I seriously doubt that the terrorists' goal was to stifle the artistic license of TV show writers. If that were the case they'd have crashed a plane into some Hollywood studio.
I agree with the main point of your comment, but it seems like the latest trend is that every time someone says or does something someone else doesn't like the affected party retorts with the bizarre claim that the offenders are "doing the work of the terrorists". This is along the lines of calling everyone on the left a "commie" and everyone on the right a "nazi". It is a hackneyed and empty response.
It's getting to the point where people who double-park will start being accused of "doing the work of the terrorists".
Maybe the people buying it will be consumers getting it with a new machine because that is all they can get with it and they don't have the desire to work around it. Most consumers aren't as technically savvy as us (aren't we wonderful) and just want to do the usual email/web browse/word proc tasks without sweating the technology behind them.
People need to get on Congress's back and get a law passed allowing software users to sue for damages (and punative damages) due to software with known bugs. No other industry is so coddled as the software industry, except maybe the recording industry.
If a person can show that the company either knew about security flaws already or that they informed the company about a hole and it wasn't addressed in a reasonable manner then the company should be held liable. I doubt MS or other companies would be so blase` about security flaws or glaring bugs if it threatened their bottom line.
Great, MS has gotten to the point where the world must change to fit its business goals. Maybe they'll start demanding control over what is tought in university computer sciences classes? They could snuff out potential hackers before they appear in the first place.
Wait until MS starts putting Windows in cars. All those jokes about "If cars were built like Windows they'd blue-screen on the highway and need to be rebooted" would come back to haunt us. Guess/.'rs would be pushing for an open source car then, a Linuxmobile.
MS could also put XP-like security on it. It sends the driver's biological functions back to Redmond and if it sees any major changes assumes it is a different driver and stops working. Sorry! Should've read the license!
What if the car gets emotions of it's own? It'll be like Steven King's "Christine." The last thing I need is my car saying "Cheer up!" or "How can you listen to that crap?"
"Sorry, I won't unlock the doors until you turn that frown upside down!"
I agree with your points but I wasn't thinking of the big software companies (i.e. Oracle or MS) but the end users. A lot of companies end up having to customize systems to make them do what they want. I've had this experience with SAP at MIT. MIT has spent millions not only installing the base product but also altering it to its business needs thus making it a major support issue. There is a need for independent R&D in the software world.
I have worked for government labs/non-profit R&D firms. The business model is: company has specialized need it can't fulfill, company goes to the lab, lab proposes approach to solving it and (hopefully) solves it. Generally it is a project by project basis. The reason why I say a non-profit firm instead of a for profit Linux contractor is that the non-profit wouldn't have a motive (or even forbidden to) to hide it's research. The client is looking to solve a problem, not create a finished product for the market. The non-profits usually originate from universities, endowments, or the government who see a need that for-profits are not fulfilling. I could see such work including software security, ruggedness, and standards. Some of this work is already being done by R&D labs such as software/network security research being sponsored by the Air Force.
I'm not saying this would be a cure-all or a substitute for for-profit product development but a greater public body of knowledge benefits everyone just like open scientific publication. My feeling is that software development shouldn't be looked upon as fundamentally different from, say, engineering development.
Businesses could use the FFRL (Fed Funded Research Lab) as a model. They pay a non-profit institution to do development on a specific request just like they would any contractor. The lab would exist as a non-biased skunk-works.
The development lab could require that the client agrees that all work (or agreed upon pieces) will be published under the open source license, thereby adding to the library of open source software. Any profits would be funneled back into further software development or grants to independent developers.
Such an institution could do for open source software what Los Alamos did for nuclear science or Sandia does for solid state physics. Battelle Memorial Institute is an example of such an R&D non-profit that works for the government and companies.
Think of the geek heaven it would create also!
The ME163 Komet flown towards the end of WWII by the Luftwaffe used hydrazine as a propellent. Read the history of these pilots to see some interesting experiences with the stuff.
