Actually, the way PHP handles DB interactions is vendor-specific, which is what causes this problem. There's third party replacements but people tend to only use what comes with the package. ASP.NET has the same problem, and I flame them likewise.
As far as conspiracy theories go, this one's pretty good.
But, there's a whole cottage industry out there dedicated to suing Apple over product misrepresentations. I think at least 50% of Apple's products have had a class action suit assocated with them. So, whenever Steve Jobs takes the stage, a whole bunch of lawyers are just waiting for him to say/do something sue-worthy. (In this case, pull the Nano out of his Jeans pocket.)
Since the GOP controls Congress and the Executive, it would be quite easy for them to get together and "reform" ICANN out of existence, dump all the graybeards, and create a new Internet committee loaded with the usual party hacks. I think if the ICANN members have half a brain, they take GOP opinions on Internet governance very seriously.
The entire.XXX issue was basically an internal GOP division -- some conservative groups wanted it, others didn't. The fact that ICANN was even considering it was an example of political influence, and if the conservatives were unified behind it, we'd most likely have it by now.
You have resorted to nothing but name-calling and missing the point completely.
Actually, Jah-Wren Ryel, you've posted nothing here but cheapshots and haughty denials, and finally 3rd tier internet insults like "asshat". It's quite fitting that you went AC because your cowardace has made you incapable of making any sort of affirmative case. What exactly is your "point"? Nothing but knee-jerk ABM political correctness as far as I can tell.
I'm guessing that my rather straight-forward observation about this analogy took a big shit all over your masters thesis or something. Boohoo.
How is this "targetted attack" any different from say a weaponized malaria?
That's quite simple. The targetted attack is a computer virus. Weaponized malaria is not. Therefore very different conclusions and policies are potentially in order.
I've read through this thread, and the only case that's been made is that certain modeling is analogous. That does not mean computer code is biological in any way. It does not mean that ecological mores are in order for the computing world. That you fail to understand this just shows that you are the one who doesn't know what he's talking about on a very, very fundemental level. Perhaps your head has gone so far up your butt, it's come back out your mouth.
Security, like all facets of commercial computing is just an element of economic efficency or risk. It's not possible to even bring it up without implicity raising costs associated with it.
I don't even want to get into arguing the analogy, but since it isn't obvious...
The difference is that we frequently want code to be passed between computers. A system that is resilant to viral software is also resiliant to desirable software, such as MS Office. Therefore monoculture is prized in computing deployments.
The original TCP/IP standards had holes which were initially patched by vendors, or customers for source-licensed code, turning off functionality until the standards could be revised.
I don't think he was talking about flaws in TCP/IP itself, but more the general point that if your were only on an IPX network, you would be immune to TCP/IP-based attacks. Which is true, but not a good enough reason to not use TCP/IP.
Dan Geer has earned the right to have people at least offer some evidence when they accuse him of "idiocy".
Actually wasn't saying anything about Dan Geer because I haven't read his paper. I am attacking the story submitter and the general slashdot "conclusion by analogy" approach seen repeatedly thorugh the past.
I'm not denying the analogy is not enlightening or even valid to some degree. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you can draw the same conclusions sans argument. In particular, the analogy is an attempt to align "alternative" computing to the same framework as Ecological morals, which is where it breaks down quite badly.
And "Diversity increases security" is far short of "Diversity increases economic efficiency" or "Diversity reduces costs" (as has been repeatedly argued on Slashdot), and that's a rather poor mental shortcut.
If every software had different implementations of the same ultimate functionality
Which is a rather ideal view. Software is always going to have varying degrees of functionality and that's going to make some "proprietary extentions" more desirable than others. Just some examples:
UNIX -- Everything was standardized in the general sense, but there were so many implementation differences nobody really cares about the standard anymore.
Web Browsers -- There's always another giant W3C standard you can implement in your browser. Plus all the unofficial published vendor standards.
ODF -- Hate to pick on them, but Microsoft listed several things that Office does that ODF doesn't support (and yes, maybe that's MS fault, but right now you have to choose between the standards and the features).
Depends what the standard is, and how closely one needs to conform to it. For something as complex as Win32, there's probably never going to be muliple implementations that are "good enough". For something simple like SMTP, there is not that much cost in supporting multiple implementations.
