I was talking with my Uncle Isaac a few weeks ago about the game industry,
and he brought this up. As a Sony employee, he has access to internal
releases, and he mentioned that Sony had formed a "strategic parnership"
with Infinium so that the Infinium console is backwards-compatible with PS1
and PS2 (and will be compatible with PS3 in the future). (So that is where
the "32000 games" are coming from.) Apparently the Infinium console is an
extremely ambitious endeavor; they are going around and paying top dollar
for licenses for each of the major architectures (Playstation, Xbox, Sega
Saturn, etc.) in an attempt to craft an uber-box that plays games on all of
the supported platforms. Word around Sony is that they are trying to use a
Transmeta chip, so that the CPU's instruction set can be "field-programmed"
to match the platform the CD/DVD was originally intended for. The upside
for Sony and Microsoft is that Infinium is going to be paying them to
produce each unit (instead of the converse which they often see with their
own products). The downside is that the general consensus in the video
game industry is that such a box is not feasible with today's technology -
at least not without massive amounts of duplication of effort (which would
drive the console's price toward the $1000 mark).
IMHO this is just another misapplication of venture capital - an impossible
product that is doomed to fail in the marketplace. But we will see whether
or not they can make a profit on the unit.
Having worked in the past for a large
Linux company as an evangelist and valuation forecaster, I can assure
you that UnitedLinux has a bleak future. However, it is not because of the
GPL or any other reasons that most often get mentioned on Slashdot. The
weaknesses of this coalition go far beyond licensing issues. To start,
let's take a look at the founders:
SCO. Formerly "Caldera," the one Linux company who released
their distribution as crippleware as they tried to compete with dozens of
other vendors who gave their distros away for Free. You can see where this
is heading. Caldera is run by a bunch of Ivy League suits who think that
the old fashioned business ideas of monopoly, per-seat licensing games, and
control over the source code can easily be used to sell a Linux
distribution. SCO has an abundance of clue, but unfortunately it all left
the company when they laid off the Unixware developers.
TurboLinux. Are they even still alive? I have many friends who
are Linux geniuses (one of them is the president of the local LUG) and none
of them know anybody who runs TurboLinux, much less pays for it. The
simplistic reasoning behind this is that if somebody wants to run RedHat
3.0, they will just download a copy of RedHat 3.0, instead of buying
it from TurboLinux.
Connectiva. This is another pointless Linux distribution. The
one advantage that Connectiva has is that their VCs did not wise up as
quickly as other VCs did, to the fact that they produce nothing of value.
Everything that Connectiva offers is done better by some other
distribution.
SuSE. The distribution that prides itself on a half-baked,
closed-source installer and too many installation CDs to count is also a
distribution that has no future. Mandrake has usurped the European market
and most other potential SuSE users, simply by virtue of being a better
distribution. SuSE once earned a bright yellow star in my book for funding
so much research and Linux development projects, but nowadays the only such
project they have left is ReiserFS and that is so unstable that even Gentoo
(!) recommends against its use.
Now, now that we can see that every company that is a major part of
UnitedLinux is doomed, let's take a look at the other stumbling blocks that
they will face before they each go bankrupt:
UnitedLinux aims to make money off the backs of the best
developers. The UnitedLinux coalition, unable to cobble together a
decent distribution of their own, fully intends to pilfer the best features
of Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Linuces, and then add a tiny bit of
closed-source software to make their distro difficult to copy legally.
This is unethical and violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the GPL.
UnitedLinux lacks a good package manager. As a so-called
"cracker," package management is *the* most important thing I consider when
I choose a distribution. Debian has dpkg/apt (which is excellent, if you
are lazy enough to use binaries). FreeBSD and Gentoo have their superior
ports trees, which make bug fixes a cinch. And Mandrake has its own
proprietary system, which is also great. UL has none of the three, and
will rely on the outdated and frequently annoying RPM system. Shame on
them.
UnitedLinux has no business support. Businesses prefer to get
things for free instead of paying for them, so it is no wonder why my
company tells us to head to linuxiso.org instead of UL when we need a new
Linux CD.
In summary: I will not be sad to see UnitedLinux die. It is a terrible
idea whose day of reckoning has arrived.
