it's not about whether the 'nanomachines' are sentient... it's about chemical properties. apparently folks at the ETC seem to fear something like the old anti-atomic camp used to claim, something like if we manage to make a molecule that's just promiscuous enough, that it will start a cataclysmic reaction eventually turning all of space, or some significant portion of it, into homogenous 'grey goo'
It's certainly an interesting idea. But there isn't much reason to believe it is any more likely than the moon spontaneously converting itself into a duck.
Now these extremists tone down their argument a little: "nanoscale materials are toxic". The problem is that most nanotechnology is just unusual applications of exisiting natural chemical processes.
It IS high time to start the ethics discussion on nanotech, and the first step is to throw out the debunkers. We waited far too long to publicly have the genetic ethics discussion, and look at the stupid stem-cell research laws that were proposed.
The website defacement archive at Zone-h shows that Linux accounts for 61% of the defacements in the last 24 hours
that's funny. Netcraft says that apache accounts for 63% of www servers. I can't be sure, but there may be some reason for this correlation.
Security experts have said for years, here and elsewhere, that security is a process, and a function of administration, not some tangible goal that can be reached. Ultimately, it is up to whoever has a secret to make sure their secret is safe.
Linux is one of SEVERAL fine operating systems that give the independent system administrator the ability to examine the security flaws in their system, and to correct the problem on their own, given they have the know-how. The paranoid often do. Closed-source operating systems simply cannot offer this level of security.
What a bunch of crap. Linux has over 100+ text editors, several Native DBMS systems, about 20 different media players.. How about some consolidation? who will accomplish this? I think there needs to be a standardization arm of linux to cover the parts that AREN'T in the kernel but ARE considered, in general, part of the OS.
This would work great if trying to choose between any given two cmdline text editors, (say vi and emacs) didn't reduce any developer's mailing list into a namecalling flame war.
"Ideas are better than beliefs because they can be changed." -Rufus, the 13th Apostle.
Having the authority to go to the trouble of a strip search on a hunch, versus making it effortless to scan everyone, without the need for so much as a hunch...
I am here to tell you that I recieved a threatening letter from the RIAA, accompanied by a "comply or we'll cut you off" letter from my ISP, Comcast. And I know exactly why
I don't have any illegal shared files in my limewire shared folder. what I do have there is a number of original tracks that I have recorded over the last year, for people to check out. I was innocently poking around on limewire, when i found a small (50k or so) WMA or ASF file ( i just know it was an MS format) titled "must have - hilarious.WMA" so i clicked, and downloaded, when i opened the file, Windows media player fired up my browser, and directed me to a website telling me that the RIAA caught me, and my isp had been notified. it had my IP address and some file names (the ones it chose to display were some tracks from my single "the family guy", which i guess they think should be incriminating evidence.
what i do know is that they even admitted that they copied files from my computer. hear me now, RIAA: Immediately delete my files, get your hands off of my hard drive, and you better believe i will be watching you for derivative works.
the FCC is nothing but a parasitic organization which seeks to profit off regulating something that is for all intents and purposes functionally infinite, that is, our ability to communicate.
While I'd like to believe this rate increase to be good and charitable, what it amounts to is pay increases for FCC chairman Powell and his cronies, and Rate increases for the consumer VASTLY EXCEEDING the proposed 9.11% tax. After all, Broadband compaines are in this for profit. Under the guise of combatting it, this type of non-democratic, closed door policy making will only serve to deepen the so called "digital divide" which is already dangerously wide.
Cancel your self-righteousness. It's not upsetting that they are "making me pay for something" so much as this will be the third rate increase in as many years, meanwhile the quality of my service has done nothing but decline. I don't care what good causes it supports, I'm not going to become interested in paying more for less under any circumstances.
furthermore, i know plenty of educators in impoverished school districts(namely rural Iowa) and I've been told that ISP's gave them better discounts on services because they were a school, before they were FORCED to by law.
I assume the burden of proof is on AOL to prove that whoever posted the source didn't have the right to GPL it. How do you prove something like this? Does a corporate subsidiary have any intellectual property ownership of its own products? The scariest part of this:
Any license that you may believe you acquired with the Software is void, revoked and terminated.
IF in fact, the person who posted the code had the authority to do so, can AOL revoke your license to software? what if you paid for it? if it's void, how can you revoke it? if it's void and revoked, how can you terminate it?
Does anyone still remember when the FCC was supposed to HELP the consumer, by regulating the communications industry on our behalf?
now, the FCC serves to help monopolies, by regulating the consumer on the industries' behalf. Why is it that mechanisms to prevent consumers getting screwed always wind up being used against us?
