Ever play with bar codes? It's fun stuff. Like the time I reverse engineered the student ID barcode at my college, and generated a new one and printed it out with some shareware program and taped it discreetly to my student ID, over the correct one. I could've gotten free meals for a while if my conscience hadn't kicked in 8)
Ok, this is probably flamebait...but this just smacks a little too much of an OS purist (Mac that is) not wanting to admit their OS is a facade over dirty little Unix, so they rationalize it by saying "oh, but Unix is not an OS". I see MacOS X being a whole lot more Unix/BSD/Mach than being traditional MacOS. And I don't really think productivity or internet applications comprise an OS. Windows is still windows even if you don't have a browser.
My point was to say that if the ones who make napster/gnutella/DeCSS are guilty because you can do illegal stuff with them, then the firearms manufacturers are even more guilty, because the worse you can do with firearms is far more damaging than the worse you can do with DeCSS.
You know, you're right. Sure, technically, Gnutella and Napster *themselves* are not doing something illegal. But it could be argued that they are *aiding and abetting* illegal activity. Napster sure isn't being *all* that aggressive in preventing people from doing illegal things. No matter how much people don't like it, some sort of responsibility comes in proportion to the potential or actual illegitimate activity perpetrated on a system. For most small systems, this is negligable...carriers can entirely disclaim responsibility. But in others it's just unethical. Take for example, a small private airplane company who leases planes. Now what if it so happens that every single one of their clients uses their planes to traffic drugs. Sure, they are only in the business of leasing planes, but if they know what is going on and just ignore it and pretend they are ignorant, that is just plain unethical and they should be called on it. It's at least a gray area.
It's funny that one of the largest media/content-producing companies is now going to have to defend something like Gnutella. If they do, I wonder what that says for the technology. If they don't, well...then they're going to have to take the hit in the wallet. Sort of makes you wonder what could be done if there is financial incentive to protect this type of technology (or at least financial counter-incentive if they don't).
On the contrary, my baptism by fire occurred at about age 10 when I accidentally deleted some critical system files (um, along with wordperfect) from our brand spanking new computer. I spent long nights with my nose embedded in tomes of DOS 4.0 books to escape the ire of my parents.
Sometimes the best thing to do is just bang the stuff into your brain with manuals. After the soreness wears off, you'll probably be left with something more substantial.
Many people keep demanding this, and either don't recognize or ignore the fact that it would require massive censorship in order to have a chance of working. Not only do you have to prevent the parties themselves from raising funds illegally (and we all know how well that's been working), you also must prevent private entities from using their own money to express their views. In other words, you must censor political speech, which I believe is a worse cure than the disease.
I don't see why you have to have censorship. PACs and corporations can spend all the money they want on commercials for their favorite candidates as long as "PAID FOR BY XXXXX" is plastered all over it. I'm a lot less likely to be positive about a commercial backed by the tobacco industry, for example. Taking non-citizens out of the loop will be a MAJOR step. Sure, wealthy people will still be able to donate a lot, but at least they won't be able to do it anonymously under the mask of a corporation.
A vote for Nader is not a vote for Bush
http://www.commondreams.org/views/072000-104.htm
There are plenty of other articles about the ramifications (or rather, lack of the difference of ramifications between the two parties) of voting for Nader. One of which is about the invalidity of the scare tactics Democrats are using to make us afraid that Bush will turn back Roe v. Wade, while history shows not only have Republican administrations *not* challenged Roe v. Wade, but in fact it got stronger as opposed to the last Democratic administration.
3) It's got a brutally powerful custom 3D graphics chip [called Flipper] from ArtX, which works intimately with the Gekko processor for maximum efficiency. Developers working on the console are allegedly having no problems pushing nine million polygons at 60 frames per second with preliminary benchmark tests.
If you want a simple-to-understand Linux, one route to go is to get Slackware and install only the "A" and "N" series, installing the minimum number of packages to get up and going on the 'net.
Thanks, that's *exactly* what I want. The most minimal Linux system that can be called Linux, to which I can add things as I understand what those things are. Typically the install (no matter how little you check) dumps mounds of strange binaries around and you can't really tell if it is necessary or not. On a laptop with a 700 MB hard drive it gets annoying having 50-100 MB worth of unknown binaries.
