Anyone who wishes to advocate legislation requiring backdoors in encryption products must first write a paper showing how this would prevent terrorists from secretly communicating with each other. Explain the term "steganography" and show how your legislation would prevent terrorists from using it. Explain why terrorists would be unable to fall back on codebooks full of innocuous phrases, hidden in apparent music CDs. Explain how your legislation would be enforced outside the U.S. Prove that your legislation would not have any serious impact on banking, credit card transactions, or internet commerce. Be prepared to defend your thesis to a panel selected by Philip Zimmermann and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Oh, sure. Let's put Carnivore on everything. Let's outlaw encrytion without backdoors. Let's monitor every binary for stego. No one in the US will have any privacy at all online. And terrorists will simply use messages like this:
"Order number 83093058: ship 2,000 sprockets, part # 31416, and 1,000 cams, part # 2718, to arrive by September 11. Ship to our Chicago warehouse." (Translation: attack target 31416, World Trade Center, and target 2718, Pentagon, on September 11 at 9:30 local time. Use attack plan "Chicago", hijacking planes and crashing them into the targets.)
So on the one hand, we have no privacy, and on the other, the terrorists have to sneak codebooks into the country (except for the homegrown militia types, of course). Doesn't seem worthwhile to me...
Well, I wouldn't want to swallow something that would dry the hell out of my GI tract. Painful.
Also, why is silica gel even packed with electronics? Most electronic devices can be completely submerged in water, and as long as you give them time to completely dry out, they will work fine, so what does it matter if a little moisture gets on the outside of a device from condensation?
Probably to guard against the people who won't wait till it dries out, but just plug it in immediately.
It's called silica gel, it's horrendously poisonous...
What have you been smoking? Silica gel isn't even slightly poisonous. Breathing a lot of it can cause lung problems, but that's true of any dessicant, for obvious reasons.
Why not let the user set one environment variable that points to a config file? Default value is the default file, but those who want to customize can copy the default file and point to their own. If you really want to avoid envs entirely, you could use a command-line option instead.
I used to program an IBM 370 in COBOL and I discovered one day that I could use a search routine to search for my password on all disks, which told me where passwords were kept (in clear - duh!) Browsed around a little and found the sysadmin's password: DAYOFF. Yep, that reflected his personality all right:)
The dumbest ask slashdot in history has to be this one from yesterday. It's a pity they're not taking it to court - courtrooms need a good belly laugh now and then.
On a related topic, there's a pretty good discussion of the relative merits of.deb and.rpm (the file formats, not the programs) here. Seems to come down mostly in favor of.deb, which isn't surprising - who would you expect to read Debian Planet?
I think Linus is just talking about messages that don't carry any useful information, for example, "module foobar (c) 1998 Yoyodyne Inc."
I suppose that kind of message has some limited usefulness if your boot hangs midway - you can pin down more exactly how far it got before it went kaka. But in general I think we can do without them.
Come now. Do you really think Microsoft is going to stop the monopolistic fun and games it's so good at? They just have to play the game more subtly now.
Which is actually a good thing, because free software is reaching critical mass, and the rougher they play, the more customers will come into our camp. Keep it up, Bill! Lease that software! Change those formats! Screw your customers till they're sick of it!
I don't think your logic quite holds up. On the one hand, we have plants that have been eaten by humans and domesticated animals for thousands of years. We have a lot of data on how edible they are, what fraction of the population is allergic to them and to what degree, etc. Whatever amount of natural mutation exists, we know through long experience that it's within parameters we can live with.
On the other hand, we have plants whose nuclei have had genes from completely different species shot into them. This does not happen in nature, aside from what viruses do, which again is something we've had experience with for a long time. I don't think we can safely say that the plants resulting from this kind of mutation are safe, just because the other kind is.
It's going on four years now since I realized that Microsoft kept changing their development tools, not for any good technical reason, but simply to keep skimming money off developers. So I asked Usenet about other platforms and found out about this thing called FreeBSD and this other thing called Linux. The bookstore had 20, 25 books about Linux and maybe 3 about FreeBSD. Easy choice:)
I am so glad I decided back then to get off the Redmond treadmill before I'd really gotten on it. I feel sorry for the folks who've invested years of their lives in it.