The dangerousness of hydrazine was hammered home into the pilots and flight crews. One demonstration was simply pouring some on the ground and watching things spontaniously burn on contact. Nearly pure hydrogen peroxide was also used with it and it was almost as dangerous. If one spilled on the other they basically exploded!
C-Stoff: 57% methyl alcohol, 30% hydrazine hydrate, 13% water
T-Stoff: 80% hydrogen peroxide, 20% stabilizers
Burn ratio was about 3 units t-stoff to 1 unit c-stoff.
As you can see flying such a plane was close to piloting a flying bomb.
There has been research into materials that "hold" hydrogen on their surfaces. I believe palladium was one of them? When made into a mossy form with a very large surface area they can hold many times their own volume in hydrogen. The metal would only have to be an atoms thick layer on a base material for this to work and would avoid the problems with liquid and compressed gases. I'm not sure how the gas is released from the matrix, possibly using electricity or heat?
Since I heard about this many years ago cheaper hydrogenphillic materials may have been found since then.
It is just theft, plain and simple, Robin Hood fantasies not withstanding.
Employers not paying employees for their time is also theft however and when assets go on the chopping block they should be legally entitled to first dibs on any funds raised. Investors can get what is left.
Maybe CEOs and owners of companies that fail to pay employees should be held personally liable also instead of being able to hide behind a corporation?
So, is the government going to confiscate every old piece of encryption software out there that doesn't have a backdoor? A good reason not to upgrade!
I think certain congressmen pulled this idea out of their backdoor.
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I seriously doubt that the terrorists' goal was to stifle the artistic license of TV show writers. If that were the case they'd have crashed a plane into some Hollywood studio.
I agree with the main point of your comment, but it seems like the latest trend is that every time someone says or does something someone else doesn't like the affected party retorts with the bizarre claim that the offenders are "doing the work of the terrorists". This is along the lines of calling everyone on the left a "commie" and everyone on the right a "nazi". It is a hackneyed and empty response.
It's getting to the point where people who double-park will start being accused of "doing the work of the terrorists".
Please tell me Clippy is back!
The Win XP installation really dragged on my machine, probably because it was busy reformatting my Linux partitions.
I'd rather have it simulate being a raving, mad tyrant. Maybe it could have a Caligula mode.
"You declare war against Neptune and return with boxes of seashells."
"Your civilization has built a new wonder of the world! Marketing!"
True, but in Civ II the walls had to be rebuilt after sabotage implying they were destroyed outright.
Maybe the people buying it will be consumers getting it with a new machine because that is all they can get with it and they don't have the desire to work around it. Most consumers aren't as technically savvy as us (aren't we wonderful) and just want to do the usual email/web browse/word proc tasks without sweating the technology behind them.
Actually they will change the license so that you get charged for using XP by the hour.
People need to get on Congress's back and get a law passed allowing software users to sue for damages (and punative damages) due to software with known bugs. No other industry is so coddled as the software industry, except maybe the recording industry.
If a person can show that the company either knew about security flaws already or that they informed the company about a hole and it wasn't addressed in a reasonable manner then the company should be held liable. I doubt MS or other companies would be so blase` about security flaws or glaring bugs if it threatened their bottom line.
Great, MS has gotten to the point where the world must change to fit its business goals. Maybe they'll start demanding control over what is tought in university computer sciences classes? They could snuff out potential hackers before they appear in the first place.
Sort of like the Evil Bugblatter beast from the Hitchhiker's Guide TTG. If you can't see the security hole it doesn't exist, right?
Damn liberal society and its free exchange of information keeps getting in MS's way.
Wait until MS starts putting Windows in cars. All those jokes about "If cars were built like Windows they'd blue-screen on the highway and need to be rebooted" would come back to haunt us. Guess /.'rs would be pushing for an open source car then, a Linuxmobile.
MS could also put XP-like security on it. It sends the driver's biological functions back to Redmond and if it sees any major changes assumes it is a different driver and stops working. Sorry! Should've read the license!
What if the car gets emotions of it's own? It'll be like Steven King's "Christine." The last thing I need is my car saying "Cheer up!" or "How can you listen to that crap?" "Sorry, I won't unlock the doors until you turn that frown upside down!"
