It does not represnt the position of the Canadian government or the Canadian people.
Hey, the Canadian people are cool, especially one very special lady I met five years ago who lives in Picton, ON! As for your government, I have as much faith in them as I do my own (U.S.) government on matters such as this.
I live in Delaware. Some little pissant state wedged between many others. We have a hard time raising taxes on stuff because it's well known that people will just go over the border and buy it, which hurts businesses in the state. They cry foul, never passed.
The Canadian government should remember that most of the country lives within a shopping day-trip of the U.S. Not only will Canadian businesses lose money to those making casual purchases over the line, the Candian government will lose tax revenue via lost VAT (or whatever you call it). People will buy their mp3 players in the U.S., take it out of the box, chuck the box, strap it to them, drive back across the border. Maybe Canadians should discuss this concern with their elected officials.
It kind of makes you wonder about Canadian sanity. To the south we have Bush passing an import tax on foreign steel to protect a dying U.S. industry. To the north, we have Canadians passing a tax that will only affect Candians and will benefit an industry making loads of money already.
See that big annoying ad at the top of this story?
on
Mozilla 0.9.9 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If you're using mozilla, just right click the ad, select "Block images from this server." Presto, you just deprived slashdot of revenue!
Interesting, so a coder inside Redhat finds it, fixes it, releases a fix.
Here's an exercise, and I don't know the answer. But of all the security alerts released by linux vendors and microsoft, what percentage of each is the result of an internal discovery versus someone outside reporting it and the vendor having to make a fix?
I have had a Speedpass for a few years now, before Exxon bought Mobil and it was just in the rare Mobil station. They are great and can also be used to buy crap inside the store. No "minimum charge" hassles either.
They do not have batteries. I'm not exactly sure HOW they work but I haven't seen anyone else explain it either and, you know, this is the net. The answer can't be that difficult.
A web google search didn't turn up much besides this.
The Mobil Speedpass is based on Texas Instruments' Registration and Identification System (TIRIS), the first radio-frequency identification (RFID) device used for retail transactions. The system is similar to a remote control but different in that RFIDs transmit a user-specific signal, almost like a wireless PIN number.
But a usenet search turned up a lot, like this post.Ok, a typical device of this type is quite simple in concept.
The coil with rod, acts to recieve 100Khz or so RF, which is then
rectified to charge a capacitor, to power the rest.
There is a small chip in there, which talks to the reader, usually by
shorting out the coil for short periods of time, this causes
the RF field to change, which can be read by the reader.
Another way is for the chip to connect a diode to the coil, this causes
the transmitter/reciever to generate a harmonic, at 2* the frequency
of the exciting field, this can also be picked up.
I was a big mac fanatic from 1984 until about 1996. It ruled, was years ahead of the competition. But Apple pretty much was stuck for ages and Microsoft caught up (with win 95), then surpassed them (with Windows NT). So I switched.
How dare you say? OK, I was annoyed by the Windows GUI but let's face it, the Mac OS was still running what was basically 1985 Andy Hertzfeld "Switcher" technology. While there were OS hacks to permit apps to be kind to CPU cycles (co-operative multitasking) and allocating memory from the system space instead of requiring fixed memory size per app, it was still just kludge upon kludge.
But now I'm heading back. OS X is what I've been wanting for years. The stability and usefulness of UNIX with the user interface that only Apple can do right. I've got my order in for a new iMac to get my toes wet again and if I love it as much as I expect to, I'll be dishing out for a dual G4 in the not too distant future for my main powerbox (It's currently a 2GHZ Intel box running XP Pro).
I've used them all, so when I get to the point where I will say again that Macs are the best computers out there, it will be an informed opinion!
(Note to Apple, please bump my iMac order up in the queue...:-)
This noise about companies being forced to play by GPL rules is nonsense.
They have a choice. They can use a GPL product for free and play by the rules, they can pay for a commercial implementation, or they can pay their own development staff to re-invent the wheel and make their own implementation.
In a macro-economic sense, wealth and prosperity are created by increases in productivity in an economic unit. Re-use of code is an example of how to increase productivity.
The best part of slasdhot was the feeling of community. Well, it's now just a clusterfuck. Time to give some other hobbiest in a new intimate setting my time somewhere...
I've been basically thinking that for a while now anyway. It doesn't matter what the topic is, it seems like plants for the other side's company just come rushing in to flame on. It's just so predictable. Doesn't matter if the story is pro linux, windows, apple, p2p, anti-p2p, dmca, 2600, etc, etc... the arguments that will crop up are just too damn predictable. It's not even worth it.
