Your comment seems premised on a key assumption which I believe is not correct, namely that a large percentage of "technicians" (or really any other group of people) would have such a problem with said surveillance, to the point where they would take any steps that might potentially risk their jobs (a risk that would not be completely alleviated by unionization).
Polls show that, if the question is put in a certain way, it's not hard to get a very large majority of people to support surveillance, even very "orwellian" surveillance. I don't think there's any reason to assume that 'technicians' are necessarily any different.
I think it would only take one more widely publicized terror attack in this country for people to willfully give up many freedoms in the pursuit of increased perceived 'security.' There is adequate historical precedent for people turning on their neighbors in times of insecurity, I don't think that this country is somehow immune.
Oh, come on. Everyone knows that Hades isn't a programmer any more, not since he got promoted to Management and got that whole division to run down there.
This assumes that the first act in a future global conflict wouldn't be to shut down the Internet along national borders, slash undersea cables, and "de-orbit" each others' communications satellites. Much the same way that physical borders were shut down in past wars between belligerent nations, I expect that the shutdown of informational borders would be the most telling sign of an impending war in the future.
While I agree with you in fact regarding the Colossus, I don't think it gets the mark for being first, either.
Konrad Zuse was first, by a number of years, with the Z3. Fully programmable, Turing-complete -- a computer by practically any definition of the term. Unfortunately he wasn't recognized until recently (when the machine was rebuilt) since it was destroyed during an Allied aerial bombardment of Berlin. It's actually arguable whether this distinction ought not go to his earlier prototype (the Z1) in 1938/39, which embodied many of the same principles, but didn't work too well due to the method of construction. (It was electromechanical.)
It's also worth pointing out that it wasn't created for any cryptographic purpose. It was built as a general-purpose machine, my understanding is that Zuse's background was in logistics and the Post Office. The Nazis were apparently underwhelmed and didn't support the project particularly well; if they had, computing history (and all modern history) might be quite different.
That's kind of a bold statement -- care to elaborate?
The design of an encryption system itself -- as in the algorithm or device used for encipherment -- doesn't make it more or less resistant to traffic analysis. You could be using one-time pads, essentially unbreakable encryption, and still be vunerable to traffic analysis if you were using it poorly.
Because I'm (more) familiar with UNIX/Linux, not Windows, and I have no desire to learn it. I would prefer to see the platforms that I'm either familiar with or interested in learning more about become more popular and widespread, and that's not Windows Server on either account.
So, yes, to me it's definitely "unfortunate." Any growth in Windows-based products is, since I dislike using them rather intensely.
It's a completely personal judgement call, but I stand by it the same. If you're an MCSE, perhaps it's less unfortunate.
Actually, my question is: is there even enough bandwidth on an analog component signal to carry 1080p video?
Yes.
There may be technological as well as/rather than DRM reasons for the resolution downgrading.
No.
Most people who are watching HDTV right now (who are using an OTA broadcast HD receiver) are watching it via component video inputs. You can also get SD DVD players that will upconvert to 1080p on the analog outputs -- silly, if you ask me, but they exist -- such as this one.
So, he can go into a store to buy wares just as any normal person would.... but he cannot go into a store to PRETEND to be a customer without a warrent.
This is untrue. A police officer certainly can come in to a store and decline to tell you that they're a cop while just browsing. If they see something illegal (like a pawn shop selling guns without a dealer license), they can arrest the owner.
A warrant isn't necessary for a police officer to go undercover. In fact, police officers often go undercover specifically to get evidence that will allow them to get a warrant.
I would like to believe you -- I really would -- but I think consumers are much too ignorant and apathetic to really make such a boycott work on a large scale.
Divx failed because there were alternatives that made it unattractive.
In the short term, I think consumers will ignore HD-DVD and BluRay, and will just purchase standard DVDs. The increase in quality isn't all that perceptible on most people's equipment, and it will be a very long time before everyone has HDTV sets.
But if you think the content industry is just going to roll over and say "Okay, sure, we'll reconsider this whole HD disc business that you guys seem to dislike so much," think again. Eventually -- I predict it's when one of the HD formats wins over the other -- Hollywood will decide to cut off the flow of DVDs. Or perhaps they'll just delay them by 6-12 months.
