At my office there have been no valid emails from hotmail and we have considered blocking all smtp requests from thier servers due to the amount of spam originating there.
Uh, I find it very hard to believe that spammers would use a free, slow, proprietary webmail service to send spam. Almost all the spams I get either use open relays or dedicated spamhauses or both.
How do you know the spam originated from Hotmail? I don't mean to be patronising, but you seem to have forgotten Rule #1: Spammers Lie. When a spam says From: foo@foobar.com that is a 90% indication that the spam does not come from foobar.com.
A better solution would still be to encrypt the message with a particular public key for which the private key was widely available. Encrypting the message with Bruce Schneier's private key makes sense cryptographically
So, you're saying Bruce Schneier's private key is widely available?;-)
Sentance one of that paragraph states "I work on a scientific project that is supossedly an "open source" project."
One would assume that the poster, being a bright scientist, knows what "Open Source" means and is using the nomenclature correctly. After all, why should I assume he's not that inteligent?
Next he details the failings of the management of the OSS project in question for several sentances.
It's not an OSS project. He said it's really a shared source project. OSS != shared source. RTFP, HTH, HAND.
A shirking of normal software development responsibilities.
Why is it irresponsible to release an open source project without documentation? Why should a donor to the community be morally obligated to work on things that you consider important? Be grateful that anything was released at all.
Besides, what have you contributed to the open source community lately? If you've contributed zero and someone else has contributed 100,000 lines, it's a bit rich you moralising against them for not doing even more work to benefit you. I don't object to criticism, what I object to is this moralising that somehow releasing an alpha quality product is worse than nothing.
If I pay $1000 for a product I expect it to be of a high quality. But if I pay $0 I don't expect anything much.
As a long-time (but lapsed) DMOZ volunteer editor, I have to say we do take abuse very seriously, and certainly I've not noticed much abuse in my areas of focus since the earliest days. If you'd care to post or email me with any specific examples, I'd be happy to look into it or pass it on to others who can clean it up.
Wikipedia, by contrast, appears to have no access controls - so I'm surprised it hasn't turned into a crapflooded mess by now.
Why would that be an improvement? No dedicated spammer would hesitate for more than a nanosecond before getting an account at a host in Panama, or wherever they would be safe from local prosecution.
Because any company or entity selling the product or service in the US (or at least claiming to sell something) would be vulnerable to prosecution in the US, if the law was crafted right. i.e. "Spam is illegal. Hiring someone to spam for you is illegal." etc.
Hmm, a major part of the problem is that IE will then go and download an outdated and incompatible version of Java...
But you can specify that you require the newer Sun VM by referencing the Sun Java Plugin or Java WebStart. That works fine (assuming the user has the patience to complete the download!)
It's not just because of marketing. Modern operating systems simply aren't designed to deal with drives that can dynamically shrink their capacity at any time - even reiserfs would have a fit.
Governments are very bad at writing software - google for NIRS2 or the disasterous ambulance dispatching system, or air traffic control or any other major software project the government has done recently.
Oh God, yet more prime grade "free market" BS. Guess who writes this code? That's right, it's not civil servants - it's private contractors. Good old private sector, master of efficiency and quality, eh?
Yeah, right!
The private sector is also very bad at keeping software projects under control. In the worst cases projects spin out of control in terms of time and money spent on them and have to be scrapped completely. The "software crisis" (hardly a crisis really, since it's been here since before the Mythical Man Month was published) is not specific to government contracting.
Then a student from Bangladesh stood up and said that where he came from people were glad to get those exploitative jobs. If the companies had to pay the Bangladeshis more, or accept the costs of better working conditions, a lot of those Bangladeshis would be out of work.
If Bangladesh enacted and enforced a law which raised standards for these exploitative jobs, then maybe Nike would move production to another country without any such law.
But that's not the only alternative approach to fighting sweatshops. There's also simultaneous policy, which is a bit like the way in which in the European Union member states are all Directed to pass similar laws at roughly the same time, which businesses actually like to some extent, because it simplifies "inter-state commerce". So SP is a bit like loose World Government, which seeing as we already have a de facto world government system (WTO etc.) I think would be an improvement, as long as it was democratic.
I'm very skeptical that Simultaneous Policy could work on a worldwide basis under capitalism - but I mention it to show there are alternatives in theory.
