When I saw his post, I was going to make my own SCO comment. He says he trusts foreign companies less than US companies, and foreigners
"are notorious for stealing ideas, and in most cases, modifying them into something better then claiming them as their own." Isn't this exactly what SCO is doing (minus modifying the product into something better)?...and what about half the patents at the USPTO, don't they fall into the same category? That statement is absurd.
Then why did you say "Any usage" if you knew it was wrong? If you said something like "this type of sample usage...", then I wouldn't have a problem, but by writing your post that way, you are perpetuating another "urban legend."
and a lot of people use it as it comes with the OS -- in unpatched and default configuration. That's why it has more holes than the pretty robust Apache.
Ummm...yeah. I guess the fact all Linux distros which I've seen have Apache "in unpatched and default configuration" (unless the user chooses to not install the web server) doesn't matter?
Besides, if anyone truly believes that more security-related bugs are found in windows than in linux, they must not be subscribed to the debian-security mailing list. 23 new announcements in august alone.
Yay! Another idiot who just counts the number of vulnerabilities instead of paying attention to what they are. Somehow things like: "Steve Kemp discovered a buffer overflow in zblast-svgalib, when saving the high score file. This vulnerability could be exploited by a local user to gain gid 'games', if they can achieve a high score." don't scare me. Lots of this is obscure stuff in the first place--who uses the atari800 emulator? Who uses LinuxNode--some sort of amateur radio networking(?) program? I've never even heard of it.
Many of these are local compromises--something MS has just barely started looking at. Many of these are programs which wouldn't be included with a Windows disk. Linux distros often come with hundreds (or thousands) of different programs, and would not normally be installed. Debian comes with over 8710 packages.
What about multiple programs which do the same thing? One of the vulnerabilities was a program which uses qmail. I believe Debian also has sendmail and postfix. So were counting problems with all three? And programs which attach to them as well? Is someone going to install all of these mail servers on their box? How many mail server programs does MS make? About wu-ftp, there also appear to be multiple ftp server programs. Do we count them all? Wu-ftp is well known to be insecure. Does this mean "Linux" is more insecure than Windows if someone chooses an insecure ftp server when their distro gives them the choice of several?
Very few of these vulnerabilities would even touch the default install, and the video games? Well, maybe we should include all the video games you can buy for Windows. Oh no! What if GTA: Vice City will allow people to cheat by changing the high scores file??? That's a major vulnerability! We'd better notify the security team and get all our Windows boxes patched! Even the ones which don't have GTA installed!!!
Just counting the number of vulnerabilities is the red herring. Most of those MS wouldn't even pay attention to and insist they aren't even security related. Linux and developers of other systems such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD are far more paranoid than MS could ever dream. That is why you see more security announcements for them. It means they are MORE secure, not less. Would you say a security guard who sleeps on the job is more secure than a guard who reports every little incident??? The sleepyhead only reported three problems last month! He must be doing his job! Never mind the fact half our inventory disappeard on his watch. That could've happened to anyone.
Well it may be possible to create computer programs to generate Britney Spears Pop Trash or weird instrumental "music." People might listen to it casually, perhaps teenyboppers may like it, but these programs won't be creating anything insightful, or anything artisic. At least not any time soon...
That's an urban legend. Any usage of samples violates copyright law if not approved ahead of time by the copyright holder.
IANAL, but I'm sure this is wrong. While it is probably true you can't use samples in the way mentioned in the article without permission, there is such a thing as fair use. You can have a small sample for the purposes of commenting on something. Say you were writing an article about reverse speech, and you swear you hear "Ah babe, as I make love" in a song called Foolish Beat by some singer named Debbie Gibson, it would probably be okay to include the specific part of the song as a sample, though the law doesn't seem to be specific here, and the RIAA might try to sue you anyway. (Just because they're legally wrong doesn't stop the RIAA.)
Commenting is one of the major purposes of fair use: to enable fair speech and help uphold the "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" clause in the Constitution. The government isn't promoting science if scientists are restricted on how they write papers on a certain subject just because something they're illustrating is copyrighted. Similar clauses about encryption research were in the DMCA, but as usual, the RIAA ignored them. Copyright was intended to allow people to make money off their works, not restrict others from talking about those works.
