Oh please. If you're going to try to make a defense of an invalid point,
spare us the "you didn't read my posting" defense.
If you're now making the point that politics and government abuse (which were some of the points which you seem to be trying to duck) don't
impact everyone, perhaps you could explain why these issues are of such interest to the news media?
And could you also please give us one example where a broken security
model on the internet didn't cause problems later on? Thanks.
One is either secure, or one isn't. There's a word for partial security;
it's called "broken".
Unfortunately, your argument goes out the window when applied to legitimate
political protests. The loss of true anonymous service weakens those
movements who either want or require such anonymity.
It also lends itself to abuse; and the CIA (and other government institutions)
have historically demonstrated that their powers are subject (I daresay prone)
to abuse by the people we employ to work in those agencies.
I trust you are aware that the U.S. and Britian have had a long agreement
to spy upon each others citizens - and to turn that information over
to the government of the citizen being spied upon?
In any case, your basic premise is false. The reason why people go to
anonymizing services is that they feel they have the need to conduct
their own affairs in private. If they didn't have this desire, they wouldn't
be going there.
So what you are suggesting is that there's a market for people who want to
be partly anonymous. Perhaps there is - but there are cheaper
solutions than what SafeWeb and the other companies the CIA has investments
in are peddling.
It remains to be seen whether Safeweb can build a business when technies
view the company as untrustworthy. Perhaps they can; I for one certainly
wouldn't invest in it.
Sorry, but safeweb is a joke. First of all, the CIA is one of their investors
(
see this link
)
Secondly, just go to their site. You won't get very far unless you have javascript turned on. Javascript is such an insecure technology, it makes MS Windows look secure.
Anybody trusting Safeweb is just itching to get burned. All IMHO of course.
Business Week is one of the more important and respected publications in business. While this isn't a scientific poll, I wouldn't be surprised to see it quoted, regardless of how it turns out.
Note that the last mod time, as I write this, is Jan 22, 2001 - so it hasn't been changed yet. It looks like section 2.6 is going to be removed.
One has to wonder why rtlinux screwed up here. This seems like a ton of bad publicity for such a minor change. To say nothing about the negative publicity over a patent (and a patent that wouldn't hold up in court, no less).
Yes, the word "best" is a general term, and often misused. It really does depend on the job being done, of course.
The point here is that if you keep a closed mind, either for CLI's or GUI's, you may be ignoring a better solution for the task at hand. And only by keeping an open mind, thereby knowing your options and tools, can you choose the right tool for what you have to do.
There are times when CLI tools are superiour And there are times when GUI's
are superiour. If you don't know when each is best used, and how, you are
not up to your full potential as a programmer.
Personally, I believe in keeping an open mind, and using the best tool
for the job. This allows me to do the best job possible.
Now then, ask your bigoted friend if he does anything less. If this doesn't
shut him/her up, then his reply will be most amusing.
I remember working at a well-known research outfit back in 1995. Our groups' boss got invited to a meeting the of the big Hollywood honchos, who were discussing how to handle copyright and distribution with the advent of the Internet and the way computer technology was progressing.
He came back to tell us that they were deep in conversation about how passing the right laws in the U.S. and around the world was the only answer. He suddenly broke in with the question "Instead of trying to figure out how to restrict access, why don't you focus on how to make money off this new technology?".
The response was dead silence for several seconds. And then they went right on back to how they needed to get Congress to pass the right laws.
And so, the DMCA was born the next year - resulting in the situation we are now in. And they still haven't figured out how to make money off the Internet. Go figure.
Let's see if I understand this correctly. The U.S. passes the DMCA. The U.S.
gets a bunch of other countries to sign the FTAA. The EFF then gets
parts of the DMCA either changed, repealed or ruled as unconstitutional.
And presumably the same parts of the FTAA are invalid as well.
So American programmers can code as they were before.
However the other countries (who don't have such strong protections
on Freedom of Speech, or Fair Use) are still stuck with the FTAA.
So Americans are no long affected - but not those in the countries
foolish enough to sign the FTAA. And the American software wins
big time.
This seems like a con-job to me. The question is - are the other countries
dumb enough to fall for it?
With all due respect to Richard Smith, he seems to have completely missed
the point of Full Disclosure.
His argument basically boils down to "Security through Obscurity"; and anyone
who has delt with security knows that this leads to no security at all.
Yes, there is "one hell of a price tag". Chalk it up to the hidden price tag
of Windows.
