But, like the recording industry, the television industry needs to be prepared to flex with the times.
Prime Time is from an era where dad worked 9-5, came home to a warm dinner, and then after reading the paper the family would sit down to an enjoyable evening of TV.
And, today, perhaps a significant percentage of people actually still watch TV this way.
I don't, and haven't done so for years. I don't have the time or the inclination to rearrange my schedule to fit the network execs. I set my VCR (again, no TiVo in Canada) and then watch on Saturday or Sunday or on a free evening. So, when I have the time, stuff I'm interested is always available.
Personally, I think a tool like Kazaa would be perfect for a TV network to distribute programming. They could seed next week's episode of whatever into the network and allow it to be distributed to those who want to receive it. Use DRM to expire content after a week after you first play it if you want, but this would allow me to retrieve a program and then watch it at my convenience.
(I'd prefer a TivO, but they're not in Canada, yet...)
Wouldn't it be something if a network actually embraced Kazaa?.... oh shoot... I just dropped my rose-colored glasses... nevermind...
Retry is configurable, and it depends on the MTA. Qmail has a default retry of 400 seconds (6 minutes, 40 seconds).
Much of my e-mail comes through within seconds - I'm not sure I want that delayed too much. Although, this delay is on the first matching triplet.
Server disk space requirements for major providers would climb considerably, I would expect. Legitimate mass-mail programs, and mailing list services would have a problem, tho.
The algorithm takes advantage of the lazyness of spammers, which is not a bad idea.
What about space junk, too... Something floating around in low orbit severing one of the cables would be a bad thing. It can "withstand many years of bombardment by orbital debris." If a cable was severed, would it burn up on reentry?
There was a story a few days ago about distributed computing and search engines... Ahh... here it is. You don't suppose that Microsoft hopes to make use of DC software in the updated Messenger client to index pages?
Maybe Mozilla could allow for site-based spoofing like they offer site-based image blocking and site-based cookie blocking. Then, for those few lowlifes that insist on finding ways to (break|torment|block) Mozilla for no good reason can be made to work, despite their best efforts to the contrary.
That may be contrary to Mozilla's philosophy... but, someone's gotta blink first or the users get caught in the middle.
Air Canada is sure going to "get it". They're pretty much insolvent with their stock price plummeting from $20.00 Cdn in mid-2000 to a close of $0.69 Cdn on Friday.
I wonder how the math works for the music industry. Are they afraid that they're going to start losing money from individual songs sold direct at.99 each, or would they prefer to sell a full album at 9.99 each, full of filler that most people don't want? It could be a whole new market for them, or at least restoring the old market that was lost when people stopped buying 45 RPMs. There never was a successor to that format that caught on, although clearly there is a demand for being able to purchase the 'hit singles'.
Someone targets airplanes, and people stop flying. Someone targets mail, and people stop using mail. Is this kind of a response reasonable? There's a lot of knee-jerk reactions which are not necessarily effective, and the economic effects of wholesale eschewment of mail and air travel are pretty widespread.
This suggestion reminds me of the panic surrounding the unibomber. People were afraid to send and receive packages, although millions of packages were sent through the FedEx, UPS and the mail every day.
It is upsetting that mail is something we can't implicitly trust after the events of the last week, but it is an extremely useful and, I think, necessary tool. Air travel is still quite safe and I expect to continue to fly when I need to without much thought of what if...
I refuse to live my life worried every minute about what might happen.
Waiting for the perfect confluence of technology seems to result in failure in the marketplace. Some of the best technology I've used adapts itself to me, rather than forcing me to adapt to it. I had not heard about the technological influences on broadband cable modem failure in the U.S., but it seems to me that selecting a technology that requires complete replacement of the infrastructure will fail. Many ADSL technologies required replacement of the "last mile" in order to work, but that last mile is where 99% of the cost lies. I wonder if the ADSL technologies that are successful are the ones that may not get the fastest throughputs in the lab, but work well over the existing installed infrastructure.
The labs come up with some pretty amazing stuff, but the world is not a pristine lab environment where you can control every element. The most successful technology seems to be able to tolerate less than perfect real-world conditions.