The real FUD about fair use is spread by the "all music is free" crowd and the RIAA. The "all music is free" crowd insist it's fair use to just give away the entire song as long as you don't charge for it. Obviously false. Part of the test for fair use is the economic impact of the copying. At least some of the people would have bought the work but didn't because they got it for free. (Though the RIAA tries to overbloat this and say every copy adversely affects their sales. Even "RAM buffer copies", copies which just sit on a hard drive and never get listened too, even copies downloaded by some teenager who couldn't afford a single CD, even other songs which have a similar name to an RIAA one.) The RIAA says there is no such thing as fair use. Obviously false too. If it were true, there wouldn't be a section in Federal Law about fair use at all.
Insightful??? Moderators on crack. I found a mirror, read a bunch of posts, and I don't see how this guy is wrong. How do you know he doesn't put another hard drive into his laptop to boot it? How do you know he didn't find a way to boot from CD without the EULA?
In fact, the description in the article sounds like a glitch or user error. It doesn't sound right for it to just go into Windows in this situation, one would think it should either display the EULA or boot from the CD.
Whatever you say asshole. I have read the article. Someone posted a mirror on Slashdot. I found it just after I posted this message (before I made any comments besides saying "the site is slashdotted"), and another guy just posted it in a reply to my post, but I'm sure plenty of people couldn't find the article at all. It doesn't necessarily mean they can't participate either, they can reply to the submission and other posts. They may even know all about this situation without reading the article. It's not as if this happened on Mars or with aliens from the 5th dimension. Lots of people have Dell laptops.
In fact, the only comments I've made in this story are ones replying to idiots who rant: "You didn't read the fucking article" telling them it is slashdotted, and replies which didn't have anything to do with the specifics of this article, but I read by then anyway. So where is my "opinion on a document I haven't seen all of"???? Maybe you should pay more attention.
Let me guess, you think I wrote this post. Funny thing, the guy was right. He may very well have read the article for what anyone knows. Another thread discusses how the code which does this is on a separate partition. If you wipe the hard drive, you don't get the EULA. How this could be done was a matter of debate, but booting from a second hard drive would most certainly work, so what the guy said is correct.
whatever, what on earth can a license from them accomplish anyway?
Well, I bought a cheap digital camera, and in the manual, it had a EULA for the hardware. I doubt it is enforceable anywhere except maybe those states who have passed th UCTIA, but it had some "interesting" clauses in it, including no one outside of my immediate household is allowed to use the camera! So I guess if I went on vacation with this camera, I couldn't ask someone to take a picure of me in front of the Eiffel Tower. The company was Aiptek. Never buy from them, they are obviously shady.
This is one of my major complaints about the GNU Systemlords. They want to force everyone to use thier license for all programs, even ones they didn't write. This is why the GPL was written that way--so anyone linking to a GPLed library has to release their program under the GPL.
This is one of the reasons I'm migrating to FreeBSD. Their system libraries and utilities aren't GNU based. The compiler is GNU's, but oh well, maybe I'll try TenDRA.
You problem wasn't directly from GNU, but I've heard the GNU developers plan to change all their libraries to GPL (instead of LGPL)??? This includes libc. Guess which libc Linux uses? Read their site, it's very "interesting."
Yes, I know it says they decided to use the LGPL for libc, but read the document closely. Whenever it will suit their strategy, they'll change it to GPL. Stallman hates Linux because it stole the thunder from his kernel. Who knows, someday he may very well change GNU libc to GPL just to mess with Linux users.
It's worse than just staffers, what about programs the company installs by default? Especially when these programs have vulnerabilities, and no auto update feature. This can leave quite a few computers wide open to exploitation.
My roommate's Compaq came preloaded with some support program. I checked on the internet to find out what it was, and it turns out that not only does it give Compaq complete control over his computer, there was an exploit for the thing too, so script kiddies could take over his computer too.
Maybe it's nice for lusers to have this (and he is one) so tech support can fix his computer, but it's a major security risk. What if he had some important and confidential documents/ programs/ whatever on his computer? I wouldn't want my important files messed with or downloaded at by some random punk or even supposedly "trusted" tech support people.
He didn't even know what the program was, so obviously he wasn't going to patch it, and you'd have to assume he knew how to find and apply the patches in the first place. I didn't want to dick around with his computer trying to look for some stupid patch, so I just turned it off.
I don't think this is the same vulnerablility. I don't feel like searching for it. This was a long time ago, but I think the problem was a default password and the thing left a port wide open to the internet.