What in the world do you expect of an architecture where blatant
security flaws are deliberately ignored? What do you expect from a company
which has publically stated that "security gets in the way"? And what do you
expect from a company where the average time to release a security patch
is about 60 days?
One expects problems - serious problems. And Smith's argument is an attempt
to cover these problems up. This hinders how bad the situation really is.
While some people might like to stick their head in the sand and not know
the truth, this does not make our infrastructure stronger.
Quite frankly, given how insecure Microsofts' software has been historically, I would expect
a strong attempt by them to try to do away with Full Disclosure. It is
certainly a lot cheaper than having to fix the problems properly in the
first place. While I would not accuse Mr. Smith of being a Microsoft shill,
I would certainly say that he is misguided here.
Full Disclosure helps keep Microsoft honest. Anything less is an attempt to
gloss over the fact that Windows is flawed; and that anyone who uses it
has to pay an additional hidden tax due to its serious security flaws.
Please let us deal with the truth, and stick to the truth. Anything less
is deceitful; nor will it stop experienced pros from exploiting the
existing flaws. Lack of full disclosure will however, lull people into a
false sense of security.
And as we have seen with the Code Red worm, the price of a false sense of
security can be very expensive.
"Gates has declared the unacceptably slow rollout of high-speed Internet
connections to be the primary barrier to improving the high-tech economy."
Does anyone else find it sadly amusing that the world's biggest
monopolist is whining about the limiting effects about other big
monopolies?
However the fact that Bill Gates is finally admitting that monopolies
do indeed hinder the high-tech economy is a step in the right direction.:)
But guess what? Now that the Baby Bells have nearly killed all their
DSL competition, and raised their rates, they are now targetting the
independent ISPs!
"ISPs in California are accusing SBC Communications of trying to run them out of the broadband business."
See this article at techtv.com.
So the ISP's are next, and they may go down just like the CLEC's did.
Unless the Justice Department steps in and breaks up the
Baby Bell monopolies. Knowing how long this takes, it makes me wonder if the independent ISPs will survive.
Here are some little known facts about this case - at least ones which I haven't seen covered in the media, or on the Free-Dmitry mailing lists.
Dmitry's company made an extremely smart move in hiring Joe Burton for their lawyer here. He's the same one who represented Kelly Goen and Phil Zimmerman when they were being investigated by the Grand Jury for PGP.
Joe Burton is arguably the best lawyer in the world for this case. Not only is he experienced in this area, he's an ex-Fed prosecutor (IIRC) and knows all the people involved on the Government side of things. He also believed strongly in the rights of people to use strong cryptography, and represented Kelly and Phil for free.
IMHO he's a rare bird; and I wish we had more like him.
Here's another extremely little known fact about the PGP case. Joe wouldn't touch handling suing the Feds involved with a ten-foot pole for violating Phil and Kelly's constitutional rights on Freedom of Speech with PGP. Apparantly he's still a little too close to some of the Feds to do this.
But I still think he's the best person for handling the criminal case. I would personally choose another for handling the civil-rights violation countersuit against Adobe and the Feds though. It will be interesting to see who's the best lawyer for this one.
This device could actually be used to help bring an end to the incredibly
stupid notion of software patents.
Suppose we had a GNU project to do something similar; and published each
and every solution which resulted - distributing this effort among thousands
of GNU advocates.
These solutions could be used to blunt future patents based upon the resulting
"prior art" from this effort. And software would be free to progress as it once did.
My mistake; that's what I get for posting late. SBC is hardly a subsidiary of Verzion.
It's SBC who's trying to force PPoE on everyone.
Don't forget SBC (Verizon)'s other crack down
on
Broadband Crackdown
·
· Score: 1
Lest anyone forget, SBC (a subsiderary of Verizon) is trying to get all non-business DSL customers to switch to PPPoE - in part to protect
their T1 business (according to SBC's own statement).
I doubt we'd be seeing this kind of monopolistic behavior if we had some real competition in this area. The governments' slap-on-the-wrist
hardly seems effective.
What is wrong here are the reasons why he was arrested. The implications
hit home for every software developer in America.
The first issue is that of Fair Use. We used to have the clear right to
reverse engineer hardware and software. The DMCA has changed it so that
this right is no longer clear. Which has a tremendous impact on every
American if this law is kept in its current form, with things we commonly
take for granted.
Like books.
The second issue is whether software is free speech. According to the
DMCA, and some present rulings, even publishing his code in a book is
against the law - and will get you thrown in jail for 5 years.