I guess in the rush to get technology out of the lab and into the marketplace, figuring out how it works outside the lab isn't a priority to those who control where the R&D funds are spent.
Surely there's more commercial viability to space beyond product placement! 2001: A Space Odyssey seemed to have commercial enterprises operating in space, along with businesses like PanAm and AT&T offering services along the way. I can't recall off the top of my head what kinds of businesses were being conducted - in a way, memory seems to recall that the station was like an ultra-neutral U.N. office, but that could just be fond memories.
Someone should be reinforcing in our minds what benefits we are deriving from the shuttle program - Space Station Freedom is largely a product of those successes, but what other successes have affected our lives? Fixing the Hubble was a huge win for them, and the pretty pictures are nice, but the real benefit is, presumably, in other science being done.
Part of the mindset is that many of these people are scientists. And, scientists generally don't have the patience or the time to explain theories they understand at the highest levels and the effort required to explain it to people who don't have sufficient background to even comprehend the questions being asked, let alone the answers being discovered just doesn't pay off.
If the goal is to get us to colonizing Mars, then each and every experiment that moves us a step closer towards that goal should be pointed out, celebrated, discussed and dissected in light of that goal. Lately, it's felt more like the program is vaguely moving in some direction, but no one has a clear sense of what each experiment is moving us towards. Perhaps there are too many cooks in the kitchen...
One of the sources of insecurity is the fact that many of these programs run at the same security level. The security model in Windows NT is a pretty good one, but how useful is the system if you run as a normal user? How many of us run with Administrative priviledges on the system? How much work is it to set up a new application to work as its own user and then communicate with other applications running as services, authenticated as other users? It's not simple, because many applications seem to assume that they have the right to run as Administrator.
It's a good idea to run things as Least Priviledge, where a process only has enough rights on the system to do what it needs to, and nothing more. The downside to this is that you have to understand everything the application does. That takes a lot of time and effort, and how often in your average-sized business is there a computer geek on staff who has the time to devote to figuring out how to install the app with just enough priviledges so it will run, but not so many that it is a security risk? Seriously, how much time does something like this take?
I know it took me years of thinking about it to understand the guts of Windows 9x, and understand and appreciate how it worked so I could get it to do what I wanted it to. Not because I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but just because there was so much other stuff going on that was urgently needed that I didn't have the time to sit down and figure it out. Gradually, bit by bit, I did figure it out. Not just what the software does, but how it works, why it does what it does, what the implications are for configuring it in a certain way and then deciding how to implement it. A similar scenario was encountered with Windows NT and 2000. Just in time for the Windows XP system to come along, with a new set of rules.
There is a hideous amount of complexity involved with these operating systems, each with their own quirks and behaviors, and understanding everything well enough to be able to dig around in the guts and know what's going on and know how to lock it down is way more than one person can comfortably do if they are doing anything else on the job.
I don't believe there is any magic bullet solution to this, either. There are common practices and techniques that help with securing your network, but there is no lock-n-load solution. We have found tools that help us along the way, but they only help to implement the strategy - they are not the strategy themselves.
It's easy to blame Microsoft, because everyone is running their software. That's their own fault - they've monopolized the marketplace such that everyone uses the same platform. Consequently pretty much everyone is vulnerable to the exact same set of vulnerabilities. Any other common platform will likely have vulnerabilities that can be exploited. I'm not convinced that there isn't a code-red like vulnerability out there for Apache, but Microsoft has been targetted. (On the other hand, it's clear that there are significant problems inside IIS, and as a manager I wonder if they shouldn't dump the source code and start from scratch with better coding practices.) I can recall that Apache *did* have a number of exploits a number of years ago, but many of these have been dealt with in the intervening years.
In any case, I don't think it's either carelessness or incompetence, but marketing. Software under Windows tends to be devastatingly easy to install (compared to Linux, Unix, NetWare and other environments). Mac may be easier. But, just because the software installs easily, does not mean it installs securely. Currently, ease-of-use, ease-to-install and security are at odds with each other.