Let's stick to the facts and prepare our strategy
on
Microsoft And The GPL/LGPL
·
· Score: 2, Informative
As we have discovered many times in the past, large software companies can
spout off much meaningless legal jargon in their contracts and EULAs. But,
just as Oracle cannot force us to give up our right to free speech and
Borland cannot wrench control of our intellectual property through the
simple use of their software, there are limits on what Microsoft can do.
After reviewing the case here, I recommend that Jeremy Alison and the other
members of the Samba team grab a copy of Microsoft's restrictive license
and use it as toilet paper. What makes me so confident? It's a thing
called prior art, and Microsoft's patents on CIFS don't hold any water
because they just haven't invented anything new.
Let's take a look at the patents that Microsoft has filed that they are
attempting to use to keep Samba down. Keep in mind that these may not be
available on freebie patent search sites, as they have not been formally
approved yet (a process that often takes 1-2 years). In the meantime, you
can find them on Lexus-Nexis and other similar professional service
networks.
U.S. Patent T7086923: Authentication of an Untrusted Third Party
over a Packet Switched Network to control access to Network resources. As
the title may indicate, this is a very general patent; based on my Linux
experiences, the original BSD telnet daemon constitutes prior art. No
problem here.
U.S. Patent T7065653: Connection-based random access file transport
mechanism with Authentication and Reliability. Sorry, but Apache beat them
to the punch several years ago. No go. Yes, http supports random access.
U.S. Patent T7689363: Domain identification and logon based on
broadcast network packets. This is a little tougher, but BOOTP was around
before Microsoft was even formed. Check the dates on your RFCs as an
exercise, and tell me just how quickly this one will get thrown out of
court.
Yes, Microsoft has big, bad lawyers - but technically they don't have a
legal leg to stand on. Bring RMS, ESR, and their millions of dollars into
the picture, and Microsoft is going to have some serious problems enforcing
their farce.
"You can't prove a negative." --Professor Rowe, on the first day of law
school
I have friends who work in the security industry and crack codes for a
living. Every time a watermarking scheme is publically proposed, they
laugh long and heartily. The simple fact of the matter is that a system
designed to check for a watermark can easily be changed to invalidate the
watermark. Watermarks are necessarily little bit-flipping programs
that don't alter the outward appearance of the media they are attached to,
so what makes record execs and PHBs so sure that they can't be removed?
The only watermark that can't be removed is the watermark that can't be
detected. And that doesn't help the digital rights management fascists one
bit. So why do they bother?
Well, they still think it's a "deterrent." Just like Macrovision is a
"deterrent" when you can buy filters
to block it for under $25 on eBay. Sooner or later, though, the world
is going to have to learn that information wants to be free, that
trying to restrict the flow of bits on the information superhighway is
futile, and that selling simple
numbers and calling it "property" is patently absurd. Mathematics is a
part of nature, and nobody owns nature; the sooner our laws are brought
into line with this simple truth, the better.
...is that, although biometrics will generate a nice password like
"sdf987*(&^JJHASBDjkasdjkh231*()&as" that nobody could ever guess, the
problem of a replay attack is undeniable. That is, once somebody can
obtain your biometric hash through the use of a rogue thumbprint scanner,
there's no way (by definition) that you'll ever be able to change it to
something different and make it secure again. And that is why putting
biometric scanners on personal PCs with insecure Micro$oft operating
systems opens the door quite wide to identity theft.
The best authentication schemes involve something you know (a PIN or
password) and something you have (a smartcard, RSA key fob, or some other
device that implements a challenge/response system to authentication
queries).
Disclaimer: I am a lawyer in the state of Vermont but this is not real legal advice. If you don't pay me for a consultation, I can't be liable for anything you read here.
That said, this is a classic case for what we call a compulsory license. Because your vendor does not offer software on a particular platform and you can demonstrate a legitimate need to reverse engineer their software just to make your software work, you should be free and clear. Off the top of my head, your right to do this is protected by the Federal case law created in State of Illinois vs. Netscape Communications Corporation, Horowitz vs. Franklin, and Digital Equipment Corporation vs. IBM. These cases are definitely worth citing when you visit your lawyer (or get sued).
Indeed, dfeldman and I are one and the same. After getting modstormed and banned many times for expressing unpopular truths and opinions on this site, I wandered off to the dark side and began posting trolls as dfeldman.
