I also remember reading articles today, by a couple of Americans - the outgoing Robert Blackwill, mentioning the imbalance in trade between the US and India - 5 billion vs. 15 billion; and another gentleman suggesting India open it's markets to leading American hitech firms - Boeing and Microsoft! Boeing maybe, but Microsoft?
Considering SFU was developed entirely in India, as well as the fact that all top 20 IT and commn giants have a direct presence in India, Microsoft would come rather late in th list of hitech firms.
Sorry to put up such a provocative title to my post, but I've just run thru all the top comments to this article, and I'm amazed that a simple question has not been asked:
How is it that Phoenix (the BIOS writers) can indeed format the hard disk, when the system goes online? I mean, it implies that Phoenix is aware of a loophole in all common OSes (read Windows) that is unpatched and free for exploit. Granted, their intentions may be noble, and maybe legal as well (they have the consent of the owner), but should not the larger issue (a popular OS with an unpatched serious bug) be addressed rapidly?
Will MS sue the pants off Phoenix to even make such a claim? I've read a few fantastic theories that the system goes online 'before' booting the OS, but thiey are just crazy. Does it imply, the Phoenix site traps ALL systems connecting to the web? Who gave them this right?
Phoenix may be working on their own browser, but if they're going to format the disk without help from the OS, they'd need to keep 'flashing' the network settings into ROM everytime, to use them to connect without the OS.
I'd seriuosly like to see a demo of this stuff. If their method involves the OS, maybe we need to send warning letters to all Windows users, something like SCO did. That should scare corporate types off Phoenix and MS.
" if in the next 800 hundred years or so we haven't worked out a way to prevent this, we probably deserve extinction for being idle."
I think you're being a bit harsh here. Is idleness the only reason for non-innovation? What about patents? Copyrights? How many years back did we 'invent' these things? What about money being wasted on 'defence systems' at the cost of innovative research? If World Peace were to be established Today, how much of the wrold's defence budgets could go into this kind of 'Save Humanity' work? What's the guaranty that more draconian acts than the DM?A could get passed, and stall research in vital areas? How many countries do research on even things like GPS? Peaceful nuclear reseacrh?
Just consider this SCO-IBM imbroglio - how can an entity such as SCO even claim to own the brains of programmers and developers by paying up some cash. How much has DOS (the operating system) advanced over the past 10 years? How many viable alternatives to the X-Window environments have been developed?
And meanwhile, How many locks, anti-competitive measures and worse tactics have been imposed on good innovative software? Even standards and protocols? I'm sorry, but blaming lack of innovation on mere idleness just doesn't cut it.
As Evelyn Waugh famously said, we need to release generations from captivity, that may be more irksome than our own.
"In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast."
Wondering what'd happen if it hit anywhere near Seattle!? heh... forgot, it's gonna be more than 700 years away. Can we have a simulation of that thing in Seattle right now? In a place which rhymes with Deadbund?
Fighting spam is simple, or so it seems. A fourth of all spam is easily removed by filtering the p. When (Uncle) Sam is removed from the picture, all Sam will be eradicated.
If I can walk into a Windows 2003 Server presentation and shutdown the servers, sitting in the audience! I'd like to time it right when there's talk of 'robustness' 'security' 'tightly-integrated architecture' 'end-to-end integration' etc.
"it's the State who will define who an "evildoer""
No need. The State can define a new term 'Potnetial Terrorist' and we'd all be included - in effect it becomes Total Info Awareness. Sometime back I posted a series of definitions that could be used:
Potential Terrorist - All of us. Kinetic terrorist - Mobile phone users. Intellectual terrorists - Reverse-engineers Organised potential terrorists - Linux User Groups e-terrorists - internet users
and so on... No need to be bashful before ordering surveillance on all and sundry.
Sometime back, MS dropped the name Palladium and called it Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or some such silly name. The trick is to give a bad name to a bad project and then all of a sudden change the name to something else - problem solved.
It happened with Trustworthy Computing Platform Alliance as well - TCPA is now TCG.
Since TIA has been extensively criticized, especially at Slashdot, why not give it a very bad name indeed - Terrorist Information Awareness, and get away with it! Bright idea. The magic word terrorist seems to open all locks.
When I get my hands on LongHorn, I'm gonna try username terrorist and password Billyboy. Should be interesting to see what happens.
Is the fact that accountants and finance managers (decision makers in PC buying deals) talk as if they understand all these things better than sysadmins. SDRAM, DDRRAM, RambusRAM, L2 cache, on-chip cache and all that marketing crap is heavily used by these decision makers.
