I went to check out register.com a few weeks ago (back when the competition plan was first announced). In looking at the TLDs they register for, I was struck by the following entry:
TLD:.md Price: $299/1 year as of April 02, 1999 Country: Moldova Comment: Intended for use by the medical profession
Quick, somebody tell the people in Moldova their entire country is part of the medical profession...
The "new" TLDs (.firm,.web, etc.) were never sent through any standards body. Frankly they were a bad idea from a rather arrogant company (AlterNIC) that a lot of people thought was creating a new standard because they saw "NIC" in it.
What we need is a reliable anonymous electronic payment system.
In a way, we have this already. Have you ever used a pre-paid phone card? You pop your money in, you get a card worth whatever you paid (typical amounts: $5, $10, $20) with an ID number on it.
There's no way to associate that card with you because the PIN (really an account number) is set when the card is printed, long before you walk up to the machine. Ran out? Get another!
A similar system is the DC metro, where you put money into a machine and get a paper card with a mag-strip on it. When you go through the gate you pop the card into a slot; at the other side you get a new card with the amount left printed on it. When you don't have enough left to go through a gate, you can pop the card into a farecard machine and add money; the value of the old card is added to what you put in and you get a new card.
I think a hybrid of these would work. You'd have a machine like an ATM, run by Your Favorite Credit Card Company. You put money in, give it a PIN for cash withdrawals and it spits out a card with a magstripe. Then you take this to a merchant and they run it through just like a Visa card.
The merchant knows they'll get their money because it's run by Visa (or whoever). You have your privacy.
I doubt most people would want to subject themselves to a retina scan given the current state of the art. It requires the scanner to come into direct contact with the eye.
Actually, no.
I had a retinal photo the other day as part of my latest eye exam. The lens does get close-in, but it didn't touch my eye. It does shine a very bright linear light in, and the camera rotates from one side to the other (like a panoramic camera).
The afterimage of the light had very clear tracery of the retinal blood vessels in it.
The big issue that I can see with this idea is that it can be taken too far and lead to very real finanicial risks involving banks, trusts, credit unions, and brokerage houses. In making the electronic signatures a legal signature, you open the door to a lot of problems like theft of the signature and signature duplication. Say you had $5,000.00 in a money market account, using a good bit of computer know how, another person gets your signature and basic account information (account number, ammount in there, the usual). Bet you dollars to donuts, that computer cluebie can find a way to fool the bank employee on the other side of the terminal into handing over the money.
I think you're a little unclear on what constitutes a digital signature. We're not talking about that little block of text that goes after your e-mail. We're talking about a digest or hash function that takes a private key block, hashes it against a transaction message (which can be anything -- e-mail, news posting, audio data...), thus generating a "signature" which can be verified using a public key.
You can't duplicate or "steal" a signature because the signature is different for every document. As long as your private key is secure, your digital signature is secure.
AlterNIC wanted the domain hierarchy expanded. They didn't really care if registration itself was opened, which was the issue as soon as NSI started charging for domain names.
As I recall they had some odd ideas involving expansion of the TLDs. The bottom line was, they never took it through a standards process of any kind, they just put up a site and started running DNS. It's as if somebody started offering a new mail transport protocol; how long would it take to get adopted?
This guy is saying "bad documentation and design are actually good because it keeps the riff-raff out." What he's not accounting for is that I don't want to have to fight six thousand config files to close mail relaying.
Bad anything is bad. That's why we call it "bad" to begin with.
Power does not preclude elegance and ease of use. Complexity does not bring power, nor does simplicity bring ease of use. A well-designed project can be powerful and easy to use. Some designers do this instinctively, some have to work at it a bit.
Linux's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the ability to write absolutely hideous code. If you can't write it badly, chances are you won't be allowed to write it very well either.
This guy is saying "bad documentation and design are actually good because it keeps the riff-raff out." What he's not accounting for is that I don't want to have to fight six thousand config files to close mail relaying.
Bad anything is bad. That's why we call it "bad" to begin with.
Power does not preclude elegance and ease of use. Complexity does not bring power, nor does simplicity bring ease of use. A well-designed project can be powerful and easy to use. Some designers do this instinctively, some have to work at it a bit.
Linux's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the ability to write absolutely hideous code. If you can't write it badly, chances are you probably can't write it very well either.
I'm not fully familiar with the postal regs, but putting a false return address on letters is definitely illegal and could constitute forgery or impersonation. Not putting one at all could violate "truth in advertising/labeling" type laws.
According to the article, one modem was a 33.6 and the other was a 28.8.
Wow. Big difference there. Are Microsoft haters now reduced to this level of nitpicky-ness?
Let's see. 33.6 is about 17% faster than 28.8. How about we take 17% of your income as additional tax? You wouldn't be nit-picky about it or anything would you?
Four dead in Ohio? That has NOTHING to do with Privacy / conspriacies!
Nothing to do with privacy specifically, but the previous AC wrote:
OK, this is really starting to piss me off. You conspiracy-theory driven people need to get out more. The government won't fscking bother you, unless you're doing somehting that would make them WANT to bother you. So if you're clean, don't worry about.
