I would make the point that innovative does not equal successful. In today's winner takes all world, the term innovative often seems to be restricted to successful innovations. Unsuccessful innovations are valuable though, as they rule out things which don't work.
Five years ago, the Australian Government mistakenly released a report, which covered this exact scenario. Here is the relevant quote, which was supposed to never be seen by the public:
6.3.4 The relationship of these agencies with AUSTRAC may well prove crucial once encryption becomes more pervasive. Major subjects of investigation, whether they be narcotics suppliers or distributors, pornography distributors, money-launderers or terrorists, rely and will continue to rely on the banking system to provide value to their transactions. The 'money trail', provided by credit and smart-cards, not to ignore
fly-buys, may well provide a continuously available hand-rail in a darkening investigative world.
The emphasis is mine.
Fly-buys is a large loyalty scheme in Australia. AUSTRAC are the spooks responsible for tracing money as it flows through the economy.
Basically, the government is well aware of the abilty of loyalty schemes to trace otherwise untraceable cash transactions, and they would rather the public didn't know about it (as proven by the bungled attempt at censorship).
Where did not standing Bill Gates come into it? Those are your words, not mine.
I'm quite willing to give Mr Gates credit (as I did) for his generous act. My point (in response to the question posed in the article) is that Mr Gates is not the only generous person in this world and that there are other forms of donation than a chunk of money.
NTRAK modellers have been doing this same thing for years! The idea is to build a model railway (railroad) module with a standard interface allowing lots of people to band together and build a huge layout.
Given that hacking draws so much from model railways (Tech Model Railroad Club) perhaps it is valid to say hackers have been quilting for years??
Why not give him a Linux box (maybe a mini-itx box or Linux X-box?) connected to an ADSL ethernet modem (or other 'always' on connection). Give yourself a remote login.
That way you can log in from your overseas location chat to him, pop images up on the screen for him and generally have a 'father and son' session. (Others have also suggested VNC.) If using an x-box could something be done with the x-box controller for local control??
You can also admin the box from your remote location. Provided you keep upgrades to only what is necessary the box should be quite stable (I suggest Debian stable). It is important not make any changes which risk prevent the machine from rebooting (such as upgrading the kernel). In the event the system hangs by itself you may have to phone up and get someone to turn the power switch off then on.
I administer my dad's email remotely. It has worked well so far. Admittedly what I am suggesting is well beyond this.
How true. If the mob consisted of several million people marching in the streets of Washington, all wearing T-shirts inscribed "No George W Bush", the government wouldn't last the day.
So if more companies follow IBM's lead, the BSD license could effectively become equivalent to the GPL?
If you write a BSD licensed piece of software, which also relies on IBM's open source patent pledge, you are not allowed to then turn that program into a proprietory program (unless you want to be sued for patent infringement). This applies even if you are the original author!
IBMs patent pledge seems to be even more powerful/virulent than the GPL. Even GPLd software is allowed to be sold as proprietory by the original author.
Perhaps that sobbing noise is RMS weeping for joy??:-)
The exciting thing is that due to Free nature of the software any Joe blogs can do an IBM and set up in competition.
IBM seems to have taken the very sane approach of making more money by making the pie bigger, not trying to get a bigger slice at the expense of everyone else. IBM wins by making money. The motivated geek can win by setting up their own business and competing.
RMS is no doubt saying under his breath 'told you so'!
Because IBM seems to have decided the future is in software services, not writing software. Let the geeks write the software then IBM will make a pile of money telling companies what software they need, putting all the bits together, installing it then maintaining it.
Also, what happens if a company has a parallel patent license from IBM? (eg. as a result of IBM cross licensing.) The termination clause of the open source patent pledge would then be ineffective against that company.
Surely this has been in the pipline for a long time? Who is behind it?
Is this something IBM has done of its own accord, or is there an organisation out there (eg. OSDL) driving this? Consequently, is IBM the only company to do this, or are they the first cab off the rank with other companies to follow quickly?
By first reading it is better than irrevocable. It is revocable only in the case that you take action against a free software project. Free software developers would seem to be able to use these 500 patents as a form of patent defence by saying: "Sue us and leave yourself liable to being stomped by IBM." Unfortunately you will have to convince IBM to litigate in your defence.