What you are failing to recognize is the careful way in which the dvd CCA has used patent law to remove their need for a "shrink wrap license agreement" (after all, they saw how well they have controlled piracy in the software industry). player technology must be licensed by the CCA or it is in violation.
DeCSS is not the "only" way to play a dvd on a linux box. there are licensed players for linux (though i haven't seen any in a while). if the creators of DeCSS had paid a licensing fee to the DVDCCA, they could give it away for free all they wanted, and you could use it.
Here's something to worry about. Does the timing, that the U.S. Gov just instituted a new position for this (the cyber-security chief) which I have already commented on here, seem odd to anyone else?
This looks remarkably like the same type of handwaving smoke and mirror show that the government is trying to put on. "look at us, we're doing something(tm) about security!
makes me wonder if this is microsoft's way of making sure it has a chance to influence what the gov. considers secure.
"Terrorism" in its many forms (I believe in the 50's they were referred to commies instead of terrorists) have been used as an excuse to pass Orwellian-style legislation here in the U.S. I think most of us would agree to as much. I see this whole homeland security program to have been little more than the legislated and executed implementation of more or less random spying on american citizens and it sickens me that this is being done in the name of patriotism. That is not what my father, nor his father fought for.
Chillingly, this mentality is now being brought to be applied to a vague concept... a buzzword. How will this be interpreted by our inadequate, bloated and outdated legal machinery of U.S. Government? Essentially, "securing cyberspace" is conceptually equivalent to "restricting information" or, for the non-slashdot crowd, the monitoring and policing of any and all communications services. Calls to your spouses and parents, its all fair game. When will it be enough? why do you, a good and honest person who has no intention of breaking the law or committing acts of terrorism, become the subject of inquiry? How far will we let this go?
"The computer has not agreed to let the defendant access the computer. Instead, the computer is tricked into letting the defendant access the computer through a misrepresentation...[t]he computer may "believe" that the user is someone else,... may be tricked into unwittingly giving access...both cases reveal fraud in the factum"
IANAL, but this looks like one of the most logical approaches to the subject I've ever had the pleasure of skimming.
These spammers clearly represent a threat to freedom, diversity and sanctity worldwide. We must be swift and decisive in the coming days. A crippling onslaught of spamming faces us and we must stand proud in its defiance.
We must act with haste to bring these spammers to justice. Must we wait for the "smoking gun" of a mushroom cloud? Victory can only be ours if we crush these spammers with our military might. and syria.
"look, election commissioner, it seems our voter turnout was 200%"
of last years?
"no, of our eligible voting populace"
seriously, i live in Oregon, one of the U.S. states with the highest voter turnout because... get this, there are no polling stations that's right folks, we do it all by mail here. tends to get people off their asses. although, i do have a friend who goes around asking people who won't vote if he can have their voter packet, and has them sign the submission envelope... well, no system is perfect.
let's not forget that OS/2's windows "compatibility" was, at it's peak, maybe capable of running solitaire or minesweeper. It was terrible. Native apps? fuhgettahboutit. so why buy an operating system that will emulate the one that came with you computer, but only sporadically?
boy am i glad that i invested in one of those 3d resin printers... I've been downloading all of Games Workshop's models off of usenet, where some dude with one of those 3d scanners has been posting them! I have all of GW's catalog and the only money i've spent is on the "printing" resin! Eat that RIAA!
In Microsoft's NGSCB approach, users would have to consciously evoke a secure operating mode that would be turned off by default. New instructions in the CPU as well as changes in the memory controller would help carve out a protected space in main memory to load a small, secure operating system kernel.
MS secure computing involves installing BSD on millions of windows machines?
how exactly does the wyden-sponsored bill to have copy protected cds prominently labled make the point that the country is going to hell?
(the one linked off 'going') ?
oh look, now we've both said hell and n2h2 will filter out slashdot to all of the slackers reading pr0n at work.
there is a discrepancy between what walmart and fatwallet are saying. Walmart asks for the removal of "their Circular" and fatwallet claims they had "sale price data" posted. these two things are clearly different. if someone posted walmart's flyer, in it's entirety and unedited, then that IS a copyright violation. after all, walmart does pay someone to make those idiotic things.
if, on the other hand, the original poster was not so lazy, and typed out the data, then walmart has no claim. In fact, fatwallet would have only legitimized their claim by removing anything from their site after walmart requested the removal of the Circular. So was it a link to scans? because if it was, shame on fatwallet, for removing something they weren't asked to remove.
Slashdot Mirror
it's not about whether the 'nanomachines' are sentient... it's about chemical properties. apparently folks at the ETC seem to fear something like the old anti-atomic camp used to claim, something like if we manage to make a molecule that's just promiscuous enough, that it will start a cataclysmic reaction eventually turning all of space, or some significant portion of it, into homogenous 'grey goo'
It's certainly an interesting idea. But there isn't much reason to believe it is any more likely than the moon spontaneously converting itself into a duck.
