Companies with sufficiently deep pockets have demonstrated the ability to "win" lawsuits by simply prolonging them past the ability of their opponents to financially endure.
However, the American justice system does allow a sufficiently large number of people to do this straight back. And I'm not talking about class action suits, from which only lawyers benefit, anyway.
It's called small claims court. Pay the filing fee (typically less than $100), bring a sufficiently plausible gripe that your case won't get dismissed, represent yourself. If you win, you can even get the filing fee reimbursed, and even if not, rest assured that the company has spent more on paying their lawyer to show up than you were asking for in damages.
I find it apalling that in the face of incontrivertable, indisuptable evidence that the magnetic north pole in fact moving, the industrialized nations of the world forge on in producing further electromagnet dynamos.
From the great generating facilities in our hydroelectric plants to the tiniest servo in children's toys, our fascination with electric power that has led to these global changes must end.
How can we in good conscience continue the use of these technologies, fully knowing their effect on our grandchildren?
It is certainly possible to make it *extremely* difficult if not impossible to get a private key out of a smart-card. The NSA did it with Skipjack in the early nineties.
Techniques specific to cracking a smartcard have undone this work. If one knows the encryption algorithm used by the card and the hardware used to implement it, then because the card reader provides the card with power to do its computations, the power-demand-vs-time information gained by the reader can be used to reconstruct the key stored in the card.
All 15 of the AES submissions are vunlerable to this attack. Moral: never stick your smartcard in an untrusted slot.
Just because we are in an interesting position in the galaxy now doesn't mean we have been there for any more than a few hundred million years.
Gravitational "mixing" of the galaxy ensures that a star can travel from pretty much any part of the disk to any other part within about a billion years and that our present stellar neighbors were not our neighbors for most of our history.
Basically, we have no clue where in the galactic disk the sun formed, nor which supernova remnant is responsible for seeding the sun's formation, nor the location of most of the nearby objection in the galaxy more than a billion years or so ago.
Looking over a
draft of the SSSCA, I couldn't help but notice that its very vagueness in defining what an "interactive digital device" is, which many critics have pointed out would make the bill an unenforceable morass applying to everything from toasters to handheld calculators to your telephone answering machine, may be a boon to anyone wishing to have an uncrippled machine in the post-Hollings era.
Is a CPU an interactive digital device? I have trouble interacting with it. What about a mobo? Graphics card? Monitor? OS? Mouse?
IANAL, but it could reasonably be argued that the bill could only apply to assembled computer systems, but not to the individual components thereof. Therefore, while the Dells of the world would have to include DRM features, the home hobbying building their own machine could well be able to construct a Hollings-free computer perfectly legally.
I wonder how long the NSA has know about this. I'm betting a decade...
Perhaps, but the time lapse between the NSA knowing something and its publication in open press is less than it used to be, based on the two data points we have from the last decade.
First, the case of SHA-0. NSA / NIST published SHA in 1993, and replaced it thanks to a then-undisclosed weakness in 1995. In 1998, open-press cryptographers announced a break against it. It appears that in attacks against MD4-family hash functions, the public is less than 5 years behind the TLA's.
Also in 1998, impossible differential cryptanalysis hit the open press, and this form of analysis proved effective against 31-round Skipjack. (The version published by the NSA has 32 rounds.) It seems absurd to believe the NSA would release a cipher that they knew to be only one round more than a vulnerable one, and honestly, the most likely explanation is that impossible differential analysis was not known to the NSA.
Of course, one might counter that the TLA's do such things deliberately in order to appear less advanced than they are. However, both these breaks occurred in NSA products designed for public consumption -- that is, with the intent that government agencies using non-classified information and corporations would actually use them to protect sensitive data. And protection of such data against foreign and industrial espionage definitely is part of "national security." It would be foolishness to promote a cipher you knew to be broken under the assumption that no one else would figure it out simply becuase
you never know when the public might figure out your techniques
you never know if intelligence organizations in other nations have already figured out your techniques
While the article is interesting in the sense that it shows that efficient p2p network topolgies are possible (for suitably small definitions of efficient), actually implementing it on a network of untrusted peers could be problematic.
