I think the IT industry needs to recognise that standards like SMTP need overhauling. They were never designed with the insight required to recognise potential mis-uses. The world should not go the way of the USA in attempting to fix all problems by turning society into one bit letigious mass.
Here is a copy of a letter which i sent to the Australian Government in relation to this matter which was published in the the Australia IT.
This email is intended for Minister Richard Alston, but is applicable to any persons within the Australian government who are responsible for administering, overseeing, and maintaining Australia's Information Economy.
Whilst I applaud the Australian Government's strong stance on SPAM email and its recent decision to fast track legislation to prevent it, I am gravely concerned by the nature of this legislation with regard to its stance on list-generating software.
At face value it may seem as though it is a good idea to prevent people from mining email addresses from the Internet, however upon closer inspection I hope that you will come to see it as I do, shortsighted, dangerous, and detrimental to the Information Economy.
My concerns arise from a fundamental view of what the Internet is and what it represents. Without a doubt the Internet has become much more than its designers ever envisaged, the current day invocation of Internet is as a medium for the publishing and sharing of information and, perhaps more importantly, it is also a medium for free speech and dissemination of data.
By moving to restrict the ability to harvest this information, the Australian Government will be unwittingly placing restrictions not on what is published, but rather how it is allowed to be received and distributed. This course of action may have far reaching implications and consequences for the Information Economy which the Australian Government is poorly equipped to understand.
From a technical perspective the Internet is still in its infancy, its current invocation will not last for ever, and so legislation which effects the flow of information needs to be carefully considered for the implications it may have on the future evolution of the Internet and therefore the Information Economy.
The Internet is an architecture built on flexible and generic standards, for instance an email address is actually a subset of a much wider standard for representing information called a Universal Resource Locator (URL)* which in itself is derived from a wider and even more generic standard called a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).
* Please refer to http://www.w3.org/Addressing/ for more technical details on the URI and URL.
By attempting to legislate against software which extracts email addresses from web pages or other content on the Internet, the Australian government is potentially legislating against software which harvests any kind of information based the URI/URL standards. Much of the software which performs such data mining activities is used for generating indexes of the Internet for use in search engines.
Search engine technology, and therefore data mining, is the most critical and heavily used application on the Internet today. Whether it be individual users, small business, corporate entities, or governments, they are all heavily dependent on search engine technology. Without such technology and the freedom to produce new innovative software utilising Internet standards, the Information Economy would surely be doomed.
What the Australian Government may not be aware of, and what the legislation probably overlooks is the fact that software designed to support the URI/URL standards will often not distinguish between and Email address (i.e. mailto:oof@foo.org) and a conventional HTTP address (i.e. http://foo.org).
The Australian Government cannot pass legislation which will effectively stifle existing search engine technology and future innovation in that area. Data mining based on existing Internet stand
I was lucky enough to catch this film on the big screen at Sydney's JAPANIME fesival which was held at Cricular Quay almost 1 year ago to this day.
For those of you who arent heavily into anime or manga, Blood is produced by production IG, who are the same people who made Ghost In The Shell and Jinroh.
Mamoru Oshii, the director of both Ghost In The Shell and Blood was present at the festival. With the help of a translator he was able to give a small talk on his work and an introduction to some of the deeper themes introduced in the movie just minutes before it was screened.
Although Ghost In The Shell still remains my all time favorite film (of any genre), Blood definately ushers in a new dimension in realism.
If you can catch it on the silver i highly recommend it, as with any animation, the more imersive the environment the better the suspension of disbelive and therefore the more enjoyable the experience.
Actually its pretty unlikely that scramjet technology will be incorporated into any type of vehicle in the imaginable future. They are hard to design and impracticle to implement.
Building a scramjet isnt like building any other kindof engine, you dont just make it and stick it on your vehicle. The scramjet IS the vehicle... thats the whole point.
The type of aerodynamics required to produce a working large scale scramjet would make the mind boggle. A scramjet relies on its aerodynamic form to compress the air, which is then combined with fuel and ignighted - as opposed to conventional jets which use mechanical means to compress air for combustion.
Thats why a scramjet has to go so darn fast before it works, its air compression by shear speed and slick lines.
Any vehicle that wants to use a scramjet needs to be build around the engine itself - not your conventional mode of aeronautical design at all !
Dont discount the value of velocity when you want to inflict damage. Just becuase the missile (or shell) is small doesnt mean it cant pack a whallop, think what a grain of sand in orbit does can do to a satelite !
I remember reading this a couple years back too, though i don't recollect it being in Discover. I suspect the same old story has been dregged up a few times and flogged as news by various sources. Its a wonder there hasnt been much new "real" news on this topic recently ?