Now these extremists tone down their argument a little: "nanoscale materials are toxic". The problem is that most nanotechnology is just unusual applications of exisiting natural chemical processes.
It IS high time to start the ethics discussion on nanotech, and the first step is to throw out the debunkers. We waited far too long to publicly have the genetic ethics discussion, and look at the stupid stem-cell research laws that were proposed.
The website defacement archive at Zone-h shows that Linux accounts for 61% of the defacements in the last 24 hours
that's funny. Netcraft says that apache accounts for 63% of www servers. I can't be sure, but there may be some reason for this correlation.
Security experts have said for years, here and elsewhere, that security is a process, and a function of administration, not some tangible goal that can be reached. Ultimately, it is up to whoever has a secret to make sure their secret is safe.
Linux is one of SEVERAL fine operating systems that give the independent system administrator the ability to examine the security flaws in their system, and to correct the problem on their own, given they have the know-how. The paranoid often do. Closed-source operating systems simply cannot offer this level of security.
What a bunch of crap. Linux has over 100+ text editors, several Native DBMS systems, about 20 different media players.. How about some consolidation? who will accomplish this? I think there needs to be a standardization arm of linux to cover the parts that AREN'T in the kernel but ARE considered, in general, part of the OS.
This would work great if trying to choose between any given two cmdline text editors, (say vi and emacs) didn't reduce any developer's mailing list into a namecalling flame war.
"Ideas are better than beliefs because they can be changed." -Rufus, the 13th Apostle."In the background, he plays the Beastie Boys."
Is he by any chance listening to the album, Sabotage?
so how different is this really?
Having the authority to go to the trouble of a strip search on a hunch, versus making it effortless to scan everyone, without the need for so much as a hunch...
nope, i don't see the difference either
I am here to tell you that I recieved a threatening letter from the RIAA, accompanied by a "comply or we'll cut you off" letter from my ISP, Comcast. And I know exactly why
I don't have any illegal shared files in my limewire shared folder. what I do have there is a number of original tracks that I have recorded over the last year, for people to check out. I was innocently poking around on limewire, when i found a small (50k or so) WMA or ASF file ( i just know it was an MS format) titled "must have - hilarious.WMA" so i clicked, and downloaded, when i opened the file, Windows media player fired up my browser, and directed me to a website telling me that the RIAA caught me, and my isp had been notified. it had my IP address and some file names (the ones it chose to display were some tracks from my single "the family guy", which i guess they think should be incriminating evidence.
what i do know is that they even admitted that they copied files from my computer. hear me now, RIAA: Immediately delete my files, get your hands off of my hard drive, and you better believe i will be watching you for derivative works.
the FCC is nothing but a parasitic organization which seeks to profit off regulating something that is for all intents and purposes functionally infinite, that is, our ability to communicate.
While I'd like to believe this rate increase to be good and charitable, what it amounts to is pay increases for FCC chairman Powell and his cronies, and Rate increases for the consumer VASTLY EXCEEDING the proposed 9.11% tax. After all, Broadband compaines are in this for profit. Under the guise of combatting it, this type of non-democratic, closed door policy making will only serve to deepen the so called "digital divide" which is already dangerously wide.
Cancel your self-righteousness. It's not upsetting that they are "making me pay for something" so much as this will be the third rate increase in as many years, meanwhile the quality of my service has done nothing but decline. I don't care what good causes it supports, I'm not going to become interested in paying more for less under any circumstances.
furthermore, i know plenty of educators in impoverished school districts(namely rural Iowa) and I've been told that ISP's gave them better discounts on services because they were a school, before they were FORCED to by law.
and now Slashdot's Anonymous Coward.
Would that be a reverse-class-action lawsuit?
I assume the burden of proof is on AOL to prove that whoever posted the source didn't have the right to GPL it. How do you prove something like this? Does a corporate subsidiary have any intellectual property ownership of its own products? The scariest part of this:
Any license that you may believe you acquired with the Software is void, revoked and terminated.IF in fact, the person who posted the code had the authority to do so, can AOL revoke your license to software? what if you paid for it? if it's void, how can you revoke it? if it's void and revoked, how can you terminate it?
Does anyone still remember when the FCC was supposed to HELP the consumer, by regulating the communications industry on our behalf?
now, the FCC serves to help monopolies, by regulating the consumer on the industries' behalf. Why is it that mechanisms to prevent consumers getting screwed always wind up being used against us?
What you are failing to recognize is the careful way in which the dvd CCA has used patent law to remove their need for a "shrink wrap license agreement" (after all, they saw how well they have controlled piracy in the software industry). player technology must be licensed by the CCA or it is in violation.