This is because it assumes the peers are already arranged in the network in the topology one wants.
If a central addressing authority exists, it is no problem to simply give new peers addresses and the addresses of their neighbors in such a way that the network acquires any topolgy the authority wants. The authority can even cope with peers leaving the network more or less arbitrarily.
However, a real question is -- how do you get peers to "self-assemble" into the desired topology in such a way that a small population of peers that choose not to play by the generally accepted rules cannot dramatically effect the outcome. In other words, how can peers be persuaded to place themselves on the points of a cubic hyperlattice solely by contacting a few already installed peers, some of which may not be telling the truth?
I'm always amazed with bibliophiles like you. I've got friends who won't bend the spine on a $5 paperback for fear of "ruining" the book. It's just a book! It's a container of information, that's all! Right now they're cheap, flexible and easy to produce, but this is changing. Like it or not traditional books are going away. Just like newspapers and magazines. The problem right now is that it's just not as economical to produce an ebook as a regular one (because of the price and tech of the readers). However if a major author like Rawlings decided to publish a major title as an ebook, suddenly the economics would change big-time.
As a "bibliophile like him," I can state that a book is not "just a container of information." When a person finishes reading the newspaper, they usually throw it away. Magazines might survive a couple months, unless they're National Geographic in which case they live indefinitely. When a bibliophile finishes a book, however, they put it on their bookshelf for perpetuity, even if they have no intention of ever reading it again.
Read that last sentence again. The bibliophile derives value from owning a piece of dead tree they will never, ever read again.
Without this last statement, the mass-market publishing industry would be in bad shape, electronic media or no. If a book's value lay only in reading it, then the public library would eviscerate the book market. Why buy a book when it is available to read at the library? Sure it's nice to have on the shelf to reference, but for the most part, one almost never references it anyway.
Bibliophiles do not buy books to read them -- books can be read without buying them -- they buy them to own them. I even buy books I have already read (either at the library or from a copy borrowed from a friend) not with the intention to read them again, but because it was such a good book, I would like to own it.
I agree -- e-books in many respects could be more convenient to read. (They are not at present thanks to various content control schemes, but that's another digression.) However, they lack collectibility.
To put it another way, why did CD sales increase when Napster was in operation? If the CD was merely a container of information, Napster should have put the music industry out of business, since the information was avaialable by other means. In fact, having experienced the information, people wanted to own the physical media.
It's a nice article, but they they mistakenly give Warcraft I the name of first PC RTS, when that title should go to Bullfrog with Populous (1989), which beat Warcraft out by a full three years.
It's a little hard to believe they made this oversight, considering that Populous is one of the true classics of PC gaming.
Feb 1-3: wrap up current coding projects to "a good stopping point." Little does Redmond realize a "good stopping point" was Windows 3.1.
Feb 4: distribute memo describing moratorium on new code, effective Feb. 1
Feb 5: distribute memo granting amnesty to coding done on Feb 1-3, but stating that they really mean it this time.
Feb 6: sack those who wrote new code on Feb 4-5.
Feb 7-10: hold committee meeting identifying "Top 10 bugs most in need of fixing in Windows XP."
Feb 11: hold press conference announcing the top 10 bugs they intend to fix by the end of the month. Prominent on the list will be the placement of "close window" right next to minimize, and the oversight that allows users to open web pages using non-IE programs, thereby confusing consumers with additional choice.
Feb 12: distribute memo to technical managers containing the real top 10 bugs, such as buffer overflows in IIS.
Feb 13: un-confuse all personnel who were accidentally exposed to both top 10 lists
Feb 14: all work stops as employees realize they have no personal lives
Feb 15-17: resume de-confusion efforts.
Feb 18-21: programmers research months-old code in preparation to fix the top 10 bugs
Feb 22: easter egg discovered in Access wherein a certain malformed SQL query begins MPEG2 feed of RMS and Melinda "otherwise engaged."
