Can we, at least, nail this myth on the head? AT&T never had a government-approved monopoly. What it had was a practical monopoly, competition was close to impossible because to compete, one had to dig up roads to areas where you might, in a fair world, get 50% market penetration, and where, without the active, supporting, help of AT&T you would have a network that would initially have nobody phonable.
Ah, but AT&T did have the force of law behind its control. This is more precisely what I wanted to get across. Quoth Lessig from "The Future of Ideas" (pg 30):
For much of the twentieth centurey, it was essentially illegal even to experiment with the telephone system. It was a crime to attach a device to the telephone system that AT&T didn't build or expressly authorize. In 1956, for example, a company built a device called "Hush-a-Phone." The Hush-a-Phone was a simple piece of plastic that attached to the mouthpiece of a telephone. Its design was to block noise in a room so that someone on the other end of the line could better hear what was being said. The device had no connection to the technology of the phone, save the technology of the plastic receiver. All it did was block noise, the way a user might block noise by cupping his hand over the phone.
When the Hush-a-Phone was released on the market, AT&T objected. This was a "foreign attachmen." Regulations forbade any foreign attachments without AT&T's permission. AT&T had not given Hush-a-Phone any such permission. The FCC agreed with AT&T. Hush-a-Phone was history.
This was not only a government-approved monopoly, but it was even a government-sponsored monopoly. AT&T's rules protecting itself had the force of government law.
If you have any doubts on which way the decision should have gone, you should read The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig. In it, he explains how we accidentally got to this system of telephone companies being required to not control the content of the lines, even though they control the wiring and switches, but on the other hand, cable companies are allowed to completely control the wiring, connectors (cable boxes), and content.
The internet is the way it is (great, that is), due to lack of control over the content. For example, I can talk however I want to another computer on the internet, just as long as I abide by a few rules (e.g., using IP). The potential for innovation is great when you have an open-content and open-controls (routers, firewalls) system.
At line point AT&T owned the entire telephone network, being granted a government-approved monopoly. At this time, however, you weren't allowed to connect non-approved devices to any part of the network. This was done to ensure the 'stability' of the network (the trusted-client ideology). When the monster was broken up, these restrictions were removed, and this helped ensure the Internet could grow over the telephone lines (e.g., everyone could connect their own modem without needing approval).
With cable companies controlling every aspect of communication, however, the potential for innovation is extremely limited. Having to ask for permission to communicate on a network entirely destroys the freedom to experiment and try new ideas. This is why cable companies should be regulated like telephone companies.
Quoting from the book:
The argument of the cable industry in favor of monopoly was simple: We need, they argued, incentives to risk the investment to build out cable TV. That build-out would be worth it to us only if we could be certain to recover out investment. This certainty would be adequately provided if we had complete control over the programming on our network. If we get to pick and choose the shows we run, and we get protected monopoly status in the local markets we run cable for, then we will have sufficient incentive to build out cable to secure our needs.
Not a bad deal, if you can get it. And even though "every major policy on how cable should be regulated recommended that cable operators be required to provide at least some degree of non-discrimatory access to unaffiliated program supliers," Congress and the FCC ignored these recommendations. Cable was given control over the physical infrastructure that build their network and over the code layer that made their network run.
I could go on and on, but I strongly recommend you read "The Future of Ideas". Lessig is technically-aware, but he writes to layman. He is a master of the arguments for freedom in cyberspace.
It's interesting to also note that DSL, since it is deemed a communications network, is regulatory-required to be 'open'. This means the telephone companies are forced to allow other ISP competition to use DSL lines.
First of all, if you were a smart unix user, you would not be using Sendmail. You talk about 'understanding', but do not understand that you have a nice choice of alternatives that are much more proactively secure than Sendmail, such as Postfix or Qmail. Same goes for Bind (we have djbdns and such). What do you get from Microsoft? Their one product. Big choice there.
I do so fully well how and why things work. That's why I say to choose free unixes. They are not blackboxes. You can easily poke in, and figure out what's wrong. You can fix the problems yourself, even more proactively than your proprietary provider. All this and more you cannot do with proprietary, closed products.
Furthermore, you aren't being proactive by simply applying vendor-supplied patches when they say to; that's reactive. Being proactive means learning how your software security works, especially internally, and performing appropriate actions.
I dunno about the military, but Interior is apparently desperate for decent IT support.
I don't know about the DoI, but if it's anything like applying for civilian IT positions in the military or the FBI, they're going to need a lot of luck in getting good IT people who aren't just Windows monkeys in there to make a buck.
Before landing the commercial job I spent months trying to get into an FBI or civiliant military position, but the application process is incredibly depressing. Position opening descriptions are incredibly verbose, but contain absolutely no useful information. They all tend to just say things along the lines of "Will work with computer systems to support the required needs." Just take a look at the first Computer Specialist opening I found at the FBI jobs site. Armed Forces position openings the same. Furthermore, the application process itself tends to be burdensome and unclear, requiring lots of documentation up-front, often dead-tree-style; there is seemingly no process of escalating back-and-forth information exchange which the commercial world tends to prefer.