'LAMP' is actually a great example of the lack of modularity. Check out Sourceforge and see how many PHP projects are literally hardcoded to use MySQL -- because MySQL is the "standard" so the PHP people didn't build any DB abstraction into their framework.
LAMP is actually a great example of the lack of modularity. Check out Sourceforge and see how many PHP projects are literally hardcoded to use MySQL -- because MySQL is the "standard" so the PHP people didn't build any DB abstraction into their framework.
The vast majority of pirates are shortsighted, selfish cretins and not utopian IP Warriors such as yourself. However you wouldn't know it reading slashdot. I'm just representing the mainstream, hedonistic viewpoint.
I like the term "piracy" because it reminds me of my romantic BBSing days when friendly folks named Sinbad and Cap'n Hook would distribute cracked games. I understand it's a rather biased term.
if you're not prone to buying item X in the first place, you're not stealing it in the second place if you download it. You're decidedly NOT in the "loss" column.
My point is twofold: (A) Whether or not it's a "loss" is usually not the concern of the average pirate who doesn't see their activity as a moral equasion. Even if it was, it's not important.
(B) "If you will buy it" is a shifting standard based on how easily you can get something for free. Realworld purchasing decisions are often arbitriary and impusive, and I will contend that if you are downloading somehting useful to you, there's a real chance you would have bought it. (But that would be dumb if you could get it for free.)
If you can't explain how, for the purposes of the discussion, the two differ,
There's no point in dissecting something that's just a literary mechanism. If someone actually believes that computers function just like biological organisms, the burden is on them to prove it. However nobody in their right mind thinks that, so it's not a useful discussion.
but your assertion that it is cheaper for society to buy anti-virus (software?) than to support multiple OSes is hanging out there just dangling in the wind.
Try looking out the window. Standardization is moving forward as always. I don't have to prove what is obvious to anyone in the IT industry.
The point about tools: Many people believe Ecology to be a moral end in itself, while computers are functional items that exist to perform automated tasks in the cheapest manner possible. And monoculture is considered cheaper. Nobody thinks there should be an "endangered species act" to protect AmigaOS, for example, or if they do, they are operating on an entirely different moral framework than the rest of society.
Now you say there is lots of proof for this theory, the one you've been claiming is false up until now?
Don't stick words in my mouth. I was just wondering why this relatively minor virus was important enough to be declared "The Monoculture Bomb!!"
And I think you miss the point that us Average Pirates don't give a crap about your hippie perfect society BS. We don't need to imagine an alternate future to live with ourselves for downloading MP3s -- much like we don't need a moral framework to justify exceeding the speed limit on the freeway.
In fact, most of us pirates rather like the RIAA, MPAA, and proprietary software companies because their marketing can help inform us what stuff to download. So, no, despite Your Magical Internet, information doesn't necessarily want to be free, it wants to be packaged and marketed to consumers, and ripped off by us cheap bastards.
In IT, as in biology, those that exist in diverse gene pools are at a lower risk, both individually and collectively, from those that subsist in a proprietary monoculture
Just because your analogy "sounds right" doesn't make make it a valid thesis. The fact is that computers are not biological organisms and "viruses" don't work the same way. And if you take the analogy for anything more than a mild curiosity, it really exposes your underlying idiocy.
Not to mention it completely ignores the economic factors which created the "monoculture". It's cheaper for society to buy anti-virus than to support multiple OSes, and the analogists just have to deal with that. Computers are tools. Period.
And how exactly does yet another word virus suddnely prove this theory? It's not like there haven't been many since the paper was published.
Ah, the very articulate "I don't like paying for it so therefore it should be free" argument. Which is just "I don't like paying for it so I don't" plus a heap of bullshit to help one stay a "good boy" and sleep better at night.
Well, I prefer my hedonism straight-up, thanks. Fuck the interests of the consumer -- file sharing is great because you can get free stuff!
As for the RIAA's, your 1998-era "business model" argument needs some work. They do offer all you can eat plans for $10/month or whatever, which is probably reasonable for law-abiding citizens. The consumer interest point they fucked up the most was not mandating some sort of device interoperability for this stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the way PHP handles DB interactions is vendor-specific, which is what causes this problem. There's third party replacements but people tend to only use what comes with the package. ASP.NET has the same problem, and I flame them likewise.
As far as conspiracy theories go, this one's pretty good.