Feb 23: responsible parties for the incident of Feb 22 located, sacked for not using WMA formatting on feed.
Feb 24: some bug repair begins
Feb 25-28: programmers re-acquaint themselves with code written prior to Feb 3, so as to be able to appear competent on Mar 1.
Re:Are their servers anyway.
on
AOL vs. Trillian
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is an erroneous analogy. Whether you use Netscape or IE or Konq or most other browsers to check your email at Hotmail, you will likely still see the advertisements, so there is not loss of ad revenue.
You don't have to if you don't want to. Just configure your software to block all content from major advertisers (doubleclick, etc...) and you can make your browsing experience 90% + ad free.
By your reasoning, it is immoral to do this, since it circumvents the service provider's revenue source. As an extension, though, since no one advertises if the advertising does no good, it is immoral to view a site without purchasing products from any and all advertisers there.
Actually, for those actively annoyed by advertisement, AOL should thank them for circumventing their ad servers. Those annoyed by ads may be less likely to purchase products whose advertising has annoyed them. By not viewing the ads, these people are increasing the sponsor's profits by protecting themselves from negative commercial associations.
As if the Internet is the only repository of public information in existence. The message says nothing about the documents being available offline. If you really want to review them, make a FOIA request for them.
If they're following the same rules here as they do for the construction of new nuclear power plants, the site plan is a (multi-volume) document that must be submitted to the Department of Energy, and must be available for public review.
What does it say about the IT industry when experienced managers and entrepreneurs take time out of their busy day to antagonize losers with "you'll never work in this business again" threats, particularly when it seemes likely the loser in question never worked in the business in the first place?
I can see no reason for anyone to even reply to any of Bernie's blatherings, unless it be out for some sort of entertainment value. And if this is entertainment... The whole page recalls the adage about those arguing with fools running the risk of observers being unable to distinguish the participants.
Re:Are some people complaining a bit too much?
on
The Eyes Have It
·
· Score: 1
On a pratical note, this would be useless. It wouldnt have stopped the events of 9/11- statistically at least 25% of the hijackers would have made it aboard ASSUMING that each hijacker was asked the exact right questions: "Are you carrying a bomb? NO. Are you carrying any guns or other weapons? NO. Do you have evil intentions? NO."
Actually, in a practical implementation, it would utterly ineffectively against the prepared individual. Given that such things would be governed by scores of procedures and regulations and policies, the questions asked at the desk would either be a standard list or excerpts from a standard list. However, if the list of questions is known, the person can practice being asked the question and saying no to it until it becomes reflex. What's your name? What's your phone number? What's your soc? The questions you get asked all the time you don't even have to think about to answer. Similarly, if the would-be boarder knows the answer is no, he doesn't have to actually believe it to pass the test.
VHS manufacturers didn't really "cave in" -- a few were ordered to cease manufacturing anti-Macrovision players, and the rest decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
I think a distinction to be made here is that in the Macrovision case, the copy-protection scheme predated the hardware to beat it, so that it could legitimately be argued that the hardware was designed specifically to defeat Macrovision copy protection.
Whereas in the use of the computer to copy digital media, the computer's ability to do so predates any copy protection scheme to prevent it from doing so -- it's simply what computers do. As a result, the case that computers are designed specifically to thwart digital rights managment schemes is absurd, which is why the record companies are going to Capitol Hill to buy legislation. As the law presently stands, their case against the computer industry is unwinnable in court.
It doesn't contain anything in the way of "how to" or general principles at all. Basically, it's just a collection of components the author thinks run quieter than most.
What would be useful are some charts of decibel levels for various products so we could compare them, not just see what the author thought was quiet.
As smart as it was to replace currencies at least nominally controlled by a national government with the Deutschma^H^H^H^H^H euro? The various nations in Europe are now so economically desynchronized (Ireland has strong growth, Germany is stable, France is in recession, and Italy is, well, Italy) that no single monetary policy could possibly be good for all the member states.