They are definitely trying to improve the application process, but they definitely need to clear up the red tape.
Personally I'd like to work for a social institution like the federal government, even though the pay scale is significantly lower. However, they really need to streamline their application process if they want good people.
Trying to lay the catch-up game with Microsoft products is not a positive thing to do; the positive thing to do would be to get non-Microsoft solutions so that these problems don't occur. Positive solutions fix the problem, not patch the symptoms. Incessant, needless patching and worrying is what builds up the negative energy.
Do you not realize that the vast majority of network server software is not even developed by the 'bundler' (e.g., OpenBSD, RedHat, etc), so the 'remote exploit' issue is quite irrevalent. As to the question of how many are enabled by default, there is practically no services enabled by default on RedHat (I'm not sure how many; I use custom installs). Even inetd isn't running on many RedHat systems.
Lawrence Lessig is an excellent, intelligent writer who likely strikes a chord with many Slashdot readers. I highly recommend reading his book "The future of Ideas". I got a copy for my dad for Christmas, and he, even while being a computer novice, now sees the poignant issues Lessig introduces.
Incidentally, my dad has now given the book to me, so that I can learn to express my thoughts on the issue much more coherently. I've been discussing the issues with my dad and friends for years, but hopefully now I'll be able to explain my position with more clarity.
I find it interesting that Eric Raymond was on the selection committee. If I rcall correctly, Raymond has specfically stated he is not a follower of the Free Software movement (just as Stallman has specifically stated he is not a follower of the Open Source movement).
I don't get how this cable is a copyright breach, though
If the cable has a proprietary interface that Sega holds a patent for and this company in Hong Kong is making them without a license then it is clearly a violation.
You have clearly not answered the question. What was asked was where there is a copyright violation. Copyright has nothing to do with patents, except that the whole concept is muddled together under the vague idea of intellectual property.
On a similar if people taking a disliking to C# they could always look forward to the upcoming E#. There are suspicions that this language might turn out to be vaporware, however.
I think you're forgetting one fundamental feature of the desktop that sets it apart from all other computer implementations out there. The fact is, the desktop computer is our best general purpose computer.
All of the next-generation devices you mention are all specific-purpose machines. The desktop, on the other hand, has proven to be extremely extensible and flexible, capable of doing so much more than any of the piddly devices you talk about. The general purpose computer is what lets things like Gnutella and other exotic technologies develop, flourish, and become of our accepted culture.
Without the general purpose computer we become locked into the device, along with its limitations and controls. We can hack the general purpose computer to get around artificial limitations. We can't do that with appliance-computers.
For this reason, we cannot forget the desktop. Until another solution comes along and gives us at least the same power the general purpose computer does, we will keep on using them, because they can do so much, uninhibited by the machinery underlying them.
It is because of the general-purpose desktop computer that we have the information freedom we do today. General purpose computing, I strongly believe, is the driving force that we need to concentrate on.
The often quoted (and probably inaccurate) statement attributed to Benjamin Franklin applies here : He that would trade liberty for security deserves and would receive neither.
If it's inaccurate, it's not a quote. Do not go about saying things to the effect of "Oh, look how the founding fathers cherished such a thing", when the correct quote clearly does not say the same thing. It's fraudulent and deceptive.
The correct quote is:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
There are important qualifiers in that statement. To simply drop them as you did shows great ignorance and does injustice to Benjamin Franklin.
On their About page, they have an image of their building. The sign on the building is a sorry attempt at making it look seamless.
I wonder which building is pictured, anyways. Maybe all the SEC's 'scam sites' use the same buildling.
Doing a Google search for 'mcwhorgle', one finds out that the SEC even got Yahoo to have a length article on the SEC pre-approving its IPO. Interesting that they put that much work into it.
If you would have read the link I had, you would have figured it out that the problem is legacy application don't do this. You can't just start changing legacy behaviour, and expect things like digital signatures, etc to not break tremendously. The whole mbox thing is fraught with legacy problems.
1) It adds little or no value. Okay, so you feel that you can format the mail more readably using HTML. I find that I can make mails perfectly readable without it, so for me, it adds no value.
As I have argued before, HTML email, while it shouldn't be used for presentational purposes, can be used well to add semantics and structure. If I had my way, email HTML renderers would completely ignore all the deprecated presentational elements of HTML (bold, italics, font), and only rely on a user's personal stylesheet to do the rendering.
I understand the purpose of the ">" is to escape the "From " that separates emails. But I never understood why it was not unescaped upon reading the email.
