We're way ahead of you, Georgia Tech; the
University of Toronto's Computer Science
department (www.cs.toronto.edu) has been
using software to detect plagarism in code
for quite a while now.
Firstly, it doesn't just look for exact matches
of code. That would be stupid. As far as I know,
it uses certain algorithms that look for
similarities in, for example, the structure of various classes used on a program. Presumably, they would also look for blatant similaraties in execution patterns.
As for CmdrTaco's ignorant comment on his deluded preception of the "real world" - obviously he doesn't understand the purpose of a university education. As a student, I'm glad that universities take such measures to prevent people from copying code. Especially when assignments don't involve implementing code for the sake of learning a language, but rather involve creating algorithms from scratch, for the purpose of understanding more fundamental concepts in computer science.
The Internet can no longer be used to
start a profitable, small business with
growth potential. We all long for the
days when anyone could run a profitable
dial-up ISP from their basement, have a
lot of fun doing it, and make a nice bit
of cash.
However, things have changed. Broadband
has arrived, and bandwidth is a traded
commodity. To sell it for a profit, you
must invest millions in network
intrastructure.
The smallest possible profitable ISP
business that MAY be possible today is
the idea of ADCos, but that's
(a) speculative and (b) requires at least
over a million dollars in start-up
capital. So, ADCos are not, technically,
the mom-and-pop business model that
everyone is desperatly looking for.
The problem has little to do with the
economics of broadband resale. The problem
is that there is no APPLICATION for it.
Not enough people need high-speed wireless
access (mobile or PPP), nor do they really
even need cable and DSL (as the collapse
of @Home has recently demonstrated).
The only way that the tech industry, and
especially the networking / telecom sector,
will ever recover from the so-called
dot-com crash, is when there are real
applications for high-speed, public networks.
Until then, it's senseless to spend your life's
savings on server equipment, a T3 and a radio
tower.
Somehow, innovation in the software industry
needs to be rapidly provoked. Unfortunatly,
it seems that Open Source is not really
fulfilling this dream, as many had hoped.
We're stuck in a rut.
Many people have realized that there is an excess in the supply of broadband, and lowered demand for high-speed Internet.
Nobody wants a faster Internet. Nobody wants a faster CPU. Well, Nobody, that doesn't care much about the technical superiority of, for example, the AMD Athlon architecture.
From the DC economists, to the NYC fiancers, and from the Silicon Valley vulture capitalists to the top executives of the largest tech-sector firms in North America, NO ONE wants to face the truth - the creation of Internet was a massive fuck-up.
It's more than obvious that the infrastructure of the Internet was so rapidly built, that its applications could not possibly utilize it. Essentially, between 1996 and 1998, there was a gold rush in America. People were spending billions of dollars on Internet infrastructure. Anyone who had the kind of cash it takes to raise multi-million dollar corporations was betting his money on the chance that our entire economy will fully depend on the Internet for its function. The dream that high-speed Internet would be available in every mini-mart and taxi cab in America has yet to come true.
So much capital was invested in this idea that if it was not implimented in the nick of time, the entire economy would go into a recession. And here we are, in a recession.
Strangly enough, most people are still betting their money on broadband. The only way that the "Internet Economy" can be saved is by rapidly developing applications for high-speed networks.
Unfortunatly the software market is in a miserable condition. Things like mp3s and Napster really only gave a temporary need to expand the Internet's intrastructure, in order to provide high-speed access. It turns out that if you send something over the net, you can be sure it's possible to copy it, crack it, and restribute it. Subsequently large portions of the Internet are deemed criminal and shut down.
So there's a huge problem here. There's almost too much bandwidth, and people don't really want any more. In fact, a lot of them probably don't even want faster computers anymore. Many Americans are discovering that they don't really need tetter technology, in terms of the computers in their homes.
So the last-mile problem isn't really a problem. Few people REALLY REALLY NEED anything faster than an old fashion dial-up modem. So DSL and Cable are much nicer, and a lot of people enjoy that little luxury of having websites show up quickly. And it's good for the kids' edubication too.
The people who wrote this research paper insist that everyone needs high-speed Internet in their homes, just like they need a microwave. It also goes on to assume that the corporate world needs FAR more bandwidth. It's like building highways in the middle of nowhere, in the hopes that people will buy more cars.
What it all comes down to is people trying to get the government to dump piles of cash into ISP industry. This is a dead end. The money should be going into software development and research into networking applications. The Internet needs a massive over-haul.
That's quite ironic. I was just having
dinner at one of U of T's dining halls, and a friend of mine mentioned that he hasn't been out of his room in two days, for any reason other than food; he's been playing Civ 3 ever since he copied it off of someone.
These are not sci-fi, but they should
provide great insight for your subject
area:
Open Sky, by Paul Virilio
The Illusion of the End, by Jean Baudrillard
Digital Delirium, by Arthur and Marilousi Kroker
I used to live in Saudi Arabia, and, during that time, I constantly found that I had to get around the firewall. Part of the problem isn't that they can't censor everything they concider inappropriate, but rather than perfectly acceptable content is also being censored (usually by accident). Furthermoe, certain elusive medium, such as USENET, are TOTALLY banned.
The firewall is run by the ISU (internet serivce unit) at a university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (www.isu.net.sa). I found the best way to get around the whole mess is to shell into a server outside the country, start a Squid proxy server on an obscure port (i.e. not 80 or 8080), and just tunnel through that. For other protocols, port-mapping also works.
who the hell at MIT would use a word
like "overmodule"? That was enough
evidence to suggest that this is a
ridiculous and untimely hoax which
will hopefully spell the end for
Slant-Six (whatever the hell that is).
