You are correct...the internet is a positive thing in that it connects people and allows communication anywhere. Communication is always good. Sometimes communication may reveal things we don't like, but those are opportunities to reason, consider, and reflect on those things, not a reason to stuff those things in a dark place and throw away the key. Communication helps more than it could ever hurt.
While it might be ironic that some countries like that would choose Linux...look at it this way: it can't hurt. In fact, it can only help. Hopefully people will embrace the free (in both senses) nature of Linux and Open Source and the FSF's ideals, and demand the same from their government.
China, the repressor of human rights, liberties, and free speech, and the one who cracks down, restricts and censors internet usage....China is mandating Linux?...Finland I can see, but China?...
Actually yes...starting with, like, DOS 4.0 or something.
There is nothing in Word9x that I use now but couldn't in Word 5 or 6, or WordPerfect 5+ for that matter.
Program manager has mutated into a taskbar, and file manager explorer. Besides cruft and glitzy uselessness, I haven't found anything really/innovative/ between many versions of many of their products (say, like the last 3 or 4 revs of the office suite)...except of course if you count the FPS and Flight Simulater easter eggs.
I do not think that MS would be where it is today, purely on technical/usability merits, if it hadn't tirelessly sought to undercut, and stomp on everybody else.
problem is, microsoft doesn't respond to competition by making a better product...it responds to competition by FUD, buyouts, shading deals, backstabbing, intimidation, etc.
I think if MS responded to competition by simply making their stuff BETTER, instead of trying to trip up or break other people's stuff, this trial wouldn't be happening.
I think break up isn't such a great idea, or perhaps I should say break up along product lines. Microsoft is guilty of preventing other people from developing products or technologies that hurt their products. If we break MS by product lines, NOTHING will change. Each will still use predetory practices with it's OWN little slice of monopoly (Office App monopoly, OS monopoly, etc.). Breaking MS up by product lines is just breaking a monopoly into its composite monopolies. That won't work.
I think source code release isn't such a great idea either. Who the hell wants their crappy source? The only reason anybody/wants/ it because to succeed, one has to integrate and assimilate into the OS monopoly MS has. When the monopoly goes, nobody will give a damn about MS code.
Somehow Microsoft needs to be forced from conducting itself in a predatory way...from using its monopolies to force OEMS to do things, from unfairly entering other markets, etc. It's the/behavior/ that needs to be remedied. I'm not sure how to do about this though.
Kramer worm: Enters and leaves system randomly at own volition, pilfering files and leaving others strewn around open.
Newman virus: The newman virus compromises sendmail and pop services. Every once in a while something bad will happen unexpectedly...this will be due to Newman.
George worm: George is pretty much harmless. It often gorges on files in the/var or/temp directory, and frequently thwarts itself. George is the product of the merging of two equally dysfunctional parent worms.
Yes, Wolf3d had atmosphere, macabre...something todays games don't. You could really feel you were actually IN the heart of the 3rd Reich...a lot of it was actually the feel of/exploring/.
"Yes, I laugh at the power of a VIC-20 (and the other PCs of the time), but for both reasons. I laugh at their punyness compared to now, and their might compared to the 40's."
Actually, I'm in awe of machines like that. Back then, nothing had been done on the topic. There was no "computing". These machines were basically the original brainchilds from individual people's imaginations. Nowadays everything has already been done...to make a faster chip you just decrease circuit width...etc. Sure people still design new circuits, but they have a wealth of fundamental stuff at their disposal. Back then this was absolutely amazing...people didn't even know if it was/possible/. It must've been really cool to see this big box returning/correct/ answers to you!
Yes, it was funny when the British from Bletchley talked to them, and the first thing they asked was, what was the plugboard arrangement, and the Polish said: "A, B, C, D, E, F, G..." and the British hit themselves on the forehead. That was another stupid move on the Germans' part.
But according to PBS, the Germans changed something, and from then on the Polish guys were not able to crack anything. This apparently happened pretty early...probably a little before or after the actual attack on poland.
"I wonder why the Germans transmitted the same messages as both plain and encrypted text. I wonder why the Germans transmitted the same messages as both plain and encrypted text."
I don't think they ever did this. In fact, on a purely technical and procedural basis, the German protocol was ver, VERY safe. Except the operators DIDN'T follow protocol because they were lazy or thought the very machine itself guaranteed anything they did was unbreakable. Bletchley Park got their foot in the door because operators did stupid things like send the same phrase in every message, or, in the initialization procedure, send the key twice which stood out like a sore thumb, not resetting the wheels in the morning, or setting the double-keys to something stupid like "BER-LIN", or "MAD-RID"...this was alll human error totally removed from the technical aspect. Doing this would be stupid in any encryption scheme.
