Ok, I emailed the person who did their press release (Debbi Bauman) and got a prompt reply containing the report upon which they base their estimates on the "dollar value" of pirated software. I know people consider these estimates are notoriously inaccurate (distorted by crackers, open-source people, etc) so I was interested to find out how they did it, and what assumptions they made.
I know nobody likes multi-page comments on slashdot, so you can
read it here on my website
Nice point. You're involved with genetic algorithms and evolving software, right? The idea being that a population evolves through mutation, and that mutation (such as that seen in linux) is necessary, not only to increase performance and efficiency, but to provide immumity from unknown threats.
If a new virus arrives on earth and kills nearly everyone, there's enough diversity in people's DNA that a few will be resistant, enough to restart society. If you decide to clone people instead of breeding them, then there would be no survivors of a virus.
The flip side of the coin is the need for predators (in this case, virii, hackers, and dumb users) - a population cannot improve in the absence of predators (they have no need to) and they are then extremely vulnerable to unknown new threats.
So, hackers are absolutely needed for the evolution of software. The escalation of techniques both by hackers and by developers will lead to extremely secure systems, and a massive barrier to entry for those tring to attack the system.
How can I test my new secure program if there is no-one willing to take the risk of attacking it? I just have to hope that it works, and wait for an attack to cripple my production system.
In short, outlawing computer crime is ridiculously stupid.
That sounds like a more sensible solution. I know that the courts are terribly popular at the moment, but technical solutions are even better, and public-opinion solutions better still.
If the government wants to discourage the use of insecure software for national infrastructure, they could start by buying open-source software in place of XP / IIS for government departments.
One of the best things the government has done thus far to kick microsoft in the teeth, is their development of secure-linux by the NSA. Right, now they're saying, "we're so frustrated with this windows crap that we've actually programmed an alternative ourselves." You can't fault that attitude!
And as you say, IT departments should specify software which they KNOW to be reliable and secure. There's no more point in buying Outlook and going to court over security problems than there is tipping coffee over yourself to get compensation money. IT departments should know the benefits and drawbacks of software before they buy it.
More to the point, it's like me sending postcards to every home, office, and farm in france, demanding that they bring up-to-date their licenses for my "GraphicExplorer" program. (OK, it's GPL, but pretend for a moment it was costly)
Well obviously none of them use my program, and I'd probably be in french court fighting off allegations of slander, having accused these people of criminality with no good cause. And it would certainly prevent my ever doing business with these people, if I treated them like criminals.
I suppose it's the same as TV licensing here in the UK. I kept getting more and more threatening letters from the government, telling me that I would go to prison if I didn't immediately buy a license for my TV. Problem is, they forgot to check whether I owned a TV. Ignorant twats.
So yeah, people may defend this sort of action, they may point to a few software "?pirates?" and say that that justifies threatening everybody, but really, it isn't a good way to do business, and it isn't a good way to treat your neighbours.
Surely what you really want is for Windows 3.11 to be avaiable for free?
(1) I could do pretty much everything on 3.11 that I can now do on 98 - decent GUI, decent applications, easy to use and install (only reason I upgraded was when I got a new PC ready-installed)
(2) It works fine with 286s and the like, because it's not expecting a fast processor.
(3) Microsoft are no longer making any money out of it. Given that they no longer sell, or even support, Win98 from just 4 years ago, they have no vested interest in keeping 3.11 secret.
(4) It's not in competition with Win ME/XP (ever tried running those on a 386?)
So the ideal solution for keeping old PCs in use would just be to make stuff "AbandonWare" after 6 years.
I believe that many MS Office applications have an "Email this document" option, in the file menu.
Emailing the document you're working on is as easy as saving it to disk.
When did you last try to figure out a "Check Engine" warning light on a car?
The manufacturers don't like end-users being able to fix cars, it makes them nervous. Pretty soon, you're gonna need a password to talk to your car's engine management system, even if you already have the interface box.
Converting Word HTML to standard HTML isn't too bad, the main problem I find is the sheer size of the files - it takes so long to do the search-and-replace.