The key thing with each of these issues is the shift from a republic to a democracy, and with each one them resulting in more apathy. Each step of the way, more power has been turned to the common people.
Power turned to the common people is a BAD thing? Bullshit. It is really sad if you actually think two political machines alone constitute a healthy and "grassroots" government. That is rubbish. We are in this shape because barriers have been RAISED to public participation (how many people do you know are actually civil servants or have run for office)? Corporate money floods the political system ensuring that big corporations get a larger voice than citizens. Big money needs to be taken out of politics, campaigns publicly financed so that they are fair, and candidates beholden to the people.
America deserves much more than the anologue of two flavors of vanilla in government. There should be a plurality of ideas and parties and people should be active in them. Not just mindless lever-pullers to be won by multi-million-dollar conventions of all show and no substance.
I'm sure a lot of people don't want to be involved because it is just degrading. If I was only given the choice of the self-serving Democratic and Republican candidates I'd be disgusted out of participating too, which is probably what they want in the first place.
Us geeks are always talking about "choice". Well, if you want choice, help open the debates so that we can get Nader (and Buchanan) into the debates. Please don't be resigned to accept the two choices that are presented to you. America deserves much better than tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber.
Both candidates have a prescripted series of tripe that they know the public will eat up. It's just a ploy, and it's insulting. "I'm not FOR killing babies, like my opponent, I'm against it!" "RAHRAH!" "I'm AGAINST messing up the economy!" "RAHRAH!"
I didn't say they did. But by passing on that tool, they were still breaking the law.
And some backwards places have crazy laws like "You cannot put an ice cream cone in your pocket". Just the other day I heard that some guy, under some stupid no-tolerence law, is spending 35-years-to-life for stealing a bicycle. A friggen $100 BIKE!
Are these people technically breaking the law? YES
Are these laws dumb and should be abolished? YES
Should these laws be challenged and brought to the Supreme Court? YES
People owned slaves once. Don't make it right.
And how do you know he was personally biased? Intent is key to the case, so he has to decide what 2600's motives were in posting it. And he decided that those motives weren't the aid of encryption research, which was really the only thing that would have made it legal.
Well, I read the transcripts and thought he was getting it. But then he found the opposite way, which really surprised me. Sure seems like he was soaking it all up, just to say, "well, I don't believe you, tough". He totally disregarded (or discredited without cause) a lot of testimony.
Yes, but the reverse engineering wasn't done to assess interoperability. That was one of the defenses used, and the judge didn't buy it. The fact that some people later used it to develop an illegal Linux player doesn't change the original reverse engineering. Plus, the key word is "assess," not "implement."
We've already (hopefully) established that DMCA is brain-dead and should be abolished. Reverse engineering, even to *implement* competing products is well established as legal. The player was only illegal insofar as it was contradictory to DMCA, which we've established is wrong in the first place. The judge could have questioned the constitutionality of DMCA...but he didn't. In fact he didn't even make any allowance that this was a grey area, and instead, went the extreme in the other direction, even banning linking to DeCSS code. And I thought that another court just upheld the constitutionality of that.
No, the encryption was intellectual property, like any copyrighted source code. The code to Windows 2000 isn't a "trade secret," and even if it was, you still violate the law by stealing that trade secret.
IANAL, but "trade secret" and "patent" and "copyright" are all different flavors of what could generally be called "intellectual property", and each have their own ramifications. There is a trade-off in using "trade secrets" along the lines of "you don't have to announce it, but if somebody discovers it tough for you". (Is there a lawyer in the house?).
IMHO, the rhetoric is still all wrong. E.g., it is impossible to *steal* a trade secret. I can *discover* a trade secret, but I can't deprive the originator of it. This mentality of physical property is just what MPAA, et al., want to foist on the consciousness of the American people. They want us to think their enemies are all peg-legged pirates roaming some digital sea "stealing" and pillaging their intellectual property, depriving them of a product won by their hard work. It just doesn't work that way.
*KNOCK* *KNOCK* This is MasterCard, you are infringing on our ad phrases. Because people might become confused and think you are representing MasterCard or that MasterCard is sponsoring your posts, we are going to sue you now.