Consumers may not like the new discs, but when they can't get their latest serving of the latest Hollywood tripe on DVD anymore, they'll be lining up at Best Buy. The industry realizes this, and it's only a matter of time until they force the upgrade by cutting off the flow of standard DVD releases. Watch them use the excuse of "piracy" and "content protection" to do it, too.
I don't know if you were joking, but I think the "GBP" he was referring to in this context was 'Great Britain Pounds,' which work out to be worth about $1.70 USD each.
So that's about $350 worth of DVDs, which at least here in the States would get you roughly 1,093 blank single-layer DVD-Rs (at $0.32 each in bulk, generic). Which together would store about 4787.34 GB.
I really think that this case is more of a failure for privacy rights. I'm not sure that I like the idea that anyone can go in and get a printout of an electronic email list, but isn't allowed to do the same for physical addresses, even though they're far more likely to spam my email (since it doesn't cost them a thing).
I hope when they give the kid the email addresses, they establish guidelines mandating that all email addresses must be given out in hardcopy, and set it in some really obnoxious and impossible-to-OCR font. Some of those "olde English" scripts at about 6 points ought to do the trick, preferably printed on toilet paper.
I appreciate what the guy was trying to do -- show whether there was misuse of the list within the government itself -- but I'm not sure that I really like the fact that it established precedent that there's basically no protection of email address lists from public dissemination.
While I agree with some points you raise, I don't think that it's the 'ability to install any piece of hardware' that is really holding people back. Or rather, it's not holding anyone back who's really a candidate for switching. There are always going to be people who have one little dongle or something that's never going to work with Linux, that will give them the excuse to stay with what's familiar.
I think having a good, centralized HCL for each distribution is the biggest missing "feature" right now -- with most distributions, it's difficult for me to figure out and purchase hardware that's guaranteed to be compatible. It doesn't necessarily have to be what I already own. Even RHEL, which you'd think would be the best around, is pretty weak.
Software installation is what Linux (at least the debian based distros, I don't use anything else) do right. You want this new "Foo" thing that your friend just told you about? "sudo apt-get install foo" I could teach my mother to do that, provided the sources.list file was set up correctly. Or there are lots of great graphical package managers. This is how software OUGHT to work: one place where you get and install software. No downloading anything from manufacturers sites, no compiling, no keeping executable files in weird places (unless you know how to choose the path and really want it). Everything is signed, dependencies are automatically fixed (which allows for efficient shared library use), the user is prompted for configuration options as required.
The apt system is one of the biggest things that Linux has going for it, to replace that with the Windows like "anyone can install any software and install it anywhere they want" is a mistake.
Actually, there are 51; that Alberto Gonzales guy must have gotten left standing when the music stops, because he doesn't have a state.
That said, I'm not sure many of them have the cojones enough to take on Microsoft. I can only think of a few that would (and no, Gonzales is not one of them).
I don't think he's saying that the license actually gets shipped to the customer, just that Dell (or the other manufacturer, but I think he might be talking about Dell because they traditionally were the coziest bed-buddies with MSFT) is required to buy as many Windows licenses from MS as they ship boxes in a year.
So if Dell ships 50,000 boxes in some timespan, they're potentially contractually obligated to buy that many licenses from Microsoft, even if 5,000 of the boxes ship either bare or with Linux. Dell just eats the cost of the surplus licenses, in order to protect its volume pricing with Microsoft, in the name of "customer satisfaction" by giving people whatever OS they want.
It seems believable to me, although I doubt that it's as malicious as the GP was inferring. In order to get volume deals, a manufacturer probably has to guarantee a set amount of Windows license purchases, which may exceed the number of actual Windows-installed units that they sell, if they get a big order for Linux preinstalls. Logic would dictate that in the next contract, they'd try to more accurately predict demand, but if the quantity break from Microsoft is big enough, then it might be worth it to keep buying surplus licenses and just eating the cost.
I doubt however that Microsoft can count OEM purchase guarantees as unit sales, however; that seems like a bit of shifty accounting to me, although maybe that doesn't rule anything out anymore.