But, there's a whole cottage industry out there dedicated to suing Apple over product misrepresentations. I think at least 50% of Apple's products have had a class action suit assocated with them. So, whenever Steve Jobs takes the stage, a whole bunch of lawyers are just waiting for him to say/do something sue-worthy. (In this case, pull the Nano out of his Jeans pocket.)
Since the GOP controls Congress and the Executive, it would be quite easy for them to get together and "reform" ICANN out of existence, dump all the graybeards, and create a new Internet committee loaded with the usual party hacks. I think if the ICANN members have half a brain, they take GOP opinions on Internet governance very seriously.
.XXX issue was basically an internal GOP division -- some conservative groups wanted it, others didn't. The fact that ICANN was even considering it was an example of political influence, and if the conservatives were unified behind it, we'd most likely have it by now.
The entire
You have resorted to nothing but name-calling and missing the point completely.
Actually, Jah-Wren Ryel, you've posted nothing here but cheapshots and haughty denials, and finally 3rd tier internet insults like "asshat". It's quite fitting that you went AC because your cowardace has made you incapable of making any sort of affirmative case. What exactly is your "point"? Nothing but knee-jerk ABM political correctness as far as I can tell.
I'm guessing that my rather straight-forward observation about this analogy took a big shit all over your masters thesis or something. Boohoo.
How is this "targetted attack" any different from say a weaponized malaria?
That's quite simple. The targetted attack is a computer virus. Weaponized malaria is not. Therefore very different conclusions and policies are potentially in order.
I've read through this thread, and the only case that's been made is that certain modeling is analogous. That does not mean computer code is biological in any way. It does not mean that ecological mores are in order for the computing world. That you fail to understand this just shows that you are the one who doesn't know what he's talking about on a very, very fundemental level. Perhaps your head has gone so far up your butt, it's come back out your mouth.
Hopefully you can understand how the OP's usage of "Godwin" is relevant and your example isn't. If not, too bad for you.
The quoted passage explicity says "Windows Sucks", yet somehow you think he's a MS Shill for posting it. Good reading comprehension, tex.
Well DUH, that much better stated that I could ever put it. Thanks.
Hmm. A targetted attack pretty much undermines the "eco-pocolypse" argument.
Security, like all facets of commercial computing is just an element of economic efficency or risk. It's not possible to even bring it up without implicity raising costs associated with it.
I don't even want to get into arguing the analogy, but since it isn't obvious...
The difference is that we frequently want code to be passed between computers. A system that is resilant to viral software is also resiliant to desirable software, such as MS Office. Therefore monoculture is prized in computing deployments.
The original TCP/IP standards had holes which were initially patched by vendors, or customers for source-licensed code, turning off functionality until the standards could be revised.
I don't think he was talking about flaws in TCP/IP itself, but more the general point that if your were only on an IPX network, you would be immune to TCP/IP-based attacks. Which is true, but not a good enough reason to not use TCP/IP.
Dan Geer has earned the right to have people at least offer some evidence when they accuse him of "idiocy".
Actually wasn't saying anything about Dan Geer because I haven't read his paper. I am attacking the story submitter and the general slashdot "conclusion by analogy" approach seen repeatedly thorugh the past.
I'm not denying the analogy is not enlightening or even valid to some degree. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you can draw the same conclusions sans argument. In particular, the analogy is an attempt to align "alternative" computing to the same framework as Ecological morals, which is where it breaks down quite badly.
And "Diversity increases security" is far short of "Diversity increases economic efficiency" or "Diversity reduces costs" (as has been repeatedly argued on Slashdot), and that's a rather poor mental shortcut.
If every software had different implementations of the same ultimate functionality
Which is a rather ideal view. Software is always going to have varying degrees of functionality and that's going to make some "proprietary extentions" more desirable than others. Just some examples:
UNIX -- Everything was standardized in the general sense, but there were so many implementation differences nobody really cares about the standard anymore.
Web Browsers -- There's always another giant W3C standard you can implement in your browser. Plus all the unofficial published vendor standards.
ODF -- Hate to pick on them, but Microsoft listed several things that Office does that ODF doesn't support (and yes, maybe that's MS fault, but right now you have to choose between the standards and the features).
Depends what the standard is, and how closely one needs to conform to it. For something as complex as Win32, there's probably never going to be muliple implementations that are "good enough". For something simple like SMTP, there is not that much cost in supporting multiple implementations.
