I haven't downloaded the leaked source (because I don't care), but I *DID* search for it (on Jigle and NovaSearch) for shits'n'giggles.
I can't believe that Microsoft is actually threatening to "send out legal warnings to any users who search for the leaked code." Even SEARCHING for it? Please bite me.
According to Jigle, over 1,600 people are currently sharing the source on the edonkey network, which is quite a lot when compared to the average file (including pr0n vids).
Spam will die out when the early net's naive, trust-everyone-implicitly SMTP is replaced by a system based on webs of trust. Both mailservers and users will publish their public keys (centralized or p2p) and have them signed by other trustworthy people and organizations who will vouch for them.
Who's going to sign a Spammers key if it means that THEIR trust level will go into the toilet within minutes of the SPAM attack? nobody; that's the end of spam-friendly ISPs.
This is a self-organizing network that can't be subverted by spammers (or assholes). To join, all you need is to have a trusted mailserver, and/or a few connected friends, sign your key; slighly more initial effort required to get spam-free email.
In the physical world this would be kind of like having your postoffice or mailbox refuse to accept junkmail from sources that your friends and friends of friends (etc) have given a distributed BAD REPUTATION to.
--
This social order is, of course, called communism.:)
Hey, you really shouldn't call it communism (ack!) - people will never accept that tainted label again. And besides, even when technology finally makes "communism" economically viable (because in an economy of abundance everybody is equally rich instead of equally poor), and workable politically (i.e. democratic vs totalitarian), we'll still want a fair bit of capitalism mixed in to provide people an incentive to earn whatever limited scarcity is left, such as prime realestate. A do nothing bum with no reputation, or an asshole lawyer with a negative one, doesn't deserve (and wouldn't be granted by society) that prime realestate, but a great artist, scientist, personality, religious figure, inventor, or whatever, would.
That would make open source everything possible, although we'll not be able to enjoy it for long with technological singularity and stuff...
Yeah, pity all the pre-singularity fun/pain will be so short-lived, but assuming we make it to Singularity that shouldn't be a problem: our post-human selves could easily simulate many time-compressed combinations of old Earth life (in any mental context).
I view the current crop of MMOGs in the same light as the incompatible Instant Messaging systems: I can't wait for them to finally come together and form the all-encompassing Metaverse. Saturate that.
In this way there's less friction between the worlds within worlds, but you still have to fight for mindshare, and for $ for non-user-generated content, in order to get Evercrack-sized crowds addicted to your gated-community within the larger universe.
I'm no fan of popups or banner-ads, but if that pays for content
that I otherwise would not be seeing, then so be it. I think
commercials have made for a rather successful business model
for television, which is as pervasive as ever, even after more
than 50 years.
Conventional commercials only worked with TV/Radio/Newspaper because it was a broadcast medium to a PASSIVE captive audience. The internet doesn't work like that and attempts to force annoying broadcast-style ads down interACTIVE peoples' throats is counter-productive in contrast to something unobtrusive and USEFUL like Google adwords.
So, you go right ahead and accept to passively accept your oldschool, broadcast-style mental engineering (and remember to go right out and BUY the crappy product advertised to complete the cycle). I'll only volunteer my valuable attention for ads that are actually useful to me.
FreeNet allows for secure and anonymous communication.
Sure does. At least until "Trusted Computing" comes along and takes control away from the individual at the hardware level. In such a scenario, subversive software like Freenet would never be "trusted" (by an authority other than YOU) to execute locally, and even if it could (like on chinese blackmarket hardware), its packets would be deemed "untrusted", and dropped, by the new breed of UN-approved "trusted" routers.
Instead of being a condescending ass, why don't you just use the simple telephone system analogy? Once you've done that almost everyone will understand that the net isn't a thing in a central location, but a global network that computers plug into like their telephones plug into the telephone system. If an idiot follows up by asking, "but... where is the phone system?", THEN you can tell them it's in Idaho.:)
I'm aware of the AOL dynamic IP problem, and I DID do it that way (until sessions made it easier). The workable hack was to simply count the known proxies as one user, on the correct assumption that a leaked password wouldn't be confined to AOLs subnet(s) only.
Before I ended up implementing a protection system for one company
You mean you RE-implemented the wheel.
I used to work in the pr0n biz too, and even as far back as 1995 password protection scripts were commonplace. I remember that PennyWize was quite popular.