But I have been using a Win2k box at work, with IE 6.0 on it, for several
hours a day now. In fact, we needed to temporarily install 3D Studio for
one of my co-workers, so I visited astalavista and many "related sites" on
that box - once for the software, twice for the dongle crack. And I can
say for certain that my box hasn't been cracked.
So, as much as we want to believe that security through obscurity doesn't
work, the vast majority of users have been safer because this sploit
didn't show up on BUGTRAQ. Sure, Microsoft should have gotten off their
collective tush and done something about it, and they should be held
responsible now. But the mere notion that we are all in danger just
because these bugs are kept secret is patently ridiculous.
As a former paralegal, I can say with some certainty that this verdict
directly contradicts the ComputerXpress
vs. John Doe decision in California a few weeks back, which states that
proving defamation from online sources requires a higher standard of
evidence than from print sources. After reading this verdict I am left
with the distinct impression that this judge has put online publications on
an equal footing with printed publications, which may be a Bad
Thing(tm) depending on just how easy it is to publish content. After all,
many things that aren't intended to be published on the web seem to make
it there anyway.
Haven't you ever taken an objective look at this site and noticed that it
is spiraling downward?
Haven't you ever stopped to consider that the most mature and intelligent
geeks quit posting to Slashdot years ago, leaving a site full of
groupthinking kiddies who learn and regurgitate the "party line" just to fit in?
And don't you wonder why it all had to end up like this?
It all boils down to respect. And if you lose the respect of your users,
they will destroy your site. And all of the mod points, lameness filters,
and *slap.pl scripts in the world aren't going to change that, because the
users will find ways to beat your system. If programmers had a good
solution to the ingenuity of a malicious human being, the computer security
industry would have never been born.
What can you (the editors) do to gain the users' respect back?
Show some interest in your site. (That means you too, Taco - stop
the anime tape for a second and listen.) Post interesting stories,
once. Post comments from time to time. Keep your opinions out of
the stories and put them where they belong. Post at +1 or +2 like everyone
else. Pretend that you're not too wealthy (?) to care what happens.
Be honest with people. The parent post is a sign of progress but it is
too little, too late, and too sanctimonious. We geeks might not have very
good social skills but we can see through bullshit very easily.
Don't pander to high schoolers. In fact, don't pander at all. Start
posting articles about the innovative, honest technologies coming out of
Redmond as well, instead of just complaining about the things that they
screw up. Help us open our minds.
If you feel like posting fluff (such as Ask Slashdot submissions that
can be answered by Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button), don't post
anything at all.
Don't silence critics. Somebody should be apologizing for the
moderation on the VA story, but that's only the tip of the iceberg.
A little democracy never hurts. How about fixing the "automatic
voting" option and then running the "Dump the Jerk?" poll again?
Most importantly, stop making this site into a gigantic role-playing
game. If you stop treating us like little kids with your automated rewards
and punishments, many of the troublemakers will get bored and move on. But
if you keep writing more filters, troll-detection scripts, and other
useless devices, you add to the fun of beating the system. Is that really
what you want? Some people live to beat "the system" and at least a few of
them are trolls here. Learn how to take away their fun.
This site isn't too big to fix. And certainly there is little profit
motive to make it worth reading again, given that you already get half a
million hits every day. But when VA finally gives up the ghost and
Slashdot is a thing of the past, you will either be left with memories of
running a crappy site and moderating ASCII art, or a sense of pride in what
you created. Whether you want Slashdot to be remembered as a dismal
failure or a great online community is up to you.
Please do your part in supporting the side of freedom. Donate to the EFF today and take a stand against software patents. Our only hope is to fight shysters with principled lawyers.
Let me get this straight: You refute an article that is packed full of actual metrics by saying that it's biased, and then you say that people should get a Pentium 4 if they're not going to "overclock their unreal box" (again an absolutely absurd supposition given that we're talking about an article where the AMD trounced the Intel chips in something much more serious than "overclocking their unreal box").
Well, these "metrics" you claim to trust so much also indicate that the IBM 75GXP drives have a "normal" failure rate. And we all know the truth about that, don't we?
