I am not annoyed enough with Creative to get rid of my SBLives, and I'm surprised you are. I guess each of us has to decide where to draw the line.
Ha! They're already warming you up, just like the frog in the pot.
Seriously, though. I'm playing devil's advogate, but this is exactly what was meant by the title of the article. For now you can play all your files, but what about when the DRM files become ubiquitous? If no one stands up now and tells companies like Creative -- with their strongest voice, their dollars -- that they won't tolerate this, then by the time people cry, "Foul!" on a meaningful level, it will be too late.
The larger problem is that the broadband companies are stifling the most compelling aspect of the Internet, that of two-way communication and the ability of the subscriber to become the publisher. With port-blocking and upstream bandwidth choking, put into place arguably to preserve their own media monopolies (especially since the brain-damaged FCC has removed restrictions on ownership of media within a given locality), the cable companies are ensuring that the web will become a bland wasteland of coporate advertising.
The corporate discovery of the Internet, combined with the systematic stifling of the ability of the individual to publish, leaves us with a lower content-to-fluff ratio. That's what will keep people from paying more for high-speed Internet.
On a related note, given a content-heavy, well-designed Internet, what matters most, most of the time, is latency -- not bandwidth. Many broadband providers are selling connections with latency much worse than an analog modem, and prevaricating left and right about the wonders of bandwidth. Granted, this assumes that the web, and textual content is more valuable than downloaded pr0n, but the Internet is still a pretty poor mechanism for delivering music and video, as I think it will be for a long time to come.
To reiterate, the real value of the Internet is in the availability of two-way communication -- the empowerment of the individual to have a voice that is as visible and strong as that of a company with many more resources. It is the stifling of this that will be the broadband companies' downfall.
... is an open source (preferably) suite that I can run on my PC at home, where I can decide the access controls, and have complete control privacy policy. Ok, so this requires a permanent connection, but that's becoming more and more available all the time.
I think this is the only way that something like this could work. A "profile appliance," combined with strong encryption, located in your own home, where you have physical control over it, could potentially have a chance of providing the security and safety that would make this idea plausible without compromising peoples' privacy.
Unfortunately, the cable companies are trying more and more to stifle these types of applications by blocking ports and restricting upstream bandwidth. This is exactly the kind of application would allow people to really take advantage of high-speed, always-on Internet connections. But since the cable companies want to control all forms of publishing, it doesn't look like it'll happen anytime soon.
what clients would actually need to support this for it to become really standard ?
Outlook (express) Eudora Lotus Notes
I cant think of any more really can you ?
Well, netscape, on windows and mac, but the point really is the ridiculously easy GUI. The average user doesn't know or care enough to figure out how to generate a key and send it to a keyserver - or to manage the private key between machines. Thus the mail client would have to make this really simple. As someone else mentioned, probably the most difficult part is managing the private key between machines, which the software can't necessarily handle anyway.
...are we at the dawn of that golden age when encrypted email will be commonplace?
Nope. Not until all the most popular mail clients include functionality to make it ridiculously easy for a nontechnical user to use encryption (including key generation and management), will we see commonplace encrypted email. The inclusion of an extension to mozilla on a linux distribution hardly fulfills this requirement.
No. To try and control layout is to miss the point of HTML. The web is a LOT more than just HTML and thinking it is nothing more is the kind of blinders that locks people into using Personal computers as nothing more than a dumb terminal to a central mainframe. We've been past that for decades off the web and for years on the web. (Well, at least some of us have been)
Clearly, you've missed the point.
The point of the web is delivering meaningful information to users of disparate systems. Flash, PDF, and friends are fine for animation and graphic design, respectively, but they defeat the purpose of the web. Unless the information you're trying to present is the animation or graphic design itself, these devices should only be supplemental, never as an integral, necessary part of a site.
Layout information is meaningless on braille readers, limited devices (e.g. PDAs), and generally any systems other than those for which it was specifically designed and tested. This is why HTML was designed to explicitly exclude layout information. You compare this to using PCs as dumb terminals, but in reality, that analogy applies much more closely to the paradigm you imply. If you control the layout, the browser is just a dumb terminal, faithfully presenting your design (we'll ignore for the moment that this is impossible). If sites are designed following the intentions of HTML, the web client is able to influence the layout to meet the user's needs and preferences (imagine that). That's where the power of the web comes from, and those that try to simplify it into a simple graphic design medium are doing the world a great disservice.
I've always wondered about this particular attitude I've often heard from the (I'm stereotyping here) purist camp on the web. It's one thing to state -- and correctly so -- that the HTML spec offers no cross-browser guarantee about visual appearance, and was never intended to.
It's another thing entirely to insinuate that HTML was intended to ensure that "no web site will look the same on all platforms." (Granted it's a semantic point, but semantics are the basis for a lot of arguments, and the standards-vs-"what works" argument has proved one of the more vehement on the web.)
