How can any reasonable/.er get up in arms about doubleclick.net gathering surfing information, and then claim that information wants to be free.
I'm glad someone is starting to see that many Slashdotter's views are conflicting about the concept of free information. Personally, I feel oppositely from you; I feel that eventually all information will be free, and this vague concept of privacy that so many cherish will disappear. And I embrace it, primarily because of the laws of entropy.
Given the chaotic and entropic nature of information spread, it is silly to try to restrict this natural phenomenon with articifical restrictions placed upon its flow by society. Placing restraints on the natural entropy of abstract notions has and will continue to result in impressively obscene regulations. We've seen this in the past with the cyrptography-export rules, and it will continue to happen unless we face the truths will become more and more evident as time goes on.
Many complain about the GPL's restrictiveness, but it is more flexible than most other licences in one crucial way. The standard license which most people apply says:
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
In my opinion, this is one great, saving feature of the GPL; if at some time the FSF decides that the license needs to be changed, they can affect so, so many pieces of software in existence.
While many may feel that giving this sort of licensing power to the FSF is a bad thing, there are many of us here who feel that the FSF has good intentions, and will appropriately yield the power to release our code in a good manner if we pass on.
I mean, Jesus Christ, do we need to differentiate so much between foo.bar.1.4 and 1.4.joeschmoesfix?
Yes, you do need to make the distinction, because Joe Schmoe might know that foo.bar.1.4 had a buffer-overflow vulnerability which he fixed in his fix.
This has more impact than most people realize. It goes way beyond legos. The ability to connect the 'here' and 'there' is essentially what every problem is about. One assesses what one's current knowledge is, and through various connections of this knowledge, one assertain rules for getting closer to the solution. If this is too much of a vague statement, let me try a more concrete example. The computer is given a programming language, and told of each function's syntax, purpose, etc. Next, the computer is given a task, such as 'build a system which does blah blah blah', where blah blah blah is some sort of task that would generally be delegated to a programmer. This is essentially what this machine did; it was given a certain base knowledge (that of legos), and given a task which would normally be given to an engineer. Granted, the solution probably wasn't the 'best' (whatever that means), but that is most likely due to 'best' being ill-defined.
As machines get faster and faster, AI will become much more powerful, as it will be able to analyze exponential problems (those that branch out, such as learning) within a reasonable time.
We certainly do live in a great time to witness such events as this.:)
It is surprising to see such a small array of replies to this article, since it ties in dearly with conventional privacy issues. But if you think about it, this article present a conflict to most (the stereotypical) slashdot readers (the ones who post the majority of the comments).
Lets look at the good points of symmetric transparency. It promotes commercial interest, openness, and is 'inevitable'. These are often-stated cases for the lifting of export restriction on encryption products. They tend to have good-conotations with the typical Slashdot reader. So "hooray!" some readers will think. I'm all for this.
Now let's look at the other side. Symmetric transparency destroys privacy. Let's assume that at some point, satellites are capable of much more. They can see through brick walls, have real-time downloading of video, etc. At this point, privacy is totally destroyed. "Arg!", the hermit Slashdot reader thinks. "This is not so good!"
But how are we to regulate this commercialism and trade free of government restrictions if we want to maintain privacy? First suggestion that comes to mind, "Let the government regulate it!". Hrm. Age-old story with encryption products here relived. So what can we do?
I don't have answer. Well, maybe I do. My answer is to change your mindset about privacy. Privacy isn't all it's cracked up to be. Stop placing value on this vague idea of seclusion. Your privacy isn't absolute. What you consider privacy today won't be private 50 years from now; then, new standards of privacy will have evolved. For example, I don't consider any static information about me as private. My whereabouts, past, and any information older than 6 months ago is not protected with tooth and dagger. What I do work to keep private in today's age is my communications, which why I work to secure communications (email, IRC, etc). But this will change in the future, too.
The response of Slashdotters' response to the ability of software companies to do remote-shutdown of software is extremely amusing. The general sentiment is of Slashdot pro-libertarian; however, this sentiment should agree with the idea that companies should be able to have as much power over their software as they wish, leaving the choice up to the consumer, and not having government interfere saying "You can't shut down software remotely". While some elements of this contract are more government-intrusive than the status-quo, some are actually de-regulations.
Many people on Slashdot had better come to a decision: do they want government intervention, or not? Should companies run everything? Because companies will start introducing nasties if they are deregulated.
Depending on which window manager you use, you might have an option to change the keyboard layout to Dvorak (and other layouts). This is what KDE has; it's very nice. A little icon sits in the kpanel and you just click on it to toggle between qwerty and Dvorak layouts.