Slashdot Mirror
We're way ahead of you, Georgia Tech; the University of Toronto's Computer Science department (www.cs.toronto.edu) has been using software to detect plagarism in code for quite a while now.
Firstly, it doesn't just look for exact matches of code. That would be stupid. As far as I know, it uses certain algorithms that look for similarities in, for example, the structure of various classes used on a program. Presumably, they would also look for blatant similaraties in execution patterns.
As for CmdrTaco's ignorant comment on his deluded preception of the "real world" - obviously he doesn't understand the purpose of a university education. As a student, I'm glad that universities take such measures to prevent people from copying code. Especially when assignments don't involve implementing code for the sake of learning a language, but rather involve creating algorithms from scratch, for the purpose of understanding more fundamental concepts in computer science.
The Internet can no longer be used to start a profitable, small business with growth potential. We all long for the days when anyone could run a profitable dial-up ISP from their basement, have a lot of fun doing it, and make a nice bit of cash.
However, things have changed. Broadband has arrived, and bandwidth is a traded commodity. To sell it for a profit, you must invest millions in network intrastructure.
The smallest possible profitable ISP business that MAY be possible today is the idea of ADCos, but that's (a) speculative and (b) requires at least over a million dollars in start-up capital. So, ADCos are not, technically, the mom-and-pop business model that everyone is desperatly looking for.
The problem has little to do with the economics of broadband resale. The problem is that there is no APPLICATION for it. Not enough people need high-speed wireless access (mobile or PPP), nor do they really even need cable and DSL (as the collapse of @Home has recently demonstrated).
The only way that the tech industry, and especially the networking / telecom sector, will ever recover from the so-called dot-com crash, is when there are real applications for high-speed, public networks.
Until then, it's senseless to spend your life's savings on server equipment, a T3 and a radio tower.
Somehow, innovation in the software industry needs to be rapidly provoked. Unfortunatly, it seems that Open Source is not really fulfilling this dream, as many had hoped. We're stuck in a rut.
Many people have realized that there is an excess in the supply of broadband, and lowered demand for high-speed Internet. Nobody wants a faster Internet. Nobody wants a faster CPU. Well, Nobody, that doesn't care much about the technical superiority of, for example, the AMD Athlon architecture. From the DC economists, to the NYC fiancers, and from the Silicon Valley vulture capitalists to the top executives of the largest tech-sector firms in North America, NO ONE wants to face the truth - the creation of Internet was a massive fuck-up. It's more than obvious that the infrastructure of the Internet was so rapidly built, that its applications could not possibly utilize it. Essentially, between 1996 and 1998, there was a gold rush in America. People were spending billions of dollars on Internet infrastructure. Anyone who had the kind of cash it takes to raise multi-million dollar corporations was betting his money on the chance that our entire economy will fully depend on the Internet for its function. The dream that high-speed Internet would be available in every mini-mart and taxi cab in America has yet to come true. So much capital was invested in this idea that if it was not implimented in the nick of time, the entire economy would go into a recession. And here we are, in a recession. Strangly enough, most people are still betting their money on broadband. The only way that the "Internet Economy" can be saved is by rapidly developing applications for high-speed networks. Unfortunatly the software market is in a miserable condition. Things like mp3s and Napster really only gave a temporary need to expand the Internet's intrastructure, in order to provide high-speed access. It turns out that if you send something over the net, you can be sure it's possible to copy it, crack it, and restribute it. Subsequently large portions of the Internet are deemed criminal and shut down. So there's a huge problem here. There's almost too much bandwidth, and people don't really want any more. In fact, a lot of them probably don't even want faster computers anymore. Many Americans are discovering that they don't really need tetter technology, in terms of the computers in their homes. So the last-mile problem isn't really a problem. Few people REALLY REALLY NEED anything faster than an old fashion dial-up modem. So DSL and Cable are much nicer, and a lot of people enjoy that little luxury of having websites show up quickly. And it's good for the kids' edubication too. The people who wrote this research paper insist that everyone needs high-speed Internet in their homes, just like they need a microwave. It also goes on to assume that the corporate world needs FAR more bandwidth. It's like building highways in the middle of nowhere, in the hopes that people will buy more cars. What it all comes down to is people trying to get the government to dump piles of cash into ISP industry. This is a dead end. The money should be going into software development and research into networking applications. The Internet needs a massive over-haul.
That's quite ironic. I was just having dinner at one of U of T's dining halls, and a friend of mine mentioned that he hasn't been out of his room in two days, for any reason other than food; he's been playing Civ 3 ever since he copied it off of someone.
These are not sci-fi, but they should provide great insight for your subject area: Open Sky, by Paul Virilio The Illusion of the End, by Jean Baudrillard Digital Delirium, by Arthur and Marilousi Kroker
I used to live in Saudi Arabia, and, during that time, I constantly found that I had to get around the firewall. Part of the problem isn't that they can't censor everything they concider inappropriate, but rather than perfectly acceptable content is also being censored (usually by accident). Furthermoe, certain elusive medium, such as USENET, are TOTALLY banned. The firewall is run by the ISU (internet serivce unit) at a university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (www.isu.net.sa). I found the best way to get around the whole mess is to shell into a server outside the country, start a Squid proxy server on an obscure port (i.e. not 80 or 8080), and just tunnel through that. For other protocols, port-mapping also works.
who the hell at MIT would use a word like "overmodule"? That was enough evidence to suggest that this is a ridiculous and untimely hoax which will hopefully spell the end for Slant-Six (whatever the hell that is).