Sort of makes you wonder what would have happened if they scheme was never broken. I also almost feel sorry for some of those German generals and commanders, simply not understanding why every single move led them to disaster, and that everything bad happened at exactly the worst times. Rommel, for instance, thought to his death that there was a leak in the highest command of the Italian military which was informing the English. Poor guy...
According to the PBS show, Turing did not make or design Colossus. A person working in the post office (Flowers?) who was somehow related to the project came up with it. It was unique, because instead of relying on entirely mechanical devices, it used 1500 vacuum tubes (compared to the 150 rotator/barrel things of the "Bomb"), and was supposedly the first general programmable computer....although I've heard before the way the Germans had Z1 and Z3 machines which were the true first programmable computers.
According to PBS, Turing developed the "Bomb" to decipher the German Sharp (right?) codes using "cribs". When the Germans developed a new encryption technique (using modulo 2 arithmetic to mask a message with another random message), the allies needed something much different from the special-purpose "Bomb". This Flowers guy came up with the idea to use vacuum tubes, and designed and made the whole thing himself, while people didn't really believe him that it would work.
Also, the PBS special didn't talk much about the US or Japanese. For some reason I'm thinking the "Red" code was used by Italy...I may not be remembering correctly.
Anyway, it is interesting to note that most of the allies' success in decryption was simply due to German user-error and stupidity. E.g., not resetting the code wheels upon the commencement of a new message, or setting them to something obvious or stupid like your name, or "BER-LIN" or "MAD-RID", using double-initialization which stood out in the encrypted codes, using the same phrase in the same place of every message ("Heil Hitler"). I think the Axis could actually have gotten away with it if their operators just used some common sense. Oh, plus, they should've thrown their code books overboard when that one sub was captured...duh.
It was sad to learn that Alan Turing ended up committing suicide because of being gay.
I have a question...is it illegal to simply make MP3s of CDs I OWN and keep and don't distribute?
If not, can I be arrested by hanging my CDs on my front porch if somebody then takes them and copies them? Um, shouldn't it be THEM that get in trouble?
This is going a bit far. Really, I think RIAA and software companies use the "warez"-scare just to inflate their prices ("our product is so expensive because bad people are copying and not paying for it").
'The page you are being refered by is a known hacker website...'
"Can you please explain how you classified Slashdot, a site which reports news, does interviews, and encourages discussion as a Hacker website?"
And even so, what is the point of banning travelers who have come from a supposed "hacker" site. Is there something you want to hide from people who know better?
"Katz and JP simply tear it apart--leading to flame and dogma."
A lot of people like to take pot shots at Katz because it's easy. Sure Katz is often sensational and promotional...he can't escape his journalistic roots...but at least he/sparks/ discussion on issues. You have to credit him for that. He's out of his environment but willing to try and learn. To me that is the most redeeming quality in anybody. I think with even the most wrongheaded or overdone articles, Katz adds value to Slashdot. Nobody needs to make personal attacks on him. If he didn't care he could abandon Slashdot any time he wanted.
On the other hand, I think JP adds no value to anything. In fact, I think the net value of the system would increase if AntiOnline and JP were eliminated.
Are the rumors that you will be spinning off a sister site called Anti-Anti-Anti-Online to dispell the malicious accusations and deprecations of your obviously magnanimous professionalism and intellect and to further bolster the image of Anti-Online and your integrity as a computer-security-expect-guru-enthusiast, true?
In your prescient wisdom were you somehow foreshadowing becoming the bane of the hacker and internet community when you came up with "AntiOnline" as the name for your site?
http://www.attrition.org/negation/ http://www.attrition.org/negation/index2.html http://www.attrition.org/negation/links.html http://www.attrition.org/negation/www/tech.01.ht ml
Can't find the article where JP confuses a nuclear plant in Israel with one in India. That was funny...
Wasn't there recently an article on Slashdot about an accountant/analyst who apparently discovered MS was using a dangerous pyramid-type scheme to inflate its stock? He suggested people sell their stock asap, before it works its way into the retirement system, etc....where it could do major damage if it collapses.
Slashdot Mirror
did my blue and green phosphors burn out, or is this page all in brown and red for some reason?
You are correct...the internet is a positive thing in that it connects people and allows communication anywhere. Communication is always good. Sometimes communication may reveal things we don't like, but those are opportunities to reason, consider, and reflect on those things, not a reason to stuff those things in a dark place and throw away the key. Communication helps more than it could ever hurt.