It's really not that hard to throttle access to an account by X number of unique IPs over time period Y (or whatever), so any leaked user/passes are either purposefully leaked "special" accounts (as you said), or accounts from cookie-cutter porn sites that aren't really worth being protected anyway.
The collaborative filter fuzzy matches your likes/dislikes up with people who have similar likes/dislikes, then recommends stuff that doesn't overlap from those other people on the assumption that their other likes/dislikes will be close to your own.
iRATE radio is a good example. As is audioscrobbler, and a few other projects.
"I really like Black Eyed Dog. Is there anything you think I might like?"
Why depend on a single employee for an answer to that question when you can query millions of people for a much better answer using collaborative filtering?
When this collaborative filtering is finally embraced (much more than it is now) record stores and labels will truly be useless relics. What are they needed for again?:
physical distribution? nope - the net is cheaper and more efficient.
production? nope - anybody can produce studio quality music on the cheap.
marketing? nope - bottom-up collaborative filtering will eventually drown owt the traditional top-down advertising tactics that used to dictate the flavor of the month (mtv/clearchannel/etc).
I've gotten rid of most of my space-wasting CDs already, but one of the few I plan on keeping was autographed by Lenny Kravitz at a Tower Records (now in bankruptcy) back in '95. It's the only scarce and possibly valuable CD in the bunch by virtue of being more unique than the data itself.:)
I'm just glad it's getting easier and cheaper to support artists by getting rid of the old-economy middlemen, and without having to do it through buying a token physical CD (or doing the concert thing, which ain't my thing).
Don't forget that nanotech isn't the end-all be-all tech that may kill us - AI will be advancing alongside nano and other tech on our way to Singularity.
And the best part about FastenerHut.com is that I noticed the site is powered by the open source e-commerce solution osCommerce (though you might know it since they removed the 'Powered by' text from the footer). That means they can pass additional savings on from not having to pay an arm and a leg for a traditional commercial package.
The problem is that most people don't account for the exponential nature of technological progress, and instead project linearly based on the *CURRENT RATE* of progress. If more people would view technological change (in aggregate) in the same light as Moore's Law then they'd realize how much faster the future will get here than they realize (notwithstanding *BAD* predictions like flying cars and meal-in-a-pill).
There's a big difference, though, between present/future and past technological advances. Our tech now evolves faster than our primitive brains are able to cope with. We barely survived the invention of nukes.
Unless intelligence augmentation (IA & AI) is near on the horizon to reduce that gap, it's very likely we'll end up destroying ourselves.
Some of the best evidence for the feasibility of advanced nanotech is that the government has recently started up a disinformation campaign as a smokescreen to accelerate their own research. They did the same thing back in the 40's when developing nuclear weapons: publicly poopooing it on the one hand to discourage others, while actively developing it on the other.
A salient quote from a nanodot.org article on this subject:
After the seminar, I happen to bump into Drexler and have a rare opportunity to speak with him alone. I bring up the possibility that there could be a secret military project to develop nanoassemblers, and the current government position in the nanotech debate is a disinformation program.
Following the briefest of pauses, Drexler looks me in the eye and replies in the same high, clear voice I'd heard him use during the panel discussion, "Those things are hard to know about." He still has his game face on.
That's why the good guys have to "get there" first. If we don't in effect infest the people and the earth with an active artificial immune system before the bad guys let lose (or the good guys have an accident), we're screwed.
Very funny, but what you call vaporware actually has a real name: "Utility Fog"
Imagine it as a huge mesh of strong, flexible, microscopic interlocking nodes with a distributed brain. Its density is so low that you couldn't see it in a volume as small as a glass, but like a cloud it becomes more opaque with thickness. Sort of like that aerogel stuff, but more XTREME(!).
The applications of utility fog are boundless, but one I'm sure parents would love is the "security blanket" for their kids - the fog would act as smart 24/7 airbag extending for several feet around the body so little Timmy never gets bruised falling down the stairs...
Apparently when the technology matures, detectors of certain types of illnesses can be made.
Apparently your definition of 'mature nanotech' is a bit conservative.:)
When nanotech has really matured (in less than 25 years), there will be no point in detecting illness, because bio-based humans will always be in a perfect known-good state of health with artificial immune systems and cell-repair for micro to macro problems.
And on the topic of this story - mine detection - one of first uses of mature nanotech will be to make a quick, cheap, finely grained 3D map of the earth down to the mantle without disturbing anything. All the mines will be found, fossils found, oil found, lost treasure found... no more buried mysteries (boring?).