"Unix" is just the proprietary, old-school variants -- so HP-UX, Solaris, probably AIX and some other ones I'm forgetting. (Does SGI still sell Irix?) I'm not sure what they do with BSD.
Linux isn't counted in there, it's recorded separately. But even recorded separately, and marked only by hardware sales dollars (not the most flattering number to use, for a FREE operating system that runs on almost anything), it comes in third. So if you bought a server that came bundled with a Windows license, but then installed Linux on it, it's counted as a "Windows sale." The only things, I think, that are being counted are actual "Linux servers," like you can buy from Dell or IBM.
So I think the picture this paints is pretty good for free software. Bad for proprietary Unix vendors, but the writing's been on the wall for a while, guys. Hope you cashed out your options when the going was good.
The growth in Windows servers is unfortunate but expected, as more people want to start doing.NET and Terminal Server stuff; building systems that integrate tightly (one might say incestously) with the client's OS and applications. Personally I haven't seen much indication that Windows servers are really cutting into *nix's core markets -- particularly HTTP and email. Others might be able to provide counterexamples, but in general I think this is a pretty positive report altogether for Linux.
Well, there's my answer: it's called the IBM Workplace, and the client software is the Workplace Managed Client (they don't waste a lot of effort on their names, do they).
When I saw "White Paper Series" my first reaction was "vaporware!" But it does seem to actually exist. In fact there is some sort of demo which you can download here, although proceed at your own risk, I didn't try it. There is some sort of registration required.
I can't tell whether the client actually does anything without the server half, but if anyone wants to play with it and report back, I'm curious. Supposedly runs on AIX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows, from what I can tell.
Nah, you just need to rig every laptop with a self destruct device. Like a claymore AP mine, right behind the screen.
Laptop get stolen? Just turn on the kill code, and next time that sucker gets attached to the internet or comes within range of a WiFi network....well, you'll know who stole it. Probably from their dental records.
Get 4" tall alphanumeric stencils, and using some really hard exterior paint, put everyone's initials onto the covers of the laptops. It's harder to remove than the serial number (except by painting over heavily), it makes your laptop easy to identify, and it creates a basically standardized, uniform appearance.
The latter may or may not be desirable depending on the institution -- I can see it probably being more popular at the USMA than at the New School in NYC...
My souce for the idea is that, a while ago, I took a course where we were required to purchase HP scientific calculators (actually at a fairly reduced price -- one of the reasons I took it) and they both engraved our names into the back of the units, but also stenciled our initials onto the front cover with a very heavy white paint. It's chipped off slowly since then, but I thought it was a great idea.
Didn't we hear just a while ago, in relation to all of the OpenOffice controversy, that IBM was developing some sort of thin-client office productivity suite? I distinctly remember hearing something about it. Actually I remember thinking that it sounded much more Google's style than IBM... but it was cool nonetheless.
I'm not really sure who they were/are planning on marketing it to -- developing countries, perhaps? -- and I'm not sure that the recent past has really shown much support for the whole "the network is the computer" concept, but maybe they could sell it to people as a cost savings. Get one reasonably priced server, and a dozen or so diskless thin clients, and you could outfit a whole classroom with computers without buying a single copy of Windows or Microsoft Office. And nobody ever has to worry about moving their work from one computer to another, it's always stored and available.
There are a lot of good things that could be said for such a system. It would take me a while to get over my hesitation to use a web browser for anything BUT web browsing, though.
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Your comment seems premised on a key assumption which I believe is not correct, namely that a large percentage of "technicians" (or really any other group of people) would have such a problem with said surveillance, to the point where they would take any steps that might potentially risk their jobs (a risk that would not be completely alleviated by unionization).
Polls show that, if the question is put in a certain way, it's not hard to get a very large majority of people to support surveillance, even very "orwellian" surveillance. I don't think there's any reason to assume that 'technicians' are necessarily any different.
I think it would only take one more widely publicized terror attack in this country for people to willfully give up many freedoms in the pursuit of increased perceived 'security.' There is adequate historical precedent for people turning on their neighbors in times of insecurity, I don't think that this country is somehow immune.
