"I was so pissed the first time I saw the commercial with the teenagers saying "I helped terrorists because I bought a dime bag" (or whatever)"
I think this neatly illustrates why not to watch television. They cannot be trusted to accurately represent public opinion, and sometimes they cannot be trusted even to accurately represent facts. Just leave the TV turned off -- we have no need for a daily dose from the propoganda office.
Please do remember that buying microsoft products is not only supporting a convicted criminal organisation, but one which has openly admitted to trechary by selling secrets (windows source code) to the chinese which would undermine U.S. national security.
And let's not lose sight of who's actually funding terrorism. Look inside the next car which drives past. They're funding terrorism. Counterfeit goods are irrelevant next to the oil-money which is being used directly. Does anyone imagine that President Saddam Hussein got the money to buy missiles by selling copied CDs? Couldn't possibly be anything to do with all the oil he's selling to U.S. car drivers?
"I only saw powder on that website, and they sell it through retailers/dealers."
Okay, I was using that page as an example listing of gun-suppliers. If the example I chose was inaccurate, apologies. However, I remain convinced that it's possible to purchase military-grade firearms in the US, which puts into perspective the poster's concerns over offering encryption capabilities to the public.
Personally, I'd rather see the "terrorists" [communists, witches, frenchies] armed with copies of PGP, Rubberhose and Martus, than with the weaponary available for purchase in neighbourhood stores.
"I see this software and I find myself very afraid. It neatly packages up a military grade cryptographic communications solution and makes it freely available to the public."
As opposed to the people who package up miltary-grade firearms and make them freely available to the public?
And soon enough even the possession of these kinds of tools will be enough to put people in jail... strong crypto is only a part of the answer, whatever that answer may be.
The answer (currently) is deniable steganographic encryption. At the moment, these systems work by having small amounts of data in large amounts of chaff. Only the correct key can identify data, which appears random without the key. Thus, anyone without the key cannot determine the existance or non-existance of data.
Similarly, someone holding one or more keys to data cannot determine whether there are any additional filesystems available.
The main difficulty is that one filesytem has no way of knowing whether it's overwriting the packets of another (because it doesn't know what other filesystems exist), so each piece of data needs to be duplicated to guard against its accidental deletion.
The other difficulty is that the system works best on a disk with far more storage area than will ever be used, so you might work with a couple of 100Mb filesystems on a 20Gb disk. But with text-files mentioned in the article, this isn't a problem, and 20Gb disks are considered quite normal now.
Oh, and don't even think of using MS Word to write documents that're going onto a deniable filesystem.
"If an alternative to SMTP were developed, the protocol would not be likely to disappear immediately"
The problem would be: do servers accept connections from legacy SMTP connections (which means spammers can just connect on SMTP and take advantage of the lack of identification), or do servers refuse to accept connections from legacy SMTP connections (which means that either everyone has to upgrade at once, or people using SMTP software have their connections dropped)
"I'm starting to think that Slashdot readers are actually communists; nobody's allowed to root for the big guy"
Well duh! That's negative feedback, and it's the only way to have a stable system, as any electronic engineer knows.
If people preferred the most successful vendor, that's positive feedback, and just ends up with a single-player monopoly.
To anyone whose attitude is "We buy microsoft kit because they're the biggest" or "We buy Creative Labs kit becuase they're the biggest", how much choice do you want for the next time you buy something? If you buy from the more obscure companies now, you're more likely to have alternatives to choose from in the future.
"Which is one of many reason's I don't read Tom's Hardware anymore"
Well, that and the Macromedia plugins. And putting each paragraph on a different page. And that they *never* warn people that "card X" really sucks on Linux because the manufacturer releases it without a driver.
Nope, I stopped reading after they wrote a review of the Philips Acoustinc Edge sound card, and neglected to mention that it will fuck-up any dual-processor machine (Win2K) that you place it into. C'mon guys, how can we buy things that haven't even been tested?
I'd seriously like hardware manufacturers not to think that they can get away with selling stuff without linux drivers, just because Tom's Hardware will write glowing reviews regardless.
"once you know how they determine who gets the lowest price, adjust your profile to match."
Uh, Amazon.com were offering lower prices to people who use Internet Explorer. I think the experience might be too painful for many people here to bother.
"and here's another twenty popup windows. Oops, did your operating system just crash?"
"Maybe we need some other terminology than "distro". A term which implied sort of half-fledged distro-ness [sic], for instance for a distro *based on* something"
What you need is a family-tree. Maybe one at distrowatch or something.
For example, I'd quite like to produce a distro which is *exactly* like Mandrake, but without the need to agree to an End User License Agreement. Counts as a distro? Nope. But it would need a different name, hence more confusion among users.