I at one time feared I might have CTS; my writs were aching slightly after spending 6+ hours almost consistently a day for 7 months straight on a bad badly setup desktop (it should be no surprise it was a community college's laboratory setup). Once the aching started, I went to a physician and asked him if there was anything wrong. He said that unless the pain very discomforting (it wasn't at the time), I shouldn't have to worry. To be fair, he did do some minimal testing to see if my wrists reacted to various pressures, but it was all minimal.
Now I'm in a different desktop setup, one where I can use an ergonomic keyboard in my lap (it's very comfortable, but I'm not entirely sure if it's 'correct'). I have configured my window manager to make maximal use of not using the mouse. I use the mouse as little as possible now, as this seems to be an aggravating factor in any aching. Any discomfort I get now is minimal, and if it does arise, I make sure I change my current typing position.
However, I'm always worried. Will this sneak up on me again? Was what I had before an early symptom of CTS? How close was I to going over the edge? Can I get a test to indicate early warning signs of this disease before it occurs? I would glady pay for such a test if it occured. I wouldn't mind if the test was conducted yearly.
This is my life we're talking about here when it comes to CTS. UNIX is my lifeblood, as it is for so many others.. I need to type always. I can't have my life endangered because I wasn't careful enough. A early-warning test would make me a very, very happy person.
It seems every time I see an article on Slashdot about some new way of laying out networks or how netwoking is changing, the author seems to make an small snide comment about encryption. Look, the fact is that we have solved this problem with IPsec and other tools such as ssh. Who cares if everyone is able to read my traffic, for I am using end-to-end encryption with all hosts that I frequent and send sensitive data to?! As machines capable of using IPsec become more prevelant (and they will now that Windows users finally got their own decent IPsec implementation through PGPnet), these comments will become more and more disinformative.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that these comments are just going to contribute to FUD. The tools to be secure are out there. Use them, for goodness sake.
Sure, mutt is a great mailer, but it is lacking one very, very important thing that pine handles. News. I need news and mail together. I need to be able to apply the same filters to both. Plus, I've got a great filter for Pine that lets me handle PGP flawlessly. PGPenvelope
PGPenvelope is a Pine filter written in Perl that allows one to use encrypt/sign/decrypt/verify one's email messages with GPG or PGP5. Ease of installation, ease of use, and a nice interface were the primary goals during developement. Also included are methods to verify signed messages through procmail with ease.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad someone is starting to see that many Slashdotter's views are conflicting about the concept of free information. Personally, I feel oppositely from you; I feel that eventually all information will be free, and this vague concept of privacy that so many cherish will disappear. And I embrace it, primarily because of the laws of entropy.
Given the chaotic and entropic nature of information spread, it is silly to try to restrict this natural phenomenon with articifical restrictions placed upon its flow by society. Placing restraints on the natural entropy of abstract notions has and will continue to result in impressively obscene regulations. We've seen this in the past with the cyrptography-export rules, and it will continue to happen unless we face the truths will become more and more evident as time goes on.
Many complain about the GPL's restrictiveness, but it is more flexible than most other licences in one crucial way. The standard license which most people apply says:
In my opinion, this is one great, saving feature of the GPL; if at some time the FSF decides that the license needs to be changed, they can affect so, so many pieces of software in existence.
While many may feel that giving this sort of licensing power to the FSF is a bad thing, there are many of us here who feel that the FSF has good intentions, and will appropriately yield the power to release our code in a good manner if we pass on.
Yes, you do need to make the distinction, because Joe Schmoe might know that foo.bar.1.4 had a buffer-overflow vulnerability which he fixed in his fix.
Funny thing is, the clear majority of us did vote left, and we still lost the election.
This has more impact than most people realize. It goes way beyond legos. The ability to connect the 'here' and 'there' is essentially what every problem is about. One assesses what one's current knowledge is, and through various connections of this knowledge, one assertain rules for getting closer to the solution. If this is too much of a vague statement, let me try a more concrete example. The computer is given a programming language, and told of each function's syntax, purpose, etc. Next, the computer is given a task, such as 'build a system which does blah blah blah', where blah blah blah is some sort of task that would generally be delegated to a programmer. This is essentially what this machine did; it was given a certain base knowledge (that of legos), and given a task which would normally be given to an engineer. Granted, the solution probably wasn't the 'best' (whatever that means), but that is most likely due to 'best' being ill-defined.
:)
As machines get faster and faster, AI will become much more powerful, as it will be able to analyze exponential problems (those that branch out, such as learning) within a reasonable time.
We certainly do live in a great time to witness such events as this.
A decent way to use GPG with Pine is to use pgpenvelope, available from http://www.neverending.org/~ftobin/resources.html
Yes, I know mutt has good interface also, but Pine is also a decent mailer, and a lot of people use it, so I support it.
It is surprising to see such a small array of replies to this article, since it ties in dearly with conventional privacy issues. But if you think about it, this article present a conflict to most (the stereotypical) slashdot readers (the ones who post the majority of the comments).