As mentioned here, the unit is not FCC approved. Once this guy comes onto the radar (by a slashdotting, for example) he might well get a call from the FCC.
The parent is talking about the VHDL Cookbook by Peter Ashenden.
If you're learing about VHDL, consider writing some code for OpenCores as part of your education. I gather they have server problems at the moment, so the link may not work.
Once a computer gains legal standing, what's to stop someone from programming the computer to carry out crimes on their behalf? The computer would get thrown in the slammer (or turned off??) and the crime boss would blame the computer and walk free.
This assumes such a computer can be programmed (doesn't do its own programming) and it is possible to alter memory to erase one's tracks.
That was the idea of Nupedia. To quote wikipedia (oh the irony!;-)
As Nupedia dwindled into inactivity, the idea of converting it into a stable version of approved Wikipedia articles was occasionally broached, but never implemented. The Nupedia website shut down on September 26, 2003, and much of Nupedia's content has since been assimilated into Wikipedia.
So far (given a sample size of one), it seems that the information tends to flow the other way.
Perhaps it comes down to a question of "What is truth?" In my experience, Wikipedia is okay but has its flaws. At least wikipedia's flaws are open. It's worth noting that 'reliable' sources aren't always correct either. To detect errors in a 'reliable' source one has to consult multiple other 'reliable' sources. Rather than looking at wikipedia as a single source, perhaps view it as an amalgamation of sources. Uncertainty or inconsistency in wikipedia often seems to be accompanied by uncertainty or controversy among the 'reliable' sources (of which each is internally consistent).
The Federal Court heard yesterday that the major record labels are also engaged in a program of actively disrupting the file-sharing network by bombarding it with billions of decoys and spoofs that pose as song files.
On the bright side, the article also contains the following quote from the judge:
The judge said it was important that any legal remedy did not trespass on freedom of communication. "You are entitled to protect copyright. You are not entitled to control the internet," he said.
> If your lens doesn't focus properly, reproduce colors/etc, no amount of megapixels will save it.
Not true! If you have the camera's point spread function (or a way to estimate it) you can restore an out of focus shot with a deconvolution operation. Here's bit of software which can do such an operation. The web page includes an example. A further example is the image processing which was done on Hubble when its mirror was found to be the wrong shape.
What's to stop a smart person flipping the algorithm 'upside down' and using it to create works of art which can be passed off as being by a master?
For example, analyse a collection of paintings by a particular master. Next paint a picture yourself. Finally, introduce random 'mutations' to your painting, running each mutated painting through the fake detector and selecting the best mutation as input ot the next iteration. The result might just be your very own 'Raphael'.
Such a painting would be undectable by the computerised fake detector, since the painting was 'defined' to pass the detection process. If the computer is better at analysing paitings than humans, presumably your new masterpiece would also past any inspection by a human.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems innovative to me.
I would make the point that innovative does not equal successful. In today's winner takes all world, the term innovative often seems to be restricted to successful innovations. Unsuccessful innovations are valuable though, as they rule out things which don't work.
The emphasis is mine.
Fly-buys is a large loyalty scheme in Australia. AUSTRAC are the spooks responsible for tracing money as it flows through the economy.
Basically, the government is well aware of the abilty of loyalty schemes to trace otherwise untraceable cash transactions, and they would rather the public didn't know about it (as proven by the bungled attempt at censorship).
I'm quite willing to give Mr Gates credit (as I did) for his generous act. My point (in response to the question posed in the article) is that Mr Gates is not the only generous person in this world and that there are other forms of donation than a chunk of money.
Handing out fish is a commendable act.
Given that hacking draws so much from model railways (Tech Model Railroad Club) perhaps it is valid to say hackers have been quilting for years??
That way you can log in from your overseas location chat to him, pop images up on the screen for him and generally have a 'father and son' session. (Others have also suggested VNC.) If using an x-box could something be done with the x-box controller for local control??
You can also admin the box from your remote location. Provided you keep upgrades to only what is necessary the box should be quite stable (I suggest Debian stable). It is important not make any changes which risk prevent the machine from rebooting (such as upgrading the kernel). In the event the system hangs by itself you may have to phone up and get someone to turn the power switch off then on.
