The problem is, limiting access to the data wont stop people who need to get to it from stealing it. For example, if you are software engineer working on big software project, you need access to the entire codebase to build the software, even if you are only working on one bit.
As for stopping someone opening the computer up, there are ways to stop people getting inside a computer or notify when it has happened (for example, you can use a lock on the case. Or you can have a chassis intrusion detection sensor wired to a network send so that the machine tells a network server that it was opened). Plus, if your company is one where employees are trained to look for suspicious events (like the place where I work), someone sitting next to you opening up their computer and walking off with the hard drive would probobly count as suspicious and would be something you would report.
These particular chipsets may have the radio frequency and power values set in on-board firmware or hardware instead of in the drivers like most cards seem to do.
Well the jumper or BIOS setting could disable COM and LPT ports too. (especially since, like the USB ports, they arent used normally) As for pulling the HD or CDROM, that would mean opening the case (and there are ways to prevent/detect/monitor that, the simplest of which is to use a padlock on the case). Also, someone sitting in a cubicle and opening the case of their machine might arouse suspicions. As for Laptops, its much easier to prevent employees taking in laptops than it is to prevent employees taking in USB drives. As for the wierd stuff, you could ban tape recorders. Point is that if the LPT, COM and USB ports are disabled, laptops & PDAs are restricted or banned and opening the case is made difficult enough that its possible to detect when it has happened or it looks very suspcious when its being done, of all the remaining methods left, sending it over the network and out onto the internet becomes the easiest option for any would-be data thief.
At the place where I work, I have access to confdential data (and I need that access to do my job). If I wanted to (and wanted to get fired) which I dont (because I would get fired), I could steal this confidential information and post it to the internet. Fact is, large amounts of corporate data theft comes when dishonest people deliberatly copy data they have access to for their jobs and distribute it or when honest people copy data to e.g. work on it at home and then that data goes missing.
What I (and I am sure many companies) would like to see is a range of computers from a big name OEM like DELL that use PS2 for mouse and keyboard and then have a jumper on the motherboard or a software switch hidden in the BIOS behind a BIOS password that will completly disable all use of USB. If you then combine that with a read-only optical drive and no floppy drive it makes it very hard to get data out of the machine without going over the network somehow. Which then gives a chance for it to be inspected or blocked (e.g. firewalls, email scanning etc). With this, there is no need to ban USB devices from work because even if someone does bring a flash drive to work, they cant use it. (they would need to open the machine or get past the BIOS password and re-enable USB and then they would need to install the windows XP USB drivers or somehow boot an alternative OS (e.g. a Live CD) that would be able to read whatever sensative data they wanted (if they were going to do that, they could probobly set up an encrypted tunnel and send the data out that way)
Obviously, all of this only applies if you have dishonest employees:)
The stipulation is that the money gets spent implementing the features the businesses actually want right now. If the businesses funding this want a better spellchecker, the programmers who work on this would do that. Basicly, its no different to businesses getting together and funding development of any other piece of software except that they are starting from an existing codebase and the results will be returned to that codebase.
Basicly, the GP was saying that if businesses took some of the money they spend on lobbying and stuff and put it towards OpenOffice development, they could specifically fund the things added to OpenOffice that are necessary in order for them to be able to switch and then drop Microsoft Office alltogether.
The t-mobile GSM/WiFi dual band phone still requires a t-mobile SIM card and contract. Plus, even when you are on the WiFi side, you are still going through t-mobile (I would assume). It is a great way to increase coverage cheaply (anywhere you cant get permission or cant find a location to erect a GSM tower, stick a couple of WAPs around to provide WiFi instead).
Its far more expensive to put TX power limits in sillicon (if it can be done at all) than to put TX power limits in software. Also, different countries have different rules. Making one piece of hardware and adding different software or drivers for each reulatory area is much cheaper than multiple masks/fabs.
What is missing from linux as far as WiFi goes? Assuming you have a chipset supported by an open-source driver, what else is required but not there in order to make it work?