For example, in New York state, I believe, women are legally allowed to go topless. Yet, if some kid in a public library without filters, sees some boobies, OH NO HE HAS BEEN SCARRED FOR LIFE!
Makes me wonder why type of engineer, what type of geek, will create something like CSS, barking on command from a suit, without even giving it thought, without being ashamed. I would quit my job if I was ordered to do something like that (or to lie about a hole in software, or to insert an unethical backdoor, etc.). I think this goes for a lot of the geek/techie/engineer/whatever community. The more proficient you are, the sharper you are, the higher esteem you are held in, the MORE ethical you are - you realize while it may be display of skill, cracking is lame; you realize that instead of flaming newbies, you should actually help them along, etc. I think it's called something, hmm...ah, yes, maturity. Sort of an unwritten code.
So I wonder what type of engineers these were, and how they rationalized what they were doing (perhaps they weren't told). Or perhaps the fact that a couple of teenagers cracked CSS in a matter of days, sheds enough light, with respect to the above paragraph.
My question is, for all those who really don't think global warming is happening, or perhaps are sitting on the fence and think the data is inconclusive...why are so many of the same people so adamantly *against* better ecological protection anyway? Let's just say all the non-believers are really correct. The earth is not warming. We're getting worked up over nothing. Now then, how does it *hurt* to protect the environment more?
On the other hand, if global warming *does* exist we are screwing ourselves. It would seem to me that those who don't think it exists, or are unsure, should at least admit it wouldn't hurt to care the environment more. It's sort of like saying my car has run for 200,000 miles and hasn't needed a tune up: therefore I refuse to give it a tune-up!! It doesn't hurt to bring it into the garage, but it sure will hurt when it falls apart in the middle of the desert.
Excellent information. If the moderation system was half-sane I'd mod you up now. I wonder if they considered a hard drive a "digital audio recording device"? Anyway, it doesn't cause me any grief knowing the recording industry is not getting money it feels it "deserves". I just care about the artists.
Well, I have a Red Hat 4.2 Unleashed and it is basically a compilation of random information about installing and administration and then stuff like Tk/Tcl, Perl, etc.
Doesn't seem to really be a comprehensive guide to the system, just explains the points they think are "important" (obviously that include Motif and Tcl programming).
But I'll try to find a decent reference to get my head straight.
Damn...I'm always wanting people give me *real* specs, or have them sit down and *discuss* design issues with me. But here any pseudo-formal design methodology is anathema, "code review" is an obscene word, specs are laughed at, "design issues" are solved fifteen minutes to 5:00 on Friday, and testing is logging in from home on weekends to fix bugs.
I always thought I was lazy or anal trying to design and picture and rationalize all my decisions before coding.
Sheesh. I wish people here would understand that a semi-formal (standardized even!) design process is not contrary to being a hacker.
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Ever play with bar codes? It's fun stuff. Like the time I reverse engineered the student ID barcode at my college, and generated a new one and printed it out with some shareware program and taped it discreetly to my student ID, over the correct one. I could've gotten free meals for a while if my conscience hadn't kicked in 8)
Ok, this is probably flamebait...but this just smacks a little too much of an OS purist (Mac that is) not wanting to admit their OS is a facade over dirty little Unix, so they rationalize it by saying "oh, but Unix is not an OS". I see MacOS X being a whole lot more Unix/BSD/Mach than being traditional MacOS. And I don't really think productivity or internet applications comprise an OS. Windows is still windows even if you don't have a browser.
You know, you're right. Sure, technically, Gnutella and Napster *themselves* are not doing something illegal. But it could be argued that they are *aiding and abetting* illegal activity. Napster sure isn't being *all* that aggressive in preventing people from doing illegal things. No matter how much people don't like it, some sort of responsibility comes in proportion to the potential or actual illegitimate activity perpetrated on a system. For most small systems, this is negligable...carriers can entirely disclaim responsibility. But in others it's just unethical. Take for example, a small private airplane company who leases planes. Now what if it so happens that every single one of their clients uses their planes to traffic drugs. Sure, they are only in the business of leasing planes, but if they know what is going on and just ignore it and pretend they are ignorant, that is just plain unethical and they should be called on it. It's at least a gray area.