The other possibility I can think of is consumer boycotts. If Nike lost enough customers to more ethical traders, I think they would push their suppliers to improve. (Obviously that would be hindered if Nike are allowed to lie through their teeth about sweatshops, with their expensive PR machine). I think it would be great if boycotts were combined with mandatory labelling laws in the US on ethical business practices, and/or minimum standards for imports into the US - but even without that, in the future you could have ethical purchase comparison sites for when shopping online (I'm thinking of starting just such a site), and cheap barcode scanning handhelds for when shopping in stores. It would be interesting if we had to fight multinational supermarkets in the courts to be allowed to use these handhelds in their premises - that could carve out a kind of new "right to know", different from existing free expression and freedom of information rights. It would be wonderful if they decided to sit back and let it happen - but somehow I don't think that would happen, since they (and their suppliers) would be afraid of anticonsumerist memes which the ethical purchasing handhelds would spread.
Now there is still a possible downside to boycotts, as you indicated (although I'm not convinced that it's significant given that sweatshop workers who produce for the US are often paid a fraction of the retail price of the product). If the public forces Nike or other companies to improve pay and/or conditions, they might lay off workers in order to increase efficiency.
But that's capitalism, my friend. People lose their jobs all the time. At least those who still have a job have a better job. If you object to that, you must be an anti-capitalist (like me) - but that's a different question. I don't think pro-capitalists have any reason to object to jobs being moved or technology becoming cost-competitive with workers, so why do I hear so often that argument being used by libertarians against anti-sweatshop activists? (I think it's either because they're spineless pro-business shills, or because they don't actually believe the libertarian beliefs they claim to believe.)
(And I would have thought if you drive up incomes that drives forward the economy - that's the whole bogus libertarian argument isn't it, driving down wages will eventually after an unspecified number of decades cause them to bounce back up again, which is "good for the economy" - so why don't we just cut out the pittance pay stage?)
Likewise, if Americans were to start choosing to buy more shoes made in the US, you're moving jobs from one place to another. Assuming no automation, you have N people earning a pittance before, and N people [different] people earning slightly more afterwards. (Given the state of the US jobs market, those jobs are probably going to people who really need them, so they're not "wasted"). A net improvement.
And I wish the libertarians would shut the fuck up with their crocodile tears about poor people losing jobs. It's a totally hypocritical accusation for them to make. I'm a socialist for goodness sake - I believe in running society for people not profit to attain full employment and a decent standard of living for all. And so do many of my anti-capitalist friends and acquaintances. It's sickening and ridiculous to be accused of not caring about worker's jobs by those who care far less than we do - and some of whom spin some weird conspiracy theories about us just campaigning against sweatshops because of some Nietchean (sp.) powerlust, not because we actually care about improving conditions for the poor and oppressed.
If you are't ethical, then you wont have any power, and will eventually die. It is ethical behavior that brings power.
Uhh, I hate to break it this to you, but everyone dies eventually. Until scientists one day find the secret to immortality, saying "you will eventually die" is not informative, nor is it an argument against doing anything whatsoever.
Also, your principle seem to be flat out contradicted by examples of evil people like Adolf Hitler and Genghis Kahn. Hmmm, let's see now - are you going to argue that they were not in fact unethical, at all? Or are you going to try to argue that they had no power?
I think you made a typo. Shurely you meant, "They are indeed related or else there would be no point in being unethical"?
That would have made a tad more sense - even though it's still false. As it is, your statement is like saying "Ah, it would have been OK for Hitler to kill all the Jews if he had won World War Two, because someone only acts unethically if they cause bad consequences for themselves."
Nah, come on. You can't blame the attitudes of a few elitist posters, probably lashing out due to lack of sleep/sex/food/sobriety, on the whole of the slashdot audience.
Should I be jerking off because a girl posted to/.?
No, it was a counterexample, dipshit.
WTF has jerking off got to do with anything? The instant a woman comes into the discussion you talk about jerking off?!? That I think shows you have far more problems than she has. You need to see a shrink.
Making offensive sexual suggestions, being way over the top agressive, and to top it all off, calling her a whore... and all this was because of what? Because a woman decided to show that she didn't fit into a stereotype? Fuck you, asshole!
Third, it ignores that in absence of evidence to the contrary, it is eminently reasonable to trust that which has been taught by a trustworthy source.
No, it isn't. This is perfectly adequate and understandable in a pre-scientific, savage tribe. However, in our age of science, people should know better. They should know to question everything - and certainly not to base their entire way of life on a highly dubious premise!