Lets look at the good points of symmetric transparency. It promotes commercial interest, openness, and is 'inevitable'. These are often-stated cases for the lifting of export restriction on encryption products. They tend to have good-conotations with the typical Slashdot reader. So "hooray!" some readers will think. I'm all for this.
Now let's look at the other side. Symmetric transparency destroys privacy. Let's assume that at some point, satellites are capable of much more. They can see through brick walls, have real-time downloading of video, etc. At this point, privacy is totally destroyed. "Arg!", the hermit Slashdot reader thinks. "This is not so good!"
But how are we to regulate this commercialism and trade free of government restrictions if we want to maintain privacy? First suggestion that comes to mind, "Let the government regulate it!". Hrm. Age-old story with encryption products here relived. So what can we do?
I don't have answer. Well, maybe I do. My answer is to change your mindset about privacy. Privacy isn't all it's cracked up to be. Stop placing value on this vague idea of seclusion. Your privacy isn't absolute. What you consider privacy today won't be private 50 years from now; then, new standards of privacy will have evolved. For example, I don't consider any static information about me as private. My whereabouts, past, and any information older than 6 months ago is not protected with tooth and dagger. What I do work to keep private in today's age is my communications, which why I work to secure communications (email, IRC, etc). But this will change in the future, too.
The questions are a little biased, but you still might want to take a look at the
World's Smallest Poltical Quiz
The response of Slashdotters' response to the ability of software companies to do remote-shutdown of software is extremely amusing. The general sentiment is of Slashdot pro-libertarian; however, this sentiment should agree with the idea that companies should be able to have as much power over their software as they wish, leaving the choice up to the consumer, and not having government interfere saying "You can't shut down software remotely". While some elements of this contract are more government-intrusive than the status-quo, some are actually de-regulations.
Many people on Slashdot had better come to a decision: do they want government intervention, or not? Should companies run everything? Because companies will start introducing nasties if they are deregulated.
Depending on which window manager you use, you might have an option to change the keyboard layout to Dvorak (and other layouts). This is what KDE has; it's very nice. A little icon sits in the kpanel and you just click on it to toggle between qwerty and Dvorak layouts.
I at one time feared I might have CTS; my writs were aching slightly after spending 6+ hours almost consistently a day for 7 months straight on a bad badly setup desktop (it should be no surprise it was a community college's laboratory setup). Once the aching started, I went to a physician and asked him if there was anything wrong. He said that unless the pain very discomforting (it wasn't at the time), I shouldn't have to worry. To be fair, he did do some minimal testing to see if my wrists reacted to various pressures, but it was all minimal.
Now I'm in a different desktop setup, one where I can use an ergonomic keyboard in my lap (it's very comfortable, but I'm not entirely sure if it's 'correct'). I have configured my window manager to make maximal use of not using the mouse. I use the mouse as little as possible now, as this seems to be an aggravating factor in any aching. Any discomfort I get now is minimal, and if it does arise, I make sure I change my current typing position.
However, I'm always worried. Will this sneak up on me again? Was what I had before an early symptom of CTS? How close was I to going over the edge? Can I get a test to indicate early warning signs of this disease before it occurs? I would glady pay for such a test if it occured. I wouldn't mind if the test was conducted yearly.
This is my life we're talking about here when it comes to CTS. UNIX is my lifeblood, as it is for so many others.. I need to type always. I can't have my life endangered because I wasn't careful enough. A early-warning test would make me a very, very happy person.
It seems every time I see an article on Slashdot about some new way of laying out networks or how netwoking is changing, the author seems to make an small snide comment about encryption. Look, the fact is that we have solved this problem with IPsec and other tools such as ssh. Who cares if everyone is able to read my traffic, for I am using end-to-end encryption with all hosts that I frequent and send sensitive data to?! As machines capable of using IPsec become more prevelant (and they will now that Windows users finally got their own decent IPsec implementation through PGPnet), these comments will become more and more disinformative.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that these comments are just going to contribute to FUD. The tools to be secure are out there. Use them, for goodness sake.
Arg, try this URL instead:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~ftobin/resour ces.html
Erm, whoops, seems like my nameservers are down. Try this URL for pgpenvelope instead:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~ftobin/resour ces.html
Sure, mutt is a great mailer, but it is lacking one very, very important thing that pine handles. News. I need news and mail together. I need to be able to apply the same filters to both. Plus, I've got a great filter for Pine that lets me handle PGP flawlessly. PGPenvelope
Hrm, you missed an important one for Pine:
pgpenvelope
http://www.neverending.org/~ftobi n/resources.html
PGPenvelope is a Pine filter written in Perl that allows one to use encrypt/sign/decrypt/verify
one's email messages with GPG or PGP5.
Ease of installation, ease of use,
and a nice interface were the primary goals during developement.
Also included are methods to verify signed messages through procmail with ease.