I've seen it, and it's not a spoiler, or a leaked workprint clip as you might be led to believe. Rather, it's just a bad cam of one of those Behind The Scenes things they show on E! and whatnot.
...peer-recommended advertising will be the dominant model.
I agree with you there; Collaborative Filtering and "smart mobs" are the way things will increasingly be done. It will take a while to get there though because it conflicts with the current money being made in top-down Command & Control mode vs. bottom-up, self-organizing emergence mode.
iRATE radio is a great example of this. It adapts to your tastes in music over time, with no ClearChannel dictating the flavor of the month.
Yes, the evolutionary psychology of beauty isn't much of a mystery. The sexiest waist-to-hip ratio is 75%, unless everyone's starving, then it edges up.
Copyright has always been an attempt at striking the balance between artist and consumer.
And that balance has been broken for quite a while now in the "IP Owners'" favor, which is why so few people respect it.
It's not all doom and gloom, though - I'm running across more and more websites that proudly proclaim that their stuff is licensed more fairly under CreativeCommons (GPL-ish) licenses.
For someone to reject the status quo mindset of "All Rights Reserved! Perpetually MineMineMine!" in favor of the friendlier and more sustainable "Some Rights Reserved. Founding Fathers Were Right." gets a HUGE karma boost from me. That alone was enough to get me to purchase some framed prints from online artists.
This two-cent post is hereby placed in the public domain.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't believe that Microsoft is actually threatening to "send out legal warnings to any users who search for the leaked code." Even SEARCHING for it? Please bite me.
According to Jigle, over 1,600 people are currently sharing the source on the edonkey network, which is quite a lot when compared to the average file (including pr0n vids).
--
Then you didn't think very hard.
The answer is simple: TRUST.
Spam will die out when the early net's naive, trust-everyone-implicitly SMTP is replaced by a system based on webs of trust. Both mailservers and users will publish their public keys (centralized or p2p) and have them signed by other trustworthy people and organizations who will vouch for them.
Who's going to sign a Spammers key if it means that THEIR trust level will go into the toilet within minutes of the SPAM attack? nobody; that's the end of spam-friendly ISPs.
This is a self-organizing network that can't be subverted by spammers (or assholes). To join, all you need is to have a trusted mailserver, and/or a few connected friends, sign your key; slighly more initial effort required to get spam-free email.
In the physical world this would be kind of like having your postoffice or mailbox refuse to accept junkmail from sources that your friends and friends of friends (etc) have given a distributed BAD REPUTATION to. --
Hey, you really shouldn't call it communism (ack!) - people will never accept that tainted label again. And besides, even when technology finally makes "communism" economically viable (because in an economy of abundance everybody is equally rich instead of equally poor), and workable politically (i.e. democratic vs totalitarian), we'll still want a fair bit of capitalism mixed in to provide people an incentive to earn whatever limited scarcity is left, such as prime realestate. A do nothing bum with no reputation, or an asshole lawyer with a negative one, doesn't deserve (and wouldn't be granted by society) that prime realestate, but a great artist, scientist, personality, religious figure, inventor, or whatever, would.
That would make open source everything possible, although we'll not be able to enjoy it for long with technological singularity and stuff...
Yeah, pity all the pre-singularity fun/pain will be so short-lived, but assuming we make it to Singularity that shouldn't be a problem: our post-human selves could easily simulate many time-compressed combinations of old Earth life (in any mental context).
--
I view the current crop of MMOGs in the same light as the incompatible Instant Messaging systems: I can't wait for them to finally come together and form the all-encompassing Metaverse. Saturate that.
In this way there's less friction between the worlds within worlds, but you still have to fight for mindshare, and for $ for non-user-generated content, in order to get Evercrack-sized crowds addicted to your gated-community within the larger universe.
--Conventional commercials only worked with TV/Radio/Newspaper because it was a broadcast medium to a PASSIVE captive audience. The internet doesn't work like that and attempts to force annoying broadcast-style ads down interACTIVE peoples' throats is counter-productive in contrast to something unobtrusive and USEFUL like Google adwords.
So, you go right ahead and accept to passively accept your oldschool, broadcast-style mental engineering (and remember to go right out and BUY the crappy product advertised to complete the cycle). I'll only volunteer my valuable attention for ads that are actually useful to me.
--
Sure does. At least until "Trusted Computing" comes along and takes control away from the individual at the hardware level. In such a scenario, subversive software like Freenet would never be "trusted" (by an authority other than YOU) to execute locally, and even if it could (like on chinese blackmarket hardware), its packets would be deemed "untrusted", and dropped, by the new breed of UN-approved "trusted" routers.
