1. I'm glad you can ignore the WMD that Iraq was known to be in possession of (but that the UN couldn't verify, because inspectors were NEVER granted the full access required by multiple UN resolutions).
2. I never said Iraq was an immediate threat. It was no more or less of a particular threat than it had been for the previous decade.
3. It actually had approximately zero to do with petty revenge, but a LOT to do with changing the face of the mideast.
4. The only reason any public admissions ever existed was because they were politically necessary.
I wonder if the United States, in the age of MoveOns and truthouts (or would that be truthsout?) would ever have the will to support a military effort in which **four hundred thousand** Americans died (such as in WWII) for *any* cause. Here we've got a military effort with less than two thousand deaths, which is pretty fucking amazing given the number of personnel that have already cycled through the theater, and the scope and length of the operation.
It's pretty saddening that no one will confront the very real danger that is Panislamism and its radical forms, especially Europe, given its close geographic proximity. Regardless of what Europe's motivation is for ignoring this threat, the Panislamic radicals won't differentiate between Paris and Washington DC when it's time to execute attacks against the West.
As for the insurgency in Iraq, where the fuck do you think these people come from? That they're just ordinary Iraqis fighting the evil US dog occupiers? Hardly. Most of them are radicals, many not even from Iraq, who are attacking and killing their own Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters indiscriminately, in the hopes of turning them manifestly against the US forces, forcing an almost pragmatic decision: even though there will be turmoil and perhaps civil war if the US leaves, we'll keep killing you until you rise up against the US, or make it politically difficult for the US to remain. Then we'll install the radical Islamic theocracy that only 1% of Iraqis said they wanted in numerous Oxford Research studies in Iraq. And then truthout can say "Look, we told you so! The US going into Iraq just made the whole region worse; look at even Iran's recent election! See, the Republicans don't care about making the mideast a safer place or fighting terror, in fact, all they're really concerned about is the flow of oil!"
What a completely retarded view. First, all the naysayers who, disgustingly, in my opinion, invoke the US war dead in favor of their arguments also apparently don't care about Iraqis at all. Because if the US leaves, a SHITLOAD more Iraqis will die than ever would have, regardless of whether or not the US ever set foot in Iraq in 2003. That is an absolute given. So if they're out to "preserve life", that's certainly not the way to do it. Further, some people apparently can't understand the concept of sacrifice and taking risks. But I won't even get into that here. And finally, there is continuing and perpetual ignorance to the fact that we don't yet live in the utopian Star Trek-style world government where everyone is happy: there are people in the world, regardless of why (and, as I've said before, it's not due exclusively, or even mostly, to US policy), who want to see and end to the West. And no, it's not because they "hate freedom" (though, actually, they do). But the reason is irrelevant. There comes a time when you realize that there still are nation-states on this Earth, and that sometimes, they need to be defended. Proactively. Or, to say a dirty work, "preemptively". Anyone who can't see the writing on the wall with respect to energy and the mideast has their head in the sand. And frankly, the need for energy from at least quasi-friendly states in the mideast in the short term is not necessarily at odds with standing up quasi-democratic, free governments among the peoples of the mideast. (Iraq was a good place to start, because it was an easy case to make in a simplistic fashion, and was one of the
Uh... the World Wide Web was invented at CERN, in Europe (hello Timmy Berners-Lee). So should we make sure the EU keeps total control of all web-related standards?
Uh... the US doesn't "control" any Internet standards. The standards are open and transparent, and the world has been using them in various forms for literally decades.
This is about the *administration* of the root nameservers and the "." root zone, period. The standards involved with everything are open, but unfortunately, DNS requires central authoritative servers in order to function. Someone has to run them. The US has run them since the literal inception of the internet. Some of the contractors who operate the root nameservers are the same ones who operated them a quarter century ago. There is significant international presence among the root nameservers, including four distinctly international entities.
But we're not going to cede control for the administrative functions of such a critical service when we've already proven that the US can administer it stably, impartially, reliably, and securely. Remember, this isn't about running DNS boxes or knowing how to run a UNIX system. That is the smallest part of this equation. The issue is the management and business processes and infrastructure that are in place for the administration of the root zone. Get people involved now who are parts of organizations each angling for their own little slice of control, and that posturing and game-playing suddenly takes priority over the critical mission of keeping the root namespace stable. We don't want even one small outage, and our track record has proven the NTIA's administration capability. Ceding the root namespace to ICANN has nothing but uncertainty associated with it, and we can't afford that. And you know what? Yes, the US can be a good steward of international resources (such as the root namespace).
It's all in the exceedingly numerous reports from the last decade and a half. Sorry, there no single article or url that says "Lookee, Iraq had WMD that are now unaccounted for! Whee!" The fact of the matter is that the entire international community, including the intelligence capabilities of the US, the UK, most of the nations of Europe, Russia, and the UN itself agreed that Iraq had NOT provided proof that all of the weapons that it was known to be in possession of were destroyed, and indeed, that Iraq was never in full cooperation with UN inspectors. That the US did not *find* any said weapons after the invasion - a time at which we finally had the necessary control and capability to properly search - does not mean they never existed, or that they perhaps hadn't left the country long ago (e.g., to Syria), and also doesn't change the fact that Iraq was never in compliance, and never accounted for the weapons that were determined to be missing. This missing WMD amounted to over one thousand tons. Not a barrel or two here and there. Hundreds of tons of things like Sarin. Not just "possible WMD" or "WMD constituents" or "traces"...but real, WMD that Iraq was known to physically possess, but now cannot account for. If anything justifies the WMD argument, it's that not that we did not find any WMD, but WMD we know Iraq had is just fucking *gone*. Now who's got it? No better argument I can think of to have acted sooner...
