Drexel University is doing this too. They started putting up the 'hubs' about a year ago, so far the coverage is spotty. As for authentication, you have to register your card's MAC address with them. They reseve the right to intercept traffic. To make a long story short untill all the bugs are worked out(im giving it 5 to 6 years) it's gonna be more trouble than it's worth.
First off let me state that if you decide to take computer engineering, be prepared to do engineering. Expect to be doing more physics, Chem, Math and whatnot than you can shake an AP course at. After that my understanding is that most colleges are simalar to drexel, where i go. ECE or computer engineering, is pretty much Electrical Engineering, with a focus on ICs, and computer systems. if you like to understand & owuld like to design the hardware that means ECE, where as OSs could be more a CS thing. However there is a whole lot of ever lap.
This type of censorship is more common than most people seem to think. For example:
my highschool had an art exibit a few years ago. Every single object was a student's work of art. the exibit was left up in the main lobby for a few weeks. however one sculpture was conspicuously absent, the hate room. This 'room' was a 3 sided structure designed to remind people of the futility of hate. It was the best work in the show, and the most moving work of art i have ever seen. however after 2 days it was moved to a back corner of a computer lab, and taken down 3 days after that. The administration's reason was "some people might feel we are glorifying hate." Needless to say that none of the people who decided this had ever been in 'the hate room'.
have you noticed that irt port scans the entire network on commonly known ports? trust me they probably violate more of their own policies than most of the students do.
The university I attend seems to have an interesting twist on the "we own your data" concept. While it is a violation of university policy for me to break into any other computer on the network, the school aparently reverves the right to bypass all security mesures on any computer on the network. I am personly portscanned by the IT department ever day at 3:30. As soon as i notice this i put up a firewall. however I know at least 3 people who's computers have been broken into. I also have logs of attacks on my computer. the AUP states that having "tools for bypassing network security" is basis for having your network access revoked. After I approched them with evidence of the attacks comming from their section of the network they told me that if I didnt remove the firewall's from my network connection I would have my network access revoked. So far this hasnt happend. Assuming it does, do I have any recourse?
a while ago,(about the time of the smart filter article) my high school sysadmin noticed a site that was popular and temporalily blocked by the school's smartfilter firewall. he therfore manulay added slashdot to the block list. there it stands. my high school has no access to slashdot.
Ok this does a few things.
(1) it allows them to classify the thing as a pc not a console and avoid a tarif.
(2) it gives the ps2 more of a 'neat' factor which it needs now that everyone realizes the graphics aren't as amazing as we thougth they would be(they're good dont get me wrong but i heard sutff like bugslife quality in realtime.)
(3)it gives people who may have been waiting for another overpriced console (xbox or gamecube) and reason to buy the ps2. sure you will probably be able to develop for the xbox on your pc in C++ but YAbasic will likely be so much easier. add that to the need to burn stuff on to CD in order to debug it and youve got some serious reasons to buy a ps2.
Problems (1) OS X APIs (Carbon, <sp>Coca</sp> etc) are not Open source / known to officaly be proted to other OSs. (2) only the kernel and most of the CLI of OS X is OpenSource, the GUI is prety much 100% Apple only. [theory 1] (1) MS will probably use Carbon which is a pre OS X compatablity layer think of it as a WINE type program for going between OS X and Mac OS 7-9. (2) Carbon is not currently portable off OS X (no implementations for linux etc) and it is not anything like Open source or even free(beer) software. and it doesn't look like it's going to be.
Remember that if you are being overseen or somthing of that nature there could always be a conflict over basic views of computing. In my school the administration (who has an iron grip on everything) views computers as these techno-temples, never to be desecrated with somthing fun. while most of the students(who use them) see the PCs as gorified toys to be poked proded and generaly made to do intersting stuff. Needless to say that this has caused a great amount of friction.
Recently there have been a few products put on the market, which bear a resemblance to the hitchhikers' guide described in the book. None of these however can provide the type of information access described in the book (maybe a palm V + access to Everything. my question is if you think that there is currently a product on the market such as the palm V, or the TI-XX which has an opportunity to become a Guide type appliance? Do you think that the ability to instantly gain an understanding of things encountered in daily life will change the way anyone acts?
Somwhere I heard that the original plan was to sell the things for $499.95, w/ $5/month service. As you can tell the dohicky is a little pricy so the company droped it to $99 and upped the price. I'm sure that netpliance would love to be able to make their money on the hardware, but it just doesn't look like that is gonna happen. As for slamming people they went a little overboard there.
If Microsoft were to attempt anything like this to get the DOJ off their back it most certainly would not comply with the Debian Free software guidelines Don't even bother hoping for GPL. expect to be able to read the code and have a good laugh but don't count on being able to use it. Second it is my understanding that non-GPL code is not permitted in the linux kernel. So even if the license did allow use no good would come to linux.
Mathmatical Genius, came up with an idea for a programmable computer during WWII, drew up designs for a machine to decrypt enigma messages need I say more?