The argument has been made to get applications to install with least priviledge by default. It's a good design goal, but I wonder if application developers will ever have that as a fundamental design goal for their software. Usually it's a major accomplishment when the silly thing compiles!
I thought it was interesting that Microsoft has achieved a significant milestone with this particular security problem: It's entirely cross-platform. Is this a clue, perhaps, as to why they disdain Java?
There's been a lot of call for the evidence against bin Laden. The Globe and Mail published 70 points of evidence against bin Laden, which is the evidence Tony Blair presented in the British Parliament the other day. Although incomplete (some evidence has reportedly been withheld for security reason), what is presented speaks pretty plainly.
It's a very difficult thing to attain. Prisons are, hypothetically, one of the most secure places on the planet, yet people are able to fabricate deadly weapons, smuggle drugs, and participate in pretty much any kind of activity. There's pretty tight screening to be able to enter a prison - far tighter than airport security.
The danger in light of September 11 is to rush to implement things that make you feel better, but don't actually increase security. It's like forcing people to use strong passwords, but leaving a key daemon users password blank. You feel secure, but it's entirely illusory.
I've frequently wished I had a couple more arms. Or, at least one more than the two I currently have. That would make it a little easier, but I'd probably still try to carry N+1 items, where N is the number of arms I have.
Or a velcro suit (or velcro cummerbund). As an alternative to the utility belt, which would get in the way. There's this whole unused space above my belly-button and beneath my chest that's just calling for some other use besides holding my organs in and keeping my shoulders where they are.
Slashdot Mirror
Except Richard Reid had the explosives in his shoes .
Are these scatter rays going to show shoes as well? The photo they have shown misses the feet!
This seems very, very close to the security system they had in Total Recall!
I understand that.
But, like the recording industry, the television industry needs to be prepared to flex with the times.
Prime Time is from an era where dad worked 9-5, came home to a warm dinner, and then after reading the paper the family would sit down to an enjoyable evening of TV.
And, today, perhaps a significant percentage of people actually still watch TV this way.
I don't, and haven't done so for years. I don't have the time or the inclination to rearrange my schedule to fit the network execs. I set my VCR (again, no TiVo in Canada) and then watch on Saturday or Sunday or on a free evening. So, when I have the time, stuff I'm interested is always available.
Personally, I think a tool like Kazaa would be perfect for a TV network to distribute programming. They could seed next week's episode of whatever into the network and allow it to be distributed to those who want to receive it. Use DRM to expire content after a week after you first play it if you want, but this would allow me to retrieve a program and then watch it at my convenience.
.... oh shoot... I just dropped my rose-colored glasses... nevermind...
(I'd prefer a TivO, but they're not in Canada, yet...)
Wouldn't it be something if a network actually embraced Kazaa?
You can read about the differences by clicking here, which is an article by the author outlining the differences.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And, REGEX is one HUGE hammer!
Retry is configurable, and it depends on the MTA. Qmail has a default retry of 400 seconds (6 minutes, 40 seconds).
Much of my e-mail comes through within seconds - I'm not sure I want that delayed too much. Although, this delay is on the first matching triplet.
Server disk space requirements for major providers would climb considerably, I would expect. Legitimate mass-mail programs, and mailing list services would have a problem, tho.
The algorithm takes advantage of the lazyness of spammers, which is not a bad idea.
What about space junk, too... Something floating around in low orbit severing one of the cables would be a bad thing. It can "withstand many years of bombardment by orbital debris." If a cable was severed, would it burn up on reentry?
There was a story a few days ago about distributed computing and search engines... Ahh... here it is. You don't suppose that Microsoft hopes to make use of DC software in the updated Messenger client to index pages?
In all the discussion that has gone on regarding this case, there is no doubt in my mind that what SCO has done is grossly immoral.
At best, they have entrapped the Linux community. And, that's putting the very best possible light onto the situation.
And, even then, is that a fair assessment?
Maybe Mozilla could allow for site-based spoofing like they offer site-based image blocking and site-based cookie blocking. Then, for those few lowlifes that insist on finding ways to (break|torment|block) Mozilla for no good reason can be made to work, despite their best efforts to the contrary.