Actually, HTML was designed to specifically exclude the possibility of specifying visual presentation, for good reasons. Visual presentation doesn't make sense to a braille reader, and visual presentation on IE 6 on a 21" monitor doesn't make sense for a text-browser over a TTY. HTML was designed to describe information in a meaningful way, that was subject to presentation based on client preferences and abilities.
My HTML passes 4.01 Validation [w3.org] but I can't be sure it displays on those browsers.
The solution is to not try to make it display identically on all the browsers, but to make sure that you're standards compliant, and test as much as possible to make sure that the information is accesible on the widest range of browsers, and displays well on the most popular. It sounds like you're doing the right thing.
Never, never call HTML markup "coding." It's simply a markup language.
Well, it works in the same sense as, say, color coding. But you're right.
On the other hand, we're not just talking about HTML. Web sites are now a whole conglomeration of HTML, Javascript, Flash, and other crap thrown in. So there's definitely some programming involved, even though it's not such a great idea.
> It seems like someone has finally noticed that if you do not test your site using a wide range of browsers you do not know how your page is going to look... To most of us this problem is obvious.
Not to disagree, but I think the point is that a lot of people build sites using bad HTML, then test on the major browsers to verify that it works. That doesn't prevent the fragile coding that is so prevalent these days. What they really should be doing is using standard logical markup, and adulterating that with CSS to influence layout. They also should disavow themselves of the notion that they can control every pixel of the layout. To try to control layout definitively is to miss the point of the web.
Zeldman asserts that the problem plaguing web developers is a desire for backward compatibility. In fact, that desire seems unfortunately missing in most websites. The real problem making websites suck is the desire to view the web as a graphic design medium.
Designers want to control every pixel of a page's layout, completely ignoring what the web was designed for. If everyone used logical markup to describe their data, later adding CSS to attempt to influence the layout, the web would be a much friendlier place. It may not look exactly the same on every browser (which, come to think of it, may be Zeldman's point), but with proper testing, it should look similar on popular browsers, and at least be LEGIBLE on others.
People need to be convinced that the web is not a graphic design medium. That's what PDF files are for. People don't try to build their sites solely from PDF files, because that just wouldn't fly. Instead they try to use the web to achieve the same goal, completely oblivious to the fact that it's a really poor tool for that purpose. Rather than embracing a new paradigm, they try to contort it to look like what they already know. To me, that's just incompetence.
The thing I really hate about all this is that mozilla is supposed to be a browser! While a cross-platform GUI framework may be a laudable goal, putting it into a web browser just muddles everything and results in a web that is no longer cross-platform, and bland non-web apps that don't use platform functionality well.
The web doesn't work when sites require a specific browser! I just wish that the mozilla crew could recognize that and rise above the Microsoft crap.
What we see now on the web is numerous sites designing for IE because "90% of our user base is using IE on Windows, so why should we design for the common denominator?" Everyone designing for Mozilla is just as bad as everyone designing for IE. It still defeats one of the most useful features of the web, namely compatibility across platforms, browsers, and physical layout paradigms.
The web started as logical markup. Properly tagged information could be rendered in a number of different ways, depending on the USER's needs and preferences. Then the commercial interests came along and stupid people tried to use the web as a graphic design medium, completely missing the point that the power of the web comes from its inability to dictate things like layout. People just don't think about the fact that the web would never have been as useful as it has been if it was a bunch of PDF files with hyperlinks.
The extent to which you are missing the point is truly staggering. Did you actually read my post or any of the articles?
> If I forget to lock my door at night, I SHOULD NOT EXPECT a burglar, rapist, or other intruder.
No, but if you place all your belongings all over the sidewalk in front of your house, you should expect people to walk among them and inspect them. From what the articles tell us, Puffer did not "break in" anywhere. He merely observed data that was broadcast to him and reported the fact that it was revealing to an appropriate authority. It's entirely specious to suggest that a network broadcast over public airwaves, with no concealment of the data therein, is one that is private. By what means then can one differentiate between public and private?
>...he didn't get arrested for pointing out the flaw to the Clerk. He got arrested from all his "experiments" while he was probing for the problem in unsuspecting networks.
From whence did you fabricate that piece of information? None of the articles say that, and most directly counter that. The earlier article in the Houston paper especially (linked to in someone's comment somewhere) makes it sound like this Clerk is just being a territorial asshole.
> If you want to make a point make it the legal way like the rest of us.
Hmmm...so notifying a public official is illegal now? *sigh* One more thing I'll have to remember, I guess. Just out of curiosity, what would you have done upon finding that peoples' -- possibly your own -- private information were being sent through the air, open to anyone with a network card? Ignored it? Well, that would make you a good little citizen, wouldn't it. Certainly better than actually doing something useful. Better yet, you could have dropped a few grand on a lawyer to sue them for privacy violations. That would be truly American!