Convenience aside (and with computer networks the inconvenience of multiple currencies is smaller than it was) the only excuse for surrendering control of monetary policy is if the nation's government has a nasty habit of abusing the nation's money supply, such as in Panama or Argentina, where dollarization may have been the lesser of two evils. Very few of Europe's nations are in this situation, though.
I think this is representative of a problem rather endemic to modern US patents. Let's say there's an idea that is obvious in principle (one-stroke shorthands are easier to write and decode than multi-stroke characters), but non-obvious in implementation. (Exactly which strokes do you use?)
The patent office seems to enjoy granting patents that claim both the implementation (which should be patentable) and the idea (which should not be). This
prevents independent implementations of the idea from becoming widespread during the lifetime of the patent
actually impedes innovation in the field, because with the idea itself patented, no one can improve the implementation without paying royalties. The classic example of this is the Watts patent on the steam engine, which granted him rights to not only his design of steam engine, but to all devices that used steam to produce mechanical power. For various reasons, Watts opposed high-pressure steam, and so the steam engine sat in stagnation for most of his lifetime because he refused to license any steam engines that used high pressures to exceed his own designs.
Of course, when the patent office also grants pattents on obvious pure ideas themselves (it is easier to transact an online transaction if it involves fewer clicks), what can you expect?
The problem with this approach is that at partial pressures of CO2 greater than 15 mbar or so (current Martial atmosphere ~7 mbar CO2, varies tremendously with altitude) it becomes toxic to mammals.
Higher pressures of CO2 force carbon dioxide backwards through the lungs and into the bloodstream, making the blood more acidic and resulting in a general degradation of most biological functions. The feeling is exactly like the out-of-breath feeling you have after a fast sprint, except that in a high-CO2 environment, you can't recover from it.
Basically, such an atmosphere might be warm, but you still couldn't breathe it.
Let's assume that at some point in the next couple decades, an evesdropper with a sufficiently large budget can build a device that will efficiently crack factoring-based keys.
Unfortunately, that means people using factoring-based keys are in trouble today, because an adversary with a sufficiently large budget (and sufficent access to certain routers) could stockpile a rather large portion of Internet traffic for cracking at such time that it becomes feasible to do so.
Evidence and paranoia leads one to suspect certain parties do evesdrop on a certain fraction of email, particularly email sent across international cables. If such email is already being filtered for certain keywords, how much harder is it to filter it for apparently encrypted email and shelve it for later use?
Remember that Charon, Pluto's moon/co Planet is close to half of Pluto's mass. The tidal force they exert on each other is significant... probably enough to keep water liquid (warm enough to support life? I dunno 'bout that) near Pluto's center.
Once upon a time, the tidal force between Pluto and Charon was significant. So significant, in fact, that Pluto and Charon's rotation slowed until each one rotational period matched the revolution period of the system, thereby eliminating the tides.
At the present day, the tidal force between Pluto and Charon ought to be approximately zero.
Book publishers have traditionally had a much better relationship with their customers than a/v publishers. I think part of the reason is that the hardware needed to "rip" books en masse is not economical for the average geek to purchase (not the scanner itself, but the automated debinding equipment).
But I think there's also a tradition in the book arena that would render such an approach less marketable. The existence of public libraries (which have enormous social credit -- even the most draconian of copyright laws so far has contained a safe haven clause for public libraries) has always meant that people have access to most published material without paying for it. People don't buy mass-market literature in order to read it -- they could do that without buying it -- they buy it to have a chunk of dead tree sitting on the bookshelf. I know I have bought books I have already read just so I could have a copy of the thing lying around.
A "pay-per-read" scheme would only work if the cost was substantially less than a typical paperback book. Personally, I would only pay about $1 for a pay-per-read lisence. When I buy a paperback, the other $6 buys the chuck of dead tree.
I noticed Hammer has been moved back
on
CPU Wars
·
· Score: 1
AMD's previous roadmap had the ClawHammer's debut in 2H 2002, while the new one has it stradding 2H 2002 - 1H 2003, with the multiprocessor versions definitely not coming out until 2003.