DeCSS is not the "only" way to play a dvd on a linux box. there are licensed players for linux (though i haven't seen any in a while). if the creators of DeCSS had paid a licensing fee to the DVDCCA, they could give it away for free all they wanted, and you could use it.
Here's something to worry about. Does the timing, that the U.S. Gov just instituted a new position for this (the cyber-security chief) which I have already commented on here, seem odd to anyone else?
This looks remarkably like the same type of handwaving smoke and mirror show that the government is trying to put on. "look at us, we're doing something(tm) about security!
makes me wonder if this is microsoft's way of making sure it has a chance to influence what the gov. considers secure.
"Terrorism" in its many forms (I believe in the 50's they were referred to commies instead of terrorists) have been used as an excuse to pass Orwellian-style legislation here in the U.S. I think most of us would agree to as much. I see this whole homeland security program to have been little more than the legislated and executed implementation of more or less random spying on american citizens and it sickens me that this is being done in the name of patriotism. That is not what my father, nor his father fought for.
Chillingly, this mentality is now being brought to be applied to a vague concept... a buzzword. How will this be interpreted by our inadequate, bloated and outdated legal machinery of U.S. Government? Essentially, "securing cyberspace" is conceptually equivalent to "restricting information" or, for the non-slashdot crowd, the monitoring and policing of any and all communications services. Calls to your spouses and parents, its all fair game. When will it be enough? why do you, a good and honest person who has no intention of breaking the law or committing acts of terrorism, become the subject of inquiry? How far will we let this go?
"The computer has not agreed to let the defendant access the computer. Instead, the computer is tricked into letting the defendant access the computer through a misrepresentation...[t]he computer may "believe" that the user is someone else, ... may be tricked into unwittingly giving access...both cases reveal fraud in the factum"
IANAL, but this looks like one of the most logical approaches to the subject I've ever had the pleasure of skimming.Tell that to china, why don't you.
besides if the international community could cooperate, maybe we could get off this rock
These spammers clearly represent a threat to freedom, diversity and sanctity worldwide. We must be swift and decisive in the coming days. A crippling onslaught of spamming faces us and we must stand proud in its defiance.
We must act with haste to bring these spammers to justice. Must we wait for the "smoking gun" of a mushroom cloud? Victory can only be ours if we crush these spammers with our military might.
</bushspeek>and syria.
"look, election commissioner, it seems our voter turnout was 200%"
... get this, there are no polling stations that's right folks, we do it all by mail here. tends to get people off their asses. although, i do have a friend who goes around asking people who won't vote if he can have their voter packet, and has them sign the submission envelope... well, no system is perfect.
of last years?
"no, of our eligible voting populace"
seriously, i live in Oregon, one of the U.S. states with the highest voter turnout because
let's not forget that OS/2's windows "compatibility" was, at it's peak, maybe capable of running solitaire or minesweeper. It was terrible. Native apps? fuhgettahboutit. so why buy an operating system that will emulate the one that came with you computer, but only sporadically?
because of that sweet, sweet OS/2 logo!
wait, i mean.. OS/2 isn't dead.
boy am i glad that i invested in one of those 3d resin printers... I've been downloading all of Games Workshop's models off of usenet, where some dude with one of those 3d scanners has been posting them! I have all of GW's catalog and the only money i've spent is on the "printing" resin! Eat that RIAA!
In Microsoft's NGSCB approach, users would have to consciously evoke a secure operating mode that would be turned off by default. New instructions in the CPU as well as changes in the memory controller would help carve out a protected space in main memory to load a small, secure operating system kernel.
MS secure computing involves installing BSD on millions of windows machines?
uh... you seen the box office totals from the Two Towers? i suppose you're going to tell me "normal people" are responsible for that, too?
how exactly does the wyden-sponsored bill to have copy protected cds prominently labled make the point that the country is going to hell? (the one linked off 'going') ?
oh look, now we've both said hell and n2h2 will filter out slashdot to all of the slackers reading pr0n at work.
offshore? isn't that where the piracy happens too?
there is a discrepancy between what walmart and fatwallet are saying. Walmart asks for the removal of "their Circular" and fatwallet claims they had "sale price data" posted. these two things are clearly different. if someone posted walmart's flyer, in it's entirety and unedited, then that IS a copyright violation. after all, walmart does pay someone to make those idiotic things.
if, on the other hand, the original poster was not so lazy, and typed out the data, then walmart has no claim. In fact, fatwallet would have only legitimized their claim by removing anything from their site after walmart requested the removal of the Circular. So was it a link to scans? because if it was, shame on fatwallet, for removing something they weren't asked to remove.