You're also forgetting that the 700,000-some tons of non-WMD banned weapons (long range missiles, aircraft, etc.) that WERE found after the US invasion are merely symbolic of Iraq's defiance of the previous decade's worth of Chapter VII Security Council resolutions - resolutions that were FINALLY being enforced, unfortunately, without the rest of the Security Council members for whom the resolutions were apparently utterly meaningless.
Also, remember the recent WMD reports that you and others like to prance around with all the time concluded that no WMD were *found* in Iraq, and that further searching would not be productive. None of them conclude that no weapons *remain*, and indeed, none can say where the unaccounted-for weapons are.
I see, when the US invaded Iraq it did find a lot of WMDs to prove UN wrong.
That's really not the point. The point was that the UN already had a dozen binding, Chapter VII Security Council resolutions against Iraq, that Iraq was egregiously in violation of, about which the entire Security Council was in agreement, and for which its charter not only allows, but compels, member nations to respond, and it did nothing. And this went on for over a decade.
Further, there are still, to this day, over 1000 tons of WMD that Iraq was known to be in possession of in 1990 and 1991 that are unaccounted for, with no documentation or necessary proof of any sort of destruction, including necessary residual components and other related materials that can prove such destruction. Reports indicating definitively that no WMD were found does not imply that no such weapons ever existed; in fact, we and the international community KNOW they existed, and also that there is NO proof of their destruction.
This further ignores the over 700,000 tons of non-WMD UN-banned weapons discovered in Iraq upon then invasion. The bottom line is this: whether or not you agree with it, if the UN is the be-all end-all on the decisions relating to Iraq, it already has proven time and time again that it can't uphold its own decisions or abide by its own processes. If the Charter and the processes are meaningless, then what is the purpose of the UN, or Chapter VII Security Council resolutions?
(Before anyone says anything about "unenforced" UN Israel resolutions, all resolutions regarding Israel are General Assembly resolutions, which amount to nothing more than recommendations, and do not have any provisions of any type for compelling action on anyone's part, nor for any type of military action, nor any type of sanctions.)
So if something is developed in the US using US resources, and becomes an indispensable international asset because of its quality and/or usefulness, then the US government should retain control over said asset?
I didn't say that, and that's already not the case. There is significant international presence among the root servers, but the contract administrator will continue to be the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a component of the US Department of Commerce. There are already international organizations administering root servers.
Would it really kill us to at least allow other countries to have some input on how these assets are managed?
No, and they already do.
And turning control over this asset over to an organization where other countries have input into that control (along with the US) would definitely impact our economy negatively?
I didn't say it "definitely" would. The NTIA statement itself says it best:
Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
We have an established, secure, stable system, chain of command and accountability, and administrative and technical infrastructure built to administer the root servers. Any changes to this system have a potential for unacceptable disruptions in service.
There's smart people in other countries too. It's not just in the US where a growing chunk of the economy is reliant on the Internet's operation; other countries have a "vested interest" in keeping it up and running as well.
They may have a "vested interest", but that doesn't mean they have the same capability. Further, there is a lot of political angling going on for such control - a heck of a lot more political motivated than any US political motivations for keeping control centralized here. This political angling for expansion of other nations' or international bodies' control over internet infrastructure has a potential for grave consequences, not to mention the possibilities for miscommunication, misunderstandings, and misapplication in such a transition. However, what is already known at present is our proven ability to properly and securely administer the root servers in a stable and predictable fashion.
First of all, it's pretty ignorant of you to assume that an organization that has an international scope definitely can't manage an asset as well as the US government.
The current management capability is already proven. It has nothing to do with whether someone else might or might not be able to functionally do the job. The point here is that we already KNOW we can do the job. This is a technical, mechanical process. And yes, the proportion of our control over the processes most certainly should be somewhat proportional to our historical and continuing contributions.
Secondly, nobody can say for sure how well ICANN will manage this asset.
Touché. That is *exactly* the issue.
it might do a BETTER job than the existing arrangement, since it has a larger talent pool to draw from.
And it might not (and probably wouldn't, given the fact that there would be a lot more political game-playing and posturing, a la ITER, going on, whereas the current system's mission is only stable, secure, and accountable management of DNS.)
And as for "talent pool", anyone with anything significant to contribute to the internet at large is welcome to do so. The US's transparent administrat
Has it occurred to you, though, that it was the US's investment, and its military, academic, and research establishments, that literally created and grew the internet in the first place?
I'm not saying that gives the US perpetual rights to control everything about it, but that's already not the case. The internet is an open, global tool, and the US has been awfully transparent in terms of how the internet is managed and with regard to the standards that make it work.
The US contribution to the internet has been immense, has eclipsed any other nations' collective contribution in terms of money and manhours, and has been as such for decades now. The US has PROVEN beyond a shadow of a doubt that it can fairly administer the root servers in a secure and stable fashion (and there ALREADY IS an international presence among the root servers, albeit not international "control").
You think it's politics that the US wants to keep administrative control of the root servers? There's a hell of a lot more "politics" involved with international entities and other nations angling for their own little slice of control over critical internet infrastructure. And with all that political angling comes a great potential for instability, miscommunication, and mismanagement.
Just look at the nightmare of deciding where to build ITER, and the US wasn't even a potential site. We don't want that type of thing going on with the root servers.
with the kneejerk slashdot reactions that come from pulling shit out of your asshole, rather than actually considering the truth, such as the actual NTIA statement itself:
U.S. Principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System
The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS.
ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.
Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Internet development broadly.
Um, only two of the 13 root nameservers are controlled by VeriSign. And three are "controlled" by the government. The rest are at academic/research institutions or telecommunications providers, some international.