Last year, I did a demo of a Via system with SDRAM and it did about 40% faster than a DDR-RAM board. The VP-Fin chap has become highly suspicious of any memory performance graphs or numbers, these days. And in true BOFH style, I've got decision-making rights on all PC purchases.
It's nice to know folks going Open Source to escape slavery from MS - and these effrots need to be commended. It is also a reality that HPaq and other Linux-loaded systems are formatted and loaded with the favorite OS by the masses. Ethical maybe (who'd think it's ethical to pay an American monopoly?), but still a subjective POV (point of view).
I think there is more to this than meets the eye. A recent notable case is that of the Pakistani who is said to have hacked the PassPort Password Reset bug aka feature. Poor chap hacks hotmail for a living? Or is it just the obvious (?) ter.... connection?
Even granting that economic conditions lead to cracking, it should be interesting to see the effect in the US over the next decade. Already, the DMCA, oppressive MS licensing, litigious thugs (SCO - brought to you by MS) etc. are eroding the economic wealth of the US and putting more and more money into the hands of a few rich corporations.
Countries outside the US are little affected by legislation as well as law-enforcement in the US. Piracy before, piracy in the future. The SCO case, even if settled in favor of SCO will have little impact in Europe, and nil or negative impact elsewhere across the globe. If any, it is likely to fuel further Linux adoption, courtesy the attention brought by the case.
The net result of these trends could be the rapid impoverishment of the US, and the beneficiaries could be the rest of the world. The incentives for crackers to emerge in the US could be huge, in say, another 3 to 5 years - IF the hypothesis were true.
Excellent point. Last week, I made the point that IBM's trustworthiness is under test here. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=64293&c id=5962 757
I also said that since MS uses BSD, they'd use this opportunity to fund SCO's lawsuit: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=6429 3&cid=5962 715
I repeat my query: What if IBM settles with SCO for a cool million? All hell breaks loose for the rest of the Open Source folks. Even if this thing goes on for a few years, the damage to Linux could be great.
Who's taking a bet : IBM settles with SCO, methinks!
" is there anything really brain demanding or innovating you can do after 30?"
Demanding: Writing the GPL, starting FSF, the Hurd, travelling the world over, believing in yourself despite others jeering you - RMS age 50.
Innovating: Buying an OS from someone, putting it onto someone else's h/w, building up a monopoly, driving out others (using suspect means), releasing newer and newer OSes that do essentially the same things, generate obscene profits, etc. etc. - William Gates, Age 45 (?)
He gets his karma bonus and promptly misuses it to spread GPL FUD.
Anyway, for those who cared to read your offtopic troll: IT IS NOT necessary to publish modifications made to GPL'd s/w to all and sundry. That requirement comes onlt if you need to 'sell' those changes, and even then, the changes were made to GPL'd code - not for code that works on top of it.
From the ref. article: "the data from black boxes, which are on about 40 million cars in the USA"
6 of the 8 posts so far show that they aren't even awware that such a thing exists on cars. Is this an informed society? Or a purposely misinformed, under-informed or engineered society?
Maybe 10 billion of our clothes already contain RFID tags? A few billion of our wrist watches already contain bugs? Seems like paranoia is the only sensible option to remain sane.
Slashdot Mirror
I also remember reading articles today, by a couple of Americans - the outgoing Robert Blackwill, mentioning the imbalance in trade between the US and India - 5 billion vs. 15 billion; and another gentleman suggesting India open it's markets to leading American hitech firms - Boeing and Microsoft! Boeing maybe, but Microsoft?
Considering SFU was developed entirely in India, as well as the fact that all top 20 IT and commn giants have a direct presence in India, Microsoft would come rather late in th list of hitech firms.
Sorry to put up such a provocative title to my post, but I've just run thru all the top comments to this article, and I'm amazed that a simple question has not been asked:
How is it that Phoenix (the BIOS writers) can indeed format the hard disk, when the system goes online? I mean, it implies that Phoenix is aware of a loophole in all common OSes (read Windows) that is unpatched and free for exploit. Granted, their intentions may be noble, and maybe legal as well (they have the consent of the owner), but should not the larger issue (a popular OS with an unpatched serious bug) be addressed rapidly?
Will MS sue the pants off Phoenix to even make such a claim? I've read a few fantastic theories that the system goes online 'before' booting the OS, but thiey are just crazy. Does it imply, the Phoenix site traps ALL systems connecting to the web? Who gave them this right?