'LAMP' is actually a great example of the lack of modularity. Check out Sourceforge and see how many PHP projects are literally hardcoded to use MySQL -- because MySQL is the "standard" so the PHP people didn't build any DB abstraction into their framework.
LAMP is actually a great example of the lack of modularity. Check out Sourceforge and see how many PHP projects are literally hardcoded to use MySQL -- because MySQL is the "standard" so the PHP people didn't build any DB abstraction into their framework.
The vast majority of pirates are shortsighted, selfish cretins and not utopian IP Warriors such as yourself. However you wouldn't know it reading slashdot. I'm just representing the mainstream, hedonistic viewpoint.
I like the term "piracy" because it reminds me of my romantic BBSing days when friendly folks named Sinbad and Cap'n Hook would distribute cracked games. I understand it's a rather biased term.
if you're not prone to buying item X in the first place, you're not stealing it in the second place if you download it. You're decidedly NOT in the "loss" column.
My point is twofold:
(A) Whether or not it's a "loss" is usually not the concern of the average pirate who doesn't see their activity as a moral equasion. Even if it was, it's not important.
(B) "If you will buy it" is a shifting standard based on how easily you can get something for free. Realworld purchasing decisions are often arbitriary and impusive, and I will contend that if you are downloading somehting useful to you, there's a real chance you would have bought it. (But that would be dumb if you could get it for free.)
If you can't explain how, for the purposes of the discussion, the two differ,
There's no point in dissecting something that's just a literary mechanism. If someone actually believes that computers function just like biological organisms, the burden is on them to prove it. However nobody in their right mind thinks that, so it's not a useful discussion.
but your assertion that it is cheaper for society to buy anti-virus (software?) than to support multiple OSes is hanging out there just dangling in the wind.
Try looking out the window. Standardization is moving forward as always. I don't have to prove what is obvious to anyone in the IT industry.
The point about tools: Many people believe Ecology to be a moral end in itself, while computers are functional items that exist to perform automated tasks in the cheapest manner possible. And monoculture is considered cheaper. Nobody thinks there should be an "endangered species act" to protect AmigaOS, for example, or if they do, they are operating on an entirely different moral framework than the rest of society.
Now you say there is lots of proof for this theory, the one you've been claiming is false up until now?
Don't stick words in my mouth. I was just wondering why this relatively minor virus was important enough to be declared "The Monoculture Bomb!!"
And I think you miss the point that us Average Pirates don't give a crap about your hippie perfect society BS. We don't need to imagine an alternate future to live with ourselves for downloading MP3s -- much like we don't need a moral framework to justify exceeding the speed limit on the freeway.
In fact, most of us pirates rather like the RIAA, MPAA, and proprietary software companies because their marketing can help inform us what stuff to download. So, no, despite Your Magical Internet, information doesn't necessarily want to be free, it wants to be packaged and marketed to consumers, and ripped off by us cheap bastards.
Maybe you should read the whole thread, I was reacting to cution's point about moral justifications, not equating infringement with theft.
Hasn't this been gone over frequently enough?
Yes, and you've reiterated a boring discussion for no good reason.
In IT, as in biology, those that exist in diverse gene pools are at a lower risk, both individually and collectively, from those that subsist in a proprietary monoculture
Just because your analogy "sounds right" doesn't make make it a valid thesis. The fact is that computers are not biological organisms and "viruses" don't work the same way. And if you take the analogy for anything more than a mild curiosity, it really exposes your underlying idiocy.
Not to mention it completely ignores the economic factors which created the "monoculture". It's cheaper for society to buy anti-virus than to support multiple OSes, and the analogists just have to deal with that. Computers are tools. Period.
And how exactly does yet another word virus suddnely prove this theory? It's not like there haven't been many since the paper was published.
Ah, the very articulate "I don't like paying for it so therefore it should be free" argument. Which is just "I don't like paying for it so I don't" plus a heap of bullshit to help one stay a "good boy" and sleep better at night.
Well, I prefer my hedonism straight-up, thanks. Fuck the interests of the consumer -- file sharing is great because you can get free stuff!
As for the RIAA's, your 1998-era "business model" argument needs some work. They do offer all you can eat plans for $10/month or whatever, which is probably reasonable for law-abiding citizens. The consumer interest point they fucked up the most was not mandating some sort of device interoperability for this stuff.