--
Instead of being a condescending ass, why don't you just use the simple telephone system analogy? Once you've done that almost everyone will understand that the net isn't a thing in a central location, but a global network that computers plug into like their telephones plug into the telephone system. If an idiot follows up by asking, "but... where is the phone system?", THEN you can tell them it's in Idaho. :)
--
--
You mean you RE-implemented the wheel.
I used to work in the pr0n biz too, and even as far back as 1995 password protection scripts were commonplace. I remember that PennyWize was quite popular.
It's really not that hard to throttle access to an account by X number of unique IPs over time period Y (or whatever), so any leaked user/passes are either purposefully leaked "special" accounts (as you said), or accounts from cookie-cutter porn sites that aren't really worth being protected anyway.
--
The collaborative filter fuzzy matches your likes/dislikes up with people who have similar likes/dislikes, then recommends stuff that doesn't overlap from those other people on the assumption that their other likes/dislikes will be close to your own.
iRATE radio is a good example. As is audioscrobbler, and a few other projects.
--
Why depend on a single employee for an answer to that question when you can query millions of people for a much better answer using collaborative filtering?
When this collaborative filtering is finally embraced (much more than it is now) record stores and labels will truly be useless relics. What are they needed for again?:
--
I'm just glad it's getting easier and cheaper to support artists by getting rid of the old-economy middlemen, and without having to do it through buying a token physical CD (or doing the concert thing, which ain't my thing).
--
Don't forget that nanotech isn't the end-all be-all tech that may kill us - AI will be advancing alongside nano and other tech on our way to Singularity.
--
The problem is that most people don't account for the exponential nature of technological progress, and instead project linearly based on the *CURRENT RATE* of progress. If more people would view technological change (in aggregate) in the same light as Moore's Law then they'd realize how much faster the future will get here than they realize (notwithstanding *BAD* predictions like flying cars and meal-in-a-pill).
--
Unless intelligence augmentation (IA & AI) is near on the horizon to reduce that gap, it's very likely we'll end up destroying ourselves.
--
A salient quote from a nanodot.org article on this subject:
--
--
Imagine it as a huge mesh of strong, flexible, microscopic interlocking nodes with a distributed brain. Its density is so low that you couldn't see it in a volume as small as a glass, but like a cloud it becomes more opaque with thickness. Sort of like that aerogel stuff, but more XTREME(!).
The applications of utility fog are boundless, but one I'm sure parents would love is the "security blanket" for their kids - the fog would act as smart 24/7 airbag extending for several feet around the body so little Timmy never gets bruised falling down the stairs...
--
Apparently your definition of 'mature nanotech' is a bit conservative. :)
When nanotech has really matured (in less than 25 years), there will be no point in detecting illness, because bio-based humans will always be in a perfect known-good state of health with artificial immune systems and cell-repair for micro to macro problems.
And on the topic of this story - mine detection - one of first uses of mature nanotech will be to make a quick, cheap, finely grained 3D map of the earth down to the mantle without disturbing anything. All the mines will be found, fossils found, oil found, lost treasure found ... no more buried mysteries (boring?).
--
I've seen it, and it's not a spoiler, or a leaked workprint clip as you might be led to believe. Rather, it's just a bad cam of one of those Behind The Scenes things they show on E! and whatnot.
--
What, there's no open source speech recognition system he could use? (or maybe none yet compare to Dragon Naturally Speaking on windows).
--
I agree with you there; Collaborative Filtering and "smart mobs" are the way things will increasingly be done. It will take a while to get there though because it conflicts with the current money being made in top-down Command & Control mode vs. bottom-up, self-organizing emergence mode.
iRATE radio is a great example of this. It adapts to your tastes in music over time, with no ClearChannel dictating the flavor of the month.
--
--
And that balance has been broken for quite a while now in the "IP Owners'" favor, which is why so few people respect it.
It's not all doom and gloom, though - I'm running across more and more websites that proudly proclaim that their stuff is licensed more fairly under CreativeCommons (GPL-ish) licenses.
For someone to reject the status quo mindset of "All Rights Reserved! Perpetually MineMineMine!" in favor of the friendlier and more sustainable "Some Rights Reserved. Founding Fathers Were Right." gets a HUGE karma boost from me. That alone was enough to get me to purchase some framed prints from online artists.
This two-cent post is hereby placed in the public domain.
--