Four of the 13 are *already international*, and there are servers directly supported by the root server administrators that are all over the world.
A ns.internic.net - VeriSign - Dulles, Virginia, USA B ns1.isi.edu - ISI - Marina Del Rey, California, USA C c.psi.net - Cogent - Herndon, Virginia, USA D terp.umd.edu - University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland, USA E ns.nasa.gov - NASA - Mountain View, California, USA F ns.isc.org - ISC - Palo Alto, California, USA G ns.nic.ddn.mil - U.S. DoD NIC - Vienna, Virginia, USA H aos.arl.army.mil - U.S. Army Research Lab - Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, USA I nic.nordu.net - Autonomica - Stockholm J VeriSign - Dulles, Virginia, USA K RIPE - London L ICANN - Los Angeles, California, USA M WIDE Project - Tokyo
You should probably, you know, take a look at the actual root servers list for a complete rundown, including locations.
...perhaps it's because the "international organizations" we work with, like the UN, can't even keep their word and uphold the tenets of their own charters for things that are much more important than the root servers?
Also, no one said anything about al-Qaeda.
Except you, of course.
But the US believes that the root servers are important enough that they should be under the control and purview of the same entities that have been their stewards in some cases since the literal inception of DNS itself, rather than an organization along with international entities that may not have the same level of experience. This isn't just about "keeping machines patched" or knowing how to run a DNS box. That's the most vanishingly small part of this equation.
Also, it might help to remember that the US, along with its vast military-industrial complex, the Department of Defense and DARPA's investments into pie-in-the-sky technologies, and our massive academic research establishment are what you and the entire fucking world HAS TO THANK for the "internet", and we've already proven that we can manage the root servers and have a secure and well established network of capable contractors, so I think that, given the geometrically increasing importance of the internet to the US and its economy, you're damned straight we have a vested interest in making sure critical internet infrastructure is properly administered (and by "administered", I don't mean from a sysadmin perspective).
And while the corporations with the root server contracts make some money and might not want to see that go away, this decision is NOT for "making more money for some corporations". It's been made for the security of these critical infrastructure pieces. In our own system, we have some accountability and we know it. Even if ICANN meets the DoC-set guidelines, there are no guarantees that its capability and contingencies are better than, or even meet, the capability that already exists in the prevailing arrangement. Why ratchet back from predictability and reliability, and a known set of variables, frankly, to "please" the international community? The "internet", in general, was not an international creation. It was a US creation, the result of a lot of investment and research dollars from the exact entities that no one else would have supported. The fact that it has easily become an exceedingly open international and global tool is a testament to its creators.
I'm starting to get fed up with the anti-US dick waving on slashdot, really...
Mod me as you like, but please think at least for a second about what i said.
- Pre-SP2, most Windows users didn't know to enable the firewall
- Router/firewall devices were much less prevalent
Now, all new machines ship with SP2, and it's much more common for cable and DSL operators to provide firewall/router type functionality with the customer hardware, as opposed to just giving you a raw modem. In addition, more people in general are purchasing said devices (when not provided by their internet provider). The point is that Sophos is trying to pimp their antivirus software, and using somewhat unrelated and dubious methods to do it. Sure, you should have current AV software. But if you want to protect from the "remote" attacks they're talking about, the best protection is simply a hardware or host-based software firewall, both of which are loads more prevalent than they were even a year ago (the software firewall mostly because of SP2). Anyone can take an unpatched Windows host and put it on the network with no firewall and say "Look! It got owned in X minutes!" The point is, they're saying this with the implicit purpose of saying "Buy our software", when the "solution" to the problem they're pimping is to, first and foremost, keep your machine patched and either enable the software firewall if you're pre-SP (or ensure it's still enabled on SP2) and/or get a little personal firewall/router - *in addition* to having AV software.
Ok, let's rephrase: there is very, very, very little, vanishingly small, possibility that you will be attacked behind a firewall/router that itself has no ports open to the outside world.
1. If you're behind a firewall/router, as I said, it doesn't matter. You can have a completely unpactched, wide open, pre-SP1 Windows XP machine, and nothing will happen to it - because nothing can reach it. You can patch at your leisure.
2. Assuming you're pre-SP2, you can still enable the Windows Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) before you attach to a network, at which point you're protected and can patch at your leisure.
3. New machines come with SP2, which has the firewall enabled by default.
...the built in Windows XP firewall (enabled by default on SP2 and assuming you don't have any other services enabled or open) and/or have a $30 personal firewall/router, there is a 100% chance you won't get compromised.
But wait, they're talking about spyware, viruses, and phishing. So, those things can install themselves now?
Don't get me wrong...viewed by itself, Windows has historically a dismally horrible track record. But a patched Windows XP SP2 machine behind a personal firewall/router with current anti-virus/anti-malware protection can be a secure system. Granted, it's been a long time coming, and it's easy for many users to fall into traps, but this seems like nothing more than a typical scare tactic by an AV vendor.
Never trust an AV vendor saying the sky is falling.
I actually have the Mac 128K that my dad got at Dillard's department store in Dallas, TX on January 24, 1984. I was 9, and I'd been wanting a computer and was angling for an Apple//e. But my dad - who wasn't the computer type - thankfully said that he'd heard some rumblings about this new computer that he thought he should wait for.
It was the Macintosh.
I just snapped a couple pictures with my Treo 650:
Here it is, alongside a NeXT cube and ann actual Motorola Viper CHRP box (capable, at the time, of running Mac OS, Windows NT, AIX, and the at-that-time-already-defunct Solaris and NetWare implementations for PowerPC):
Um, I'm just kind of randomly posting here, but Lutherans most certainly DO NOT believe in a literal transformation. Lutherans believe that it's still just wine and wafers, and that it merely symbolizes the body and blood of Christ, as well as Jesus' declaration to his disciples at the Last Supper.