Obviously, as attested to by incidents like Kent State, that assertion is false. The government can and does bother innocent people. Ask anyone who's had their property seized (but no charges ever filed against them) because they fit the profile of a drug courier going through customs.
Slashdot Mirror
TLD: .md
Price: $299/1 year as of April 02, 1999
Country: Moldova
Comment: Intended for use by the medical profession
Quick, somebody tell the people in Moldova their entire country is part of the medical profession...
The "new" TLDs (.firm, .web, etc.) were never sent through any standards body. Frankly they were a bad idea from a rather arrogant company (AlterNIC) that a lot of people thought was creating a new standard because they saw "NIC" in it.
What we need is a reliable anonymous electronic payment system.
In a way, we have this already. Have you ever used a pre-paid phone card? You pop your money in, you get a card worth whatever you paid (typical amounts: $5, $10, $20) with an ID number on it.
There's no way to associate that card with you because the PIN (really an account number) is set when the card is printed, long before you walk up to the machine. Ran out? Get another!
A similar system is the DC metro, where you put money into a machine and get a paper card with a mag-strip on it. When you go through the gate you pop the card into a slot; at the other side you get a new card with the amount left printed on it. When you don't have enough left to go through a gate, you can pop the card into a farecard machine and add money; the value of the old card is added to what you put in and you get a new card.
I think a hybrid of these would work. You'd have a machine like an ATM, run by Your Favorite Credit Card Company. You put money in, give it a PIN for cash withdrawals and it spits out a card with a magstripe. Then you take this to a merchant and they run it through just like a Visa card.
The merchant knows they'll get their money because it's run by Visa (or whoever). You have your privacy.
I doubt most people would want to subject themselves to a retina scan given the current state of the art. It requires the scanner to come into direct contact with the eye.
Actually, no.
I had a retinal photo the other day as part of my latest eye exam. The lens does get close-in, but it didn't touch my eye. It does shine a very bright linear light in, and the camera rotates from one side to the other (like a panoramic camera).
The afterimage of the light had very clear tracery of the retinal blood vessels in it.
The big issue that I can see with this idea is that it can be taken too far and lead to very real finanicial risks involving banks, trusts, credit unions, and brokerage houses. In making the electronic signatures a legal signature, you open the door to a lot of problems like theft of the signature and signature duplication. Say you had $5,000.00 in a money market account, using a good bit of computer know how, another person gets your signature and basic account information (account number, ammount in there, the usual). Bet you dollars to donuts, that computer cluebie can find a way to fool the bank employee on the other side of the terminal into handing over the money.
I think you're a little unclear on what constitutes a digital signature. We're not talking about that little block of text that goes after your e-mail. We're talking about a digest or hash function that takes a private key block, hashes it against a transaction message (which can be anything -- e-mail, news posting, audio data...), thus generating a "signature" which can be verified using a public key.
You can't duplicate or "steal" a signature because the signature is different for every document. As long as your private key is secure, your digital signature is secure.
As I recall they had some odd ideas involving expansion of the TLDs. The bottom line was, they never took it through a standards process of any kind, they just put up a site and started running DNS. It's as if somebody started offering a new mail transport protocol; how long would it take to get adopted?
Pay particular attention to the first letters...
Bad anything is bad. That's why we call it "bad" to begin with.
Power does not preclude elegance and ease of use.
Complexity does not bring power, nor does simplicity bring ease of use.
A well-designed project can be powerful and easy to use. Some designers do this instinctively, some have to work at it a bit.
Linux's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the ability to write absolutely hideous code. If you can't write it badly, chances are you won't be allowed to write it very well either.
Bad anything is bad. That's why we call it "bad" to begin with.
Power does not preclude elegance and ease of use.
Complexity does not bring power, nor does simplicity bring ease of use.
A well-designed project can be powerful and easy to use. Some designers do this instinctively, some have to work at it a bit.
Linux's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the ability to write absolutely hideous code. If you can't write it badly, chances are you probably can't write it very well either.
I'm not fully familiar with the postal regs, but putting a false return address on letters is definitely illegal and could constitute forgery or impersonation. Not putting one at all could violate "truth in advertising/labeling" type laws.
According to the article, one modem was a 33.6 and the other was a 28.8.
Wow. Big difference there. Are Microsoft haters now reduced to this level of nitpicky-ness?
Let's see. 33.6 is about 17% faster than 28.8. How about we take 17% of your income as additional tax? You wouldn't be nit-picky about it or anything would you?
17% is a big difference.
Four dead in Ohio? That has NOTHING to do with Privacy / conspriacies!
Nothing to do with privacy specifically, but the previous AC wrote:
OK, this is really starting to piss me off. You conspiracy-theory driven people need to get out more. The government won't fscking bother you, unless you're doing somehting that would make them WANT to bother you. So if you're clean, don't worry about.
Obviously, as attested to by incidents like Kent State, that assertion is false. The government can and does bother innocent people. Ask anyone who's had their property seized (but no charges ever filed against them) because they fit the profile of a drug courier going through customs.
You're the kind of person who says "Encryption? Are you trying to HIDE something?" And to that I say "Fine. Send all your mail on postcards then."