There's no evidence here that this man was acting with any malicious intent or action. Why would you be so quick to label it "breaking in," when we're talking about a network broadcast over public spectrum. Hardly like throwing a rock through a window. A little bit more like watching TV, perhaps.
> Unless he was hired for the job, he deserves it.
That's absolutely absurd. The man simply brought to the attention of the clerk the fact that its network was insecure. That a person is prosecuted for trying to point out a potentially dangerous security flaw shows the extent to which this country has fallen into a legal and intellectual paralysis. He should be hailed as a good samaritan looking out for the safety of the county's information!
From the original article:
District Clerk Charles Bacarisse said no files were compromised, but the county had to shut down the wireless system about a month after it was set up.
It appears that there was no malicious action or intent on the part of Mr. Puffer, but rather that the clerk's office is upset because someone discovered its incompetence. What would have happened if someone truly malicious had stumbled upon this network? To what ends could he or she have used the information found?
If you broadcast your network all over your block unprotected, you shouldn't be surprised when someone discovers it and pokes around. Plain and simple. What about those that willingly open their networks to the public? Should we make free public access illegal, so that fools like this can remain under their rocks and pretend that no one can see their secrets?
Or, and here is the real point, the agreement you didn't sign. Since all they need is a little time to change it to whatever they like.
Well, that's why you should read the contract everytime they change it, and complain bitterly if they put in a clause like that which we're talking about. It may not get you anywhere, but if enough people complain, eventually they won't get away with it. IANAL, but I don't think a unilaterally altered agreement would hold up in court. Regardless, they have much more power over you if you're breaking their contract, which is why you should fight to keep crap like this out of it.
BFD, I'm quite sure there is a "like it or lump it" clause in the contract that lets them change it on 30 days written notice, or the like. So even if NATing was allowed, if the "friendly guy" left, and "mean guy" showed up, it only makes 30 or so days difference.
That's not the point. The point is that the official stance of the corporation is all that matters in the long run. Having a friendly guy in your local office may be nice, but it doesn't protect you from getting screwed when his boss says that now they're going to sue his customers to make a point, for example. Don't let a friendly representative fool you into thinking that the corporation is benevolent, because there are plenty of superiors that can decide to enforce the agreements you've signed -- and if you've broken your contract, they can make your life pretty miserable if they want to. A clause like that gives them too much power over you, and you shouldn't be comfortable with it in your contract, just because the friendly rep doesn't care to enforce it right now.
All that download speed is great, but RCN also happens to block port 80 on all their cable modems. Not only that, but they do it in such a way that if someone tries to connect to your port 80, their connection just hangs forever. Anyway, they stifle the most interesting and useful feature of the Internet, that of empowering individual users to publish their own information. With RCN, you're out of luck unless you want to be stuck with static pages on their server under some URL specified by them - which, by the way, they have the power to change at any time, confusing any users of your site (see the recent domain changes of AT if you don't think this really happens).
For instance, the no NAT clause in the contract. They know people have more than one machine behind an IP, but really don't care. They won't do anything about he user unless they suspect bandwidth reselling.
Great, so people have to break their contracts to do reasonable things with their cable modems, but the people working in your local office don't mind (for now). Sorry, but that's no way to run a business. What happens when the friendly guy you talked to gets a better job and the new guy isn't so friendly? Now he has the power to cut you off because you're breaking your contract. You're naive if you think that what some individual that works for your cable company tells you holds any weight against the written agreement. I've been flat-out lied to by several people at AT&T regarding my cable modem service, and when it comes down to it, they don't give a damn unless you have it in writing.
The merits depend on your needs and how much time you have. If you have gobs of time on your hands, you can search for the lowest prices, and may be able to save if you're clever about it. I wouldn't do this for more than one or two systems, though.
Back in my days as an IT manager for a small company, I bought from a local company that built their own computers. They could get substantially better prices on components than I could, because they had accounts with wholesale distributors, and they dealt with greater volumes. They built the computers from individual components, unlike the mass-producers such as Dell, who typically integrate everything (network card, sound card, etc.) into the motherboard to save pennies. This was important to me because when a system failed I could typically get a new part, which my local company usually had on hand, within hours, rather than having to replace the system entirely and wait for the replacement to come in the mail. This saved us money in reduced downtime for systems that made us money only when they were running.
The bottom line is, if you have a local supplier whom you trust, there can be many benefits to using that resource. Trying to build systems at a cost equivalent to what they provided would have taken up too much of my time to be worth the effort, and made things difficult down the road when things inevitably broke. Additionally, consider that components often fail, and a supplier will stand behind their systems, replacing parts immediately if they fail within a reasonable amount of time after purchase.