The site is slashdotted. The page isn't in Google's cache (at least when I checked). I managed to get the first few paragraphs, but others may not have been so lucky.
The site is slashdotted! Maybe that guy couldn't even load it at all. My browser has been trying to load it for the past five minutes, and I've only got the first six or seven paragraphs. I just tried Google, and the page isn't in their cache. So how am I supposed to read it if it doesn't load?
Are you kidding? Of course this fanatic supports the DMCA, patriot act, &etc. He's probably counting the days until Microsoft fully imbeds DRM into Windows and knocks all other systems off the internet. "Then the evil spammers will be no more!" Yeah right...none of these extreme measures will stop spammers, but they believe it because they don't want to accept reality.
Okay, I need to preview more often. My finger slipped on the shift key, so my end tag became a period. Here is the real post:
Can anyone here suggest a state where the legislators aren't complete morons?
Well, Hell is a good contender. The Devil and his associates are quite smart. The only problem: they uses their intelligence to torture their citizens. They deploy Hell's demons in a very well thought out manner, so every person feels the maxium amount of pain. The Devil runs a tight ship. The legislators of Hell know what they're doing, but I don't think you want to live there.
/me thinks about all the things going on in this country... Then again, Hell is looking better and better every day!;-)
You seem to be ranting about Paladium, but you don't seem to understand what you're talking about. In Paladium from the public info it sounds like the user will actually have both the private and public keys, they will just be unable to extract the private key (of course, nor can anyone else - and no one else should have copies of that private key; not Microsoft, or your favorite TLA).
Do you even have a clue??? Just because the private key is on a user's computer doesn't mean the user "has" it. That private key will be on a secret chip which is used to make sure that only operating system code signed by "approved" keys will be able to access any DRMed data.
In Palladuim, who will have the only approved key? That's right, Microsoft. And how are they going to write the operating system so no "pirates" can "illegally" copy any DRMed content? That's right, Microsoft will have to approve all the code which can read DRM content or operates at the hardware level.
Now when (and it will happen) "pirates" start publishing the RIAA's music and the MPAA's movies on the DRMed internet, they'll demand MS allow them to take these files down. How are they going to do this? That's right, MS will have Palladium create a hash of each file on your computer, and they will broadcast rejection certificates, which of course they will have programed Palladium to delete all files listed in a rejection certificate--they write the operating system and all the patches (which you are required by the EULA to allow MS to automatically apply), so they can do this.
This won't deter the "pirates"--they'll just change one byte in the file to alter the hash and other such nonsense. MS and the self-appointed copyright police won't be able to keep up, but they'll have fun deleting innocent user's files for stupid reasons, like if a file happens to be named christina_genie.doc size: 50kb, they'll insist it's Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" song, even if it's a report about genie myths written by a little girl named Christina.
The MPAA and RIAA will cry, so to publish, MS will require everyone sign the file with a MS issued certificate. To be able to publish anything (this means sending email and probably even submitting data in web forms too) on the DRM network (by now non-DRM systems won't work on any given ISP's network) you will be required to sign it with a valid certificate which MS can revoke at any time. Now if they see the file christina_genie.doc, our little girl Christina and her parents will lose their ability to use the internet (except some light serfing maybe), just because one of their files happened to have the wrong name.
This is not just made up fiction. All the stuff up to and including the "file rejection certificate" (for the lack of a better name) is based on information MS released. The publishing certificates are the next logical step. If you follow the trends with the DMCA and how Microsoft operates, you'd see this.
Microsoft obviously sees this as an opportunity to eliminate any unwanted competition in the software market (as all content on a Palladium system will be migrated towards DRM until everything including email and word documents are encoded in DRM format), and they see an opportunity to move into other markets (WMP's DRM will convince the RIAA/MPAA companies to release content for only that player, and when they are dependent on it, MS can start making their own movies and squeeze everyone else out of the business--one way or another.) They'll control communications and "IP" distribution through Palladium, so they'll be able to misuse it any way they see fit.
Unlikely. Pulse width modulation is very common. You're probably using it to power your computer. That's what a switching power supply does. It is used because it is more energy efficient. The control circuitry is either letting all the current through (with 0 volts across it), or blocking all the current (the full voltage, but 0 amps), which means at all times the transister which regulates the voltage is using no power (0 volts times y amps= 0 watts, y volts times 0 amps = 0 watts). I don't know if this type of power regulation is patented (I haven't heard of one), but if so, it sure as hell doesn't belong to these guys. This has been around for a while. I learned it ten years ago in my electronic classes, and I doubt it was new then.