That may be contrary to Mozilla's philosophy... but, someone's gotta blink first or the users get caught in the middle.
"Teach a man to buy a CD, and he's a customer.
Allow a man to rip a CD, and he's a thief forever."
- Ancient RIAA proverb.
Given that XBox and GameCube are slugging it out for second place, I wonder if the lack of piracy has adversely affected sales?
Air Canada is sure going to "get it". They're pretty much insolvent with their stock price plummeting from $20.00 Cdn in mid-2000 to a close of $0.69 Cdn on Friday.
Of course, their woes are more than just because of cheap seat prices, although that's part of it. It's also greedy, clueless unions, SARS and focusing too hard on the competition instead of the customers.
The moral of the story seems to be if you're a business that wants to get good prices out of Microsoft, play hard to get.
I wonder how the math works for the music industry. Are they afraid that they're going to start losing money from individual songs sold direct at .99 each, or would they prefer to sell a full album at 9.99 each, full of filler that most people don't want? It could be a whole new market for them, or at least restoring the old market that was lost when people stopped buying 45 RPMs. There never was a successor to that format that caught on, although clearly there is a demand for being able to purchase the 'hit singles'.
Someone targets airplanes, and people stop flying. Someone targets mail, and people stop using mail. Is this kind of a response reasonable? There's a lot of knee-jerk reactions which are not necessarily effective, and the economic effects of wholesale eschewment of mail and air travel are pretty widespread.
This suggestion reminds me of the panic surrounding the unibomber. People were afraid to send and receive packages, although millions of packages were sent through the FedEx, UPS and the mail every day.
It is upsetting that mail is something we can't implicitly trust after the events of the last week, but it is an extremely useful and, I think, necessary tool. Air travel is still quite safe and I expect to continue to fly when I need to without much thought of what if...
I refuse to live my life worried every minute about what might happen.
Good enough is good enough.
Waiting for the perfect confluence of technology seems to result in failure in the marketplace. Some of the best technology I've used adapts itself to me, rather than forcing me to adapt to it. I had not heard about the technological influences on broadband cable modem failure in the U.S., but it seems to me that selecting a technology that requires complete replacement of the infrastructure will fail. Many ADSL technologies required replacement of the "last mile" in order to work, but that last mile is where 99% of the cost lies. I wonder if the ADSL technologies that are successful are the ones that may not get the fastest throughputs in the lab, but work well over the existing installed infrastructure.
The labs come up with some pretty amazing stuff, but the world is not a pristine lab environment where you can control every element. The most successful technology seems to be able to tolerate less than perfect real-world conditions.
I guess in the rush to get technology out of the lab and into the marketplace, figuring out how it works outside the lab isn't a priority to those who control where the R&D funds are spent.
Surely there's more commercial viability to space beyond product placement! 2001: A Space Odyssey seemed to have commercial enterprises operating in space, along with businesses like PanAm and AT&T offering services along the way. I can't recall off the top of my head what kinds of businesses were being conducted - in a way, memory seems to recall that the station was like an ultra-neutral U.N. office, but that could just be fond memories.
Someone should be reinforcing in our minds what benefits we are deriving from the shuttle program - Space Station Freedom is largely a product of those successes, but what other successes have affected our lives? Fixing the Hubble was a huge win for them, and the pretty pictures are nice, but the real benefit is, presumably, in other science being done.
Part of the mindset is that many of these people are scientists. And, scientists generally don't have the patience or the time to explain theories they understand at the highest levels and the effort required to explain it to people who don't have sufficient background to even comprehend the questions being asked, let alone the answers being discovered just doesn't pay off.
If the goal is to get us to colonizing Mars, then each and every experiment that moves us a step closer towards that goal should be pointed out, celebrated, discussed and dissected in light of that goal. Lately, it's felt more like the program is vaguely moving in some direction, but no one has a clear sense of what each experiment is moving us towards. Perhaps there are too many cooks in the kitchen...