(1) Dreamweaver: clean-up Word HTML
(2) Delete the entire style-sheet
(3) Search and delete the bookmarks
If you need to convert more files, just write some perl code for it.
I like many word processors, most of all Word which was the best thing Microsoft ever wrote. Now I use abiword where I can, and try not to use any pictures;-)
But for documentation, nothing beats writing perl scripts. In my last job, I had to write a big-ass test script, and not only did I have perl to generate the code for me, but to generate comments, and HTML documentation too.
Simply, just put a/* FunctionDoes: blah bah */ style of comment in, or whatever your regular commenting style, then write a perl script to convert them all to HTML. It knows your function names, it can find out the arguments, and it takes about 30 lines of code.
Freedom of speech is great... right up there with the freedom to punish those who speak. Why do you think anonymous email and anonymous slashdot postings are so important? Most censorship is done after-the-fact.
Slashdot Mirror
Presumably you've read this nice article on car tyres and the DMCA?
Although I don't want to post a really long comment, I did write an article on the trend for legal solutions to technical problems - read it here
More to the point, link to them from your site, using frames, advertising, and "content not suitable for all ages" around the edge...
Does anyone think website licenses actually have ANY legal standing, and if so, has it ever been tested?
It has to store a database containing 200 entries, each of which has an name (3 bytes) and a value (8 bytes)
So, that gives us 4.4K of data, plus presumably a little program to interpret it and send the results back.
So what do they do with the other 8 gigabytes?
Ok, I emailed the person who did their press release (Debbi Bauman) and got a prompt reply containing the report upon which they base their estimates on the "dollar value" of pirated software. I know people consider these estimates are notoriously inaccurate (distorted by crackers, open-source people, etc) so I was interested to find out how they did it, and what assumptions they made.
I know nobody likes multi-page comments on slashdot, so you can read it here on my website
Nice point. You're involved with genetic algorithms and evolving software, right? The idea being that a population evolves through mutation, and that mutation (such as that seen in linux) is necessary, not only to increase performance and efficiency, but to provide immumity from unknown threats.
If a new virus arrives on earth and kills nearly everyone, there's enough diversity in people's DNA that a few will be resistant, enough to restart society. If you decide to clone people instead of breeding them, then there would be no survivors of a virus.
The flip side of the coin is the need for predators (in this case, virii, hackers, and dumb users) - a population cannot improve in the absence of predators (they have no need to) and they are then extremely vulnerable to unknown new threats.
So, hackers are absolutely needed for the evolution of software. The escalation of techniques both by hackers and by developers will lead to extremely secure systems, and a massive barrier to entry for those tring to attack the system.
How can I test my new secure program if there is no-one willing to take the risk of attacking it? I just have to hope that it works, and wait for an attack to cripple my production system.
In short, outlawing computer crime is ridiculously stupid.
That sounds like a more sensible solution. I know that the courts are terribly popular at the moment, but technical solutions are even better, and public-opinion solutions better still.
If the government wants to discourage the use of insecure software for national infrastructure, they could start by buying open-source software in place of XP / IIS for government departments.
One of the best things the government has done thus far to kick microsoft in the teeth, is their development of secure-linux by the NSA. Right, now they're saying, "we're so frustrated with this windows crap that we've actually programmed an alternative ourselves." You can't fault that attitude!
And as you say, IT departments should specify software which they KNOW to be reliable and secure. There's no more point in buying Outlook and going to court over security problems than there is tipping coffee over yourself to get compensation money. IT departments should know the benefits and drawbacks of software before they buy it.
More to the point, it's like me sending postcards to every home, office, and farm in france, demanding that they bring up-to-date their licenses for my "GraphicExplorer" program. (OK, it's GPL, but pretend for a moment it was costly)
Well obviously none of them use my program, and I'd probably be in french court fighting off allegations of slander, having accused these people of criminality with no good cause. And it would certainly prevent my ever doing business with these people, if I treated them like criminals.
I suppose it's the same as TV licensing here in the UK. I kept getting more and more threatening letters from the government, telling me that I would go to prison if I didn't immediately buy a license for my TV. Problem is, they forgot to check whether I owned a TV. Ignorant twats.