Does this indicate unanticipated troubles with x86-64?
Slashdot Mirror
However, the American justice system does allow a sufficiently large number of people to do this straight back. And I'm not talking about class action suits, from which only lawyers benefit, anyway.
It's called small claims court. Pay the filing fee (typically less than $100), bring a sufficiently plausible gripe that your case won't get dismissed, represent yourself. If you win, you can even get the filing fee reimbursed, and even if not, rest assured that the company has spent more on paying their lawyer to show up than you were asking for in damages.
Think of it as the legal equivalent of DDoS.
From the great generating facilities in our hydroelectric plants to the tiniest servo in children's toys, our fascination with electric power that has led to these global changes must end.
How can we in good conscience continue the use of these technologies, fully knowing their effect on our grandchildren?
Techniques specific to cracking a smartcard have undone this work. If one knows the encryption algorithm used by the card and the hardware used to implement it, then because the card reader provides the card with power to do its computations, the power-demand-vs-time information gained by the reader can be used to reconstruct the key stored in the card.
All 15 of the AES submissions are vunlerable to this attack. Moral: never stick your smartcard in an untrusted slot.
Just because we are in an interesting position in the galaxy now doesn't mean we have been there for any more than a few hundred million years.
Gravitational "mixing" of the galaxy ensures that a star can travel from pretty much any part of the disk to any other part within about a billion years and that our present stellar neighbors were not our neighbors for most of our history.
Basically, we have no clue where in the galactic disk the sun formed, nor which supernova remnant is responsible for seeding the sun's formation, nor the location of most of the nearby objection in the galaxy more than a billion years or so ago.
Is a CPU an interactive digital device? I have trouble interacting with it. What about a mobo? Graphics card? Monitor? OS? Mouse?
IANAL, but it could reasonably be argued that the bill could only apply to assembled computer systems, but not to the individual components thereof. Therefore, while the Dells of the world would have to include DRM features, the home hobbying building their own machine could well be able to construct a Hollings-free computer perfectly legally.
Perhaps, but the time lapse between the NSA knowing something and its publication in open press is less than it used to be, based on the two data points we have from the last decade.
First, the case of SHA-0. NSA / NIST published SHA in 1993, and replaced it thanks to a then-undisclosed weakness in 1995. In 1998, open-press cryptographers announced a break against it. It appears that in attacks against MD4-family hash functions, the public is less than 5 years behind the TLA's.
Also in 1998, impossible differential cryptanalysis hit the open press, and this form of analysis proved effective against 31-round Skipjack. (The version published by the NSA has 32 rounds.) It seems absurd to believe the NSA would release a cipher that they knew to be only one round more than a vulnerable one, and honestly, the most likely explanation is that impossible differential analysis was not known to the NSA.
Of course, one might counter that the TLA's do such things deliberately in order to appear less advanced than they are. However, both these breaks occurred in NSA products designed for public consumption -- that is, with the intent that government agencies using non-classified information and corporations would actually use them to protect sensitive data. And protection of such data against foreign and industrial espionage definitely is part of "national security." It would be foolishness to promote a cipher you knew to be broken under the assumption that no one else would figure it out simply becuase
you never know when the public might figure out your techniques
you never know if intelligence organizations in other nations have already figured out your techniques
you want to maintain a public image of competence
This is because it assumes the peers are already arranged in the network in the topology one wants.
If a central addressing authority exists, it is no problem to simply give new peers addresses and the addresses of their neighbors in such a way that the network acquires any topolgy the authority wants. The authority can even cope with peers leaving the network more or less arbitrarily.
However, a real question is -- how do you get peers to "self-assemble" into the desired topology in such a way that a small population of peers that choose not to play by the generally accepted rules cannot dramatically effect the outcome. In other words, how can peers be persuaded to place themselves on the points of a cubic hyperlattice solely by contacting a few already installed peers, some of which may not be telling the truth?