One of the sources of insecurity is the fact that many of these programs run at the same security level. The security model in Windows NT is a pretty good one, but how useful is the system if you run as a normal user? How many of us run with Administrative priviledges on the system? How much work is it to set up a new application to work as its own user and then communicate with other applications running as services, authenticated as other users? It's not simple, because many applications seem to assume that they have the right to run as Administrator.
It's a good idea to run things as Least Priviledge, where a process only has enough rights on the system to do what it needs to, and nothing more. The downside to this is that you have to understand everything the application does. That takes a lot of time and effort, and how often in your average-sized business is there a computer geek on staff who has the time to devote to figuring out how to install the app with just enough priviledges so it will run, but not so many that it is a security risk? Seriously, how much time does something like this take?
I know it took me years of thinking about it to understand the guts of Windows 9x, and understand and appreciate how it worked so I could get it to do what I wanted it to. Not because I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but just because there was so much other stuff going on that was urgently needed that I didn't have the time to sit down and figure it out. Gradually, bit by bit, I did figure it out. Not just what the software does, but how it works, why it does what it does, what the implications are for configuring it in a certain way and then deciding how to implement it. A similar scenario was encountered with Windows NT and 2000. Just in time for the Windows XP system to come along, with a new set of rules.
There is a hideous amount of complexity involved with these operating systems, each with their own quirks and behaviors, and understanding everything well enough to be able to dig around in the guts and know what's going on and know how to lock it down is way more than one person can comfortably do if they are doing anything else on the job.
I don't believe there is any magic bullet solution to this, either. There are common practices and techniques that help with securing your network, but there is no lock-n-load solution. We have found tools that help us along the way, but they only help to implement the strategy - they are not the strategy themselves.
It's easy to blame Microsoft, because everyone is running their software. That's their own fault - they've monopolized the marketplace such that everyone uses the same platform. Consequently pretty much everyone is vulnerable to the exact same set of vulnerabilities. Any other common platform will likely have vulnerabilities that can be exploited. I'm not convinced that there isn't a code-red like vulnerability out there for Apache, but Microsoft has been targetted. (On the other hand, it's clear that there are significant problems inside IIS, and as a manager I wonder if they shouldn't dump the source code and start from scratch with better coding practices.) I can recall that Apache *did* have a number of exploits a number of years ago, but many of these have been dealt with in the intervening years.
In any case, I don't think it's either carelessness or incompetence, but marketing. Software under Windows tends to be devastatingly easy to install (compared to Linux, Unix, NetWare and other environments). Mac may be easier. But, just because the software installs easily, does not mean it installs securely. Currently, ease-of-use, ease-to-install and security are at odds with each other.
The argument has been made to get applications to install with least priviledge by default. It's a good design goal, but I wonder if application developers will ever have that as a fundamental design goal for their software. Usually it's a major accomplishment when the silly thing compiles!
I thought it was interesting that Microsoft has achieved a significant milestone with this particular security problem: It's entirely cross-platform. Is this a clue, perhaps, as to why they disdain Java?
There's been a lot of call for the evidence against bin Laden. The Globe and Mail published 70 points of evidence against bin Laden, which is the evidence Tony Blair presented in the British Parliament the other day. Although incomplete (some evidence has reportedly been withheld for security reason), what is presented speaks pretty plainly.
It's a very difficult thing to attain. Prisons are, hypothetically, one of the most secure places on the planet, yet people are able to fabricate deadly weapons, smuggle drugs, and participate in pretty much any kind of activity. There's pretty tight screening to be able to enter a prison - far tighter than airport security.
The danger in light of September 11 is to rush to implement things that make you feel better, but don't actually increase security. It's like forcing people to use strong passwords, but leaving a key daemon users password blank. You feel secure, but it's entirely illusory.
I've frequently wished I had a couple more arms. Or, at least one more than the two I currently have. That would make it a little easier, but I'd probably still try to carry N+1 items, where N is the number of arms I have. Or a velcro suit (or velcro cummerbund). As an alternative to the utility belt, which would get in the way. There's this whole unused space above my belly-button and beneath my chest that's just calling for some other use besides holding my organs in and keeping my shoulders where they are.