So yeah, people may defend this sort of action, they may point to a few software "?pirates?" and say that that justifies threatening everybody, but really, it isn't a good way to do business, and it isn't a good way to treat your neighbours.
http://www.blibbleblobble.co.uk/Downloads/KeyPad/i ndex.htm
Blatant advertising of a free open-source app for windows to type passwords using a randomly generated on-screen 'keyboard' !
I've written a program (screenshot here, about to be released soon) to enter passwords using your mouse, on a randomly-generated "keyboard"
The big problem with this approach is fairly fundamental of course. PGP encrypted discs don't let you paste text into their password dialog.
Oops, guess I should've checked this before I developed the app!
Presumably PGP runs on unix? That has a file-wipe utility, a freespace-wipe utility, and the possibility of creating encrypted disks.
At least, it does on windows - I hope I'll still be able to use it when I switch to linux next week.
(Wipe = overwrite data between 3 and 30 times with random data, and *then* unlink it)
Do you get any help using an anonymiser?/ Anonymisers/
http://www.blibbleblobble.co.uk/Links/Dir/Privacy
Surely what you really want is for Windows 3.11 to be avaiable for free?
(1) I could do pretty much everything on 3.11 that I can now do on 98 - decent GUI, decent applications, easy to use and install (only reason I upgraded was when I got a new PC ready-installed)
(2) It works fine with 286s and the like, because it's not expecting a fast processor.
(3) Microsoft are no longer making any money out of it. Given that they no longer sell, or even support, Win98 from just 4 years ago, they have no vested interest in keeping 3.11 secret.
(4) It's not in competition with Win ME/XP (ever tried running those on a 386?)
So the ideal solution for keeping old PCs in use would just be to make stuff "AbandonWare" after 6 years.
I believe that many MS Office applications have an "Email this document" option, in the file menu.
Emailing the document you're working on is as easy as saving it to disk.
When did you last try to figure out a "Check Engine" warning light on a car?
The manufacturers don't like end-users being able to fix cars, it makes them nervous. Pretty soon, you're gonna need a password to talk to your car's engine management system, even if you already have the interface box.
That is such a damn good idea!!!
Sub ChangeDefaultFormat()
Application.DefaultSaveFormat = "Rtf"
End Sub
Converting Word HTML to standard HTML isn't too bad, the main problem I find is the sheer size of the files - it takes so long to do the search-and-replace.
(1) Dreamweaver: clean-up Word HTML
(2) Delete the entire style-sheet
(3) Search and delete the bookmarks
If you need to convert more files, just write some perl code for it.
I like many word processors, most of all Word which was the best thing Microsoft ever wrote. Now I use abiword where I can, and try not to use any pictures ;-)
/* FunctionDoes: blah bah */ style of comment in, or whatever your regular commenting style, then write a perl script to convert them all to HTML. It knows your function names, it can find out the arguments, and it takes about 30 lines of code.
But for documentation, nothing beats writing perl scripts. In my last job, I had to write a big-ass test script, and not only did I have perl to generate the code for me, but to generate comments, and HTML documentation too.
Simply, just put a
Beats re-typing it any day.
So why call it a driving license, if you're going to issue them to non-drivers?
Why not just use a "collector of dangerous animals" license, and issue restricted versions of those to non-collectors?
(p.s. I live in the UK, where it's possible to get around without a car. I don't like America, it makes my legs hurt.)
Freedom of speech is great... right up there with the freedom to punish those who speak.
Why do you think anonymous email and anonymous slashdot postings are so important? Most censorship is done after-the-fact.
Can we try and find a way to get some of this money for Linux, Gimp, OpenOffice, AbiWord, and all the other apps I copy by CD?
Yahoo payment doesn't work in the UK. Or in France. Or in Denmark. Or in Norway. Or in Germany. Or in Ireland. The list goes on...
How do you think their recruitment campaigns work?
Join the police!
Well, I can see how that might work...
Tito and friends...
It's like watching some kind of sitcom.
Ok, so who's up for creating a perl-driven database site where we can all go and type in OUR favorite words and their definitions.
Since it costs nothing to set-up, why not keep the dictionary in public (community) control?