It's funny that one of the largest media/content-producing companies is now going to have to defend something like Gnutella. If they do, I wonder what that says for the technology. If they don't, well...then they're going to have to take the hit in the wallet. Sort of makes you wonder what could be done if there is financial incentive to protect this type of technology (or at least financial counter-incentive if they don't).
On the contrary, my baptism by fire occurred at about age 10 when I accidentally deleted some critical system files (um, along with wordperfect) from our brand spanking new computer. I spent long nights with my nose embedded in tomes of DOS 4.0 books to escape the ire of my parents.
Sometimes the best thing to do is just bang the stuff into your brain with manuals. After the soreness wears off, you'll probably be left with something more substantial.
I don't see why you have to have censorship. PACs and corporations can spend all the money they want on commercials for their favorite candidates as long as "PAID FOR BY XXXXX" is plastered all over it. I'm a lot less likely to be positive about a commercial backed by the tobacco industry, for example. Taking non-citizens out of the loop will be a MAJOR step. Sure, wealthy people will still be able to donate a lot, but at least they won't be able to do it anonymously under the mask of a corporation.
The next trendy shape will be a sphere, so you can play with the computer too. Perhaps bowling.
A vote for Nader is not a vote for Bushm
http://www.commondreams.org/views/072000-104.ht
There are plenty of other articles about the ramifications (or rather, lack of the difference of ramifications between the two parties) of voting for Nader. One of which is about the invalidity of the scare tactics Democrats are using to make us afraid that Bush will turn back Roe v. Wade, while history shows not only have Republican administrations *not* challenged Roe v. Wade, but in fact it got stronger as opposed to the last Democratic administration.
The very same ArtX as this?
Thanks, that's *exactly* what I want. The most minimal Linux system that can be called Linux, to which I can add things as I understand what those things are. Typically the install (no matter how little you check) dumps mounds of strange binaries around and you can't really tell if it is necessary or not. On a laptop with a 700 MB hard drive it gets annoying having 50-100 MB worth of unknown binaries.
If they could write CSS they could probably get any of numerous computer jobs.
Anybody have a translation of this?
Power turned to the common people is a BAD thing? Bullshit. It is really sad if you actually think two political machines alone constitute a healthy and "grassroots" government. That is rubbish. We are in this shape because barriers have been RAISED to public participation (how many people do you know are actually civil servants or have run for office)? Corporate money floods the political system ensuring that big corporations get a larger voice than citizens. Big money needs to be taken out of politics, campaigns publicly financed so that they are fair, and candidates beholden to the people.
America deserves much more than the anologue of two flavors of vanilla in government. There should be a plurality of ideas and parties and people should be active in them. Not just mindless lever-pullers to be won by multi-million-dollar conventions of all show and no substance.
I'm sure a lot of people don't want to be involved because it is just degrading. If I was only given the choice of the self-serving Democratic and Republican candidates I'd be disgusted out of participating too, which is probably what they want in the first place.
Us geeks are always talking about "choice". Well, if you want choice, help open the debates so that we can get Nader (and Buchanan) into the debates. Please don't be resigned to accept the two choices that are presented to you. America deserves much better than tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber.
http://www.debatethis.org/
Both candidates have a prescripted series of tripe that they know the public will eat up. It's just a ploy, and it's insulting. "I'm not FOR killing babies, like my opponent, I'm against it!" "RAHRAH!" "I'm AGAINST messing up the economy!" "RAHRAH!"
Don't like lobbyists and special interests corrupting your government? Well...see my sig...
(as Nader says, "government of the Exxons,
by the General Motors, for the Duponts")
And some backwards places have crazy laws like "You cannot put an ice cream cone in your pocket". Just the other day I heard that some guy, under some stupid no-tolerence law, is spending 35-years-to-life for stealing a bicycle. A friggen $100 BIKE!
Are these people technically breaking the law? YES
Are these laws dumb and should be abolished? YES
Should these laws be challenged and brought to the Supreme Court? YES
People owned slaves once. Don't make it right.
Well, I read the transcripts and thought he was getting it. But then he found the opposite way, which really surprised me. Sure seems like he was soaking it all up, just to say, "well, I don't believe you, tough". He totally disregarded (or discredited without cause) a lot of testimony.