I am not biased whatsoever, and if Intel comes out with something that is competitive with the XPs at a similar price then damnit, I'll be there. But I owe nothing to Intel, nor do I owe anything to AMD, so I lack "brand loyalty" and simply go for what is proven the best at the best $. If only more consumers were that way.
Just as John Wayne Gacy could claim innocence until the day they threw the switch, you can claim that you have no brand loyalty whilst condemning the Intel product (which, by the way, you haven't even tried out). And you can accuse me, who has both systems side by side, of lying. What nerve.
Next time you have occasion to leave your folks' basement, take a ride out to Best Buy and check out the excellent deals on a P4. Maybe even pick one up and try it out. I think you'll like it.
I'm not sure about you guys, but I noticed a really subtle pro-AMD bias in this article. For instance, the banner ad on the top of the page was for the new Athlon XPs and linked to AMD's page. And the author gave Intel a few token references, and then completely ignored them in the benchmarks.
Well, as a very satisfied Pentium 4 owner and a somewhat satisfied Athlon owner, I can tell you that if you're serious about getting work done (not just overclocking your Unreal box), you'd be best off going with a P4. My Athlon had some heat and manufacturing issues (this is my second chip because the first one was DOA), and really isn't any faster in the real world than my P4. In fact, having rebuilt my kernel with the new Intel compiler, the P4 just screams and leaves the Athlon in the dust. And with the bargain basement prices that PCs from major manufacturers (read: Pentiums - face the truth) are going for, there's no reason why they would be more expensive than a slower Athlon box.
So be forewarned - this article, like those on so many other hardware sites, was bought and paid for by the folks in Austin. Take this infomercial with a grain of salt.
One of my high school chums is a network admin at the University of Colorado. They are having some serious bandwidth problems over there so I am not surprised that they wanted to take their own DDoS bullseye offline. He told me that:
State funding has been cut for the IS department (and campus-wide) because of declining sales/income tax revenues
One of their upstream providers is in dire straits financially, and they plan to sever a contract for a frac T3 (22.5Mbps IIRC) in the next few months
The Regents will not allow censorship on their network, and reportedly are forbidding the admins from blocking PTP hogs (port 1214, 6346, etc) from the dorm networks. These are taking up 75% of the University's bandwidth
The University's class B has been heavily targeted by non-DoS crackers ever since the flood began
So, I really can't blame them for doing this. Their network really isn't in very good shape (and my buddy has been job-hunting for several months because things are so miserable).
Most computer-savvy people I know display a horrific lack of the most basic social skills. More comfortable interacting with the machine than the person they are helping, they do things in the most efficient way for themselves, rather than teaching the user the simplest way to do things or explaining as they go on.
I know that I was just like that until I taught CS 101 for two years in graduate school. That changed my entire outlook and made me a much more patient, helpful individual. I would strongly encourage that every computer geek take the time to teach others in a professional capacity, as this would give our profession a better name and gain us more respect from our users.
This story takes place in a simpler time when ideas mattered - when there were actually opportunities for two young, idealistic, bright people to sell their idea to the public without selling their soul to evil corporations or greedy universities. That time is obviously past, and it is a crying shame for techies everywhere.
I long for the days when an ordinary hacker with time on his hands, good programming skills, and determination could invent a device in his garage that would change the world. Nowadays, with software patents and copyrights on every obvious and non-obvious concept in existence, that ordinary hacker would fall prey to the lawyers and be sued out of existence.
The fact remains that universities are in the business of providing an education and furthering technology. Not of trying to make record profits and not of selling their souls to Coca-Cola and other huge multinationals to make a quick buck. Maybe someday lawmakers will realize this and help take the greed out of academia. But I'm not counting on it anytime soon. After all, universities are just tools that facilitate corporate welfare, and corporate welfare makes politicians rich.
The article raised many good points and showed the many enormous advantages of using Linux over Windows. As somebody who has tried to do the same for my home PC, however, I realize that there are some substantial hurdles to completely replacing Microsoft products. Why is that? Well, think about why Microsoft is able to get away with screwing their users: the market allows it. If users actually had a choice, don't you think they would have already taken it? Why wants to be burdened with spyware, the upgrade treadmill, file format incompatibilities, GPFs / blue screens, cost, and general instability? If 95% of PC users really had a choice, why would they ever choose Windows?