This used to be a HOAX!!! It was impossible to get a virus through email, so people tricked newbies by sending them a message saying "don't open messages with this subject line, they'll eat your brains!" All the while those of us that knew better just chuckled when our friends forwarded another of these to us, and we had to explain that it wasn't possible.
Then Microsoft decided to get into the Internet business.
Microsoft made the longtime hoax a reality. That takes either profound stupidity or monumental disregard for customers' best interest. Perhaps it was both.
As far as I'm concerned, for those that get these virii, serves them right (or their sysadmins, at least)! Microsoft has shown over and over again that the have no regard for security, privacy, or fair or intelligent system design. They refuse to follow standards. It amazes me that administrators and managers still buy their software! And guess what? As long as people continue to buy this crap, they'll keep making it. I say no thanks. Though I never thought windows was any good, I erased all MS software from my computers long ago, and have found (much better) alternatives. I suggest that all intelligent administrators do the same.
Liability as applied in the US is a bit crazy to begin with. Essentially what this is advocating is removing consumer choice. The big companys that buy buggy, insecure software are making a choice to do so. They don't want to pay for more security analysis for commercial software, and they don't want the extra thought burden (i.e. percieved difficulty) of choosing open source solutions that tend to be safer.
The notion that I can be sued because you decided to do something really stupid with my product is a bit ridiculous. Liability makes sense in the case of gross negligence, or when the providers should have known better but the consumer couldn't have, but unless you've been living under a rock, it's pretty clear that Microsoft (for example) has a horrid security record, yet people still buy their software, instead of using UNIX or Macintosh. That indicates clear acceptance by the market of poor security.
I'm continuously amazed that people are willing to buy software from a company that makes such obvious and eggregious security mistakes. The fact that people continue to support a company that actually took a hoax (email viruses) played on Internet newbies for years, and turned it into reality just boggles the mind. (Antitrust can't explain this one away. There are other mail clients, and other web clients. I've seen administrators actually forbid Netscape on their machines, only to be hit later by stupid Microsoft security bugs.)
Anyway, big companies who are consumers of software have the power to demand security, by choosing secure solutions. We don't need more stupid laws on the books that make it so that nobody can produce software without putting themselves at risk of being forced to pay for idiots' misuse of their products.
Better yet, show them that software installation with a debian system is a simple matter of 'apt-get install '. I've been using debian for years, and I still chuckle with joy sometimes when the time between thinking, "hmmm...I need this software," and having that software installed on my machine ready for me to use (with no silly reboots) is under 30 seconds.
There is power in that which no windows system can rival.
> Traditional commercial software comes in a shrink-wrapped package that you pick up at Best Buy, shareware is shared around the net for distribution.
This isn't quite accurate. Shareware was originally distributed on floppies at computer stores, among user groups, and through BBSs. To look at the situation now, commercial demos are frequently distributed freely over the internet, and encouraged to be shared widely. What makes this a commercial demo (commercial is a bad word here, of course shareware is commercial, but here I'm talking solely about a distinction in categorization) is that it is only a temporary preview of software which you must pay to recieve. In many cases, the full functionality is present in the executable, which a key is used to unlock, so the method of distribution is no different from that of shareware.
> Nag screens and increased functionality when the software is purchased is just "additional encouragement" and doesn't violate the quote you cited.
I completely agree. But what we're talking about here is not increased functionality, but basic functionality needed to make the software usable.
> And THAT is the definition of shareware. That you can share it and that a substantial amount of the functionality is there so you can try before you buy.
Well, at least we're getting closer to a common understanding. I'd agree that something is shareware as long as basic functionality, enough to make the software useful, remains present without payment. I never said there was anything wrong with charging for functionality that enhances the basic product. In fact, I think that this is a great way to give the honor system a helping shove.
> Perhaps expireware might go beyond your quote in spirit, although again it DOES still fit the description since the fact that the software expires is just one more way to encourage the user to purchase the software.
In all this arguing about details, I think we've strayed from what really makes shareware special. Expireware does violate the spirit. It is the spirit that goes to the heart of what shareware represents, what distinguishes it from commercial software distributed in the same way, and what is missing from terse definitions of terms. (Again, I mean commercial not in the strict sense, but solely as a means of categorization, i.e. to fit into your list of terms.)
Calling the disabling of basic functionality "encouragement" is a bit of a stretch of the truth. Like claiming that if I run someone over with my car, I'm encouraging them to get out of the street. It's not difficult to distinguish between being forced to do something and being encouraged.
> And, in light of the fact that 80% of users [scrawlsoft.com] will not purchase shareware if they don't have to, I think working on the honor system is just foolish.