While not part of an OS designed "from scratch" for vision-impaired individuals, Apple VoiceOver is the first such functionality of its kind to be included for free with a commercial operating system. It's a fully integrated screenreader and accessibility interface for Mac OS X, and is tightly integrated with both the operating system and its APIs, and is extensively supported in several common applications.
As for hearing-impaired individuals, the task is much easier, as the primary interface to a computer is already visual. However, visual alerts and features that would correspond with otherwise audio-only events have also been integrated by Apple in Universal Access.
In addition, Universal Access includes features that assist individuals with motor impairments as well.
While it may be an interesting and informative exercise to think about the types of things you'd do if you were going to "build it from scratch", it might be more productive to think about how these capabilities could be added to existing commodity operating systems, such that the technology can continue to be affordable and easily supported.
Re:daveschroeder = stupid
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I wasn't the one who came up with the $100M figure, but thanks.
And $500,000 is a half a million, not a half a billion, and yes, some popular TV shows routinely take that much and more to produce, and the fact of whether some, most, or all of it goes to actors who you feel are overpaid is irrelevant, and part of the business that doesn't change when you change your distribution model.
Argh, "you're", not "your"
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...caught it right as I was pressing "Submit".
Argh.
Last line should read:
"Just because advertising is gone doesn't mean you're immune to everything that comes along with fame and popularity."
Re:Then how is the production funded?
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Yes, a good bit of it goes to actors.
What's your point?
Let's say you can do a damned good, internet-distributed 20 to 30 minute production for, say, $15,000.
Let's say a ton of people start watching it.
Thousands. Some of these people pay for it, enabling you to increase your production value even more, and maybe attract some good writers to augment your already-capable staff.
Then tens of thousands of people are watching.
Your actors start to get some recognition. You don't think that, generally, they're going to want to be compensated for that recognition?
Just because advertising is gone doesn't mean your immune to everything that comes along with fame and popularity.
Re:Then how is the production funded?
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Oh? Then please tell me, brilliant ACs, where the money comes from to produce a show that costs, say $500,000 to produce a 30-minute episode.
It doesn't fall out of the sky. But, since you haven't got any actual rebuttal, and since you know that the money comes from ADVERTISING, I guess this is about all I should expect.
Re:Then how is the production funded?
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Assume just a million people pay 10 bucks a piece
Just a million?
Just a million?
I think you vastly overestimate the number of people you could get on board for something done exclusively in the non-advertising, P2P panacea you envision.
Even the article used for this supposedly shining example says:
"Now I have an extra 10,000 hits a week on my website, and I've got to figure out what to do here."
Rogers, who said he had nothing to do with the leak, has already received 350 e-mails from people praising the show. He said he would like to release the pilot as a DVD.
Wow, a whole 350 people emailing praise? Holy smokes! And assuming all those people would pay, only $9,996,500 to go! And 10,000 extra hits a week? How do you quantify all this stuff? More realistically, you've got maybe 10,000 people willing to pay $10/show, lowering your gross by a couple orders of magnitude.
It's easy to lay out a best-case scenario.
What's hard is for someone to actually execute on it. And, P2P aside, if it were that easy, it would already have been done.
I'd love to see it succeed, and I'm sure some will. However, none of this justifies any of the rationalizations used for taking things funded by advertising in the meantime.
Then how is the production funded?
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You're watching no ads. I'm not sure you realize how much money advertising brings to the table here.
Want five more? Come buy the boxed set.
You mean pay in advance for the boxed set that doesn't exist yet? Yeah, the kind of people hell-bent on pirating shows will do that. Even the ones who claim they'd "pay" for good content (How much? Ten or twenty dollars? Beyond which they'll just go back to BitTorrent again?). And no one's going to finance a project like this, since you've got no proven paying viewership.
Look, guys: we all realize that P2P has legitimate applications. But these desperate attempts to somehow "prove" that P2P is somehow the most desirable distribution mechanism are getting tiresome. And even in this case, Warner Brothers owns this content (though I'm not even going to touch on the legality of copyright infringement, since so many here already either believe copyright is inherently wrong, or that copyright is okay when its used by projects they approve of, but "wrong" when a corporation uses it).
Frankly, I'm all for this method of distribution, as I barely watch 'regular' TV anymore.
Well bully for you.
What do you watch, then? Shows whose production counts on the advertising revenue associated with the show? No, you don't have to watch the advertising, and yes, you can go to the bathroom during the commercials. But the advertisers are paying to be in front of X number of peoples' eyes. And if that goes away, how does your well-produced show get, well, produced?
I'm not saying there are NO alternatives; just that it's more than a little hypocritical to completely discount where the money came from to pay for these shows you're downloading.
Now, if someone who creates and owns the content wants to distribute on P2P and try to drum up interest that way, go for it. But I highly doubt the kind of entitlement crowd that downloads everything for free is going to be willing to pay to support ongoing production of such an operation. Some money? Aboslutely, sure. The kind of money that is ANYWHERE NEAR the kind needed to support the ongoing production of such an operation? Absolutely not.
Slashdot Mirror
1. I'm glad you can ignore the WMD that Iraq was known to be in possession of (but that the UN couldn't verify, because inspectors were NEVER granted the full access required by multiple UN resolutions).
2. I never said Iraq was an immediate threat. It was no more or less of a particular threat than it had been for the previous decade.