If the firmware is on the card itself, it is (presumably) independant of any operating system. If the firmware is a kernel blob, it is tied to specific operating systems (and in the case of linux, specific kernel revisions too)
Does anyone have any actual evidence (i.e. other than just "the manufacturer said so so it must be true") that an open source driver for a WiFi card would be illegal or a violation of FCC regs?
ndiswrapper wont work on macs (well maybe the new intel macs...) But any open source native drivers should work (unless the card uses x86 only firmware images)
The other thing we need to do is to put pressure on hardware manufacturers to allow distribution of the binary firmware images along with distributions that contain the open source drivers. (there are probobly good reasons for not allowing it though, mainly to do with "how do we make sure that what people are distributing hasnt been modified")
Further to this, when you buy a product that has linux drivers, contact the company and tell them that you bought because of the linux support and that if the company keeps supporting linux, you will consider recommending them to others or buying more from them in the future.
but ONLY if they are in places where ads would appear anyway. For example, if you are playing a racing game and racing around a track, ads on the walls are ok. As are ads on the cars. Ditto for ads on the walls or field of a sports stadium. Vending machines with real brands are also ok. Billboards in places where billboards are found with real ads on them are again ok. Where the game is simulating a real place (e.g. a real racetrack with real cars or a real sports stadium), it is much better to have the same ads as are present at the real location (for example, I havent seen a single recreation of Mount Panorama racetrack that has a 100% match for all the advertising boards and signage).
Even futuristic games can have ads in the right place (whos to say that freighter captains of the future wont drink coke). Obviously the ads and products must look "futuristic" & fit with the game. (for example, would coke still come in aluminum cans and plastic bottles or would it come in something more futuristic & environmentally friendly?)
Avertising in games is only a problem when it is "out of place". For example, seeing a subway sign on the side of a missile silo. Or seeing the golden arches rise above the arches of an ancient castle.
IANAL but as far as I know, the issue is that the shows producers own copyright and trademark to various things on the show (for example, the name Stargate, the symbols used on the gate and probobly other things). If you make a Stargate mod, you are violating those copyrights/trademarks and the company who holds them has every right to sue you.
The other thing with pay TV set-top-boxes is that they often recieve firmware updates, encryption keys etc over-the-air/over-the-wire (our Foxtel box does and I bet that BSkyB boxes do too). So they need to keep all the circuts going in order to download the new firmware and keys and stuff. Plus, if it is a PVR box, you need it on so it can record what you told it to record:)
Firstly, those lights may indicate people still there doing actual work. Late at night is sometimes the best (or only if a release is comming up) time for software engineers to get work done Also, cleaners, janitors and others may be working after-hours emptying bins, cleaning kitchens, refilling vending machines, water coolers etc (depending on what the office has) and so on. As for cmoputers, often nighttime when no-one is there is the best time to roll out patches (roll out the fix including a remote reboot if necessary) so as not to inconvenience people.
I havent read the entire FTA document but as far as I know, the laws being added through the FTA are the same thing as the US DMCA and european EUCD, that is, they are laws designed to make breaking copy protection illegal. As far as I am aware, nothing in the FTA requires manditory copy protection in any device or otherwise restricts what device makers can do (except for the case of making devices that circumvent copy protection)
As for canada, didnt bush sign a FTA with them too? The sanest place to go might be somewhere in europe (I wonder if switzerland has any nasty laws yet...)
Big Media wants a world where if you want content, you can only buy/use the content they say you can buy/use. Contact your congressmen (preferably with a donation) to protest against Big Media. Promise to vote for the other guy if your congressmen support bills that are friendly to Big Media. There is a mid-term election comming up in america so now is the prefect time to drum up anti-big-media support (i.e. votes).
Unfortunatly, it seems as though most of the sheeple voters in america care more about whether a woman can terminate an unwanted pregnancy or if two men can have a sexual relationship or what their kids should learn about the formation of the earth and the species that inhabit it than issues that really matter like the loss of civil liberties or the increasing power of Big Media or the various wars their givernment has gotten involved in or even wether someone in india or china will take their job tommorow.
Thankfully I live in australia where this kind of crap doesnt happen.
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The problem is, limiting access to the data wont stop people who need to get to it from stealing it. For example, if you are software engineer working on big software project, you need access to the entire codebase to build the software, even if you are only working on one bit.