Yes, the law should more accurately be stated "Speed /per doller/ doubles every 18-24 months"
Throwing money at the problem isn't fair...perhaps they should have normalized these systems based on their price...
While it might be ironic that some countries like that would choose Linux...look at it this way: it can't hurt. In fact, it can only help. Hopefully people will embrace the free (in both senses) nature of Linux and Open Source and the FSF's ideals, and demand the same from their government.
There are two replies to this article that are rather interesting. Follow the links containing:
No boards (nevertheless!), and faster despite cheaper (x, 11,11,1999)
(Enlish butcherization)
This is SO ironic.
China, the repressor of human rights, liberties, and free speech, and the one who cracks down, restricts and censors internet usage....China is mandating Linux?...Finland I can see, but China?...
Actually yes...starting with, like, DOS 4.0 or something.
/innovative/ between many versions of many of their products (say, like the last 3 or 4 revs of the office suite)...except of course if you count the FPS and Flight Simulater easter eggs.
There is nothing in Word9x that I use now but couldn't in Word 5 or 6, or WordPerfect 5+ for that matter.
Program manager has mutated into a taskbar, and file manager explorer. Besides cruft and glitzy uselessness, I haven't found anything really
I do not think that MS would be where it is today, purely on technical/usability merits, if it hadn't tirelessly sought to undercut, and stomp on everybody else.
problem is, microsoft doesn't respond to competition by making a better product...it responds to competition by FUD, buyouts, shading deals, backstabbing, intimidation, etc.
I think if MS responded to competition by simply making their stuff BETTER, instead of trying to trip up or break other people's stuff, this trial wouldn't be happening.
I think break up isn't such a great idea, or perhaps I should say break up along product lines. Microsoft is guilty of preventing other people from developing products or technologies that hurt their products. If we break MS by product lines, NOTHING will change. Each will still use predetory practices with it's OWN little slice of monopoly (Office App monopoly, OS monopoly, etc.). Breaking MS up by product lines is just breaking a monopoly into its composite monopolies. That won't work.
/wants/ it because to succeed, one has to integrate and assimilate into the OS monopoly MS has. When the monopoly goes, nobody will give a damn about MS code.
/behavior/ that needs to be remedied. I'm not sure how to do about this though.
I think source code release isn't such a great idea either. Who the hell wants their crappy source? The only reason anybody
Somehow Microsoft needs to be forced from conducting itself in a predatory way...from using its monopolies to force OEMS to do things, from unfairly entering other markets, etc. It's the
Kramer worm: Enters and leaves system randomly at own volition, pilfering files and leaving others strewn around open.
/var or /temp directory, and frequently thwarts itself. George is the product of the merging of two equally dysfunctional parent worms.
Newman virus: The newman virus compromises sendmail and pop services. Every once in a while something bad will happen unexpectedly...this will be due to Newman.
George worm: George is pretty much harmless. It often gorges on files in the
Yes, Wolf3d had atmosphere, macabre...something todays games don't. You could really feel you were actually IN the heart of the 3rd Reich...a lot of it was actually the feel of /exploring/.
"Yes, I laugh at the power of a VIC-20 (and the other PCs of the time), but for both reasons. I laugh at their punyness compared to now, and their might compared to the 40's."
/possible/. It must've been really cool to see this big box returning /correct/ answers to you!
Actually, I'm in awe of machines like that. Back then, nothing had been done on the topic. There was no "computing". These machines were basically the original brainchilds from individual people's imaginations. Nowadays everything has already been done...to make a faster chip you just decrease circuit width...etc. Sure people still design new circuits, but they have a wealth of fundamental stuff at their disposal. Back then this was absolutely amazing...people didn't even know if it was
Yes, it was funny when the British from Bletchley talked to them, and the first thing they asked was, what was the plugboard arrangement, and the Polish said: "A, B, C, D, E, F, G..." and the British hit themselves on the forehead. That was another stupid move on the Germans' part.
But according to PBS, the Germans changed something, and from then on the Polish guys were not able to crack anything. This apparently happened pretty early...probably a little before or after the actual attack on poland.
"I wonder why the Germans transmitted the same messages as both plain and encrypted text. I wonder why the Germans transmitted the same messages as both plain and encrypted text."
I don't think they ever did this. In fact, on a purely technical and procedural basis, the German protocol was ver, VERY safe. Except the operators DIDN'T follow protocol because they were lazy or thought the very machine itself guaranteed anything they did was unbreakable. Bletchley Park got their foot in the door because operators did stupid things like send the same phrase in every message, or, in the initialization procedure, send the key twice which stood out like a sore thumb, not resetting the wheels in the morning, or setting the double-keys to something stupid like "BER-LIN", or "MAD-RID"...this was alll human error totally removed from the technical aspect. Doing this would be stupid in any encryption scheme.