Slashdot has just gotten too fat to sustain itself and this will just send it to hell. Not that I'm against people making money but hell, this is the net, there will always be free alternatives, and if not, there's always trusty usenet (which, btw, is reverting back to the old days. No newbies even know what usenet is now, I do believe spam is going down, and conversations are *almost* intelligent again...)
One way to prevent this kind of sneak copying
on
iWarez
·
· Score: 2
Security through obscurity... The article mentions a few ways to stop copying entire folders, like locking a single file.
How about this? Since OS X runs on top of a unix file system, just create a few choice device files in the directories, like ones that have the same major/minor numbers as/dev/random so that firewire device fills up real fast, or make a few fifo files so the copy program hangs soon as it hits it (since there is no process pumping info on the other side of the pipe).
Yeah, I was kidding, mostly. With the amount of crap I do for free these days, I've often thought of that line when someone bitches about it.. "If you don't like it, I'll give you double back what you paid for it."
You do have a valid point. Companies like Redhat couldn't hope to survive if they were responsible for every line of code on their CD written by a plethora of different developers, just because they bundled it into a distro, added a few patches, and sold it.
I do think you've hit this one. I'm 42. When I was a teen, I had squat for cash and would have to resort to copying cassettes, LPs, and ah er, 8-tracks from friends onto blanks. No real income lost, I didn't have the money to spend. When I got older, that scene was old. Far easier just to buy the tapes or CDs I wanted. Then as I got older, my opportunities to listen to and get aquainted to new music went down the toilet. I stopped buying CDs period. I'd go into a record store and besides some old fossils like Rolling Stones that are still around, I had no idea what was for sale.
Then when file sharing popped up, I had friends ICQ'ing me tunes "hey listen to this", I'd listen, like it, then go buy the CDs. I *do* rip them to my house's file server and copy them to work to listen there. Point being, exposure through alternate channels has caused me to start buying CDs again.
Some stuff I've purchased recently (remember, I'm 42) includes, Rage, Limp Bizkit, Dream Theater, Dishwalla, Satriani, and a bunch of others I would have never been exposed to any other way...
Remember, I'm an old fart. We don't listen to music on the radio when in the car, we listen to lame right-wing talk show hosts or motivational tapes trying to convince ourselves that we still have "it." So how do we get exposed to new music?
I got news for you, the poor sods making minimum wages in UK already don't drive. The price of a U.S. gallon of gas there is around US$5.00. So you move to a place on the same line as your job, or you get a job elsewhere. In the places where this is proposed, the public transport is pretty good (compared to any U.S. city besides NYC). Their biggest problem there is the push to privatize buses and trains. It's gotten them into a shithole. (So much for the argument that private industry can run things better... Often the case, but not always the case.)
The U.K. has some other qualities the U.S. doesn't have, all that must be considered. Their population density is high, yet they still have loads of rural areas. The way they do this is through strict zoning and green belts around cities. A city gets so big, it stops growing, it has to grow up or within. This helps transit, unlike in the U.S. where it's suburban sprawl everywhere and therefore it's near impossible to design a transit system that goes everywhere, like you said...)
They are also heavy on social programs. You can get benefits for just doing some care for a disabled relative, for example. With that comes loads of taxes. They are taxed to death.
Typical, loads of comments before reading the articles...
U.K. already has the highest "petrol" tax in Europe and dare I say, probably the world.
The proposal includes dropping the fuel tax by upwards of 12p a liter (that's about U.S. 65 cents a U.S. gallon).
This is to discourage peak period driving. The duty on non-peak travel would be minimal or even free so during off peak times and rural areas, cost will be less to drive.
The most expensive part of road building is to build for peak capacity. Those using the roads instead of transit during peak times and hence causing the greatest cost to support are being asked to pay their fair share.
My opinion: UK is in a jam because their fuel taxes don't go to support just roads. It is used to pay for tons of social and other programs as well. If their fuel tax, as high as it is, was used to pay for roads, the M25 would be a double stack the entire length for example, and congestion wouldn't be so much of a problem. They are trying to get off on the cheap IMO... The privacy aspects of this are damn scary as well...
Is it in NT or 2000 Workstation? No. And before I start allowing desktop users to do something like this, it needs a heckofalot of study. All of a sudden everything firewall-wise between inside and outside goes out the window.
You don't find a feature like this available to all users just the slight bit worrisome? Most companies do...
It's not FUD, it's normal safe business practices...