We've already (hopefully) established that DMCA is brain-dead and should be abolished. Reverse engineering, even to *implement* competing products is well established as legal. The player was only illegal insofar as it was contradictory to DMCA, which we've established is wrong in the first place. The judge could have questioned the constitutionality of DMCA...but he didn't. In fact he didn't even make any allowance that this was a grey area, and instead, went the extreme in the other direction, even banning linking to DeCSS code. And I thought that another court just upheld the constitutionality of that.
IANAL, but "trade secret" and "patent" and "copyright" are all different flavors of what could generally be called "intellectual property", and each have their own ramifications. There is a trade-off in using "trade secrets" along the lines of "you don't have to announce it, but if somebody discovers it tough for you". (Is there a lawyer in the house?).
IMHO, the rhetoric is still all wrong. E.g., it is impossible to *steal* a trade secret. I can *discover* a trade secret, but I can't deprive the originator of it. This mentality of physical property is just what MPAA, et al., want to foist on the consciousness of the American people. They want us to think their enemies are all peg-legged pirates roaming some digital sea "stealing" and pillaging their intellectual property, depriving them of a product won by their hard work. It just doesn't work that way.
*KNOCK* *KNOCK* This is MasterCard, you are infringing on our ad phrases. Because people might become confused and think you are representing MasterCard or that MasterCard is sponsoring your posts, we are going to sue you now.
For example, in New York state, I believe, women are legally allowed to go topless. Yet, if some kid in a public library without filters, sees some boobies, OH NO HE HAS BEEN SCARRED FOR LIFE!
Makes me wonder why type of engineer, what type of geek, will create something like CSS, barking on command from a suit, without even giving it thought, without being ashamed. I would quit my job if I was ordered to do something like that (or to lie about a hole in software, or to insert an unethical backdoor, etc.). I think this goes for a lot of the geek/techie/engineer/whatever community. The more proficient you are, the sharper you are, the higher esteem you are held in, the MORE ethical you are - you realize while it may be display of skill, cracking is lame; you realize that instead of flaming newbies, you should actually help them along, etc. I think it's called something, hmm...ah, yes, maturity. Sort of an unwritten code.
So I wonder what type of engineers these were, and how they rationalized what they were doing (perhaps they weren't told). Or perhaps the fact that a couple of teenagers cracked CSS in a matter of days, sheds enough light, with respect to the above paragraph.
My question is, for all those who really don't think global warming is happening, or perhaps are sitting on the fence and think the data is inconclusive...why are so many of the same people so adamantly *against* better ecological protection anyway? Let's just say all the non-believers are really correct. The earth is not warming. We're getting worked up over nothing. Now then, how does it *hurt* to protect the environment more?
On the other hand, if global warming *does* exist we are screwing ourselves. It would seem to me that those who don't think it exists, or are unsure, should at least admit it wouldn't hurt to care the environment more. It's sort of like saying my car has run for 200,000 miles and hasn't needed a tune up: therefore I refuse to give it a tune-up!! It doesn't hurt to bring it into the garage, but it sure will hurt when it falls apart in the middle of the desert.
Excellent information. If the moderation system was half-sane I'd mod you up now. I wonder if they considered a hard drive a "digital audio recording device"? Anyway, it doesn't cause me any grief knowing the recording industry is not getting money it feels it "deserves". I just care about the artists.
Ok, I actually forgot what the response was, but I thought it was rather clueful that he asked it in the first place.
Well, I have a Red Hat 4.2 Unleashed and it is basically a compilation of random information about installing and administration and then stuff like Tk/Tcl, Perl, etc.
Doesn't seem to really be a comprehensive guide to the system, just explains the points they think are "important" (obviously that include Motif and Tcl programming).
But I'll try to find a decent reference to get my head straight.
Damn...I'm always wanting people give me *real* specs, or have them sit down and *discuss* design issues with me. But here any pseudo-formal design methodology is anathema, "code review" is an obscene word, specs are laughed at, "design issues" are solved fifteen minutes to 5:00 on Friday, and testing is logging in from home on weekends to fix bugs.
I always thought I was lazy or anal trying to design and picture and rationalize all my decisions before coding.
Sheesh. I wish people here would understand that a semi-formal (standardized even!) design process is not contrary to being a hacker.