This is probably why you don't see much real shareware anymore. Those that were committed to the ideals of freedom are making GPL'd software, perhaps in part because the honor system just doesn't generate enough cash to make shareware worth the trouble. Those that weren't willing to give up on the potential revenue are making commercial software. I'm not trying to condemn commercial software here. Demoware is almost certainly better than straight buy-before-you-try software, it's just not shareware. All I want is for the spirit, the optimistic trust in human nature that was inherent in shareware to be preserved with the name.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! They're already warming you up, just like the frog in the pot.
Seriously, though. I'm playing devil's advogate, but this is exactly what was meant by the title of the article. For now you can play all your files, but what about when the DRM files become ubiquitous? If no one stands up now and tells companies like Creative -- with their strongest voice, their dollars -- that they won't tolerate this, then by the time people cry, "Foul!" on a meaningful level, it will be too late.
The larger problem is that the broadband companies are stifling the most compelling aspect of the Internet, that of two-way communication and the ability of the subscriber to become the publisher. With port-blocking and upstream bandwidth choking, put into place arguably to preserve their own media monopolies (especially since the brain-damaged FCC has removed restrictions on ownership of media within a given locality), the cable companies are ensuring that the web will become a bland wasteland of coporate advertising.
The corporate discovery of the Internet, combined with the systematic stifling of the ability of the individual to publish, leaves us with a lower content-to-fluff ratio. That's what will keep people from paying more for high-speed Internet.
On a related note, given a content-heavy, well-designed Internet, what matters most, most of the time, is latency -- not bandwidth. Many broadband providers are selling connections with latency much worse than an analog modem, and prevaricating left and right about the wonders of bandwidth. Granted, this assumes that the web, and textual content is more valuable than downloaded pr0n, but the Internet is still a pretty poor mechanism for delivering music and video, as I think it will be for a long time to come.
To reiterate, the real value of the Internet is in the availability of two-way communication -- the empowerment of the individual to have a voice that is as visible and strong as that of a company with many more resources. It is the stifling of this that will be the broadband companies' downfall.
I think this is the only way that something like this could work. A "profile appliance," combined with strong encryption, located in your own home, where you have physical control over it, could potentially have a chance of providing the security and safety that would make this idea plausible without compromising peoples' privacy.
Unfortunately, the cable companies are trying more and more to stifle these types of applications by blocking ports and restricting upstream bandwidth. This is exactly the kind of application would allow people to really take advantage of high-speed, always-on Internet connections. But since the cable companies want to control all forms of publishing, it doesn't look like it'll happen anytime soon.
Well, netscape, on windows and mac, but the point really is the ridiculously easy GUI. The average user doesn't know or care enough to figure out how to generate a key and send it to a keyserver - or to manage the private key between machines. Thus the mail client would have to make this really simple. As someone else mentioned, probably the most difficult part is managing the private key between machines, which the software can't necessarily handle anyway.
Nope. Not until all the most popular mail clients include functionality to make it ridiculously easy for a nontechnical user to use encryption (including key generation and management), will we see commonplace encrypted email. The inclusion of an extension to mozilla on a linux distribution hardly fulfills this requirement.
No. To try and control layout is to miss the point of HTML. The web is a LOT more than just HTML and thinking it is nothing more is the kind of blinders that locks people into using Personal computers as nothing more than a dumb terminal to a central mainframe. We've been past that for decades off the web and for years on the web. (Well, at least some of us have been)
Clearly, you've missed the point.
The point of the web is delivering meaningful information to users of disparate systems. Flash, PDF, and friends are fine for animation and graphic design, respectively, but they defeat the purpose of the web. Unless the information you're trying to present is the animation or graphic design itself, these devices should only be supplemental, never as an integral, necessary part of a site.
Layout information is meaningless on braille readers, limited devices (e.g. PDAs), and generally any systems other than those for which it was specifically designed and tested. This is why HTML was designed to explicitly exclude layout information. You compare this to using PCs as dumb terminals, but in reality, that analogy applies much more closely to the paradigm you imply. If you control the layout, the browser is just a dumb terminal, faithfully presenting your design (we'll ignore for the moment that this is impossible). If sites are designed following the intentions of HTML, the web client is able to influence the layout to meet the user's needs and preferences (imagine that). That's where the power of the web comes from, and those that try to simplify it into a simple graphic design medium are doing the world a great disservice.
I've always wondered about this particular attitude I've often heard from the (I'm stereotyping here) purist camp on the web. It's one thing to state -- and correctly so -- that the HTML spec offers no cross-browser guarantee about visual appearance, and was never intended to.
It's another thing entirely to insinuate that HTML was intended to ensure that "no web site will look the same on all platforms." (Granted it's a semantic point, but semantics are the basis for a lot of arguments, and the standards-vs-"what works" argument has proved one of the more vehement on the web.)
Actually, HTML was designed to specifically exclude the possibility of specifying visual presentation, for good reasons. Visual presentation doesn't make sense to a braille reader, and visual presentation on IE 6 on a 21" monitor doesn't make sense for a text-browser over a TTY. HTML was designed to describe information in a meaningful way, that was subject to presentation based on client preferences and abilities.