Oh, come on. Everyone knows that Hades isn't a programmer any more, not since he got promoted to Management and got that whole division to run down there.
As opposed to what other kind of artillery, exactly?
This assumes that the first act in a future global conflict wouldn't be to shut down the Internet along national borders, slash undersea cables, and "de-orbit" each others' communications satellites. Much the same way that physical borders were shut down in past wars between belligerent nations, I expect that the shutdown of informational borders would be the most telling sign of an impending war in the future.
While I agree with you in fact regarding the Colossus, I don't think it gets the mark for being first, either.
Konrad Zuse was first, by a number of years, with the Z3. Fully programmable, Turing-complete -- a computer by practically any definition of the term. Unfortunately he wasn't recognized until recently (when the machine was rebuilt) since it was destroyed during an Allied aerial bombardment of Berlin. It's actually arguable whether this distinction ought not go to his earlier prototype (the Z1) in 1938/39, which embodied many of the same principles, but didn't work too well due to the method of construction. (It was electromechanical.)
It's also worth pointing out that it wasn't created for any cryptographic purpose. It was built as a general-purpose machine, my understanding is that Zuse's background was in logistics and the Post Office. The Nazis were apparently underwhelmed and didn't support the project particularly well; if they had, computing history (and all modern history) might be quite different.
More references:
http://www.epemag.com/zuse/part4a.htm Article written by Konrad Zuse's son.
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Zuse.html Bio and C.V. of Konrad Zuse, and writings on information theory.
That's kind of a bold statement -- care to elaborate?
The design of an encryption system itself -- as in the algorithm or device used for encipherment -- doesn't make it more or less resistant to traffic analysis. You could be using one-time pads, essentially unbreakable encryption, and still be vunerable to traffic analysis if you were using it poorly.
I'll just hit him over the head with a large brick and let him TRY to sue me.
Maybe you missed the memo, but we have guns over here. Lots of guns. I would not recommend the brick thing.
Suing people is definitely the preferred method.
What if I get my medical advice on Slashdot?
Run to an attorney, obviously.
Because I'm (more) familiar with UNIX/Linux, not Windows, and I have no desire to learn it. I would prefer to see the platforms that I'm either familiar with or interested in learning more about become more popular and widespread, and that's not Windows Server on either account.
So, yes, to me it's definitely "unfortunate." Any growth in Windows-based products is, since I dislike using them rather intensely.
It's a completely personal judgement call, but I stand by it the same. If you're an MCSE, perhaps it's less unfortunate.
Actually, my question is: is there even enough bandwidth on an analog component signal to carry 1080p video?
Yes.
There may be technological as well as/rather than DRM reasons for the resolution downgrading.
No.
Most people who are watching HDTV right now (who are using an OTA broadcast HD receiver) are watching it via component video inputs. You can also get SD DVD players that will upconvert to 1080p on the analog outputs -- silly, if you ask me, but they exist -- such as this one.
So, he can go into a store to buy wares just as any normal person would.... but he cannot go into a store to PRETEND to be a customer without a warrent.
This is untrue. A police officer certainly can come in to a store and decline to tell you that they're a cop while just browsing. If they see something illegal (like a pawn shop selling guns without a dealer license), they can arrest the owner.
A warrant isn't necessary for a police officer to go undercover. In fact, police officers often go undercover specifically to get evidence that will allow them to get a warrant.
I would like to believe you -- I really would -- but I think consumers are much too ignorant and apathetic to really make such a boycott work on a large scale.
Divx failed because there were alternatives that made it unattractive.
In the short term, I think consumers will ignore HD-DVD and BluRay, and will just purchase standard DVDs. The increase in quality isn't all that perceptible on most people's equipment, and it will be a very long time before everyone has HDTV sets.
But if you think the content industry is just going to roll over and say "Okay, sure, we'll reconsider this whole HD disc business that you guys seem to dislike so much," think again. Eventually -- I predict it's when one of the HD formats wins over the other -- Hollywood will decide to cut off the flow of DVDs. Or perhaps they'll just delay them by 6-12 months.