I'll wait until the inevitable holes in it are patched before
trusting it. Remember, Microsoft just became serious
about security. Let's wait until serious intentions
translate into reality.
(Waiting to read one day that watching a video
through WMP will open my desktop to remote access,
for example!:)
X offers lots that Windows doesn't. The most useful
to me is one app in one place that I can access
anywhere. My job requires me to have two different
offices. I run my X apps from one large system we
provide to everyone. Mozilla, licq, etc, are all
configured once, my prefs once, my contacts, once,
etc, etc... I'm running the app on the same box
irregardless of location. The only way I could do
something similar in Windows is run a vnc server
on a workstation and have vnc client everywhere,
and then it's a dog...
What would be sweet is if each domain had a registry database for all domain machines and users and all settings would be recorded, pulled, from there. It would get rid of the stupid-ass roaming profile model while still allowing settings to roam. It would also allow administrators to update settings site-wide or any subset using simple SQL calls to change, for example, all registry preferences for a certain class. Then your stupid mandatory profiles, policy files, and everything else ugly in that area would be solved too. As it is now, we have to beg users to leave their machines on so we can run jobs to contact their machines and update HKLM shit as needed... It's horrible.
I'm getting a woody just thinking about how cherry a central prefs/settings database would be. But no, whatever Microsoft has up their sleeves wouldn't be so sweet. It'll be some horrible kludge I'm sure.
(For home (non domain) boxes, the issue becomes more complicated. Each box would have to have its own database server on it to handle this kind of thing locally (non-roaming).... Either that, or tie your prefs into your passport account on some central microsoft prefs server (insert evil maniacal world-domination laugh here))
Now if *NIX would permit something like that, a common API for settings which could be implemented locally or centrally without knowledge of each app doing it, that'd be great!
Having had to administer both windows and multiple unix server, some thoughts (and since I'll be negative to both platforms, it guarantees zealots from both sides will flame me, bwahahahaha)
The registry in Windows seems to be a logical choice. There are standard tools to use it, it can be manipulated remotely, and except for those horrible clid crap. It is, however, difficult to understand for a human except for those common areas like HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Run.
The Windows registry implementation is horribly flawed. It's too likely to get corrupted. A lot of this is from being part of a
roaming profile. Losing your registry is like losing all of your application's and user preferences. It really sucks.
*NIX is a mess when it comes to location of config files, as stated in the article. Even various Linux distros. We have Redhat boxen doing a lot of work now, having switched from a proprietary UNIX (dg/ux) a while back. Some of my techs think we should switch to Debian. I installed it on my workstation in vmware. It's nice, but it'll just require re-learning where the hell everything is. Maybe no big deal but I've got too much to remember already.
Windows registry trees are not commented. You need to know how to find various reg hack sites and own a ton of resource kits, just to keep a leg up on the crap. Even then everything is not revealed. "You should configure it through the GUI." Yeah, right, on 2,000 machines?
UNIX config files generally only have one per app. Configuring an app is simply a matter of loading the config file into an editor, reading the including commentary, and adjusting to taste. The exception here is the redhat/etc/sysconfig tree where everything is basically just loading of env vars for other scripts. Not commented, minimal defaults, if you need to figure out something it's dig through docs or read the rc scripts yourself to figure out what to set in it. Yack...
Windows configs are often done through a maze of menu entries, dialog boxes, tabs, "advanced" buttons, etc... It always leaves you wondering if you've convered everything...
UNIX config files are easily replicated to another box for a poor man's backup/failover situation. I had a 2000 server in a SAN go down and while I could easily mount that boxes disks into another 2000 server, moving the printer and file shares over was a problem because that shit is all stored in the registry. Instead of a simply copy command, I'd either need to write some sort of program to extract and merge into the backup's registry or figure out another way to replicate the shares. Keeping config crap out of a common database means the service isn't tied to a box so much. Need to move it to another box? Install, copy config files, change a virtual DNS name to point to new location.
Windows registry is horribly insecure, not by design, but implementation. Loads of apps insist on writing per-user stuff to HKLM during runtime. I should be able to make HKLM r/o for all users but if I do that, shit breaks horribly. Damn it, HKLM should only be scribbled into by an application during its install process.
Damn I wish I had mod points. This *is* news. Finally, I can buy a computer without paying the Windows tax and reformatting it off as the first thing I do.
A horrible thing happened this past New Years. Many Trutime GPS clocks freaked out and set their clocks ahead 1024 weeks. Yeah, I was among those that were bitten. My news server decided that my entire news spool was over 20 years old and expired the entire spool for example.