I agree with your points but I wasn't thinking of the big software companies (i.e. Oracle or MS) but the end users. A lot of companies end up having to customize systems to make them do what they want. I've had this experience with SAP at MIT. MIT has spent millions not only installing the base product but also altering it to its business needs thus making it a major support issue. There is a need for independent R&D in the software world.
I have worked for government labs/non-profit R&D firms. The business model is: company has specialized need it can't fulfill, company goes to the lab, lab proposes approach to solving it and (hopefully) solves it. Generally it is a project by project basis. The reason why I say a non-profit firm instead of a for profit Linux contractor is that the non-profit wouldn't have a motive (or even forbidden to) to hide it's research. The client is looking to solve a problem, not create a finished product for the market. The non-profits usually originate from universities, endowments, or the government who see a need that for-profits are not fulfilling. I could see such work including software security, ruggedness, and standards. Some of this work is already being done by R&D labs such as software/network security research being sponsored by the Air Force.
I'm not saying this would be a cure-all or a substitute for for-profit product development but a greater public body of knowledge benefits everyone just like open scientific publication. My feeling is that software development shouldn't be looked upon as fundamentally different from, say, engineering development.
Businesses could use the FFRL (Fed Funded Research Lab) as a model. They pay a non-profit institution to do development on a specific request just like they would any contractor. The lab would exist as a non-biased skunk-works. The development lab could require that the client agrees that all work (or agreed upon pieces) will be published under the open source license, thereby adding to the library of open source software. Any profits would be funneled back into further software development or grants to independent developers. Such an institution could do for open source software what Los Alamos did for nuclear science or Sandia does for solid state physics. Battelle Memorial Institute is an example of such an R&D non-profit that works for the government and companies. Think of the geek heaven it would create also!
I'd like to see cheap RAM come out in the next few years based on pervoskite oxides. Nonvolatile memory so no need for batteries and instant on.
The ME163 Komet flown towards the end of WWII by the Luftwaffe used hydrazine as a propellent. Read the history of these pilots to see some interesting experiences with the stuff. The dangerousness of hydrazine was hammered home into the pilots and flight crews. One demonstration was simply pouring some on the ground and watching things spontaniously burn on contact. Nearly pure hydrogen peroxide was also used with it and it was almost as dangerous. If one spilled on the other they basically exploded! C-Stoff: 57% methyl alcohol, 30% hydrazine hydrate, 13% water T-Stoff: 80% hydrogen peroxide, 20% stabilizers Burn ratio was about 3 units t-stoff to 1 unit c-stoff. As you can see flying such a plane was close to piloting a flying bomb.
There has been research into materials that "hold" hydrogen on their surfaces. I believe palladium was one of them? When made into a mossy form with a very large surface area they can hold many times their own volume in hydrogen. The metal would only have to be an atoms thick layer on a base material for this to work and would avoid the problems with liquid and compressed gases. I'm not sure how the gas is released from the matrix, possibly using electricity or heat? Since I heard about this many years ago cheaper hydrogenphillic materials may have been found since then.
I hold Orville and Wilbur Wright personally responsible for all of this.
It is just theft, plain and simple, Robin Hood fantasies not withstanding. Employers not paying employees for their time is also theft however and when assets go on the chopping block they should be legally entitled to first dibs on any funds raised. Investors can get what is left. Maybe CEOs and owners of companies that fail to pay employees should be held personally liable also instead of being able to hide behind a corporation?
I wonder if Larry would still be so gung-ho about his idea if we said "Sure Larry, but the DB will be Sybase."
Just think what it'll do for the battery industry.
Larry can have his DB, he just can't put any indexes on the tables. By the time queries come back I'll be retired.
Frontpage is a shoddy, worthless piece of...let go of me...where are you taking me!!!...aaahhhhhh!
So, is the government going to confiscate every old piece of encryption software out there that doesn't have a backdoor? A good reason not to upgrade! I think certain congressmen pulled this idea out of their backdoor.