3. It actually had approximately zero to do with petty revenge, but a LOT to do with changing the face of the mideast.
4. The only reason any public admissions ever existed was because they were politically necessary.
I wonder if the United States, in the age of MoveOns and truthouts (or would that be truthsout?) would ever have the will to support a military effort in which **four hundred thousand** Americans died (such as in WWII) for *any* cause. Here we've got a military effort with less than two thousand deaths, which is pretty fucking amazing given the number of personnel that have already cycled through the theater, and the scope and length of the operation.
It's pretty saddening that no one will confront the very real danger that is Panislamism and its radical forms, especially Europe, given its close geographic proximity. Regardless of what Europe's motivation is for ignoring this threat, the Panislamic radicals won't differentiate between Paris and Washington DC when it's time to execute attacks against the West.
As for the insurgency in Iraq, where the fuck do you think these people come from? That they're just ordinary Iraqis fighting the evil US dog occupiers? Hardly. Most of them are radicals, many not even from Iraq, who are attacking and killing their own Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters indiscriminately, in the hopes of turning them manifestly against the US forces, forcing an almost pragmatic decision: even though there will be turmoil and perhaps civil war if the US leaves, we'll keep killing you until you rise up against the US, or make it politically difficult for the US to remain. Then we'll install the radical Islamic theocracy that only 1% of Iraqis said they wanted in numerous Oxford Research studies in Iraq. And then truthout can say "Look, we told you so! The US going into Iraq just made the whole region worse; look at even Iran's recent election! See, the Republicans don't care about making the mideast a safer place or fighting terror, in fact, all they're really concerned about is the flow of oil!"
What a completely retarded view. First, all the naysayers who, disgustingly, in my opinion, invoke the US war dead in favor of their arguments also apparently don't care about Iraqis at all. Because if the US leaves, a SHITLOAD more Iraqis will die than ever would have, regardless of whether or not the US ever set foot in Iraq in 2003. That is an absolute given. So if they're out to "preserve life", that's certainly not the way to do it. Further, some people apparently can't understand the concept of sacrifice and taking risks. But I won't even get into that here. And finally, there is continuing and perpetual ignorance to the fact that we don't yet live in the utopian Star Trek-style world government where everyone is happy: there are people in the world, regardless of why (and, as I've said before, it's not due exclusively, or even mostly, to US policy), who want to see and end to the West. And no, it's not because they "hate freedom" (though, actually, they do). But the reason is irrelevant. There comes a time when you realize that there still are nation-states on this Earth, and that sometimes, they need to be defended. Proactively. Or, to say a dirty work, "preemptively". Anyone who can't see the writing on the wall with respect to energy and the mideast has their head in the sand. And frankly, the need for energy from at least quasi-friendly states in the mideast in the short term is not necessarily at odds with standing up quasi-democratic, free governments among the peoples of the mideast. (Iraq was a good place to start, because it was an easy case to make in a simplistic fashion, and was one of the
Uh... the World Wide Web was invented at CERN, in Europe (hello Timmy Berners-Lee). So should we make sure the EU keeps total control of all web-related standards?
Uh... the US doesn't "control" any Internet standards. The standards are open and transparent, and the world has been using them in various forms for literally decades.
This is about the *administration* of the root nameservers and the "." root zone, period. The standards involved with everything are open, but unfortunately, DNS requires central authoritative servers in order to function. Someone has to run them. The US has run them since the literal inception of the internet. Some of the contractors who operate the root nameservers are the same ones who operated them a quarter century ago. There is significant international presence among the root nameservers, including four distinctly international entities.
But we're not going to cede control for the administrative functions of such a critical service when we've already proven that the US can administer it stably, impartially, reliably, and securely. Remember, this isn't about running DNS boxes or knowing how to run a UNIX system. That is the smallest part of this equation. The issue is the management and business processes and infrastructure that are in place for the administration of the root zone. Get people involved now who are parts of organizations each angling for their own little slice of control, and that posturing and game-playing suddenly takes priority over the critical mission of keeping the root namespace stable. We don't want even one small outage, and our track record has proven the NTIA's administration capability. Ceding the root namespace to ICANN has nothing but uncertainty associated with it, and we can't afford that. And you know what? Yes, the US can be a good steward of international resources (such as the root namespace).
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/
It's all in the exceedingly numerous reports from the last decade and a half. Sorry, there no single article or url that says "Lookee, Iraq had WMD that are now unaccounted for! Whee!" The fact of the matter is that the entire international community, including the intelligence capabilities of the US, the UK, most of the nations of Europe, Russia, and the UN itself agreed that Iraq had NOT provided proof that all of the weapons that it was known to be in possession of were destroyed, and indeed, that Iraq was never in full cooperation with UN inspectors. That the US did not *find* any said weapons after the invasion - a time at which we finally had the necessary control and capability to properly search - does not mean they never existed, or that they perhaps hadn't left the country long ago (e.g., to Syria), and also doesn't change the fact that Iraq was never in compliance, and never accounted for the weapons that were determined to be missing. This missing WMD amounted to over one thousand tons. Not a barrel or two here and there. Hundreds of tons of things like Sarin. Not just "possible WMD" or "WMD constituents" or "traces"...but real, WMD that Iraq was known to physically possess, but now cannot account for. If anything justifies the WMD argument, it's that not that we did not find any WMD, but WMD we know Iraq had is just fucking *gone*. Now who's got it? No better argument I can think of to have acted sooner...
You're also forgetting that the 700,000-some tons of non-WMD banned weapons (long range missiles, aircraft, etc.) that WERE found after the US invasion are merely symbolic of Iraq's defiance of the previous decade's worth of Chapter VII Security Council resolutions - resolutions that were FINALLY being enforced, unfortunately, without the rest of the Security Council members for whom the resolutions were apparently utterly meaningless.