Religion causes a lot of pain. For example, far too many people are burned by sexual puritanism just because they - or their parents - neglected to unearth the fact that religious sexual puritanism is like a house built on sand (to use an ironically apt Biblical metaphor).
Unfortunately, few schools teach the skill of questioning everything - and it tends to become atrophyed in both the apolitical (who don't bother to question) and the highly politicised (who tend to have a blind spot where the beliefs of "their own side" are concerned - I know I do).
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yes you can - and in fact the GPL requires you to do so if you link in someone else's GPLed code.
Legally speaking, you have compilation copyright, so you can set the license for the whole compilation.
The comments on this article are inadvertently revealing who the fucked-up psychos are on this site.
At my office there have been no valid emails from hotmail and we have considered blocking all smtp requests from thier servers due to the amount of spam originating there.
Uh, I find it very hard to believe that spammers would use a free, slow, proprietary webmail service to send spam. Almost all the spams I get either use open relays or dedicated spamhauses or both.
How do you know the spam originated from Hotmail? I don't mean to be patronising, but you seem to have forgotten Rule #1: Spammers Lie. When a spam says From: foo@foobar.com that is a 90% indication that the spam does not come from foobar.com.
So, you're saying Bruce Schneier's private key is widely available? ;-)
Yes you did.
Sentance one of that paragraph states "I work on a scientific project that is supossedly an "open source" project."
One would assume that the poster, being a bright scientist, knows what "Open Source" means and is using the nomenclature correctly. After all, why should I assume he's not that inteligent?
Next he details the failings of the management of the OSS project in question for several sentances.
It's not an OSS project. He said it's really a shared source project. OSS != shared source. RTFP, HTH, HAND.
Instead, swap IP addresses.
If they're on the same network segment, that's all you need to do.
You shouldn't use .int for that. .int is a real TLD, used by international organisations such as NATO.
Use .localdomain instead.
Why is it irresponsible to release an open source project without documentation? Why should a donor to the community be morally obligated to work on things that you consider important? Be grateful that anything was released at all.
Besides, what have you contributed to the open source community lately? If you've contributed zero and someone else has contributed 100,000 lines, it's a bit rich you moralising against them for not doing even more work to benefit you. I don't object to criticism, what I object to is this moralising that somehow releasing an alpha quality product is worse than nothing.
If I pay $1000 for a product I expect it to be of a high quality. But if I pay $0 I don't expect anything much.
Wikipedia, by contrast, appears to have no access controls - so I'm surprised it hasn't turned into a crapflooded mess by now.
No, uh, send it, like... to the spammer? Like Alan Ralsky for example. Anyone doing business (or monkey business) in the US is subject to US law.
You leave in the real world, which is not perfect.
Ah, but in the real world moving to another country, and stopping doing business in the US, is a major hassle and loss of profits.
Because any company or entity selling the product or service in the US (or at least claiming to sell something) would be vulnerable to prosecution in the US, if the law was crafted right. i.e. "Spam is illegal. Hiring someone to spam for you is illegal." etc.
But you can specify that you require the newer Sun VM by referencing the Sun Java Plugin or Java WebStart. That works fine (assuming the user has the patience to complete the download!)
Oh God, yet more prime grade "free market" BS. Guess who writes this code? That's right, it's not civil servants - it's private contractors. Good old private sector, master of efficiency and quality, eh?
Yeah, right!
The private sector is also very bad at keeping software projects under control. In the worst cases projects spin out of control in terms of time and money spent on them and have to be scrapped completely. The "software crisis" (hardly a crisis really, since it's been here since before the Mythical Man Month was published) is not specific to government contracting.
If Bangladesh enacted and enforced a law which raised standards for these exploitative jobs, then maybe Nike would move production to another country without any such law.
But that's not the only alternative approach to fighting sweatshops. There's also simultaneous policy, which is a bit like the way in which in the European Union member states are all Directed to pass similar laws at roughly the same time, which businesses actually like to some extent, because it simplifies "inter-state commerce". So SP is a bit like loose World Government, which seeing as we already have a de facto world government system (WTO etc.) I think would be an improvement, as long as it was democratic.
I'm very skeptical that Simultaneous Policy could work on a worldwide basis under capitalism - but I mention it to show there are alternatives in theory.