I administer my dad's email remotely. It has worked well so far. Admittedly what I am suggesting is well beyond this.
How true. If the mob consisted of several million people marching in the streets of Washington, all wearing T-shirts inscribed "No George W Bush", the government wouldn't last the day.
So if more companies follow IBM's lead, the BSD license could effectively become equivalent to the GPL?
If you write a BSD licensed piece of software, which also relies on IBM's open source patent pledge, you are not allowed to then turn that program into a proprietory program (unless you want to be sued for patent infringement). This applies even if you are the original author!
IBMs patent pledge seems to be even more powerful/virulent than the GPL. Even GPLd software is allowed to be sold as proprietory by the original author.
Perhaps that sobbing noise is RMS weeping for joy?? :-)
The exciting thing is that due to Free nature of the software any Joe blogs can do an IBM and set up in competition.
IBM seems to have taken the very sane approach of making more money by making the pie bigger, not trying to get a bigger slice at the expense of everyone else. IBM wins by making money. The motivated geek can win by setting up their own business and competing.
RMS is no doubt saying under his breath 'told you so'!
Because IBM seems to have decided the future is in software services, not writing software. Let the geeks write the software then IBM will make a pile of money telling companies what software they need, putting all the bits together, installing it then maintaining it.
Also, what happens if a company has a parallel patent license from IBM? (eg. as a result of IBM cross licensing.) The termination clause of the open source patent pledge would then be ineffective against that company.
Is this something IBM has done of its own accord, or is there an organisation out there (eg. OSDL) driving this? Consequently, is IBM the only company to do this, or are they the first cab off the rank with other companies to follow quickly?
Anyone have some answers?
By first reading it is better than irrevocable. It is revocable only in the case that you take action against a free software project. Free software developers would seem to be able to use these 500 patents as a form of patent defence by saying: "Sue us and leave yourself liable to being stomped by IBM." Unfortunately you will have to convince IBM to litigate in your defence.
The release includes detail on licensing.
As mentioned here, the unit is not FCC approved. Once this guy comes onto the radar (by a slashdotting, for example) he might well get a call from the FCC.
If you're learing about VHDL, consider writing some code for OpenCores as part of your education. I gather they have server problems at the moment, so the link may not work.
In addition, once an ISP gets a reputation for cooperating against their customers, it will lose far more customers than just the 'hogs'.
Why not paint a big target on it while they are at it? In the unlikely event of a war, I know where I would be dropping my bombs!
A good guide for unencrypted email is *DON'T* send anything you wouldn't want your mother (or any sysadmin) to read.
This assumes such a computer can be programmed (doesn't do its own programming) and it is possible to alter memory to erase one's tracks.
So far (given a sample size of one), it seems that the information tends to flow the other way.
Perhaps it comes down to a question of "What is truth?" In my experience, Wikipedia is okay but has its flaws. At least wikipedia's flaws are open. It's worth noting that 'reliable' sources aren't always correct either. To detect errors in a 'reliable' source one has to consult multiple other 'reliable' sources. Rather than looking at wikipedia as a single source, perhaps view it as an amalgamation of sources. Uncertainty or inconsistency in wikipedia often seems to be accompanied by uncertainty or controversy among the 'reliable' sources (of which each is internally consistent).
Anyone know whether clamAV is able to detect "official" viruses?
For example:
On the bright side, the article also contains the following quote from the judge:
Not true! If you have the camera's point spread function (or a way to estimate it) you can restore an out of focus shot with a deconvolution operation. Here's bit of software which can do such an operation. The web page includes an example. A further example is the image processing which was done on Hubble when its mirror was found to be the wrong shape.
For example, analyse a collection of paintings by a particular master. Next paint a picture yourself. Finally, introduce random 'mutations' to your painting, running each mutated painting through the fake detector and selecting the best mutation as input ot the next iteration. The result might just be your very own 'Raphael'.
Such a painting would be undectable by the computerised fake detector, since the painting was 'defined' to pass the detection process. If the computer is better at analysing paitings than humans, presumably your new masterpiece would also past any inspection by a human.