The article's description of the patent sounds like it is a common thing too (aside from pulse width modulation). It sounds like they're just varying the relative intensity of red, green, and blue LEDs to give the apperance of different colors. Your computer monitor already does this--how do you think it displays colors like yellow and purple? The monitor only has red, green, and blue elements.
I seriously doubt they have come up with something new. The article says: "Though the company doesn't make LEDs, it does make software and control technology for programming light shows and mixing different colored LEDs." All of this has been done before, I doubt this company has discovered anything new. One of the other companies sounds legit:
Kopin is a key player in advancing LED technology. Last year, the company announced a new LED about the size of a grain of sand that leverages nanotechnology to produce a brilliant blue light, using less power than previously thought possible.
They're doing real research to improve LEDs. If the article said they had patents, I'd bet they were legitimate. Not Color Kinetics--they sound like a bunch of half-witted asshats.
Just ignore grammar nazis. They're pathetic trolls with no life. They have started posting AC becuase they know everyone hates them and mods them down. Your english is much better than most Americans, so don't worry.
No, you miss out on the bigger picture. After a while stop charging money, ask the users to do "favours" such as farming, manufacturing, etc in exchange for game time. In fact, make these "favours" a part of the game! If they farm wheat and bake some bread, their character gets food. If they help you manufacture guns (as your unholy army will need them), their character will get weapons. When they help build a temple in your honor, their characters will gain magical powers....and with wearable computers, they'll be playing the game at all times, so they'll never be disinterested! Soon the whole world be your slave! MMMWWWWAAAAHHHAAHAHA!
Hypocrites are people who say "We want the desktop, we demand our government use Free Software, world domination baby!"
Me thinks you are talking about the GNU zealots here.
yell "quit whining about what you get for free" or "Free Software doesn't entitle you to a usable interface".
Since when did giving away something require the donor to be the recipient's slave? Especially when the recipient insults the donors and says they should be working 24 hours on the free project, doing what all the whining idiots say, even when it's impossible. Even when it would require knowledge or skills they don't have (such as accounting/finance). It's like a homeless person yelling at the soup kitchen because they're serving peas and carrots, and he wants corn. They serve what they've got.
Why don't I remind you what the fucktard said:
Naturally. Instead, you will write yet another instant messaging client, or yet another wordprocessor that no one will use, or yet another simplistic game, or yet another text-frickin editor...
Ya'll write a bunch of redundant "me-too" apps that matter not one iota. You, in a word, masturbate in software and get all pissy when people don't fall all over themselves thanking you for such a cool, new, incredibly redundant and unnecessary app.
I bet if there weren't any open source IM clients, wordprocessors, or text editors (programmers need some sort of text editor to do their job BTW), then he'd be screaming: "Open source is lame! They don't even have instant messaging! I can't even do word processing. The shithead should've at least tried to write a word processor!!!" That kind of attitude isn't going to get a developer on your side.
Owing is a two-way street. It's about time we started paving the other side.
No, what you're talking about is a one-way street: the developers obeying the whims of whatever idiot comes along. Nothing would get done, becuase most of the "ideas" wouldn't even work, and there are so many "ideas" coming in, the developers wouldn't have time to work on them all.
The concept that an "idea man" gets the job done while the lowly workers are holding him back is stupid. Everyone has ideas, the problem is implementation of those ideas. Say I want a robot to serve me breakfast in bed every morning, would it be productive for me to go to the local university and yell at them? Tell them the things they are working on is shit? I don't think so.
Well maybe what you asked for was impossible, unreasonable, too much work, or not in line with the projects goals. Perhaps they just didn't care and were rude to you. It's not as if they're working for you. Most of them are doing the work on their own time, so why should you be entitled to tell them what to do?
You are criticizing open source developers for not writing specific types of programs you want? Well obviously you aren't writing those programs, because they don't exist. If you think it's so critical to write accounting apps and whatnot, why aren't you working on it? What a hypocrite. Open source developers aren't your slaves. They create those projects and let the public use them for their own reasons, not because they have to please you. It's not as if they are taking away something from you when they develop programs on their own time.
IANAL and I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but wouldn't Linus have the defense a resonable person would understand he wasn't literally saying they smoked crack?