Slashdot Mirror
Drexel University is doing this too. They started putting up the 'hubs' about a year ago, so far the coverage is spotty. As for authentication, you have to register your card's MAC address with them. They reseve the right to intercept traffic. To make a long story short untill all the bugs are worked out(im giving it 5 to 6 years) it's gonna be more trouble than it's worth.
First off let me state that if you decide to take computer engineering, be prepared to do engineering. Expect to be doing more physics, Chem, Math and whatnot than you can shake an AP course at. After that my understanding is that most colleges are simalar to drexel, where i go. ECE or computer engineering, is pretty much Electrical Engineering, with a focus on ICs, and computer systems. if you like to understand & owuld like to design the hardware that means ECE, where as OSs could be more a CS thing. However there is a whole lot of ever lap.
This type of censorship is more common than most people seem to think. For example:
my highschool had an art exibit a few years ago. Every single object was a student's work of art. the exibit was left up in the main lobby for a few weeks. however one sculpture was conspicuously absent, the hate room. This 'room' was a 3 sided structure designed to remind people of the futility of hate. It was the best work in the show, and the most moving work of art i have ever seen. however after 2 days it was moved to a back corner of a computer lab, and taken down 3 days after that. The administration's reason was "some people might feel we are glorifying hate." Needless to say that none of the people who decided this had ever been in 'the hate room'.
have you noticed that irt port scans the entire network on commonly known ports? trust me they probably violate more of their own policies than most of the students do.
The university I attend seems to have an interesting twist on the "we own your data" concept. While it is a violation of university policy for me to break into any other computer on the network, the school aparently reverves the right to bypass all security mesures on any computer on the network. I am personly portscanned by the IT department ever day at 3:30. As soon as i notice this i put up a firewall. however I know at least 3 people who's computers have been broken into. I also have logs of attacks on my computer. the AUP states that having "tools for bypassing network security" is basis for having your network access revoked. After I approched them with evidence of the attacks comming from their section of the network they told me that if I didnt remove the firewall's from my network connection I would have my network access revoked. So far this hasnt happend. Assuming it does, do I have any recourse?
a while ago,(about the time of the smart filter article) my high school sysadmin noticed a site that was popular and temporalily blocked by the school's smartfilter firewall. he therfore manulay added slashdot to the block list. there it stands. my high school has no access to slashdot.
Ok this does a few things.
(1) it allows them to classify the thing as a pc not a console and avoid a tarif.
(2) it gives the ps2 more of a 'neat' factor which it needs now that everyone realizes the graphics aren't as amazing as we thougth they would be(they're good dont get me wrong but i heard sutff like bugslife quality in realtime.)
(3)it gives people who may have been waiting for another overpriced console (xbox or gamecube) and reason to buy the ps2. sure you will probably be able to develop for the xbox on your pc in C++ but YAbasic will likely be so much easier. add that to the need to burn stuff on to CD in order to debug it and youve got some serious reasons to buy a ps2.
Problems
(1) OS X APIs (Carbon, <sp>Coca</sp> etc) are not Open source / known to officaly be proted to other OSs.
(2) only the kernel and most of the CLI of OS X is OpenSource, the GUI is prety much 100% Apple only.
[theory 1]
(1) MS will probably use Carbon which is a pre OS X compatablity layer think of it as a WINE type program for going between OS X and Mac OS 7-9.
(2) Carbon is not currently portable off OS X (no implementations for linux etc) and it is not anything like Open source or even free(beer) software. and it doesn't look like it's going to be.
Remember that if you are being overseen or somthing of that nature there could always be a conflict over basic views of computing. In my school the administration (who has an iron grip on everything) views computers as these techno-temples, never to be desecrated with somthing fun. while most of the students(who use them) see the PCs as gorified toys to be poked proded and generaly made to do intersting stuff. Needless to say that this has caused a great amount of friction.
Recently there have been a few products put on the market, which bear a resemblance to the hitchhikers' guide described in the book. None of these however can provide the type of information access described in the book (maybe a palm V + access to Everything. my question is if you think that there is currently a product on the market such as the palm V, or the TI-XX which has an opportunity to become a Guide type appliance? Do you think that the ability to instantly gain an understanding of things encountered in daily life will change the way anyone acts?
Somwhere I heard that the original plan was to sell the things for $499.95, w/ $5/month service. As you can tell the dohicky is a little pricy so the company droped it to $99 and upped the price. I'm sure that netpliance would love to be able to make their money on the hardware, but it just doesn't look like that is gonna happen. As for slamming people they went a little overboard there.
If Microsoft were to attempt anything like this to get the DOJ off their back it most certainly would not comply with the Debian Free software guidelines Don't even bother hoping for GPL. expect to be able to read the code and have a good laugh but don't count on being able to use it. Second it is my understanding that non-GPL code is not permitted in the linux kernel. So even if the license did allow use no good would come to linux.
Mathmatical Genius, came up with an idea for a programmable computer during WWII, drew up designs for a machine to decrypt enigma messages need I say more?