A very interesting analysis
of this by JWZ points out that it's not really escaping 'From', but munging it, because there is no 'escaping' of >From
There is all the difference in the world between being driven to sustain oneself, and being forced to modify one's personal legitimate beliefs (in this case, legitimate national laws) to suit another player. One of the two changes your obligations/actions, while the other forces you to change yourself in a more wholistic manner.
"Forced" is a bit of a strong word for that. Force implies we've got troops there pointing guns at people. US simply made it a condition for trade. If you want to trade with the world economy, then you have to pass certain laws. Don't want those laws? Fine, be an independent economy.
"Forced" is a bit of a strong word for that. Force implies Microsoft has got troops at computer assemblers pointing guns at people. Microsoft simply made it a condition for trade. If you want to distribute Windows on systems, you must put Windows on every box, and and you can't dual-boot with another operating system. And you must put Microsoft icons over other competitors on the desktop of users. And so on. If you want to trade with Microsoft, then you have to adapat to these rules. Don't want those agreements? Fine, be independent, and have no right to distribute Windows. If you come back begging to Microsft a year from now, they might let you back in (at double the licensing fees).
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but AT&T did have the force of law behind its control. This is more precisely what I wanted to get across. Quoth Lessig from "The Future of Ideas" (pg 30):
This was not only a government-approved monopoly, but it was even a government-sponsored monopoly. AT&T's rules protecting itself had the force of government law.
If you have any doubts on which way the decision should have gone, you should read The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig. In it, he explains how we accidentally got to this system of telephone companies being required to not control the content of the lines, even though they control the wiring and switches, but on the other hand, cable companies are allowed to completely control the wiring, connectors (cable boxes), and content.
The internet is the way it is (great, that is), due to lack of control over the content. For example, I can talk however I want to another computer on the internet, just as long as I abide by a few rules (e.g., using IP). The potential for innovation is great when you have an open-content and open-controls (routers, firewalls) system.
At line point AT&T owned the entire telephone network, being granted a government-approved monopoly. At this time, however, you weren't allowed to connect non-approved devices to any part of the network. This was done to ensure the 'stability' of the network (the trusted-client ideology). When the monster was broken up, these restrictions were removed, and this helped ensure the Internet could grow over the telephone lines (e.g., everyone could connect their own modem without needing approval).
With cable companies controlling every aspect of communication, however, the potential for innovation is extremely limited. Having to ask for permission to communicate on a network entirely destroys the freedom to experiment and try new ideas. This is why cable companies should be regulated like telephone companies.
Quoting from the book:
I could go on and on, but I strongly recommend you read "The Future of Ideas". Lessig is technically-aware, but he writes to layman. He is a master of the arguments for freedom in cyberspace.
It's interesting to also note that DSL, since it is deemed a communications network, is regulatory-required to be 'open'. This means the telephone companies are forced to allow other ISP competition to use DSL lines.
First of all, if you were a smart unix user, you would not be using Sendmail. You talk about 'understanding', but do not understand that you have a nice choice of alternatives that are much more proactively secure than Sendmail, such as Postfix or Qmail. Same goes for Bind (we have djbdns and such). What do you get from Microsoft? Their one product. Big choice there.
I do so fully well how and why things work. That's why I say to choose free unixes. They are not blackboxes. You can easily poke in, and figure out what's wrong. You can fix the problems yourself, even more proactively than your proprietary provider. All this and more you cannot do with proprietary, closed products.
Furthermore, you aren't being proactive by simply applying vendor-supplied patches when they say to; that's reactive. Being proactive means learning how your software security works, especially internally, and performing appropriate actions.
I don't know about the DoI, but if it's anything like applying for civilian IT positions in the military or the FBI, they're going to need a lot of luck in getting good IT people who aren't just Windows monkeys in there to make a buck.
Before landing the commercial job I spent months trying to get into an FBI or civiliant military position, but the application process is incredibly depressing. Position opening descriptions are incredibly verbose, but contain absolutely no useful information. They all tend to just say things along the lines of "Will work with computer systems to support the required needs." Just take a look at the first Computer Specialist opening I found at the FBI jobs site. Armed Forces position openings the same. Furthermore, the application process itself tends to be burdensome and unclear, requiring lots of documentation up-front, often dead-tree-style; there is seemingly no process of escalating back-and-forth information exchange which the commercial world tends to prefer.
They are definitely trying to improve the application process, but they definitely need to clear up the red tape.
Personally I'd like to work for a social institution like the federal government, even though the pay scale is significantly lower. However, they really need to streamline their application process if they want good people.
Trying to lay the catch-up game with Microsoft products is not a positive thing to do; the positive thing to do would be to get non-Microsoft solutions so that these problems don't occur. Positive solutions fix the problem, not patch the symptoms. Incessant, needless patching and worrying is what builds up the negative energy.