Also, remember the recent WMD reports that you and others like to prance around with all the time concluded that no WMD were *found* in Iraq, and that further searching would not be productive. None of them conclude that no weapons *remain*, and indeed, none can say where the unaccounted-for weapons are.
We're not talking about the "web", dumbass.
We're talking about the internet, and, specifically, the 13 root nameservers.
*sigh*
So fuck off with your "Just trying to slow donw (sic) the propaganda" bullshit.
Indeed.
Except that web browsers, as a standalone application, don't need any central infrastructure to function.
The Internet does. Not to mention that the concept of the web is fairly useless without the internet and the standards and protocols that made it up.
But you raise a good point: even in the case of the web, it is the basic research environment that has made the advances in the internet possible.
I see, when the US invaded Iraq it did find a lot of WMDs to prove UN wrong.
That's really not the point. The point was that the UN already had a dozen binding, Chapter VII Security Council resolutions against Iraq, that Iraq was egregiously in violation of, about which the entire Security Council was in agreement, and for which its charter not only allows, but compels, member nations to respond, and it did nothing. And this went on for over a decade.
Further, there are still, to this day, over 1000 tons of WMD that Iraq was known to be in possession of in 1990 and 1991 that are unaccounted for, with no documentation or necessary proof of any sort of destruction, including necessary residual components and other related materials that can prove such destruction. Reports indicating definitively that no WMD were found does not imply that no such weapons ever existed; in fact, we and the international community KNOW they existed, and also that there is NO proof of their destruction.
This further ignores the over 700,000 tons of non-WMD UN-banned weapons discovered in Iraq upon then invasion. The bottom line is this: whether or not you agree with it, if the UN is the be-all end-all on the decisions relating to Iraq, it already has proven time and time again that it can't uphold its own decisions or abide by its own processes. If the Charter and the processes are meaningless, then what is the purpose of the UN, or Chapter VII Security Council resolutions?
(Before anyone says anything about "unenforced" UN Israel resolutions, all resolutions regarding Israel are General Assembly resolutions, which amount to nothing more than recommendations, and do not have any provisions of any type for compelling action on anyone's part, nor for any type of military action, nor any type of sanctions.)
So if something is developed in the US using US resources, and becomes an indispensable international asset because of its quality and/or usefulness, then the US government should retain control over said asset?
I didn't say that, and that's already not the case. There is significant international presence among the root servers, but the contract administrator will continue to be the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a component of the US Department of Commerce. There are already international organizations administering root servers.
Would it really kill us to at least allow other countries to have some input on how these assets are managed?
No, and they already do.
And turning control over this asset over to an organization where other countries have input into that control (along with the US) would definitely impact our economy negatively?
I didn't say it "definitely" would. The NTIA statement itself says it best:
Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
We have an established, secure, stable system, chain of command and accountability, and administrative and technical infrastructure built to administer the root servers. Any changes to this system have a potential for unacceptable disruptions in service.
There's smart people in other countries too. It's not just in the US where a growing chunk of the economy is reliant on the Internet's operation; other countries have a "vested interest" in keeping it up and running as well.
They may have a "vested interest", but that doesn't mean they have the same capability. Further, there is a lot of political angling going on for such control - a heck of a lot more political motivated than any US political motivations for keeping control centralized here. This political angling for expansion of other nations' or international bodies' control over internet infrastructure has a potential for grave consequences, not to mention the possibilities for miscommunication, misunderstandings, and misapplication in such a transition. However, what is already known at present is our proven ability to properly and securely administer the root servers in a stable and predictable fashion.
First of all, it's pretty ignorant of you to assume that an organization that has an international scope definitely can't manage an asset as well as the US government.
The current management capability is already proven. It has nothing to do with whether someone else might or might not be able to functionally do the job. The point here is that we already KNOW we can do the job. This is a technical, mechanical process. And yes, the proportion of our control over the processes most certainly should be somewhat proportional to our historical and continuing contributions.
Secondly, nobody can say for sure how well ICANN will manage this asset.
Touché. That is *exactly* the issue.
it might do a BETTER job than the existing arrangement, since it has a larger talent pool to draw from.
And it might not (and probably wouldn't, given the fact that there would be a lot more political game-playing and posturing, a la ITER, going on, whereas the current system's mission is only stable, secure, and accountable management of DNS.)
And as for "talent pool", anyone with anything significant to contribute to the internet at large is welcome to do so. The US's transparent administrat
Has it occurred to you, though, that it was the US's investment, and its military, academic, and research establishments, that literally created and grew the internet in the first place?
I'm not saying that gives the US perpetual rights to control everything about it, but that's already not the case. The internet is an open, global tool, and the US has been awfully transparent in terms of how the internet is managed and with regard to the standards that make it work.
The US contribution to the internet has been immense, has eclipsed any other nations' collective contribution in terms of money and manhours, and has been as such for decades now. The US has PROVEN beyond a shadow of a doubt that it can fairly administer the root servers in a secure and stable fashion (and there ALREADY IS an international presence among the root servers, albeit not international "control").
You think it's politics that the US wants to keep administrative control of the root servers? There's a hell of a lot more "politics" involved with international entities and other nations angling for their own little slice of control over critical internet infrastructure. And with all that political angling comes a great potential for instability, miscommunication, and mismanagement.
Just look at the nightmare of deciding where to build ITER, and the US wasn't even a potential site. We don't want that type of thing going on with the root servers.
with the kneejerk slashdot reactions that come from pulling shit out of your asshole, rather than actually considering the truth, such as the actual NTIA statement itself:
U.S. Principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System
The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS.
ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.
Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Internet development broadly.
You may also take note that there are plenty of "international organizations" already involved with the root servers.