"I cannot say that I can reproduce a blue screen on NT, nor a hangup"
Try installing a Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard in a dual-processor machine.
Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?
on
Has GNOME Become LAME?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"I've settled on Gnome as I find it faster, more intuitive and less "bloated" than KDE, yet the authour of the article finds pretty much the opposite to be true."
I think the author of this article would agree with you, although he doesn't cover such issues in the article. Take his example of file-select box. He has a screenshot of KDE file-select, with bookmarks, favourites icons, an image-previewer, an optional directory-tree, a browser toolbar, and little icons by each type of file.
He then gives a screenshot of the Gnome file-select, with a listbox and a "parent directory" dropdown, and goes on to note how basic it is. Yes, but how long did the K take to load? How much memory is that file-select using? How long does it take to redraw a directory with thousands of files?
For me, speed is not the issue so much as reliability. I've had problems with KDE and Gnome crashing (Fixed in whichever version comes with the Drake 9) which lost me more time than any delays in the operating environment.
WindowMaker is very good, for people who've not tried it yet. You can run you Gnome and KDE programs the same, but the environment is more stable and robust, and it loads in less than a second.
Okay, has been bugging me, and it's getting annoying now: How can you type the é in resumé without using the character-map? It's Control-Meta-E in Windows, but what is it in KDE and WindowMaker?
Slashdot Mirror
"I was so pissed the first time I saw the commercial with the teenagers saying "I helped terrorists because I bought a dime bag" (or whatever)"
I think this neatly illustrates why not to watch television. They cannot be trusted to accurately represent public opinion, and sometimes they cannot be trusted even to accurately represent facts. Just leave the TV turned off -- we have no need for a daily dose from the propoganda office.
"...trying to make piracy sound like terrorism"
Please do remember that buying microsoft products is not only supporting a convicted criminal organisation, but one which has openly admitted to trechary by selling secrets (windows source code) to the chinese which would undermine U.S. national security.
And let's not lose sight of who's actually funding terrorism. Look inside the next car which drives past. They're funding terrorism. Counterfeit goods are irrelevant next to the oil-money which is being used directly. Does anyone imagine that President Saddam Hussein got the money to buy missiles by selling copied CDs? Couldn't possibly be anything to do with all the oil he's selling to U.S. car drivers?
"Uv, V'z jbaqrevat vs lbh guvax gurer'f n shgher sbe EBG13."
k .c uc
uggc://jjj.oyvooyroybooyr.pb.hx/Gbbyf/Grkg/vaqr
Lrnu, vg'f n avpr flfgrz...
"It's just plain stupid to lock 7000 people into one toolset."
Or into one toolshed.
"What happens to an RFID tag if you put it in a microwave on high power for 30 seconds?"
It destroys the microwave. What you want do do is exactly that, but with a glass of water in the microwave also
"This assumes the ability to travel to a parallel universe or future time where handheld EMP guns actually exist."
Try a handheld "speed-trap" radar gun.
"I only saw powder on that website, and they sell it through retailers/dealers."
Okay, I was using that page as an example listing of gun-suppliers. If the example I chose was inaccurate, apologies. However, I remain convinced that it's possible to purchase military-grade firearms in the US, which puts into perspective the poster's concerns over offering encryption capabilities to the public.
Personally, I'd rather see the "terrorists" [communists, witches, frenchies] armed with copies of PGP, Rubberhose and Martus, than with the weaponary available for purchase in neighbourhood stores.
"I see this software and I find myself very afraid. It neatly packages up a military grade cryptographic communications solution and makes it freely available to the public."
As opposed to the people who package up miltary-grade firearms and make them freely available to the public?
Or indeed, to Iran, China, Iraq, Indonesia, and others...
"How is it possible to stop terrorism and child pr0n, with out eliminating human rights?"
It's not possible to stop either, so you may as well take that as given, and keep the human rights.
And soon enough even the possession of these kinds of tools will be enough to put people in jail... strong crypto is only a part of the answer, whatever that answer may be.
The answer (currently) is deniable steganographic encryption. At the moment, these systems work by having small amounts of data in large amounts of chaff. Only the correct key can identify data, which appears random without the key. Thus, anyone without the key cannot determine the existance or non-existance of data.
Similarly, someone holding one or more keys to data cannot determine whether there are any additional filesystems available.
The main difficulty is that one filesytem has no way of knowing whether it's overwriting the packets of another (because it doesn't know what other filesystems exist), so each piece of data needs to be duplicated to guard against its accidental deletion.