Do you not realize that the vast majority of network server software is not even developed by the 'bundler' (e.g., OpenBSD, RedHat, etc), so the 'remote exploit' issue is quite irrevalent. As to the question of how many are enabled by default, there is practically no services enabled by default on RedHat (I'm not sure how many; I use custom installs). Even inetd isn't running on many RedHat systems.
There already has been a review on Slashdot.
Lawrence Lessig is an excellent, intelligent writer who likely strikes a chord with many Slashdot readers. I highly recommend reading his book "The future of Ideas". I got a copy for my dad for Christmas, and he, even while being a computer novice, now sees the poignant issues Lessig introduces.
Incidentally, my dad has now given the book to me, so that I can learn to express my thoughts on the issue much more coherently. I've been discussing the issues with my dad and friends for years, but hopefully now I'll be able to explain my position with more clarity.
I find it interesting that Eric Raymond was on the selection committee. If I rcall correctly, Raymond has specfically stated he is not a follower of the Free Software movement (just as Stallman has specifically stated he is not a follower of the Open Source movement).
You have clearly not answered the question. What was asked was where there is a copyright violation. Copyright has nothing to do with patents, except that the whole concept is muddled together under the vague idea of intellectual property.
On a similar if people taking a disliking to C# they could always look forward to the upcoming E#. There are suspicions that this language might turn out to be vaporware, however.
I think you're forgetting one fundamental feature of the desktop that sets it apart from all other computer implementations out there. The fact is, the desktop computer is our best general purpose computer.
All of the next-generation devices you mention are all specific-purpose machines. The desktop, on the other hand, has proven to be extremely extensible and flexible, capable of doing so much more than any of the piddly devices you talk about. The general purpose computer is what lets things like Gnutella and other exotic technologies develop, flourish, and become of our accepted culture.
Without the general purpose computer we become locked into the device, along with its limitations and controls. We can hack the general purpose computer to get around artificial limitations. We can't do that with appliance-computers.
For this reason, we cannot forget the desktop. Until another solution comes along and gives us at least the same power the general purpose computer does, we will keep on using them, because they can do so much, uninhibited by the machinery underlying them.
It is because of the general-purpose desktop computer that we have the information freedom we do today. General purpose computing, I strongly believe, is the driving force that we need to concentrate on.
You know, I initially thought that was the spelling too, but I checked at Merriam Webster's and it isn't in the dictionary.
If it comes down to a battle royal between us and evil robots, then I definitely want Magneto on my side.
What's this you tell me? Magneto is a fictional character? Crap! I'm laying odds on the robots, then :(
If it's inaccurate, it's not a quote. Do not go about saying things to the effect of "Oh, look how the founding fathers cherished such a thing", when the correct quote clearly does not say the same thing. It's fraudulent and deceptive. The correct quote is:
There are important qualifiers in that statement. To simply drop them as you did shows great ignorance and does injustice to Benjamin Franklin.
Has anyone called the phone number listed in the newswire? The contact information is:
Google didn't provide any relevant hits for the phone number.
On their About page, they have an image of their building. The sign on the building is a sorry attempt at making it look seamless.
I wonder which building is pictured, anyways. Maybe all the SEC's 'scam sites' use the same buildling.
Doing a Google search for 'mcwhorgle', one finds out that the SEC even got Yahoo to have a length article on the SEC pre-approving its IPO. Interesting that they put that much work into it.
If you would have read the link I had, you would have figured it out that the problem is legacy application don't do this. You can't just start changing legacy behaviour, and expect things like digital signatures, etc to not break tremendously. The whole mbox thing is fraught with legacy problems.
As I have argued before, HTML email, while it shouldn't be used for presentational purposes, can be used well to add semantics and structure. If I had my way, email HTML renderers would completely ignore all the deprecated presentational elements of HTML (bold, italics, font), and only rely on a user's personal stylesheet to do the rendering.
A very interesting analysis of this by JWZ points out that it's not really escaping 'From', but munging it, because there is no 'escaping' of >From
Interesting to note that you took my post as an argument, instead of the sarcasm it was intended to be, playing off the parent's text.
There is all the difference in the world between being driven to sustain oneself, and being forced to modify one's personal legitimate beliefs (in this case, legitimate national laws) to suit another player. One of the two changes your obligations/actions, while the other forces you to change yourself in a more wholistic manner.
"Forced" is a bit of a strong word for that. Force implies Microsoft has got troops at computer assemblers pointing guns at people. Microsoft simply made it a condition for trade. If you want to distribute Windows on systems, you must put Windows on every box, and and you can't dual-boot with another operating system. And you must put Microsoft icons over other competitors on the desktop of users. And so on. If you want to trade with Microsoft, then you have to adapat to these rules. Don't want those agreements? Fine, be independent, and have no right to distribute Windows. If you come back begging to Microsft a year from now, they might let you back in (at double the licensing fees).