As a "bibliophile like him," I can state that a book is not "just a container of information." When a person finishes reading the newspaper, they usually throw it away. Magazines might survive a couple months, unless they're National Geographic in which case they live indefinitely. When a bibliophile finishes a book, however, they put it on their bookshelf for perpetuity, even if they have no intention of ever reading it again.
Read that last sentence again. The bibliophile derives value from owning a piece of dead tree they will never, ever read again.
Without this last statement, the mass-market publishing industry would be in bad shape, electronic media or no. If a book's value lay only in reading it, then the public library would eviscerate the book market. Why buy a book when it is available to read at the library? Sure it's nice to have on the shelf to reference, but for the most part, one almost never references it anyway.
Bibliophiles do not buy books to read them -- books can be read without buying them -- they buy them to own them. I even buy books I have already read (either at the library or from a copy borrowed from a friend) not with the intention to read them again, but because it was such a good book, I would like to own it.
I agree -- e-books in many respects could be more convenient to read. (They are not at present thanks to various content control schemes, but that's another digression.) However, they lack collectibility.
To put it another way, why did CD sales increase when Napster was in operation? If the CD was merely a container of information, Napster should have put the music industry out of business, since the information was avaialable by other means. In fact, having experienced the information, people wanted to own the physical media.
It's a little hard to believe they made this oversight, considering that Populous is one of the true classics of PC gaming.
Feb 1-3: wrap up current coding projects to "a good stopping point." Little does Redmond realize a "good stopping point" was Windows 3.1.
Feb 4: distribute memo describing moratorium on new code, effective Feb. 1
Feb 5: distribute memo granting amnesty to coding done on Feb 1-3, but stating that they really mean it this time.
Feb 6: sack those who wrote new code on Feb 4-5.
Feb 7-10: hold committee meeting identifying "Top 10 bugs most in need of fixing in Windows XP."
Feb 11: hold press conference announcing the top 10 bugs they intend to fix by the end of the month. Prominent on the list will be the placement of "close window" right next to minimize, and the oversight that allows users to open web pages using non-IE programs, thereby confusing consumers with additional choice.
Feb 12: distribute memo to technical managers containing the real top 10 bugs, such as buffer overflows in IIS.
Feb 13: un-confuse all personnel who were accidentally exposed to both top 10 lists
Feb 14: all work stops as employees realize they have no personal lives
Feb 15-17: resume de-confusion efforts.
Feb 18-21: programmers research months-old code in preparation to fix the top 10 bugs
Feb 22: easter egg discovered in Access wherein a certain malformed SQL query begins MPEG2 feed of RMS and Melinda "otherwise engaged."
Feb 23: responsible parties for the incident of Feb 22 located, sacked for not using WMA formatting on feed.
Feb 24: some bug repair begins
Feb 25-28: programmers re-acquaint themselves with code written prior to Feb 3, so as to be able to appear competent on Mar 1.
You don't have to if you don't want to. Just configure your software to block all content from major advertisers (doubleclick, etc...) and you can make your browsing experience 90% + ad free.
By your reasoning, it is immoral to do this, since it circumvents the service provider's revenue source. As an extension, though, since no one advertises if the advertising does no good, it is immoral to view a site without purchasing products from any and all advertisers there.
Actually, for those actively annoyed by advertisement, AOL should thank them for circumventing their ad servers. Those annoyed by ads may be less likely to purchase products whose advertising has annoyed them. By not viewing the ads, these people are increasing the sponsor's profits by protecting themselves from negative commercial associations.
If they're following the same rules here as they do for the construction of new nuclear power plants, the site plan is a (multi-volume) document that must be submitted to the Department of Energy, and must be available for public review.
I can see no reason for anyone to even reply to any of Bernie's blatherings, unless it be out for some sort of entertainment value. And if this is entertainment... The whole page recalls the adage about those arguing with fools running the risk of observers being unable to distinguish the participants.