As for stopping someone opening the computer up, there are ways to stop people getting inside a computer or notify when it has happened (for example, you can use a lock on the case. Or you can have a chassis intrusion detection sensor wired to a network send so that the machine tells a network server that it was opened). Plus, if your company is one where employees are trained to look for suspicious events (like the place where I work), someone sitting next to you opening up their computer and walking off with the hard drive would probobly count as suspicious and would be something you would report.
These particular chipsets may have the radio frequency and power values set in on-board firmware or hardware instead of in the drivers like most cards seem to do.
And adding signature checks to the hardware or whatever reads the firmware costs nothing in programmer time, device space and sillicon?
Well the jumper or BIOS setting could disable COM and LPT ports too. (especially since, like the USB ports, they arent used normally)
As for pulling the HD or CDROM, that would mean opening the case (and there are ways to prevent/detect/monitor that, the simplest of which is to use a padlock on the case). Also, someone sitting in a cubicle and opening the case of their machine might arouse suspicions.
As for Laptops, its much easier to prevent employees taking in laptops than it is to prevent employees taking in USB drives.
As for the wierd stuff, you could ban tape recorders.
Point is that if the LPT, COM and USB ports are disabled, laptops & PDAs are restricted or banned and opening the case is made difficult enough that its possible to detect when it has happened or it looks very suspcious when its being done, of all the remaining methods left, sending it over the network and out onto the internet becomes the easiest option for any would-be data thief.
At the place where I work, I have access to confdential data (and I need that access to do my job). If I wanted to (and wanted to get fired) which I dont (because I would get fired), I could steal this confidential information and post it to the internet. Fact is, large amounts of corporate data theft comes when dishonest people deliberatly copy data they have access to for their jobs and distribute it or when honest people copy data to e.g. work on it at home and then that data goes missing.
:)
What I (and I am sure many companies) would like to see is a range of computers from a big name OEM like DELL that use PS2 for mouse and keyboard and then have a jumper on the motherboard or a software switch hidden in the BIOS behind a BIOS password that will completly disable all use of USB. If you then combine that with a read-only optical drive and no floppy drive it makes it very hard to get data out of the machine without going over the network somehow. Which then gives a chance for it to be inspected or blocked (e.g. firewalls, email scanning etc). With this, there is no need to ban USB devices from work because even if someone does bring a flash drive to work, they cant use it. (they would need to open the machine or get past the BIOS password and re-enable USB and then they would need to install the windows XP USB drivers or somehow boot an alternative OS (e.g. a Live CD) that would be able to read whatever sensative data they wanted (if they were going to do that, they could probobly set up an encrypted tunnel and send the data out that way)
Obviously, all of this only applies if you have dishonest employees
Even if one had an EFI dump, one cant get into the computer at all to replace it.
The stipulation is that the money gets spent implementing the features the businesses actually want right now.
If the businesses funding this want a better spellchecker, the programmers who work on this would do that.
Basicly, its no different to businesses getting together and funding development of any other piece of software except that they are starting from an existing codebase and the results will be returned to that codebase.
Basicly, the GP was saying that if businesses took some of the money they spend on lobbying and stuff and put it towards OpenOffice development, they could specifically fund the things added to OpenOffice that are necessary in order for them to be able to switch and then drop Microsoft Office alltogether.
The t-mobile GSM/WiFi dual band phone still requires a t-mobile SIM card and contract. Plus, even when you are on the WiFi side, you are still going through t-mobile (I would assume).
It is a great way to increase coverage cheaply (anywhere you cant get permission or cant find a location to erect a GSM tower, stick a couple of WAPs around to provide WiFi instead).
Motorola has already announced that it is going to use linux on phones.
Its far more expensive to put TX power limits in sillicon (if it can be done at all) than to put TX power limits in software.
Also, different countries have different rules. Making one piece of hardware and adding different software or drivers for each reulatory area is much cheaper than multiple masks/fabs.
What is missing from linux as far as WiFi goes?
Assuming you have a chipset supported by an open-source driver, what else is required but not there in order to make it work?
If the firmware is on the card itself, it is (presumably) independant of any operating system.
If the firmware is a kernel blob, it is tied to specific operating systems (and in the case of linux, specific kernel revisions too)
Does anyone have any actual evidence (i.e. other than just "the manufacturer said so so it must be true") that an open source driver for a WiFi card would be illegal or a violation of FCC regs?
ndiswrapper wont work on macs (well maybe the new intel macs...)