One would think with all those evolutionary leaps that progress in this area would be fast:)
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I think the IT industry needs to recognise that standards like SMTP need overhauling. They were never designed with the insight required to recognise potential mis-uses. The world should not go the way of the USA in attempting to fix all problems by turning society into one bit letigious mass.
Here is a copy of a letter which i sent to the Australian Government in relation to this matter which was published in the the Australia IT.
This email is intended for Minister Richard Alston, but is applicable to any persons within the Australian government who are responsible for administering, overseeing, and maintaining Australia's Information Economy.
Whilst I applaud the Australian Government's strong stance on SPAM email and its recent decision to fast track legislation to prevent it, I am gravely concerned by the nature of this legislation with regard to its stance on list-generating software.
At face value it may seem as though it is a good idea to prevent people from mining email addresses from the Internet, however upon closer inspection I hope that you will come to see it as I do, shortsighted, dangerous, and detrimental to the Information Economy.
My concerns arise from a fundamental view of what the Internet is and what it represents. Without a doubt the Internet has become much more than its designers ever envisaged, the current day invocation of Internet is as a medium for the publishing and sharing of information and, perhaps more importantly, it is also a medium for free speech and dissemination of data.
By moving to restrict the ability to harvest this information, the Australian Government will be unwittingly placing restrictions not on what is published, but rather how it is allowed to be received and distributed. This course of action may have far reaching implications and consequences for the Information Economy which the Australian Government is poorly equipped to understand.
From a technical perspective the Internet is still in its infancy, its current invocation will not last for ever, and so legislation which effects the flow of information needs to be carefully considered for the implications it may have on the future evolution of the Internet and therefore the Information Economy.
The Internet is an architecture built on flexible and generic standards, for instance an email address is actually a subset of a much wider standard for representing information called a Universal Resource Locator (URL)* which in itself is derived from a wider and even more generic standard called a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).
* Please refer to http://www.w3.org/Addressing/ for more technical details on the URI and URL.
By attempting to legislate against software which extracts email addresses from web pages or other content on the Internet, the Australian government is potentially legislating against software which harvests any kind of information based the URI/URL standards. Much of the software which performs such data mining activities is used for generating indexes of the Internet for use in search engines.
Search engine technology, and therefore data mining, is the most critical and heavily used application on the Internet today. Whether it be individual users, small business, corporate entities, or governments, they are all heavily dependent on search engine technology. Without such technology and the freedom to produce new innovative software utilising Internet standards, the Information Economy would surely be doomed.
What the Australian Government may not be aware of, and what the legislation probably overlooks is the fact that software designed to support the URI/URL standards will often not distinguish between and Email address (i.e. mailto:oof@foo.org) and a conventional HTTP address (i.e. http://foo.org).
The Australian Government cannot pass legislation which will effectively stifle existing search engine technology and future innovation in that area. Data mining based on existing Internet stand
I was lucky enough to catch this film on the big screen at Sydney's JAPANIME fesival which was held at Cricular Quay almost 1 year ago to this day.
For those of you who arent heavily into anime or manga, Blood is produced by production IG, who are the same people who made Ghost In The Shell and Jinroh.
Mamoru Oshii, the director of both Ghost In The Shell and Blood was present at the festival. With the help of a translator he was able to give a small talk on his work and an introduction to some of the deeper themes introduced in the movie just minutes before it was screened.
Although Ghost In The Shell still remains my all time favorite film (of any genre), Blood definately ushers in a new dimension in realism.
If you can catch it on the silver i highly recommend it, as with any animation, the more imersive the environment the better the suspension of disbelive and therefore the more enjoyable the experience.
Sorry but DVD just doesnt cut it...
Actually its pretty unlikely that scramjet technology will be incorporated into any type of vehicle in the imaginable future. They are hard to design and impracticle to implement.
Building a scramjet isnt like building any other kindof engine, you dont just make it and stick it on your vehicle. The scramjet IS the vehicle... thats the whole point.
The type of aerodynamics required to produce a working large scale scramjet would make the mind boggle. A scramjet relies on its aerodynamic form to compress the air, which is then combined with fuel and ignighted - as opposed to conventional jets which use mechanical means to compress air for combustion.
Thats why a scramjet has to go so darn fast before it works, its air compression by shear speed and slick lines.
Any vehicle that wants to use a scramjet needs to be build around the engine itself - not your conventional mode of aeronautical design at all !
Dont discount the value of velocity when you want to inflict damage. Just becuase the missile (or shell) is small doesnt mean it cant pack a whallop, think what a grain of sand in orbit does can do to a satelite !
I remember reading this a couple years back too, though i don't recollect it being in Discover. I suspect the same old story has been dregged up a few times and flogged as news by various sources. Its a wonder there hasnt been much new "real" news on this topic recently ?
:)
One would think with all those evolutionary leaps that progress in this area would be fast