The other possibility I can think of is consumer boycotts. If Nike lost enough customers to more ethical traders, I think they would push their suppliers to improve. (Obviously that would be hindered if Nike are allowed to lie through their teeth about sweatshops, with their expensive PR machine). I think it would be great if boycotts were combined with mandatory labelling laws in the US on ethical business practices, and/or minimum standards for imports into the US - but even without that, in the future you could have ethical purchase comparison sites for when shopping online (I'm thinking of starting just such a site), and cheap barcode scanning handhelds for when shopping in stores. It would be interesting if we had to fight multinational supermarkets in the courts to be allowed to use these handhelds in their premises - that could carve out a kind of new "right to know", different from existing free expression and freedom of information rights. It would be wonderful if they decided to sit back and let it happen - but somehow I don't think that would happen, since they (and their suppliers) would be afraid of anticonsumerist memes which the ethical purchasing handhelds would spread.
Now there is still a possible downside to boycotts, as you indicated (although I'm not convinced that it's significant given that sweatshop workers who produce for the US are often paid a fraction of the retail price of the product). If the public forces Nike or other companies to improve pay and/or conditions, they might lay off workers in order to increase efficiency.
But that's capitalism, my friend. People lose their jobs all the time. At least those who still have a job have a better job. If you object to that, you must be an anti-capitalist (like me) - but that's a different question. I don't think pro-capitalists have any reason to object to jobs being moved or technology becoming cost-competitive with workers, so why do I hear so often that argument being used by libertarians against anti-sweatshop activists? (I think it's either because they're spineless pro-business shills, or because they don't actually believe the libertarian beliefs they claim to believe.)
(And I would have thought if you drive up incomes that drives forward the economy - that's the whole bogus libertarian argument isn't it, driving down wages will eventually after an unspecified number of decades cause them to bounce back up again, which is "good for the economy" - so why don't we just cut out the pittance pay stage?)
Likewise, if Americans were to start choosing to buy more shoes made in the US, you're moving jobs from one place to another. Assuming no automation, you have N people earning a pittance before, and N people [different] people earning slightly more afterwards. (Given the state of the US jobs market, those jobs are probably going to people who really need them, so they're not "wasted"). A net improvement.
And I wish the libertarians would shut the fuck up with their crocodile tears about poor people losing jobs. It's a totally hypocritical accusation for them to make. I'm a socialist for goodness sake - I believe in running society for people not profit to attain full employment and a decent standard of living for all. And so do many of my anti-capitalist friends and acquaintances. It's sickening and ridiculous to be accused of not caring about worker's jobs by those who care far less than we do - and some of whom spin some weird conspiracy theories about us just campaigning against sweatshops because of some Nietchean (sp.) powerlust, not because we actually care about improving conditions for the poor and oppressed.
Uhh, I hate to break it this to you, but everyone dies eventually. Until scientists one day find the secret to immortality, saying "you will eventually die" is not informative, nor is it an argument against doing anything whatsoever.
Also, your principle seem to be flat out contradicted by examples of evil people like Adolf Hitler and Genghis Kahn. Hmmm, let's see now - are you going to argue that they were not in fact unethical, at all? Or are you going to try to argue that they had no power?
That would have made a tad more sense - even though it's still false. As it is, your statement is like saying "Ah, it would have been OK for Hitler to kill all the Jews if he had won World War Two, because someone only acts unethically if they cause bad consequences for themselves."
No, it was a counterexample, dipshit.
WTF has jerking off got to do with anything? The instant a woman comes into the discussion you talk about jerking off?!? That I think shows you have far more problems than she has. You need to see a shrink.
Making offensive sexual suggestions, being way over the top agressive, and to top it all off, calling her a whore ... and all this was because of what? Because a woman decided to show that she didn't fit into a stereotype? Fuck you, asshole!
No, it isn't. This is perfectly adequate and understandable in a pre-scientific, savage tribe. However, in our age of science, people should know better. They should know to question everything - and certainly not to base their entire way of life on a highly dubious premise!
Religion causes a lot of pain. For example, far too many people are burned by sexual puritanism just because they - or their parents - neglected to unearth the fact that religious sexual puritanism is like a house built on sand (to use an ironically apt Biblical metaphor).
Unfortunately, few schools teach the skill of questioning everything - and it tends to become atrophyed in both the apolitical (who don't bother to question) and the highly politicised (who tend to have a blind spot where the beliefs of "their own side" are concerned - I know I do).