Um, only two of the 13 root nameservers are controlled by VeriSign. And three are "controlled" by the government. The rest are at academic/research institutions or telecommunications providers, some international.
Four of the 13 are *already international*, and there are servers directly supported by the root server administrators that are all over the world.
A ns.internic.net - VeriSign - Dulles, Virginia, USA
B ns1.isi.edu - ISI - Marina Del Rey, California, USA
C c.psi.net - Cogent - Herndon, Virginia, USA
D terp.umd.edu - University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland, USA
E ns.nasa.gov - NASA - Mountain View, California, USA
F ns.isc.org - ISC - Palo Alto, California, USA
G ns.nic.ddn.mil - U.S. DoD NIC - Vienna, Virginia, USA
H aos.arl.army.mil - U.S. Army Research Lab - Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, USA
I nic.nordu.net - Autonomica - Stockholm
J VeriSign - Dulles, Virginia, USA
K RIPE - London
L ICANN - Los Angeles, California, USA
M WIDE Project - Tokyo
You should probably, you know, take a look at the actual root servers list for a complete rundown, including locations.
...perhaps it's because the "international organizations" we work with, like the UN, can't even keep their word and uphold the tenets of their own charters for things that are much more important than the root servers?
Also, no one said anything about al-Qaeda.
Except you, of course.
But the US believes that the root servers are important enough that they should be under the control and purview of the same entities that have been their stewards in some cases since the literal inception of DNS itself, rather than an organization along with international entities that may not have the same level of experience. This isn't just about "keeping machines patched" or knowing how to run a DNS box. That's the most vanishingly small part of this equation.
Also, it might help to remember that the US, along with its vast military-industrial complex, the Department of Defense and DARPA's investments into pie-in-the-sky technologies, and our massive academic research establishment are what you and the entire fucking world HAS TO THANK for the "internet", and we've already proven that we can manage the root servers and have a secure and well established network of capable contractors, so I think that, given the geometrically increasing importance of the internet to the US and its economy, you're damned straight we have a vested interest in making sure critical internet infrastructure is properly administered (and by "administered", I don't mean from a sysadmin perspective).
And while the corporations with the root server contracts make some money and might not want to see that go away, this decision is NOT for "making more money for some corporations". It's been made for the security of these critical infrastructure pieces. In our own system, we have some accountability and we know it. Even if ICANN meets the DoC-set guidelines, there are no guarantees that its capability and contingencies are better than, or even meet, the capability that already exists in the prevailing arrangement. Why ratchet back from predictability and reliability, and a known set of variables, frankly, to "please" the international community? The "internet", in general, was not an international creation. It was a US creation, the result of a lot of investment and research dollars from the exact entities that no one else would have supported. The fact that it has easily become an exceedingly open international and global tool is a testament to its creators.
I'm starting to get fed up with the anti-US dick waving on slashdot, really...
Mod me as you like, but please think at least for a second about what i said.
This has only been an issue historically because:
- Pre-SP2, most Windows users didn't know to enable the firewall
- Router/firewall devices were much less prevalent
Now, all new machines ship with SP2, and it's much more common for cable and DSL operators to provide firewall/router type functionality with the customer hardware, as opposed to just giving you a raw modem. In addition, more people in general are purchasing said devices (when not provided by their internet provider). The point is that Sophos is trying to pimp their antivirus software, and using somewhat unrelated and dubious methods to do it. Sure, you should have current AV software. But if you want to protect from the "remote" attacks they're talking about, the best protection is simply a hardware or host-based software firewall, both of which are loads more prevalent than they were even a year ago (the software firewall mostly because of SP2). Anyone can take an unpatched Windows host and put it on the network with no firewall and say "Look! It got owned in X minutes!" The point is, they're saying this with the implicit purpose of saying "Buy our software", when the "solution" to the problem they're pimping is to, first and foremost, keep your machine patched and either enable the software firewall if you're pre-SP (or ensure it's still enabled on SP2) and/or get a little personal firewall/router - *in addition* to having AV software.
Ok, let's rephrase: there is very, very, very little, vanishingly small, possibility that you will be attacked behind a firewall/router that itself has no ports open to the outside world.
1. If you're behind a firewall/router, as I said, it doesn't matter. You can have a completely unpactched, wide open, pre-SP1 Windows XP machine, and nothing will happen to it - because nothing can reach it. You can patch at your leisure.
2. Assuming you're pre-SP2, you can still enable the Windows Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) before you attach to a network, at which point you're protected and can patch at your leisure.
3. New machines come with SP2, which has the firewall enabled by default.
...the built in Windows XP firewall (enabled by default on SP2 and assuming you don't have any other services enabled or open) and/or have a $30 personal firewall/router, there is a 100% chance you won't get compromised.
But wait, they're talking about spyware, viruses, and phishing. So, those things can install themselves now?
Don't get me wrong...viewed by itself, Windows has historically a dismally horrible track record. But a patched Windows XP SP2 machine behind a personal firewall/router with current anti-virus/anti-malware protection can be a secure system. Granted, it's been a long time coming, and it's easy for many users to fall into traps, but this seems like nothing more than a typical scare tactic by an AV vendor.
Never trust an AV vendor saying the sky is falling.
I actually have the Mac 128K that my dad got at Dillard's department store in Dallas, TX on January 24, 1984. I was 9, and I'd been wanting a computer and was angling for an Apple //e. But my dad - who wasn't the computer type - thankfully said that he'd heard some rumblings about this new computer that he thought he should wait for.
. jpg
It was the Macintosh.