Well, here are my own personal reasons why I have a Windows box in the middle of my shelf of Linux boxen:
Mail. I need to access a Microsoft Exchange mail server. Alternatives, anyone?
Office documents. StarOffice, Koffice, and the like don't even make an attempt to read Powerpoint documents correctly. Word docs render correctly on a good day, and show up formatted wrong and in Arabic typefaces on a bad day. Staroffice and Koffice required me to upgrade my memory and CPU. I have no choice and businesses have no choice but to accept that Microsoft file formats are the standard. We can't turn down customers just because they send us.doc's instead of.ps's.
Web browsing. I love Mozilla and it is getting better every day. I used to use Konqueror quite a bit and it was fairly decent as well. But neither browser works as well as IE, just because almost every web page on the Internet was designed with IE users in mind. Don't believe me? Ask your average artsy web designer what Linux is and he will probably give you a blank stare.
Games. The majority of my favorite games will not run on Linux.
I love Linux - it is the best all-around OS I have ever used. Linux isn't the problem; third parties are the problem. Microsoft made the brilliant move of leveraging its monopolies to reinforce each other and it has worked like a charm. I'd drop Windows in a heartbeat but M$ gets my upgrade dollars because I really have no choice. And I suspect that any office that tried to transition to Linux will fail miserably for the same reasons. Linux just isn't ready for widespread desktop use.
Although many conservative religious leaders and followers will undoubtedly condemn this action, it will prove or disprove the point they have been arguing for centuries: that humans have a soul, and animals do not.
If the experiments are able to produce human-like creatures without coitus and traditional conception, the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that the "soul" does not exist, and that humans are no more sophisticated than the most advanced carbon-based machine we can invent.
If the experiments are not able to produce creatures that demonstrate free will, emotions and feelings, and other characteristically human qualities, the inevitable conclusion will be that a soul does exist in each of us, and the religious will most likely be able to use this as a rationale for banning abortion, stem cell research, and other procedures that involve the sacrifice of young human life.
Although Pat Robertson et al will likely oppose this research, they do so out of the fear that their position will become obsolete. But instead they should see it as a natural step in the quest for truth, and learn to live with the outcome. It can help them just as much as it can hurt them.
Actually, I bought a console for about $30 at a garage sale back in 1997. Must have been a pretty good bargain, considering that my setup is still going for $100+ on ebay.
Given the fact that @home hasn't made a red cent since they started doing business (even in the roaring 90's), us customers should have known better than to not make backup plans in case they decided to pull the plug one day.
However, all is not lost. There are still many options for us:
DSL. It's grown up into a fast and cheap alternative to the cable modems' "quick but spotty" service.
802.11b wireless. There are several wireless providers in my town. Pick one who has a QoS guarantee and be back online tomorrow.
Satellite. DirecPC and Starband have matured into viable contenders in the past two years. Dialup-uplink doesn't even exist anymore. Sure, playing games will be slow, but games are wasteful of valuable bandwidth, especially given the current shortage.
T1. Prices have gone down. Check out UUnet's latest offerings. A 768k frac T1 can be had for about $300/mo now, and the hardware is dirt cheap on ebay. No, it's not practical for personal use, but split it with your neighbors (via 802.11b) and it can be even cheaper than @home.
Dialup. Due to many spammers, DDoS clients, and file sharers falling off the face of the internet tonight, even your 56k modem will be scads faster because the entire net will be more responsive.
This is going to be aggravating for all of us, but the ability to survive adversity separates the men from the boys. I wish you all luck this weekend getting your new service working.
That's not my point. Nobody can provide "unlimited" bandwidth and @home is a liar and a thief for promising it.
But who can you blame when you run out of RF bandwidth? Well, nobody promised that it was unlimited in the first place. And I'm telling you here that it isn't. Coupled with the fact that controlling access to the media will be very difficult without the involvement of a central authority (called the FCC), cooperation will not work and hogs will rule the system.
What's your point? Mine is that when given a finite resource, people will try to maximize their share if it suits them.
Don't blame the cable companies for a fundamental problem with human nature. Blame them for not enforcing bandwidth limitations when they sign people up. IMHO, using the word "unlimited" in any marketing campaign should be a felony.