But any open source native drivers should work (unless the card uses x86 only firmware images)
The other thing we need to do is to put pressure on hardware manufacturers to allow distribution of the binary firmware images along with distributions that contain the open source drivers. (there are probobly good reasons for not allowing it though, mainly to do with "how do we make sure that what people are distributing hasnt been modified")
Further to this, when you buy a product that has linux drivers, contact the company and tell them that you bought because of the linux support and that if the company keeps supporting linux, you will consider recommending them to others or buying more from them in the future.
but ONLY if they are in places where ads would appear anyway.
For example, if you are playing a racing game and racing around a track, ads on the walls are ok. As are ads on the cars. Ditto for ads on the walls or field of a sports stadium. Vending machines with real brands are also ok.
Billboards in places where billboards are found with real ads on them are again ok. Where the game is simulating a real place (e.g. a real racetrack with real cars or a real sports stadium), it is much better to have the same ads as are present at the real location (for example, I havent seen a single recreation of Mount Panorama racetrack that has a 100% match for all the advertising boards and signage).
Even futuristic games can have ads in the right place (whos to say that freighter captains of the future wont drink coke). Obviously the ads and products must look "futuristic" & fit with the game. (for example, would coke still come in aluminum cans and plastic bottles or would it come in something more futuristic & environmentally friendly?)
Avertising in games is only a problem when it is "out of place".
For example, seeing a subway sign on the side of a missile silo. Or seeing the golden arches rise above the arches of an ancient castle.
That game also features bad guys running around shooting cops and civillians and generally being bad.
IANAL but as far as I know, the issue is that the shows producers own copyright and trademark to various things on the show (for example, the name Stargate, the symbols used on the gate and probobly other things). If you make a Stargate mod, you are violating those copyrights/trademarks and the company who holds them has every right to sue you.
The other thing with pay TV set-top-boxes is that they often recieve firmware updates, encryption keys etc over-the-air/over-the-wire (our Foxtel box does and I bet that BSkyB boxes do too). So they need to keep all the circuts going in order to download the new firmware and keys and stuff. :)
Plus, if it is a PVR box, you need it on so it can record what you told it to record
On my TV, even turning it off at the wall doesnt cause it to loose settings (including tuned channels). And mine is a cheap chinese 51cm.
Firstly, those lights may indicate people still there doing actual work. Late at night is sometimes the best (or only if a release is comming up) time for software engineers to get work done
Also, cleaners, janitors and others may be working after-hours emptying bins, cleaning kitchens, refilling vending machines, water coolers etc (depending on what the office has) and so on.
As for cmoputers, often nighttime when no-one is there is the best time to roll out patches (roll out the fix including a remote reboot if necessary) so as not to inconvenience people.
Now thats just lame.
Its illegal to call Budwieser beer in california?
That should go onto one of those "dumb laws" sites...
Anyone know why they would limit what you can call "beer" (somehow, I suspect its got to do with what tax you pay on different alcoholic drinks...)
I havent read the entire FTA document but as far as I know, the laws being added through the FTA are the same thing as the US DMCA and european EUCD, that is, they are laws designed to make breaking copy protection illegal.
As far as I am aware, nothing in the FTA requires manditory copy protection in any device or otherwise restricts what device makers can do (except for the case of making devices that circumvent copy protection)
As for canada, didnt bush sign a FTA with them too?
The sanest place to go might be somewhere in europe (I wonder if switzerland has any nasty laws yet...)
Big Media wants a world where if you want content, you can only buy/use the content they say you can buy/use.
Contact your congressmen (preferably with a donation) to protest against Big Media. Promise to vote for the other guy if your congressmen support bills that are friendly to Big Media.
There is a mid-term election comming up in america so now is the prefect time to drum up anti-big-media support (i.e. votes).
Unfortunatly, it seems as though most of the sheeple voters in america care more about whether a woman can terminate an unwanted pregnancy or if two men can have a sexual relationship or what their kids should learn about the formation of the earth and the species that inhabit it than issues that really matter like the loss of civil liberties or the increasing power of Big Media or the various wars their givernment has gotten involved in or even wether someone in india or china will take their job tommorow.
Thankfully I live in australia where this kind of crap doesnt happen.