One can publish books on bomb-making and other subjects which many object to.
But not on how to create your own backups? Something is clearly wrong with
this picture.
Someone should publish a book called "This Book is Illegal", containing the
silly XOR algorithm used in Adobe's e-books. I think many Judges would
have a hard time throwing someone in Federal Prison for this. And if they
didn't, it would indeed be a sad day for America.
Even now, some researchers have been threatened with legal action if they present their papers - all because of the DMCA.
I submit that the suppression of free thought and free speech is not something this country stands for. And has historically proven to have a very bad impact on the citizens of such societies.
That is what is wrong with this case, my friend.
And why the DMCA must either be changed or repealed.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're now making the point that politics and government abuse (which were some of the points which you seem to be trying to duck) don't impact everyone, perhaps you could explain why these issues are of such interest to the news media?
And could you also please give us one example where a broken security model on the internet didn't cause problems later on? Thanks.
One has to wonder why a 2 year old mirror is left around. But in any case, courtesy of google, here's a more recent collection of pages.
the skyos.org site is /.'d right now. If you want a site that is currently working, try
http://lightning.prohosting.com/~skyos/
Unfortunately, your argument goes out the window when applied to legitimate political protests. The loss of true anonymous service weakens those movements who either want or require such anonymity.
It also lends itself to abuse; and the CIA (and other government institutions) have historically demonstrated that their powers are subject (I daresay prone) to abuse by the people we employ to work in those agencies.
I trust you are aware that the U.S. and Britian have had a long agreement to spy upon each others citizens - and to turn that information over to the government of the citizen being spied upon?
In any case, your basic premise is false. The reason why people go to anonymizing services is that they feel they have the need to conduct their own affairs in private. If they didn't have this desire, they wouldn't be going there.
So what you are suggesting is that there's a market for people who want to be partly anonymous. Perhaps there is - but there are cheaper solutions than what SafeWeb and the other companies the CIA has investments in are peddling.
It remains to be seen whether Safeweb can build a business when technies view the company as untrustworthy. Perhaps they can; I for one certainly wouldn't invest in it.
Secondly, just go to their site. You won't get very far unless you have javascript turned on. Javascript is such an insecure technology, it makes MS Windows look secure.
Anybody trusting Safeweb is just itching to get burned. All IMHO of course.
It's at: http://businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2001/nf 20010914_2935.htm
Business Week is one of the more important and respected publications in business. While this isn't a scientific poll, I wouldn't be surprised to see it quoted, regardless of how it turns out.
Note that the last mod time, as I write this, is Jan 22, 2001 - so it hasn't been changed yet. It looks like section 2.6 is going to be removed.
One has to wonder why rtlinux screwed up here. This seems like a ton of bad publicity for such a minor change. To say nothing about the negative publicity over a patent (and a patent that wouldn't hold up in court, no less).
Yes, the word "best" is a general term, and often misused. It really does depend on the job being done, of course.
The point here is that if you keep a closed mind, either for CLI's or GUI's, you may be ignoring a better solution for the task at hand. And only by keeping an open mind, thereby knowing your options and tools, can you choose the right tool for what you have to do.
There are times when CLI tools are superiour And there are times when GUI's
are superiour. If you don't know when each is best used, and how, you are
not up to your full potential as a programmer.
Personally, I believe in keeping an open mind, and using the best tool
for the job. This allows me to do the best job possible.
Now then, ask your bigoted friend if he does anything less. If this doesn't
shut him/her up, then his reply will be most amusing.
He came back to tell us that they were deep in conversation about how passing the right laws in the U.S. and around the world was the only answer. He suddenly broke in with the question "Instead of trying to figure out how to restrict access, why don't you focus on how to make money off this new technology?".
The response was dead silence for several seconds. And then they went right on back to how they needed to get Congress to pass the right laws.
And so, the DMCA was born the next year - resulting in the situation we are now in. And they still haven't figured out how to make money off the Internet. Go figure.
However the other countries (who don't have such strong protections on Freedom of Speech, or Fair Use) are still stuck with the FTAA.
So Americans are no long affected - but not those in the countries foolish enough to sign the FTAA. And the American software wins big time.
This seems like a con-job to me. The question is - are the other countries dumb enough to fall for it?
His argument basically boils down to "Security through Obscurity"; and anyone who has delt with security knows that this leads to no security at all.
Yes, there is "one hell of a price tag". Chalk it up to the hidden price tag of Windows.