Well the problem is, these "news" sources are trying to sell papers/subscriptions, get advertising revenue, or some other self serving purpose, and do it all with the least amount of effort. They don't care if something is accurate or the truth, they just want ratings. This is the whole reason there is little point in reading or watching so called "news" anymore. At least in the old days, they'd usually try to be somewhat objective and really investigate. Now they just reprint press releases and (if they feel like it) do quick interviews with a few key figures. Not enough info to tell the real story...
Slashdot Mirror
When I saw his post, I was going to make my own SCO comment. He says he trusts foreign companies less than US companies, and foreigners "are notorious for stealing ideas, and in most cases, modifying them into something better then claiming them as their own." Isn't this exactly what SCO is doing (minus modifying the product into something better)? ...and what about half the patents at the USPTO, don't they fall into the same category? That statement is absurd.
Then why did you say "Any usage" if you knew it was wrong? If you said something like "this type of sample usage...", then I wouldn't have a problem, but by writing your post that way, you are perpetuating another "urban legend."
Ummm...yeah. I guess the fact all Linux distros which I've seen have Apache "in unpatched and default configuration" (unless the user chooses to not install the web server) doesn't matter?
Yay! Another idiot who just counts the number of vulnerabilities instead of paying attention to what they are. Somehow things like: "Steve Kemp discovered a buffer overflow in zblast-svgalib, when saving the high score file. This vulnerability could be exploited by a local user to gain gid 'games', if they can achieve a high score." don't scare me. Lots of this is obscure stuff in the first place--who uses the atari800 emulator? Who uses LinuxNode--some sort of amateur radio networking(?) program? I've never even heard of it.
Many of these are local compromises--something MS has just barely started looking at. Many of these are programs which wouldn't be included with a Windows disk. Linux distros often come with hundreds (or thousands) of different programs, and would not normally be installed. Debian comes with over 8710 packages.
What about multiple programs which do the same thing? One of the vulnerabilities was a program which uses qmail. I believe Debian also has sendmail and postfix. So were counting problems with all three? And programs which attach to them as well? Is someone going to install all of these mail servers on their box? How many mail server programs does MS make? About wu-ftp, there also appear to be multiple ftp server programs. Do we count them all? Wu-ftp is well known to be insecure. Does this mean "Linux" is more insecure than Windows if someone chooses an insecure ftp server when their distro gives them the choice of several?
Very few of these vulnerabilities would even touch the default install, and the video games? Well, maybe we should include all the video games you can buy for Windows. Oh no! What if GTA: Vice City will allow people to cheat by changing the high scores file??? That's a major vulnerability! We'd better notify the security team and get all our Windows boxes patched! Even the ones which don't have GTA installed!!!
Just counting the number of vulnerabilities is the red herring. Most of those MS wouldn't even pay attention to and insist they aren't even security related. Linux and developers of other systems such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD are far more paranoid than MS could ever dream. That is why you see more security announcements for them. It means they are MORE secure, not less. Would you say a security guard who sleeps on the job is more secure than a guard who reports every little incident??? The sleepyhead only reported three problems last month! He must be doing his job! Never mind the fact half our inventory disappeard on his watch. That could've happened to anyone.
Well it may be possible to create computer programs to generate Britney Spears Pop Trash or weird instrumental "music." People might listen to it casually, perhaps teenyboppers may like it, but these programs won't be creating anything insightful, or anything artisic. At least not any time soon...
IANAL, but I'm sure this is wrong. While it is probably true you can't use samples in the way mentioned in the article without permission, there is such a thing as fair use. You can have a small sample for the purposes of commenting on something. Say you were writing an article about reverse speech, and you swear you hear "Ah babe, as I make love" in a song called Foolish Beat by some singer named Debbie Gibson, it would probably be okay to include the specific part of the song as a sample, though the law doesn't seem to be specific here, and the RIAA might try to sue you anyway. (Just because they're legally wrong doesn't stop the RIAA.)
Commenting is one of the major purposes of fair use: to enable fair speech and help uphold the "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" clause in the Constitution. The government isn't promoting science if scientists are restricted on how they write papers on a certain subject just because something they're illustrating is copyrighted. Similar clauses about encryption research were in the DMCA, but as usual, the RIAA ignored them. Copyright was intended to allow people to make money off their works, not restrict others from talking about those works.