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Anyone who wishes to advocate legislation requiring backdoors in encryption products must first write a paper showing how this would prevent terrorists from secretly communicating with each other. Explain the term "steganography" and show how your legislation would prevent terrorists from using it. Explain why terrorists would be unable to fall back on codebooks full of innocuous phrases, hidden in apparent music CDs. Explain how your legislation would be enforced outside the U.S. Prove that your legislation would not have any serious impact on banking, credit card transactions, or internet commerce. Be prepared to defend your thesis to a panel selected by Philip Zimmermann and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
I'd love to see Microsoft take someone to court for violating that clause. As if they don't have enough PR problems...
"Order number 83093058: ship 2,000 sprockets, part # 31416, and 1,000 cams, part # 2718, to arrive by September 11. Ship to our Chicago warehouse." (Translation: attack target 31416, World Trade Center, and target 2718, Pentagon, on September 11 at 9:30 local time. Use attack plan "Chicago", hijacking planes and crashing them into the targets.)
So on the one hand, we have no privacy, and on the other, the terrorists have to sneak codebooks into the country (except for the homegrown militia types, of course). Doesn't seem worthwhile to me...
Um, anybody in orbit right now? How are they doing?
Well, I wouldn't want to swallow something that would dry the hell out of my GI tract. Painful.
Also, why is silica gel even packed with electronics? Most electronic devices can be completely submerged in water, and as long as you give them time to completely dry out, they will work fine, so what does it matter if a little moisture gets on the outside of a device from condensation?
Probably to guard against the people who won't wait till it dries out, but just plug it in immediately.
What have you been smoking? Silica gel isn't even slightly poisonous. Breathing a lot of it can cause lung problems, but that's true of any dessicant, for obvious reasons.
A grossly fat and bloated Tux, with bulging eyes and little herring tails peeking out the sides of his mouth.
It gives several examples of working code in each language.
It demonstrates an innovative way to deal with being slashdotted :)
Arrgh. We really do need a "horrible pun" moderation category.
Pronounced "Jack"? As in Jack the Bodiless? ROFL!
Those damned paparazzi kept hounding him, kept shoving their browsers in his face, and now he's dead. Drove right into a fiber-optic trunk.
<a href="<A HREF="http://unisci.com/stories/20013/0702016.htm" >
Why not let the user set one environment variable that points to a config file? Default value is the default file, but those who want to customize can copy the default file and point to their own. If you really want to avoid envs entirely, you could use a command-line option instead.
I used to program an IBM 370 in COBOL and I discovered one day that I could use a search routine to search for my password on all disks, which told me where passwords were kept (in clear - duh!) Browsed around a little and found the sysadmin's password: DAYOFF. Yep, that reflected his personality all right :)
You'd have to trust the satellite, yes?
The dumbest ask slashdot in history has to be this one from yesterday. It's a pity they're not taking it to court - courtrooms need a good belly laugh now and then.
On a related topic, there's a pretty good discussion of the relative merits of .deb and .rpm (the file formats, not the programs) here. Seems to come down mostly in favor of .deb, which isn't surprising - who would you expect to read Debian Planet?
Actually, he said blue, then yellow.
Another red and blue: the boxes in "Time's Rub" by Greg Benford. No clear preference though.
...moderate a story as flamebait? (Up, that is.) 'Cause this story sure fits the bill. Cliff must have decided to have some fun with this moron.
GPLGP
LGPLGPL
GPLGPLGPL
GPLGPLG
PLGPLIBM
GPLGPLG
PLGPLGPLG
PLGPLGP
LGPLG
I suppose that kind of message has some limited usefulness if your boot hangs midway - you can pin down more exactly how far it got before it went kaka. But in general I think we can do without them.
Come now. Do you really think Microsoft is going to stop the monopolistic fun and games it's so good at? They just have to play the game more subtly now.
Which is actually a good thing, because free software is reaching critical mass, and the rougher they play, the more customers will come into our camp. Keep it up, Bill! Lease that software! Change those formats! Screw your customers till they're sick of it!
On the other hand, we have plants whose nuclei have had genes from completely different species shot into them. This does not happen in nature, aside from what viruses do, which again is something we've had experience with for a long time. I don't think we can safely say that the plants resulting from this kind of mutation are safe, just because the other kind is.
We have recently entered Stage 2. (Counting from zero, of course, as all right-thinking people do.)
I am so glad I decided back then to get off the Redmond treadmill before I'd really gotten on it. I feel sorry for the folks who've invested years of their lives in it.