What in the world do you expect of an architecture where blatant security flaws are deliberately ignored? What do you expect from a company which has publically stated that "security gets in the way"? And what do you expect from a company where the average time to release a security patch is about 60 days?
One expects problems - serious problems. And Smith's argument is an attempt to cover these problems up. This hinders how bad the situation really is. While some people might like to stick their head in the sand and not know the truth, this does not make our infrastructure stronger.
Quite frankly, given how insecure Microsofts' software has been historically, I would expect a strong attempt by them to try to do away with Full Disclosure. It is certainly a lot cheaper than having to fix the problems properly in the first place. While I would not accuse Mr. Smith of being a Microsoft shill, I would certainly say that he is misguided here.
Full Disclosure helps keep Microsoft honest. Anything less is an attempt to gloss over the fact that Windows is flawed; and that anyone who uses it has to pay an additional hidden tax due to its serious security flaws.
Please let us deal with the truth, and stick to the truth. Anything less is deceitful; nor will it stop experienced pros from exploiting the existing flaws. Lack of full disclosure will however, lull people into a false sense of security.
And as we have seen with the Code Red worm, the price of a false sense of security can be very expensive.
Does anyone else find it sadly amusing that the world's biggest monopolist is whining about the limiting effects about other big monopolies? However the fact that Bill Gates is finally admitting that monopolies do indeed hinder the high-tech economy is a step in the right direction. :)
But guess what? Now that the Baby Bells have nearly killed all their DSL competition, and raised their rates, they are now targetting the independent ISPs! "ISPs in California are accusing SBC Communications of trying to run them out of the broadband business." See this article at techtv.com.
So the ISP's are next, and they may go down just like the CLEC's did. Unless the Justice Department steps in and breaks up the Baby Bell monopolies. Knowing how long this takes, it makes me wonder if the independent ISPs will survive.
The latest netcraft survey can be found here: http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
Dmitry's company made an extremely smart move in hiring Joe Burton for their lawyer here. He's the same one who represented Kelly Goen and Phil Zimmerman when they were being investigated by the Grand Jury for PGP.
Joe Burton is arguably the best lawyer in the world for this case. Not only is he experienced in this area, he's an ex-Fed prosecutor (IIRC) and knows all the people involved on the Government side of things. He also believed strongly in the rights of people to use strong cryptography, and represented Kelly and Phil for free.
IMHO he's a rare bird; and I wish we had more like him.
Here's another extremely little known fact about the PGP case. Joe wouldn't touch handling suing the Feds involved with a ten-foot pole for violating Phil and Kelly's constitutional rights on Freedom of Speech with PGP. Apparantly he's still a little too close to some of the Feds to do this.
But I still think he's the best person for handling the criminal case. I would personally choose another for handling the civil-rights violation countersuit against Adobe and the Feds though. It will be interesting to see who's the best lawyer for this one.
Suppose we had a GNU project to do something similar; and published each and every solution which resulted - distributing this effort among thousands of GNU advocates.
These solutions could be used to blunt future patents based upon the resulting "prior art" from this effort. And software would be free to progress as it once did.
It's SBC who's trying to force PPoE on everyone.
their T1 business (according to SBC's own statement).
As reported on /.: here.
I doubt we'd be seeing this kind of monopolistic behavior if we had some real competition in this area. The governments' slap-on-the-wrist
hardly seems effective.
What is wrong here are the reasons why he was arrested. The implications hit home for every software developer in America.
The first issue is that of Fair Use. We used to have the clear right to reverse engineer hardware and software. The DMCA has changed it so that this right is no longer clear. Which has a tremendous impact on every American if this law is kept in its current form, with things we commonly take for granted.
Like books.
The second issue is whether software is free speech. According to the DMCA, and some present rulings, even publishing his code in a book is against the law - and will get you thrown in jail for 5 years.
One can publish books on bomb-making and other subjects which many object to. But not on how to create your own backups? Something is clearly wrong with this picture.
Someone should publish a book called "This Book is Illegal", containing the silly XOR algorithm used in Adobe's e-books. I think many Judges would have a hard time throwing someone in Federal Prison for this. And if they didn't, it would indeed be a sad day for America.
Even now, some researchers have been threatened with legal action if they present their papers - all because of the DMCA.
I submit that the suppression of free thought and free speech is not something this country stands for. And has historically proven to have a very bad impact on the citizens of such societies.
That is what is wrong with this case, my friend. And why the DMCA must either be changed or repealed.