end of the price factor is strongly against much of the DRM and "trusted" computing alliance.
And with more focus on "Office Killers" for Linux and other OS's I think that by the time TCPA and Co. hits the streets there will be plenty of other solutions available. Time however, will tell just how many there will be.
Well of course, that's why I"just say NO" to themes. OS themes, browser themes, any theme at all besides the defaults they come with.
Not because I don't like themes, but they are version specific for each release... and having to drop/change themes with each new release seems like more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.
Maybe someday in the not so distant future, they will build a theme utility that will adjust theme graphics to match the current GUI... but I doubt it.
Ya, Connectix's Virtual PC x86/FAT32 emulation, let's me run a fully licensed version of WinXP Professional right here on OS 10.2.1, damn cool, it runs on top of OS X so I can test my HTML/Flash output from PHP/Perl code running on OS X's install of Apache, MySQL and Postgres, without requiring a "dual boot"
Can WinXP or any other flavor of Windows run OS X on top of itself? Hell no!
An as far as M$ software, I have IE, Office and Windows Media Player right here on my Mac as OS X native apps... so what's their point?
I switched 3 weeks ago, and I've loved the Mac, all the multimedia tools of the PC world, but on a real OS! And to be quite honest, I haven't even bothered to boot my old PC since, mainly because I haven't missed a damn thing on my Mac vs the PC.