The real FUD about fair use is spread by the "all music is free" crowd and the RIAA. The "all music is free" crowd insist it's fair use to just give away the entire song as long as you don't charge for it. Obviously false. Part of the test for fair use is the economic impact of the copying. At least some of the people would have bought the work but didn't because they got it for free. (Though the RIAA tries to overbloat this and say every copy adversely affects their sales. Even "RAM buffer copies", copies which just sit on a hard drive and never get listened too, even copies downloaded by some teenager who couldn't afford a single CD, even other songs which have a similar name to an RIAA one.) The RIAA says there is no such thing as fair use. Obviously false too. If it were true, there wouldn't be a section in Federal Law about fair use at all.
Insightful??? Moderators on crack. I found a mirror, read a bunch of posts, and I don't see how this guy is wrong. How do you know he doesn't put another hard drive into his laptop to boot it? How do you know he didn't find a way to boot from CD without the EULA?
In fact, the description in the article sounds like a glitch or user error. It doesn't sound right for it to just go into Windows in this situation, one would think it should either display the EULA or boot from the CD.
Whatever you say asshole. I have read the article. Someone posted a mirror on Slashdot. I found it just after I posted this message (before I made any comments besides saying "the site is slashdotted"), and another guy just posted it in a reply to my post, but I'm sure plenty of people couldn't find the article at all. It doesn't necessarily mean they can't participate either, they can reply to the submission and other posts. They may even know all about this situation without reading the article. It's not as if this happened on Mars or with aliens from the 5th dimension. Lots of people have Dell laptops.
In fact, the only comments I've made in this story are ones replying to idiots who rant: "You didn't read the fucking article" telling them it is slashdotted, and replies which didn't have anything to do with the specifics of this article, but I read by then anyway. So where is my "opinion on a document I haven't seen all of"???? Maybe you should pay more attention.
Let me guess, you think I wrote this post. Funny thing, the guy was right. He may very well have read the article for what anyone knows. Another thread discusses how the code which does this is on a separate partition. If you wipe the hard drive, you don't get the EULA. How this could be done was a matter of debate, but booting from a second hard drive would most certainly work, so what the guy said is correct.
Well, I bought a cheap digital camera, and in the manual, it had a EULA for the hardware. I doubt it is enforceable anywhere except maybe those states who have passed th UCTIA, but it had some "interesting" clauses in it, including no one outside of my immediate household is allowed to use the camera! So I guess if I went on vacation with this camera, I couldn't ask someone to take a picure of me in front of the Eiffel Tower. The company was Aiptek. Never buy from them, they are obviously shady.
This is one of my major complaints about the GNU Systemlords. They want to force everyone to use thier license for all programs, even ones they didn't write. This is why the GPL was written that way--so anyone linking to a GPLed library has to release their program under the GPL.
This is one of the reasons I'm migrating to FreeBSD. Their system libraries and utilities aren't GNU based. The compiler is GNU's, but oh well, maybe I'll try TenDRA.
You problem wasn't directly from GNU, but I've heard the GNU developers plan to change all their libraries to GPL (instead of LGPL)??? This includes libc. Guess which libc Linux uses? Read their site, it's very "interesting."
Yes, I know it says they decided to use the LGPL for libc, but read the document closely. Whenever it will suit their strategy, they'll change it to GPL. Stallman hates Linux because it stole the thunder from his kernel. Who knows, someday he may very well change GNU libc to GPL just to mess with Linux users.
It's worse than just staffers, what about programs the company installs by default? Especially when these programs have vulnerabilities, and no auto update feature. This can leave quite a few computers wide open to exploitation.
My roommate's Compaq came preloaded with some support program. I checked on the internet to find out what it was, and it turns out that not only does it give Compaq complete control over his computer, there was an exploit for the thing too, so script kiddies could take over his computer too.
Maybe it's nice for lusers to have this (and he is one) so tech support can fix his computer, but it's a major security risk. What if he had some important and confidential documents/ programs/ whatever on his computer? I wouldn't want my important files messed with or downloaded at by some random punk or even supposedly "trusted" tech support people.
He didn't even know what the program was, so obviously he wasn't going to patch it, and you'd have to assume he knew how to find and apply the patches in the first place. I didn't want to dick around with his computer trying to look for some stupid patch, so I just turned it off.