Consumers may not like the new discs, but when they can't get their latest serving of the latest Hollywood tripe on DVD anymore, they'll be lining up at Best Buy. The industry realizes this, and it's only a matter of time until they force the upgrade by cutting off the flow of standard DVD releases. Watch them use the excuse of "piracy" and "content protection" to do it, too.
I don't know if you were joking, but I think the "GBP" he was referring to in this context was 'Great Britain Pounds,' which work out to be worth about $1.70 USD each.
So that's about $350 worth of DVDs, which at least here in the States would get you roughly 1,093 blank single-layer DVD-Rs (at $0.32 each in bulk, generic). Which together would store about 4787.34 GB.
Now, that's a lot of porn...
I agree completely.
I really think that this case is more of a failure for privacy rights. I'm not sure that I like the idea that anyone can go in and get a printout of an electronic email list, but isn't allowed to do the same for physical addresses, even though they're far more likely to spam my email (since it doesn't cost them a thing).
I hope when they give the kid the email addresses, they establish guidelines mandating that all email addresses must be given out in hardcopy, and set it in some really obnoxious and impossible-to-OCR font. Some of those "olde English" scripts at about 6 points ought to do the trick, preferably printed on toilet paper.
I appreciate what the guy was trying to do -- show whether there was misuse of the list within the government itself -- but I'm not sure that I really like the fact that it established precedent that there's basically no protection of email address lists from public dissemination.
Of course if you can't afford a nice computer than sure use Linux, it's ideal for the third-world in this respect.
Well trolled, sir! You've almost made it to an hour and haven't been downmoderated yet.
No points for subtlety, though.
While I agree with some points you raise, I don't think that it's the 'ability to install any piece of hardware' that is really holding people back. Or rather, it's not holding anyone back who's really a candidate for switching. There are always going to be people who have one little dongle or something that's never going to work with Linux, that will give them the excuse to stay with what's familiar.
I think having a good, centralized HCL for each distribution is the biggest missing "feature" right now -- with most distributions, it's difficult for me to figure out and purchase hardware that's guaranteed to be compatible. It doesn't necessarily have to be what I already own. Even RHEL, which you'd think would be the best around, is pretty weak.
Software installation is what Linux (at least the debian based distros, I don't use anything else) do right. You want this new "Foo" thing that your friend just told you about? "sudo apt-get install foo" I could teach my mother to do that, provided the sources.list file was set up correctly. Or there are lots of great graphical package managers. This is how software OUGHT to work: one place where you get and install software. No downloading anything from manufacturers sites, no compiling, no keeping executable files in weird places (unless you know how to choose the path and really want it). Everything is signed, dependencies are automatically fixed (which allows for efficient shared library use), the user is prompted for configuration options as required.
The apt system is one of the biggest things that Linux has going for it, to replace that with the Windows like "anyone can install any software and install it anywhere they want" is a mistake.
Actually, there are 51; that Alberto Gonzales guy must have gotten left standing when the music stops, because he doesn't have a state.
That said, I'm not sure many of them have the cojones enough to take on Microsoft. I can only think of a few that would (and no, Gonzales is not one of them).
Be careful, as soon as he senses you, he'll counterattack.
Your only solution is going to be even MORE aggressive than he's being. It's a sure win every time.
I don't think he's saying that the license actually gets shipped to the customer, just that Dell (or the other manufacturer, but I think he might be talking about Dell because they traditionally were the coziest bed-buddies with MSFT) is required to buy as many Windows licenses from MS as they ship boxes in a year.
So if Dell ships 50,000 boxes in some timespan, they're potentially contractually obligated to buy that many licenses from Microsoft, even if 5,000 of the boxes ship either bare or with Linux. Dell just eats the cost of the surplus licenses, in order to protect its volume pricing with Microsoft, in the name of "customer satisfaction" by giving people whatever OS they want.
It seems believable to me, although I doubt that it's as malicious as the GP was inferring. In order to get volume deals, a manufacturer probably has to guarantee a set amount of Windows license purchases, which may exceed the number of actual Windows-installed units that they sell, if they get a big order for Linux preinstalls. Logic would dictate that in the next contract, they'd try to more accurately predict demand, but if the quantity break from Microsoft is big enough, then it might be worth it to keep buying surplus licenses and just eating the cost.