Phoenix may be working on their own browser, but if they're going to format the disk without help from the OS, they'd need to keep 'flashing' the network settings into ROM everytime, to use them to connect without the OS.
I'd seriuosly like to see a demo of this stuff. If their method involves the OS, maybe we need to send warning letters to all Windows users, something like SCO did. That should scare corporate types off Phoenix and MS.
" if in the next 800 hundred years or so we haven't worked out a way to prevent this, we probably deserve extinction for being idle."
I think you're being a bit harsh here. Is idleness the only reason for non-innovation? What about patents? Copyrights? How many years back did we 'invent' these things?
What about money being wasted on 'defence systems' at the cost of innovative research? If World Peace were to be established Today, how much of the wrold's defence budgets could go into this kind of 'Save Humanity' work?
What's the guaranty that more draconian acts than the DM?A could get passed, and stall research in vital areas? How many countries do research on even things like GPS? Peaceful nuclear reseacrh?
Just consider this SCO-IBM imbroglio - how can an entity such as SCO even claim to own the brains of programmers and developers by paying up some cash. How much has DOS (the operating system) advanced over the past 10 years? How many viable alternatives to the X-Window environments have been developed?
And meanwhile,
How many locks, anti-competitive measures and worse tactics have been imposed on good innovative software? Even standards and protocols? I'm sorry, but blaming lack of innovation on mere idleness just doesn't cut it.
As Evelyn Waugh famously said, we need to release generations from captivity, that may be more irksome than our own.
But they'd be reading Slashdot even then? You're either being too optimistic or over-confident. Maybe both!
"In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast."
Wondering what'd happen if it hit anywhere near Seattle!? heh... forgot, it's gonna be more than 700 years away. Can we have a simulation of that thing in Seattle right now? In a place which rhymes with Deadbund?
And install them at the offices of His Billness, His Baldness, Rosen, Boies, etc. Only then will our computing experince become trustworthy.
.. is made with..two very fast Windows PCs, four cameras, a series of directional microphones and speakers. "
One worry though:
"the BiReality system
I can't locate even 1 Very Fast Windows PC yet. I'd need 4 dozens here. Anyone seen such a PC yet? Windows95 on a P4 2.4GHz maybe?
is removed, I believe. Here's the effects on some of the mails:
...
1. Sent thru Microsoft Assport - your secure login to the e-world.
2. I assed my MCSE exams.
3. Laying with colleagues might land you in harassment charges.
4. All work and no Lay makes Jack
5. Boys and Girls, come out to lay
The moon does shine as bright as day!
Fighting spam is simple, or so it seems. A fourth of all spam is easily removed by filtering the p. When (Uncle) Sam is removed from the picture, all Sam will be eradicated.
From: suort@microsoft.com
Here's a link to our latest Service Ack for the Windows X Oerating system. lease download this 550MB Service Ack, and all your roblems will be solved.
Eole (figure this one!) with NT4 and below will not be suorted. The rice for this roduct under Subscrition Advantage will be $100 er year er license.
Issued in ublic interest by the Entagon.
"don't we all get our pr0n on the web these days?"
Now you know where all the pr0n came from.
If I can walk into a Windows 2003 Server presentation and shutdown the servers, sitting in the audience! I'd like to time it right when there's talk of 'robustness' 'security' 'tightly-integrated architecture' 'end-to-end integration' etc.
Turning off TVs and MP3 players is no big deal.
"it's the State who will define who an "evildoer""
No need. The State can define a new term 'Potnetial Terrorist' and we'd all be included - in effect it becomes Total Info Awareness. Sometime back I posted a series of definitions that could be used:
Potential Terrorist - All of us.
Kinetic terrorist - Mobile phone users.
Intellectual terrorists - Reverse-engineers
Organised potential terrorists - Linux User Groups
e-terrorists - internet users
and so on... No need to be bashful before ordering surveillance on all and sundry.
Sometime back, MS dropped the name Palladium and called it Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or some such silly name. The trick is to give a bad name to a bad project and then all of a sudden change the name to something else - problem solved.
It happened with Trustworthy Computing Platform Alliance as well - TCPA is now TCG.
Since TIA has been extensively criticized, especially at Slashdot, why not give it a very bad name indeed - Terrorist Information Awareness, and get away with it! Bright idea. The magic word terrorist seems to open all locks.
When I get my hands on LongHorn, I'm gonna try username terrorist and password Billyboy. Should be interesting to see what happens.