I suppose it doesn't matter on his computer anyway. When he's asked me to fix his computer, I've found all sorts of trojan programs (like the pr0n dialers and crap) installed on his compter. He's too much of a luser to buy a virus scanner for his Windows 98 computer, so I had to show him Housecall. Though I'm sure it doesn't stop all virii (using this plural form to piss off grammar nazis. Anyway "viruseses" sucks)--it just sits on top of Windows.
I don't think this is the same vulnerablility. I don't feel like searching for it. This was a long time ago, but I think the problem was a default password and the thing left a port wide open to the internet.
The site is slashdotted. The page isn't in Google's cache (at least when I checked). I managed to get the first few paragraphs, but others may not have been so lucky.
The site is slashdotted! Maybe that guy couldn't even load it at all. My browser has been trying to load it for the past five minutes, and I've only got the first six or seven paragraphs. I just tried Google, and the page isn't in their cache. So how am I supposed to read it if it doesn't load?
You missed the part where he said "Understand, this was back when I had a 1GB hard drive".
Are you kidding? Of course this fanatic supports the DMCA, patriot act, &etc. He's probably counting the days until Microsoft fully imbeds DRM into Windows and knocks all other systems off the internet. "Then the evil spammers will be no more!" Yeah right...none of these extreme measures will stop spammers, but they believe it because they don't want to accept reality.
Okay, I need to preview more often. My finger slipped on the shift key, so my end tag became a period. Here is the real post:
Well, Hell is a good contender. The Devil and his associates are quite smart. The only problem: they uses their intelligence to torture their citizens. They deploy Hell's demons in a very well thought out manner, so every person feels the maxium amount of pain. The Devil runs a tight ship. The legislators of Hell know what they're doing, but I don't think you want to live there.
/me thinks about all the things going on in this country... Then again, Hell is looking better and better every day! ;-)
/me thinks about all the things going on in this country... Then again, Hell is looking better and better every day! ;-)
Do you even have a clue??? Just because the private key is on a user's computer doesn't mean the user "has" it. That private key will be on a secret chip which is used to make sure that only operating system code signed by "approved" keys will be able to access any DRMed data.
In Palladuim, who will have the only approved key? That's right, Microsoft. And how are they going to write the operating system so no "pirates" can "illegally" copy any DRMed content? That's right, Microsoft will have to approve all the code which can read DRM content or operates at the hardware level.
Now when (and it will happen) "pirates" start publishing the RIAA's music and the MPAA's movies on the DRMed internet, they'll demand MS allow them to take these files down. How are they going to do this? That's right, MS will have Palladium create a hash of each file on your computer, and they will broadcast rejection certificates, which of course they will have programed Palladium to delete all files listed in a rejection certificate--they write the operating system and all the patches (which you are required by the EULA to allow MS to automatically apply), so they can do this.
This won't deter the "pirates"--they'll just change one byte in the file to alter the hash and other such nonsense. MS and the self-appointed copyright police won't be able to keep up, but they'll have fun deleting innocent user's files for stupid reasons, like if a file happens to be named christina_genie.doc size: 50kb, they'll insist it's Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" song, even if it's a report about genie myths written by a little girl named Christina.
The MPAA and RIAA will cry, so to publish, MS will require everyone sign the file with a MS issued certificate. To be able to publish anything (this means sending email and probably even submitting data in web forms too) on the DRM network (by now non-DRM systems won't work on any given ISP's network) you will be required to sign it with a valid certificate which MS can revoke at any time. Now if they see the file christina_genie.doc, our little girl Christina and her parents will lose their ability to use the internet (except some light serfing maybe), just because one of their files happened to have the wrong name.
This is not just made up fiction. All the stuff up to and including the "file rejection certificate" (for the lack of a better name) is based on information MS released. The publishing certificates are the next logical step. If you follow the trends with the DMCA and how Microsoft operates, you'd see this.
Microsoft obviously sees this as an opportunity to eliminate any unwanted competition in the software market (as all content on a Palladium system will be migrated towards DRM until everything including email and word documents are encoded in DRM format), and they see an opportunity to move into other markets (WMP's DRM will convince the RIAA/MPAA companies to release content for only that player, and when they are dependent on it, MS can start making their own movies and squeeze everyone else out of the business--one way or another.) They'll control communications and "IP" distribution through Palladium, so they'll be able to misuse it any way they see fit.