I doubt however that Microsoft can count OEM purchase guarantees as unit sales, however; that seems like a bit of shifty accounting to me, although maybe that doesn't rule anything out anymore.
"Unix" is just the proprietary, old-school variants -- so HP-UX, Solaris, probably AIX and some other ones I'm forgetting. (Does SGI still sell Irix?) I'm not sure what they do with BSD.
.NET and Terminal Server stuff; building systems that integrate tightly (one might say incestously) with the client's OS and applications. Personally I haven't seen much indication that Windows servers are really cutting into *nix's core markets -- particularly HTTP and email. Others might be able to provide counterexamples, but in general I think this is a pretty positive report altogether for Linux.
Linux isn't counted in there, it's recorded separately. But even recorded separately, and marked only by hardware sales dollars (not the most flattering number to use, for a FREE operating system that runs on almost anything), it comes in third. So if you bought a server that came bundled with a Windows license, but then installed Linux on it, it's counted as a "Windows sale." The only things, I think, that are being counted are actual "Linux servers," like you can buy from Dell or IBM.
So I think the picture this paints is pretty good for free software. Bad for proprietary Unix vendors, but the writing's been on the wall for a while, guys. Hope you cashed out your options when the going was good.
The growth in Windows servers is unfortunate but expected, as more people want to start doing
http://www-142.ibm.com/software/workplace/products /product5.nsf/wdocs/whitepaperseries
Thanks, AC.
Well, there's my answer: it's called the IBM Workplace, and the client software is the Workplace Managed Client (they don't waste a lot of effort on their names, do they).
When I saw "White Paper Series" my first reaction was "vaporware!" But it does seem to actually exist. In fact there is some sort of demo which you can download here, although proceed at your own risk, I didn't try it. There is some sort of registration required.
I can't tell whether the client actually does anything without the server half, but if anyone wants to play with it and report back, I'm curious. Supposedly runs on AIX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows, from what I can tell.
Why not just epoxy the computer to the student?
Great for combating theft and loss. Problem solved.
Nah, you just need to rig every laptop with a self destruct device. Like a claymore AP mine, right behind the screen.
Laptop get stolen? Just turn on the kill code, and next time that sucker gets attached to the internet or comes within range of a WiFi network....well, you'll know who stole it. Probably from their dental records.
Well, you could stencil them instead.
Get 4" tall alphanumeric stencils, and using some really hard exterior paint, put everyone's initials onto the covers of the laptops. It's harder to remove than the serial number (except by painting over heavily), it makes your laptop easy to identify, and it creates a basically standardized, uniform appearance.
The latter may or may not be desirable depending on the institution -- I can see it probably being more popular at the USMA than at the New School in NYC...
My souce for the idea is that, a while ago, I took a course where we were required to purchase HP scientific calculators (actually at a fairly reduced price -- one of the reasons I took it) and they both engraved our names into the back of the units, but also stenciled our initials onto the front cover with a very heavy white paint. It's chipped off slowly since then, but I thought it was a great idea.
Didn't we hear just a while ago, in relation to all of the OpenOffice controversy, that IBM was developing some sort of thin-client office productivity suite? I distinctly remember hearing something about it. Actually I remember thinking that it sounded much more Google's style than IBM ... but it was cool nonetheless.
I'm not really sure who they were/are planning on marketing it to -- developing countries, perhaps? -- and I'm not sure that the recent past has really shown much support for the whole "the network is the computer" concept, but maybe they could sell it to people as a cost savings. Get one reasonably priced server, and a dozen or so diskless thin clients, and you could outfit a whole classroom with computers without buying a single copy of Windows or Microsoft Office. And nobody ever has to worry about moving their work from one computer to another, it's always stored and available.
There are a lot of good things that could be said for such a system. It would take me a while to get over my hesitation to use a web browser for anything BUT web browsing, though.
Here is the article I think I heard about it from:
http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5208998.html