The other difficulty is that the system works best on a disk with far more storage area than will ever be used, so you might work with a couple of 100Mb filesystems on a 20Gb disk. But with text-files mentioned in the article, this isn't a problem, and 20Gb disks are considered quite normal now.
Oh, and don't even think of using MS Word to write documents that're going onto a deniable filesystem.
"If an alternative to SMTP were developed, the protocol would not be likely to disappear immediately"
The problem would be: do servers accept connections from legacy SMTP connections (which means spammers can just connect on SMTP and take advantage of the lack of identification), or do servers refuse to accept connections from legacy SMTP connections (which means that either everyone has to upgrade at once, or people using SMTP software have their connections dropped)
"I'm starting to think that Slashdot readers are actually communists; nobody's allowed to root for the big guy"
Well duh! That's negative feedback, and it's the only way to have a stable system, as any electronic engineer knows.
If people preferred the most successful vendor, that's positive feedback, and just ends up with a single-player monopoly.
To anyone whose attitude is "We buy microsoft kit because they're the biggest" or "We buy Creative Labs kit becuase they're the biggest", how much choice do you want for the next time you buy something? If you buy from the more obscure companies now, you're more likely to have alternatives to choose from in the future.
"you can get a Radeon that performs almost as well, doesn't take up an extra slot, and costs less."
And doesn't make a noise like a GR7 Harrier taking off.
"Which is one of many reason's I don't read Tom's Hardware anymore"
Well, that and the Macromedia plugins. And putting each paragraph on a different page. And that they *never* warn people that "card X" really sucks on Linux because the manufacturer releases it without a driver.
Nope, I stopped reading after they wrote a review of the Philips Acoustinc Edge sound card, and neglected to mention that it will fuck-up any dual-processor machine (Win2K) that you place it into. C'mon guys, how can we buy things that haven't even been tested?
I'd seriously like hardware manufacturers not to think that they can get away with selling stuff without linux drivers, just because Tom's Hardware will write glowing reviews regardless.
"...gotten me wondering, what sort of legal options would one have against employees' backdoors?
Spoken like a true American.
"Did you ever think of what would happen if a cracker found out about such a backdoor?"
Uhh, the backdoor password is as secure as any other. Generally they're better than the real passwords.
Oh, and they can be MD5'ed the same as any other password. So "strings" won't work.
"why don't you just write a script that tells amazon it is browser X, then pull down the price?"
If anyone wants to try, you'll need WWW::Mechanize. Sourceforge will probably host it for you, and there'll be plenty of interest.
"once you know how they determine who gets the lowest price, adjust your profile to match."
Uh, Amazon.com were offering lower prices to people who use Internet Explorer. I think the experience might be too painful for many people here to bother.
"and here's another twenty popup windows. Oops, did your operating system just crash?"
I propose that we adopt the Sid Meier's Civilization test - the Space Race will be won by the first nation to establish a permanent off-world colony.
How about a permanently manned space station for 15 years?
"Maybe we need some other terminology than "distro". A term which implied sort of half-fledged distro-ness [sic], for instance for a distro *based on* something"
What you need is a family-tree. Maybe one at distrowatch or something.
For example, I'd quite like to produce a distro which is *exactly* like Mandrake, but without the need to agree to an End User License Agreement. Counts as a distro? Nope. But it would need a different name, hence more confusion among users.
"I cannot say that I can reproduce a blue screen on NT, nor a hangup"
Try installing a Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard in a dual-processor machine.
"I've settled on Gnome as I find it faster, more intuitive and less "bloated" than KDE, yet the authour of the article finds pretty much the opposite to be true."
I think the author of this article would agree with you, although he doesn't cover such issues in the article. Take his example of file-select box. He has a screenshot of KDE file-select, with bookmarks, favourites icons, an image-previewer, an optional directory-tree, a browser toolbar, and little icons by each type of file.
He then gives a screenshot of the Gnome file-select, with a listbox and a "parent directory" dropdown, and goes on to note how basic it is. Yes, but how long did the K take to load? How much memory is that file-select using? How long does it take to redraw a directory with thousands of files?
For me, speed is not the issue so much as reliability. I've had problems with KDE and Gnome crashing (Fixed in whichever version comes with the Drake 9) which lost me more time than any delays in the operating environment.
WindowMaker is very good, for people who've not tried it yet. You can run you Gnome and KDE programs the same, but the environment is more stable and robust, and it loads in less than a second.
"I use this [sourceforge.net]"
How about this?
"Heh, the first GPLed resume. Funny."
Okay, has been bugging me, and it's getting annoying now: How can you type the é in resumé without using the character-map? It's Control-Meta-E in Windows, but what is it in KDE and WindowMaker?
NIC card? Is that like a PIN Number number number number number?