Unlikely. Pulse width modulation is very common. You're probably using it to power your computer. That's what a switching power supply does. It is used because it is more energy efficient. The control circuitry is either letting all the current through (with 0 volts across it), or blocking all the current (the full voltage, but 0 amps), which means at all times the transister which regulates the voltage is using no power (0 volts times y amps= 0 watts, y volts times 0 amps = 0 watts). I don't know if this type of power regulation is patented (I haven't heard of one), but if so, it sure as hell doesn't belong to these guys. This has been around for a while. I learned it ten years ago in my electronic classes, and I doubt it was new then.
The article's description of the patent sounds like it is a common thing too (aside from pulse width modulation). It sounds like they're just varying the relative intensity of red, green, and blue LEDs to give the apperance of different colors. Your computer monitor already does this--how do you think it displays colors like yellow and purple? The monitor only has red, green, and blue elements.
I seriously doubt they have come up with something new. The article says: "Though the company doesn't make LEDs, it does make software and control technology for programming light shows and mixing different colored LEDs." All of this has been done before, I doubt this company has discovered anything new. One of the other companies sounds legit:
They're doing real research to improve LEDs. If the article said they had patents, I'd bet they were legitimate. Not Color Kinetics--they sound like a bunch of half-witted asshats.
Just ignore grammar nazis. They're pathetic trolls with no life. They have started posting AC becuase they know everyone hates them and mods them down. Your english is much better than most Americans, so don't worry.
No, you miss out on the bigger picture. After a while stop charging money, ask the users to do "favours" such as farming, manufacturing, etc in exchange for game time. In fact, make these "favours" a part of the game! If they farm wheat and bake some bread, their character gets food. If they help you manufacture guns (as your unholy army will need them), their character will get weapons. When they help build a temple in your honor, their characters will gain magical powers. ...and with wearable computers, they'll be playing the game at all times, so they'll never be disinterested! Soon the whole world be your slave! MMMWWWWAAAAHHHAAHAHA!
Whatever.
Me thinks you are talking about the GNU zealots here.
Since when did giving away something require the donor to be the recipient's slave? Especially when the recipient insults the donors and says they should be working 24 hours on the free project, doing what all the whining idiots say, even when it's impossible. Even when it would require knowledge or skills they don't have (such as accounting/finance). It's like a homeless person yelling at the soup kitchen because they're serving peas and carrots, and he wants corn. They serve what they've got.
Why don't I remind you what the fucktard said:
I bet if there weren't any open source IM clients, wordprocessors, or text editors (programmers need some sort of text editor to do their job BTW), then he'd be screaming: "Open source is lame! They don't even have instant messaging! I can't even do word processing. The shithead should've at least tried to write a word processor!!!" That kind of attitude isn't going to get a developer on your side.
No, what you're talking about is a one-way street: the developers obeying the whims of whatever idiot comes along. Nothing would get done, becuase most of the "ideas" wouldn't even work, and there are so many "ideas" coming in, the developers wouldn't have time to work on them all.
The concept that an "idea man" gets the job done while the lowly workers are holding him back is stupid. Everyone has ideas, the problem is implementation of those ideas. Say I want a robot to serve me breakfast in bed every morning, would it be productive for me to go to the local university and yell at them? Tell them the things they are working on is shit? I don't think so.
Well maybe what you asked for was impossible, unreasonable, too much work, or not in line with the projects goals. Perhaps they just didn't care and were rude to you. It's not as if they're working for you. Most of them are doing the work on their own time, so why should you be entitled to tell them what to do?
You are criticizing open source developers for not writing specific types of programs you want? Well obviously you aren't writing those programs, because they don't exist. If you think it's so critical to write accounting apps and whatnot, why aren't you working on it? What a hypocrite. Open source developers aren't your slaves. They create those projects and let the public use them for their own reasons, not because they have to please you. It's not as if they are taking away something from you when they develop programs on their own time.
IANAL and I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but wouldn't Linus have the defense a resonable person would understand he wasn't literally saying they smoked crack?
Well the problem is, these "news" sources are trying to sell papers/subscriptions, get advertising revenue, or some other self serving purpose, and do it all with the least amount of effort. They don't care if something is accurate or the truth, they just want ratings. This is the whole reason there is little point in reading or watching so called "news" anymore. At least in the old days, they'd usually try to be somewhat objective and really investigate. Now they just reprint press releases and (if they feel like it) do quick interviews with a few key figures. Not enough info to tell the real story...