Sort of makes you wonder what would have happened if they scheme was never broken. I also almost feel sorry for some of those German generals and commanders, simply not understanding why every single move led them to disaster, and that everything bad happened at exactly the worst times. Rommel, for instance, thought to his death that there was a leak in the highest command of the Italian military which was informing the English. Poor guy...
Yeah, plus tomorrow they have another NOVA special at the same time on the origins of the universe, string theory...cool stuff.
According to the PBS show, Turing did not make or design Colossus. A person working in the post office (Flowers?) who was somehow related to the project came up with it. It was unique, because instead of relying on entirely mechanical devices, it used 1500 vacuum tubes (compared to the 150 rotator/barrel things of the "Bomb"), and was supposedly the first general programmable computer....although I've heard before the way the Germans had Z1 and Z3 machines which were the true first programmable computers.
According to PBS, Turing developed the "Bomb" to decipher the German Sharp (right?) codes using "cribs". When the Germans developed a new encryption technique (using modulo 2 arithmetic to mask a message with another random message), the allies needed something much different from the special-purpose "Bomb". This Flowers guy came up with the idea to use vacuum tubes, and designed and made the whole thing himself, while people didn't really believe him that it would work.
Also, the PBS special didn't talk much about the US or Japanese. For some reason I'm thinking the "Red" code was used by Italy...I may not be remembering correctly.
Anyway, it is interesting to note that most of the allies' success in decryption was simply due to German user-error and stupidity. E.g., not resetting the code wheels upon the commencement of a new message, or setting them to something obvious or stupid like your name, or "BER-LIN" or "MAD-RID", using double-initialization which stood out in the encrypted codes, using the same phrase in the same place of every message ("Heil Hitler"). I think the Axis could actually have gotten away with it if their operators just used some common sense. Oh, plus, they should've thrown their code books overboard when that one sub was captured...duh.
It was sad to learn that Alan Turing ended up committing suicide because of being gay.
I have a question...is it illegal to simply make MP3s of CDs I OWN and keep and don't distribute?
If not, can I be arrested by hanging my CDs on my front porch if somebody then takes them and copies them? Um, shouldn't it be THEM that get in trouble?
This is going a bit far. Really, I think RIAA and software companies use the "warez"-scare just to inflate their prices ("our product is so expensive because bad people are copying and not paying for it").
Woohoo! There's another reason I'm going to snatch BeOS as soon as I can. I'm a Java developer, and I think Java support is great for alternative OSs.
'The page you are being refered by is a known hacker website...'
"Can you please explain how you classified Slashdot, a site which reports news, does interviews, and encourages discussion as a Hacker website?"
And even so, what is the point of banning travelers who have come from a supposed "hacker" site. Is there something you want to hide from people who know better?
"Katz and JP simply tear it apart--leading to flame and dogma."
/sparks/ discussion on issues. You have to credit him for that. He's out of his environment but willing to try and learn. To me that is the most redeeming quality in anybody. I think with even the most wrongheaded or overdone articles, Katz adds value to Slashdot. Nobody needs to make personal attacks on him. If he didn't care he could abandon Slashdot any time he wanted.
A lot of people like to take pot shots at Katz because it's easy. Sure Katz is often sensational and promotional...he can't escape his journalistic roots...but at least he
On the other hand, I think JP adds no value to anything. In fact, I think the net value of the system would increase if AntiOnline and JP were eliminated.
Are the rumors that you will be spinning off a sister site called Anti-Anti-Anti-Online to dispell the malicious accusations and deprecations of your obviously magnanimous professionalism and intellect and to further bolster the image of Anti-Online and your integrity as a computer-security-expect-guru-enthusiast, true?
In your prescient wisdom were you somehow foreshadowing becoming the bane of the hacker and internet community when you came up with "AntiOnline" as the name for your site?
found it.
;)
http://www.reznor.com/news/cwd0899.html
I'm saving this one
http://www.attrition.org/negation/t ml
http://www.attrition.org/negation/index2.html
http://www.attrition.org/negation/links.html
http://www.attrition.org/negation/www/tech.01.h
Can't find the article where JP confuses a nuclear plant in Israel with one in India. That was funny...
Wasn't there recently an article on Slashdot about an accountant/analyst who apparently discovered MS was using a dangerous pyramid-type scheme to inflate its stock? He suggested people sell their stock asap, before it works its way into the retirement system, etc....where it could do major damage if it collapses.