Also, if you go to google and search
all articles in comp.protocols.time.ntp from 2001/12/31 to 2002/01/05 you'll notice a lot of threads about the GPS bug that bit many.
Imagine your entire network going ape shit setting their clocks to some insane value and what that would have on, for example, audit records on your databases...
I went to Windows Update this morning looking to update my IE using that uber patch. Said no critical updates. I had to go to technet and download the patch from there.
Why the hell does it take Microsoft so long to get patches onto Windows Update, which most users use to get their updates (those that look)?
Like, when I heard about the SNMP problem yesterday, I went to rhn.redhat.com, found an update for snmp, did a select all for all my linux boxes i adminster at work, scheduled them to be updated, done. I got look for an SNMP update for my Windows servers, none found.
It's just annoying... Microsoft has billions for R&D, takes weeks to get a patch out on Windows update, yet some kid can write autorpm that does the same kinda thing for linux in his spare time...
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, the Canadian people are cool, especially one very special lady I met five years ago who lives in Picton, ON! As for your government, I have as much faith in them as I do my own (U.S.) government on matters such as this.
The Canadian government should remember that most of the country lives within a shopping day-trip of the U.S. Not only will Canadian businesses lose money to those making casual purchases over the line, the Candian government will lose tax revenue via lost VAT (or whatever you call it). People will buy their mp3 players in the U.S., take it out of the box, chuck the box, strap it to them, drive back across the border. Maybe Canadians should discuss this concern with their elected officials.
It kind of makes you wonder about Canadian sanity. To the south we have Bush passing an import tax on foreign steel to protect a dying U.S. industry. To the north, we have Canadians passing a tax that will only affect Candians and will benefit an industry making loads of money already.
If you're using mozilla, just right click the ad, select "Block images from this server." Presto, you just deprived slashdot of revenue!
Here's an exercise, and I don't know the answer. But of all the security alerts released by linux vendors and microsoft, what percentage of each is the result of an internal discovery versus someone outside reporting it and the vendor having to make a fix?
They do not have batteries. I'm not exactly sure HOW they work but I haven't seen anyone else explain it either and, you know, this is the net. The answer can't be that difficult.
A web google search didn't turn up much besides this. The Mobil Speedpass is based on Texas Instruments' Registration and Identification System (TIRIS), the first radio-frequency identification (RFID) device used for retail transactions. The system is similar to a remote control but different in that RFIDs transmit a user-specific signal, almost like a wireless PIN number.
But a usenet search turned up a lot, like this post. Ok, a typical device of this type is quite simple in concept. The coil with rod, acts to recieve 100Khz or so RF, which is then rectified to charge a capacitor, to power the rest. There is a small chip in there, which talks to the reader, usually by shorting out the coil for short periods of time, this causes the RF field to change, which can be read by the reader. Another way is for the chip to connect a diode to the coil, this causes the transmitter/reciever to generate a harmonic, at 2* the frequency of the exciting field, this can also be picked up.
How dare you say? OK, I was annoyed by the Windows GUI but let's face it, the Mac OS was still running what was basically 1985 Andy Hertzfeld "Switcher" technology. While there were OS hacks to permit apps to be kind to CPU cycles (co-operative multitasking) and allocating memory from the system space instead of requiring fixed memory size per app, it was still just kludge upon kludge.
But now I'm heading back. OS X is what I've been wanting for years. The stability and usefulness of UNIX with the user interface that only Apple can do right. I've got my order in for a new iMac to get my toes wet again and if I love it as much as I expect to, I'll be dishing out for a dual G4 in the not too distant future for my main powerbox (It's currently a 2GHZ Intel box running XP Pro).
I've used them all, so when I get to the point where I will say again that Macs are the best computers out there, it will be an informed opinion!
(Note to Apple, please bump my iMac order up in the queue... :-)
They have a choice. They can use a GPL product for free and play by the rules, they can pay for a commercial implementation, or they can pay their own development staff to re-invent the wheel and make their own implementation.
In a macro-economic sense, wealth and prosperity are created by increases in productivity in an economic unit. Re-use of code is an example of how to increase productivity.
I've been basically thinking that for a while now anyway. It doesn't matter what the topic is, it seems like plants for the other side's company just come rushing in to flame on. It's just so predictable. Doesn't matter if the story is pro linux, windows, apple, p2p, anti-p2p, dmca, 2600, etc, etc... the arguments that will crop up are just too damn predictable. It's not even worth it.