My HTML passes 4.01 Validation [w3.org] but I can't be sure it displays on those browsers.
The solution is to not try to make it display identically on all the browsers, but to make sure that you're standards compliant, and test as much as possible to make sure that the information is accesible on the widest range of browsers, and displays well on the most popular. It sounds like you're doing the right thing.
Never, never call HTML markup "coding." It's simply a markup language.
Well, it works in the same sense as, say, color coding. But you're right.
On the other hand, we're not just talking about HTML. Web sites are now a whole conglomeration of HTML, Javascript, Flash, and other crap thrown in. So there's definitely some programming involved, even though it's not such a great idea.
> It seems like someone has finally noticed that if you do not test your site using a wide range of browsers you do not know how your page is going to look... To most of us this problem is obvious.
Not to disagree, but I think the point is that a lot of people build sites using bad HTML, then test on the major browsers to verify that it works. That doesn't prevent the fragile coding that is so prevalent these days. What they really should be doing is using standard logical markup, and adulterating that with CSS to influence layout. They also should disavow themselves of the notion that they can control every pixel of the layout. To try to control layout definitively is to miss the point of the web.
Zeldman asserts that the problem plaguing web developers is a desire for backward compatibility. In fact, that desire seems unfortunately missing in most websites. The real problem making websites suck is the desire to view the web as a graphic design medium.
Designers want to control every pixel of a page's layout, completely ignoring what the web was designed for. If everyone used logical markup to describe their data, later adding CSS to attempt to influence the layout, the web would be a much friendlier place. It may not look exactly the same on every browser (which, come to think of it, may be Zeldman's point), but with proper testing, it should look similar on popular browsers, and at least be LEGIBLE on others.
People need to be convinced that the web is not a graphic design medium. That's what PDF files are for. People don't try to build their sites solely from PDF files, because that just wouldn't fly. Instead they try to use the web to achieve the same goal, completely oblivious to the fact that it's a really poor tool for that purpose. Rather than embracing a new paradigm, they try to contort it to look like what they already know. To me, that's just incompetence.
The thing I really hate about all this is that mozilla is supposed to be a browser! While a cross-platform GUI framework may be a laudable goal, putting it into a web browser just muddles everything and results in a web that is no longer cross-platform, and bland non-web apps that don't use platform functionality well.
The web doesn't work when sites require a specific browser! I just wish that the mozilla crew could recognize that and rise above the Microsoft crap.
What we see now on the web is numerous sites designing for IE because "90% of our user base is using IE on Windows, so why should we design for the common denominator?" Everyone designing for Mozilla is just as bad as everyone designing for IE. It still defeats one of the most useful features of the web, namely compatibility across platforms, browsers, and physical layout paradigms.
The web started as logical markup. Properly tagged information could be rendered in a number of different ways, depending on the USER's needs and preferences. Then the commercial interests came along and stupid people tried to use the web as a graphic design medium, completely missing the point that the power of the web comes from its inability to dictate things like layout. People just don't think about the fact that the web would never have been as useful as it has been if it was a bunch of PDF files with hyperlinks.
Argh.
The extent to which you are missing the point is truly staggering. Did you actually read my post or any of the articles?
> If I forget to lock my door at night, I SHOULD NOT EXPECT a burglar, rapist, or other intruder.
No, but if you place all your belongings all over the sidewalk in front of your house, you should expect people to walk among them and inspect them. From what the articles tell us, Puffer did not "break in" anywhere. He merely observed data that was broadcast to him and reported the fact that it was revealing to an appropriate authority. It's entirely specious to suggest that a network broadcast over public airwaves, with no concealment of the data therein, is one that is private. By what means then can one differentiate between public and private?
> ...he didn't get arrested for pointing out the flaw to the Clerk. He got arrested from all his "experiments" while he was probing for the problem in unsuspecting networks.
From whence did you fabricate that piece of information? None of the articles say that, and most directly counter that. The earlier article in the Houston paper especially (linked to in someone's comment somewhere) makes it sound like this Clerk is just being a territorial asshole.
> If you want to make a point make it the legal way like the rest of us.
Hmmm...so notifying a public official is illegal now? *sigh* One more thing I'll have to remember, I guess. Just out of curiosity, what would you have done upon finding that peoples' -- possibly your own -- private information were being sent through the air, open to anyone with a network card? Ignored it? Well, that would make you a good little citizen, wouldn't it. Certainly better than actually doing something useful. Better yet, you could have dropped a few grand on a lawyer to sue them for privacy violations. That would be truly American!
There's no evidence here that this man was acting with any malicious intent or action. Why would you be so quick to label it "breaking in," when we're talking about a network broadcast over public spectrum. Hardly like throwing a rock through a window. A little bit more like watching TV, perhaps.