Actually, in a practical implementation, it would utterly ineffectively against the prepared individual. Given that such things would be governed by scores of procedures and regulations and policies, the questions asked at the desk would either be a standard list or excerpts from a standard list. However, if the list of questions is known, the person can practice being asked the question and saying no to it until it becomes reflex. What's your name? What's your phone number? What's your soc? The questions you get asked all the time you don't even have to think about to answer. Similarly, if the would-be boarder knows the answer is no, he doesn't have to actually believe it to pass the test.
I think a distinction to be made here is that in the Macrovision case, the copy-protection scheme predated the hardware to beat it, so that it could legitimately be argued that the hardware was designed specifically to defeat Macrovision copy protection.
Whereas in the use of the computer to copy digital media, the computer's ability to do so predates any copy protection scheme to prevent it from doing so -- it's simply what computers do. As a result, the case that computers are designed specifically to thwart digital rights managment schemes is absurd, which is why the record companies are going to Capitol Hill to buy legislation. As the law presently stands, their case against the computer industry is unwinnable in court.
What would be useful are some charts of decibel levels for various products so we could compare them, not just see what the author thought was quiet.
Convenience aside (and with computer networks the inconvenience of multiple currencies is smaller than it was) the only excuse for surrendering control of monetary policy is if the nation's government has a nasty habit of abusing the nation's money supply, such as in Panama or Argentina, where dollarization may have been the lesser of two evils. Very few of Europe's nations are in this situation, though.
The patent office seems to enjoy granting patents that claim both the implementation (which should be patentable) and the idea (which should not be). This
prevents independent implementations of the idea from becoming widespread during the lifetime of the patent
actually impedes innovation in the field, because with the idea itself patented, no one can improve the implementation without paying royalties. The classic example of this is the Watts patent on the steam engine, which granted him rights to not only his design of steam engine, but to all devices that used steam to produce mechanical power. For various reasons, Watts opposed high-pressure steam, and so the steam engine sat in stagnation for most of his lifetime because he refused to license any steam engines that used high pressures to exceed his own designs.
Of course, when the patent office also grants pattents on obvious pure ideas themselves (it is easier to transact an online transaction if it involves fewer clicks), what can you expect?
Higher pressures of CO2 force carbon dioxide backwards through the lungs and into the bloodstream, making the blood more acidic and resulting in a general degradation of most biological functions. The feeling is exactly like the out-of-breath feeling you have after a fast sprint, except that in a high-CO2 environment, you can't recover from it.
Basically, such an atmosphere might be warm, but you still couldn't breathe it.
Unfortunately, that means people using factoring-based keys are in trouble today, because an adversary with a sufficiently large budget (and sufficent access to certain routers) could stockpile a rather large portion of Internet traffic for cracking at such time that it becomes feasible to do so.
Evidence and paranoia leads one to suspect certain parties do evesdrop on a certain fraction of email, particularly email sent across international cables. If such email is already being filtered for certain keywords, how much harder is it to filter it for apparently encrypted email and shelve it for later use?
Once upon a time, the tidal force between Pluto and Charon was significant. So significant, in fact, that Pluto and Charon's rotation slowed until each one rotational period matched the revolution period of the system, thereby eliminating the tides.
At the present day, the tidal force between Pluto and Charon ought to be approximately zero.
I may be missing something, but aren't all those links you cite evidence that Slashdot does not ignore similar Linux issues?
Therefore, even in the unlikely even of total loss of heatsink, I still come out ahead.
But I think there's also a tradition in the book arena that would render such an approach less marketable. The existence of public libraries (which have enormous social credit -- even the most draconian of copyright laws so far has contained a safe haven clause for public libraries) has always meant that people have access to most published material without paying for it. People don't buy mass-market literature in order to read it -- they could do that without buying it -- they buy it to have a chunk of dead tree sitting on the bookshelf. I know I have bought books I have already read just so I could have a copy of the thing lying around.
A "pay-per-read" scheme would only work if the cost was substantially less than a typical paperback book. Personally, I would only pay about $1 for a pay-per-read lisence. When I buy a paperback, the other $6 buys the chuck of dead tree.
Does this indicate unanticipated troubles with x86-64?