Is the fact that accountants and finance managers (decision makers in PC buying deals) talk as if they understand all these things better than sysadmins. SDRAM, DDRRAM, RambusRAM, L2 cache, on-chip cache and all that marketing crap is heavily used by these decision makers.
Last year, I did a demo of a Via system with SDRAM and it did about 40% faster than a DDR-RAM board. The VP-Fin chap has become highly suspicious of any memory performance graphs or numbers, these days. And in true BOFH style, I've got decision-making rights on all PC purchases.
Thanks to all the confusion.
" you mean terrorism ?"
Nah, I meant terrifc connection - clear?
It's nice to know folks going Open Source to escape slavery from MS - and these effrots need to be commended. It is also a reality that HPaq and other Linux-loaded systems are formatted and loaded with the favorite OS by the masses. Ethical maybe (who'd think it's ethical to pay an American monopoly?), but still a subjective POV (point of view).
"Mailblocks is suing Earthlink , claiming patents on Challenge-Response"
If Earthlink responds to this legal challenge, they'd be in violation of this Mailblocks patent? A nice merry-go-round.
I think I'll patent these as well, just in case:
1. Pleading guilty.
2. Pleading innocent.
and so on...
I think there is more to this than meets the eye. A recent notable case is that of the Pakistani who is said to have hacked the PassPort Password Reset bug aka feature. Poor chap hacks hotmail for a living? Or is it just the obvious (?) ter.... connection?
Even granting that economic conditions lead to cracking, it should be interesting to see the effect in the US over the next decade. Already, the DMCA, oppressive MS licensing, litigious thugs (SCO - brought to you by MS) etc. are eroding the economic wealth of the US and putting more and more money into the hands of a few rich corporations.
Countries outside the US are little affected by legislation as well as law-enforcement in the US. Piracy before, piracy in the future. The SCO case, even if settled in favor of SCO will have little impact in Europe, and nil or negative impact elsewhere across the globe. If any, it is likely to fuel further Linux adoption, courtesy the attention brought by the case.
The net result of these trends could be the rapid impoverishment of the US, and the beneficiaries could be the rest of the world. The incentives for crackers to emerge in the US could be huge, in say, another 3 to 5 years - IF the hypothesis were true.
A dog with an IP is not as exciting as a dog that says, I need to Pee.
Accessory to AIBO: A mail-controlled P-post.
Operating system: eXPee and below.
What if there was an I LOVE YOU virus on the email control s/w? The joke's on you.
Wathing you watching them watching you.
MUAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
Excellent point. Last week, I made the point that IBM's trustworthiness is under test here.c id=5962 757
9 3&cid=5962 715
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=64293&
I also said that since MS uses BSD, they'd use this opportunity to fund SCO's lawsuit:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=642
I repeat my query:
What if IBM settles with SCO for a cool million? All hell breaks loose for the rest of the Open Source folks. Even if this thing goes on for a few years, the damage to Linux could be great.
Who's taking a bet : IBM settles with SCO, methinks!
You went to a bar in 1927, and you're still alive?! Long live, the Nostradamus of the Internet.
:-)
And who's the shady character you met? I suspect it could've been Pop Gates or even Grandpa Gates
Once upon a time, there wan an Internet. Along cam Slashdot... phut - the internet got slashsdotted.
The rest, as they say, is history.
" is there anything really brain demanding or innovating you can do after 30?"
Demanding: Writing the GPL, starting FSF, the Hurd, travelling the world over, believing in yourself despite others jeering you - RMS age 50.
Innovating: Buying an OS from someone, putting it onto someone else's h/w, building up a monopoly, driving out others (using suspect means), releasing newer and newer OSes that do essentially the same things, generate obscene profits, etc. etc. - William Gates, Age 45 (?)
Life begins after 30, methinks.
He gets his karma bonus and promptly misuses it to spread GPL FUD.
Anyway, for those who cared to read your offtopic troll:
IT IS NOT necessary to publish modifications made to GPL'd s/w to all and sundry. That requirement comes onlt if you need to 'sell' those changes, and even then, the changes were made to GPL'd code - not for code that works on top of it.
Feeding the trolls, maybe..
From the ref. article:
"the data from black boxes, which are on about 40 million cars in the USA"
6 of the 8 posts so far show that they aren't even awware that such a thing exists on cars. Is this an informed society? Or a purposely misinformed, under-informed or engineered society?
Maybe 10 billion of our clothes already contain RFID tags? A few billion of our wrist watches already contain bugs? Seems like paranoia is the only sensible option to remain sane.