> Unless he was hired for the job, he deserves it.
That's absolutely absurd. The man simply brought to the attention of the clerk the fact that its network was insecure. That a person is prosecuted for trying to point out a potentially dangerous security flaw shows the extent to which this country has fallen into a legal and intellectual paralysis. He should be hailed as a good samaritan looking out for the safety of the county's information!
From the original article:
It appears that there was no malicious action or intent on the part of Mr. Puffer, but rather that the clerk's office is upset because someone discovered its incompetence. What would have happened if someone truly malicious had stumbled upon this network? To what ends could he or she have used the information found?
If you broadcast your network all over your block unprotected, you shouldn't be surprised when someone discovers it and pokes around. Plain and simple. What about those that willingly open their networks to the public? Should we make free public access illegal, so that fools like this can remain under their rocks and pretend that no one can see their secrets?
Or, and here is the real point, the agreement you didn't sign. Since all they need is a little time to change it to whatever they like.
Well, that's why you should read the contract everytime they change it, and complain bitterly if they put in a clause like that which we're talking about. It may not get you anywhere, but if enough people complain, eventually they won't get away with it. IANAL, but I don't think a unilaterally altered agreement would hold up in court. Regardless, they have much more power over you if you're breaking their contract, which is why you should fight to keep crap like this out of it.
BFD, I'm quite sure there is a "like it or lump it" clause in the contract that lets them change it on 30 days written notice, or the like. So even if NATing was allowed, if the "friendly guy" left, and "mean guy" showed up, it only makes 30 or so days difference.
That's not the point. The point is that the official stance of the corporation is all that matters in the long run. Having a friendly guy in your local office may be nice, but it doesn't protect you from getting screwed when his boss says that now they're going to sue his customers to make a point, for example. Don't let a friendly representative fool you into thinking that the corporation is benevolent, because there are plenty of superiors that can decide to enforce the agreements you've signed -- and if you've broken your contract, they can make your life pretty miserable if they want to. A clause like that gives them too much power over you, and you shouldn't be comfortable with it in your contract, just because the friendly rep doesn't care to enforce it right now.
All that download speed is great, but RCN also happens to block port 80 on all their cable modems. Not only that, but they do it in such a way that if someone tries to connect to your port 80, their connection just hangs forever. Anyway, they stifle the most interesting and useful feature of the Internet, that of empowering individual users to publish their own information. With RCN, you're out of luck unless you want to be stuck with static pages on their server under some URL specified by them - which, by the way, they have the power to change at any time, confusing any users of your site (see the recent domain changes of AT if you don't think this really happens).
For instance, the no NAT clause in the contract. They know people have more than one machine behind an IP, but really don't care. They won't do anything about he user unless they suspect bandwidth reselling.
Great, so people have to break their contracts to do reasonable things with their cable modems, but the people working in your local office don't mind (for now). Sorry, but that's no way to run a business. What happens when the friendly guy you talked to gets a better job and the new guy isn't so friendly? Now he has the power to cut you off because you're breaking your contract. You're naive if you think that what some individual that works for your cable company tells you holds any weight against the written agreement. I've been flat-out lied to by several people at AT&T regarding my cable modem service, and when it comes down to it, they don't give a damn unless you have it in writing.
The merits depend on your needs and how much time you have. If you have gobs of time on your hands, you can search for the lowest prices, and may be able to save if you're clever about it. I wouldn't do this for more than one or two systems, though.
Back in my days as an IT manager for a small company, I bought from a local company that built their own computers. They could get substantially better prices on components than I could, because they had accounts with wholesale distributors, and they dealt with greater volumes. They built the computers from individual components, unlike the mass-producers such as Dell, who typically integrate everything (network card, sound card, etc.) into the motherboard to save pennies. This was important to me because when a system failed I could typically get a new part, which my local company usually had on hand, within hours, rather than having to replace the system entirely and wait for the replacement to come in the mail. This saved us money in reduced downtime for systems that made us money only when they were running.
The bottom line is, if you have a local supplier whom you trust, there can be many benefits to using that resource. Trying to build systems at a cost equivalent to what they provided would have taken up too much of my time to be worth the effort, and made things difficult down the road when things inevitably broke. Additionally, consider that components often fail, and a supplier will stand behind their systems, replacing parts immediately if they fail within a reasonable amount of time after purchase.
This used to be a HOAX!!! It was impossible to get a virus through email, so people tricked newbies by sending them a message saying "don't open messages with this subject line, they'll eat your brains!" All the while those of us that knew better just chuckled when our friends forwarded another of these to us, and we had to explain that it wasn't possible.
Then Microsoft decided to get into the Internet business.
Microsoft made the longtime hoax a reality. That takes either profound stupidity or monumental disregard for customers' best interest. Perhaps it was both.