Slashdot has just gotten too fat to sustain itself and this will just send it to hell. Not that I'm against people making money but hell, this is the net, there will always be free alternatives, and if not, there's always trusty usenet (which, btw, is reverting back to the old days. No newbies even know what usenet is now, I do believe spam is going down, and conversations are *almost* intelligent again...)
How about this? Since OS X runs on top of a unix file system, just create a few choice device files in the directories, like ones that have the same major/minor numbers as /dev/random so that firewire device fills up real fast, or make a few fifo files so the copy program hangs soon as it hits it (since there is no process pumping info on the other side of the pipe).
You do have a valid point. Companies like Redhat couldn't hope to survive if they were responsible for every line of code on their CD written by a plethora of different developers, just because they bundled it into a distro, added a few patches, and sold it.
"If product fails to perform in a secure manner, buyer of product will be entitled to a refund in the amount of two times the purchase price."
Free software covered! :-)
Then when file sharing popped up, I had friends ICQ'ing me tunes "hey listen to this", I'd listen, like it, then go buy the CDs. I *do* rip them to my house's file server and copy them to work to listen there. Point being, exposure through alternate channels has caused me to start buying CDs again.
Some stuff I've purchased recently (remember, I'm 42) includes, Rage, Limp Bizkit, Dream Theater, Dishwalla, Satriani, and a bunch of others I would have never been exposed to any other way...
Remember, I'm an old fart. We don't listen to music on the radio when in the car, we listen to lame right-wing talk show hosts or motivational tapes trying to convince ourselves that we still have "it." So how do we get exposed to new music?
The U.K. has some other qualities the U.S. doesn't have, all that must be considered. Their population density is high, yet they still have loads of rural areas. The way they do this is through strict zoning and green belts around cities. A city gets so big, it stops growing, it has to grow up or within. This helps transit, unlike in the U.S. where it's suburban sprawl everywhere and therefore it's near impossible to design a transit system that goes everywhere, like you said...)
They are also heavy on social programs. You can get benefits for just doing some care for a disabled relative, for example. With that comes loads of taxes. They are taxed to death.
I wonder what would happen if I wrote a server to emulate the Microsoft product activation server....
You don't find a feature like this available to all users just the slight bit worrisome? Most companies do...
It's not FUD, it's normal safe business practices...
(Waiting to read one day that watching a video through WMP will open my desktop to remote access, for example! :)
X offers lots that Windows doesn't. The most useful to me is one app in one place that I can access anywhere. My job requires me to have two different offices. I run my X apps from one large system we provide to everyone. Mozilla, licq, etc, are all configured once, my prefs once, my contacts, once, etc, etc... I'm running the app on the same box irregardless of location. The only way I could do something similar in Windows is run a vnc server on a workstation and have vnc client everywhere, and then it's a dog...
Linux is most likely more because irregardless of whether you install Windows or not on a box, the OEM has to pay for that Windows license anyway...
I'm getting a woody just thinking about how cherry a central prefs/settings database would be. But no, whatever Microsoft has up their sleeves wouldn't be so sweet. It'll be some horrible kludge I'm sure.
(For home (non domain) boxes, the issue becomes more complicated. Each box would have to have its own database server on it to handle this kind of thing locally (non-roaming).... Either that, or tie your prefs into your passport account on some central microsoft prefs server (insert evil maniacal world-domination laugh here))
Now if *NIX would permit something like that, a common API for settings which could be implemented locally or centrally without knowledge of each app doing it, that'd be great!
Damn I wish I had mod points. This *is* news. Finally, I can buy a computer without paying the Windows tax and reformatting it off as the first thing I do.
I consider this article from Dave Mills must reading.
Also, if you go to google and search all articles in comp.protocols.time.ntp from 2001/12/31 to 2002/01/05 you'll notice a lot of threads about the GPS bug that bit many.
Imagine your entire network going ape shit setting their clocks to some insane value and what that would have on, for example, audit records on your databases...
Why the hell does it take Microsoft so long to get patches onto Windows Update, which most users use to get their updates (those that look)?
Like, when I heard about the SNMP problem yesterday, I went to rhn.redhat.com, found an update for snmp, did a select all for all my linux boxes i adminster at work, scheduled them to be updated, done. I got look for an SNMP update for my Windows servers, none found.
It's just annoying... Microsoft has billions for R&D, takes weeks to get a patch out on Windows update, yet some kid can write autorpm that does the same kinda thing for linux in his spare time...
Hey, fuck you. Not true. I go home at night and play diablo 2!
You can send the $50 to the EFF, OK?