I just snapped a couple pictures with my Treo 650:
Here it is, alongside a NeXT cube and ann actual Motorola Viper CHRP box (capable, at the time, of running Mac OS, Windows NT, AIX, and the at-that-time-already-defunct Solaris and NetWare implementations for PowerPC):
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/nostalgia/CHRP_128K_Cube
And the model tag from the 128K, barely visible, "M0001":
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/nostalgia/M0001.jpg
A couple other things; a 20th Anniversary Macintosh and a PowerBook Duo 2300c, with DuoDock II+:
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/nostalgia/20th_Duo.jpg
And now, over 21 years later...
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/nostalgia/Desk.jpg
How time flies.
They're just reselling the Sparc laptops that have been around for *ages*:
http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra3/
Um, I'm just kind of randomly posting here, but Lutherans most certainly DO NOT believe in a literal transformation. Lutherans believe that it's still just wine and wafers, and that it merely symbolizes the body and blood of Christ, as well as Jesus' declaration to his disciples at the Last Supper.
While not part of an OS designed "from scratch" for vision-impaired individuals, Apple VoiceOver is the first such functionality of its kind to be included for free with a commercial operating system. It's a fully integrated screenreader and accessibility interface for Mac OS X, and is tightly integrated with both the operating system and its APIs, and is extensively supported in several common applications.
As for hearing-impaired individuals, the task is much easier, as the primary interface to a computer is already visual. However, visual alerts and features that would correspond with otherwise audio-only events have also been integrated by Apple in Universal Access.
In addition, Universal Access includes features that assist individuals with motor impairments as well.
While it may be an interesting and informative exercise to think about the types of things you'd do if you were going to "build it from scratch", it might be more productive to think about how these capabilities could be added to existing commodity operating systems, such that the technology can continue to be affordable and easily supported.
I wasn't the one who came up with the $100M figure, but thanks.
And $500,000 is a half a million, not a half a billion, and yes, some popular TV shows routinely take that much and more to produce, and the fact of whether some, most, or all of it goes to actors who you feel are overpaid is irrelevant, and part of the business that doesn't change when you change your distribution model.
...caught it right as I was pressing "Submit".
Argh.
Last line should read:
"Just because advertising is gone doesn't mean you're immune to everything that comes along with fame and popularity."
Yes, a good bit of it goes to actors.
What's your point?
Let's say you can do a damned good, internet-distributed 20 to 30 minute production for, say, $15,000.
Let's say a ton of people start watching it.
Thousands. Some of these people pay for it, enabling you to increase your production value even more, and maybe attract some good writers to augment your already-capable staff.
Then tens of thousands of people are watching.
Your actors start to get some recognition. You don't think that, generally, they're going to want to be compensated for that recognition?
Just because advertising is gone doesn't mean your immune to everything that comes along with fame and popularity.
Oh? Then please tell me, brilliant ACs, where the money comes from to produce a show that costs, say $500,000 to produce a 30-minute episode.
It doesn't fall out of the sky. But, since you haven't got any actual rebuttal, and since you know that the money comes from ADVERTISING, I guess this is about all I should expect.
Assume just a million people pay 10 bucks a piece
Just a million?
Just a million?
I think you vastly overestimate the number of people you could get on board for something done exclusively in the non-advertising, P2P panacea you envision.
Even the article used for this supposedly shining example says:
"Now I have an extra 10,000 hits a week on my website, and I've got to figure out what to do here."
Rogers, who said he had nothing to do with the leak, has already received 350 e-mails from people praising the show. He said he would like to release the pilot as a DVD.
Wow, a whole 350 people emailing praise? Holy smokes! And assuming all those people would pay, only $9,996,500 to go! And 10,000 extra hits a week? How do you quantify all this stuff? More realistically, you've got maybe 10,000 people willing to pay $10/show, lowering your gross by a couple orders of magnitude.
It's easy to lay out a best-case scenario.
What's hard is for someone to actually execute on it. And, P2P aside, if it were that easy, it would already have been done.
I'd love to see it succeed, and I'm sure some will. However, none of this justifies any of the rationalizations used for taking things funded by advertising in the meantime.
You're watching no ads. I'm not sure you realize how much money advertising brings to the table here.
Want five more? Come buy the boxed set.
You mean pay in advance for the boxed set that doesn't exist yet? Yeah, the kind of people hell-bent on pirating shows will do that. Even the ones who claim they'd "pay" for good content (How much? Ten or twenty dollars? Beyond which they'll just go back to BitTorrent again?). And no one's going to finance a project like this, since you've got no proven paying viewership.
Look, guys: we all realize that P2P has legitimate applications. But these desperate attempts to somehow "prove" that P2P is somehow the most desirable distribution mechanism are getting tiresome. And even in this case, Warner Brothers owns this content (though I'm not even going to touch on the legality of copyright infringement, since so many here already either believe copyright is inherently wrong, or that copyright is okay when its used by projects they approve of, but "wrong" when a corporation uses it).
Frankly, I'm all for this method of distribution, as I barely watch 'regular' TV anymore.
Well bully for you.
What do you watch, then? Shows whose production counts on the advertising revenue associated with the show? No, you don't have to watch the advertising, and yes, you can go to the bathroom during the commercials. But the advertisers are paying to be in front of X number of peoples' eyes. And if that goes away, how does your well-produced show get, well, produced?
I'm not saying there are NO alternatives; just that it's more than a little hypocritical to completely discount where the money came from to pay for these shows you're downloading.
Now, if someone who creates and owns the content wants to distribute on P2P and try to drum up interest that way, go for it. But I highly doubt the kind of entitlement crowd that downloads everything for free is going to be willing to pay to support ongoing production of such an operation. Some money? Aboslutely, sure. The kind of money that is ANYWHERE NEAR the kind needed to support the ongoing production of such an operation? Absolutely not.