As far as I'm concerned, for those that get these virii, serves them right (or their sysadmins, at least)! Microsoft has shown over and over again that the have no regard for security, privacy, or fair or intelligent system design. They refuse to follow standards. It amazes me that administrators and managers still buy their software! And guess what? As long as people continue to buy this crap, they'll keep making it. I say no thanks. Though I never thought windows was any good, I erased all MS software from my computers long ago, and have found (much better) alternatives. I suggest that all intelligent administrators do the same.
Liability as applied in the US is a bit crazy to begin with. Essentially what this is advocating is removing consumer choice. The big companys that buy buggy, insecure software are making a choice to do so. They don't want to pay for more security analysis for commercial software, and they don't want the extra thought burden (i.e. percieved difficulty) of choosing open source solutions that tend to be safer.
The notion that I can be sued because you decided to do something really stupid with my product is a bit ridiculous. Liability makes sense in the case of gross negligence, or when the providers should have known better but the consumer couldn't have, but unless you've been living under a rock, it's pretty clear that Microsoft (for example) has a horrid security record, yet people still buy their software, instead of using UNIX or Macintosh. That indicates clear acceptance by the market of poor security.
I'm continuously amazed that people are willing to buy software from a company that makes such obvious and eggregious security mistakes. The fact that people continue to support a company that actually took a hoax (email viruses) played on Internet newbies for years, and turned it into reality just boggles the mind. (Antitrust can't explain this one away. There are other mail clients, and other web clients. I've seen administrators actually forbid Netscape on their machines, only to be hit later by stupid Microsoft security bugs.)
Anyway, big companies who are consumers of software have the power to demand security, by choosing secure solutions. We don't need more stupid laws on the books that make it so that nobody can produce software without putting themselves at risk of being forced to pay for idiots' misuse of their products.
Better yet, show them that software installation with a debian system is a simple matter of 'apt-get install '. I've been using debian for years, and I still chuckle with joy sometimes when the time between thinking, "hmmm...I need this software," and having that software installed on my machine ready for me to use (with no silly reboots) is under 30 seconds.
There is power in that which no windows system can rival.
Wow. You can build a flying thing that you can't even identify yourself.
Really, though, all you need for that is a case of beer and a paper airplane. "*toss* Whoa, what the heck is that? *snore*"
> Traditional commercial software comes in a shrink-wrapped package that you pick up at Best Buy, shareware is shared around the net for distribution.
This isn't quite accurate. Shareware was originally distributed on floppies at computer stores, among user groups, and through BBSs. To look at the situation now, commercial demos are frequently distributed freely over the internet, and encouraged to be shared widely. What makes this a commercial demo (commercial is a bad word here, of course shareware is commercial, but here I'm talking solely about a distinction in categorization) is that it is only a temporary preview of software which you must pay to recieve. In many cases, the full functionality is present in the executable, which a key is used to unlock, so the method of distribution is no different from that of shareware.
> Nag screens and increased functionality when the software is purchased is just "additional encouragement" and doesn't violate the quote you cited.
I completely agree. But what we're talking about here is not increased functionality, but basic functionality needed to make the software usable.
> And THAT is the definition of shareware. That you can share it and that a substantial amount of the functionality is there so you can try before you buy.
Well, at least we're getting closer to a common understanding. I'd agree that something is shareware as long as basic functionality, enough to make the software useful, remains present without payment. I never said there was anything wrong with charging for functionality that enhances the basic product. In fact, I think that this is a great way to give the honor system a helping shove.
> Perhaps expireware might go beyond your quote in spirit, although again it DOES still fit the description since the fact that the software expires is just one more way to encourage the user to purchase the software.
In all this arguing about details, I think we've strayed from what really makes shareware special. Expireware does violate the spirit. It is the spirit that goes to the heart of what shareware represents, what distinguishes it from commercial software distributed in the same way, and what is missing from terse definitions of terms. (Again, I mean commercial not in the strict sense, but solely as a means of categorization, i.e. to fit into your list of terms.)
Calling the disabling of basic functionality "encouragement" is a bit of a stretch of the truth. Like claiming that if I run someone over with my car, I'm encouraging them to get out of the street. It's not difficult to distinguish between being forced to do something and being encouraged.
> And, in light of the fact that 80% of users [scrawlsoft.com] will not purchase shareware if they don't have to, I think working on the honor system is just foolish.
This is probably why you don't see much real shareware anymore. Those that were committed to the ideals of freedom are making GPL'd software, perhaps in part because the honor system just doesn't generate enough cash to make shareware worth the trouble. Those that weren't willing to give up on the potential revenue are making commercial software. I'm not trying to condemn commercial software here. Demoware is almost certainly better than straight buy-before-you-try software, it's just not shareware. All I want is for the spirit, the optimistic trust in human nature that was inherent in shareware to be preserved with the name.