As a cable modem customer, I know all too well that a "plentiful" reserve of bandwidth quickly gets hogged by jerks who queue up and download several movies, ISOs, and pieces of warez simultaneously. This is a prime example of the tragedy of the commons.
One thing I learned at Worldcom is that the dirty little secret of CDMA, TDMA, and any other spectrum-sharing technology is that a small percentage of "rogue" devices that are designed to hog bandwidth or disrupt service will be able to do so, at the expense of everybody elses service.
Currently, if a terrorist wanted to block a wireless service (say, television or 802.11b), he would use a transmitter that is easy to locate through triangulation, and only focuses on one particular service. If, however, spectrum is shared amongst many services, that terrorist could take out all of those services and it would be almost impossible to tell which transmitter was his, and which belonged to legitimate users.
Although the idea sounds utopian and attractive, one must keep security in mind. And with security in mind, I pronounce the idea DOA.
The problem here is that it's perfectly legal for large corporations to strong-arm the little guy with threatening letters, and subsequently fail to follow through with the threat.
I talked with a lawyer friend of mine once about this issue, and he remarked on the irony here: you can be arrested and jailed for threatening violence against somebody, but the courts will do nothing to you if you repeatedly threaten to abuse the legal system against somebody. What's a more potent weapon - a fist, or the state (and, by extension, the prison rape it supports)? You decide.
I guess the solution here is the tired old mantra that everyone on Slashdot says but never does: Write your congressmen. Lobby for your rights. Nobody else will stand up for you.
Bad comparison. There's a big difference between AT&T Cable upgrading the network in my area to support internet access for thousands of customers (and compete with the Baby Bells, in most cases), and the entire rest of the internet upgrading its hardware to support a couple of people who want to be multi-homed on a shoestring.
Count the beneficiaries and you'll see why small entities won't ever be multi-homed. Same reason why so many of us Linux users are still @home customers, despite the fact that they block most of the useful inbound ports.
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO this is just another misapplication of venture capital - an impossible product that is doomed to fail in the marketplace. But we will see whether or not they can make a profit on the unit.
~w
- SCO. Formerly "Caldera," the one Linux company who released
their distribution as crippleware as they tried to compete with dozens of
other vendors who gave their distros away for Free. You can see where this
is heading. Caldera is run by a bunch of Ivy League suits who think that
the old fashioned business ideas of monopoly, per-seat licensing games, and
control over the source code can easily be used to sell a Linux
distribution. SCO has an abundance of clue, but unfortunately it all left
the company when they laid off the Unixware developers.
- TurboLinux. Are they even still alive? I have many friends who
are Linux geniuses (one of them is the president of the local LUG) and none
of them know anybody who runs TurboLinux, much less pays for it. The
simplistic reasoning behind this is that if somebody wants to run RedHat
3.0, they will just download a copy of RedHat 3.0, instead of buying
it from TurboLinux.
- Connectiva. This is another pointless Linux distribution. The
one advantage that Connectiva has is that their VCs did not wise up as
quickly as other VCs did, to the fact that they produce nothing of value.
Everything that Connectiva offers is done better by some other
distribution.
- SuSE. The distribution that prides itself on a half-baked,
closed-source installer and too many installation CDs to count is also a
distribution that has no future. Mandrake has usurped the European market
and most other potential SuSE users, simply by virtue of being a better
distribution. SuSE once earned a bright yellow star in my book for funding
so much research and Linux development projects, but nowadays the only such
project they have left is ReiserFS and that is so unstable that even Gentoo
(!) recommends against its use.
Now, now that we can see that every company that is a major part of UnitedLinux is doomed, let's take a look at the other stumbling blocks that they will face before they each go bankrupt:- UnitedLinux aims to make money off the backs of the best
developers. The UnitedLinux coalition, unable to cobble together a
decent distribution of their own, fully intends to pilfer the best features
of Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Linuces, and then add a tiny bit of
closed-source software to make their distro difficult to copy legally.
This is unethical and violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the GPL.
- UnitedLinux lacks a good package manager. As a so-called
"cracker," package management is *the* most important thing I consider when
I choose a distribution. Debian has dpkg/apt (which is excellent, if you
are lazy enough to use binaries). FreeBSD and Gentoo have their superior
ports trees, which make bug fixes a cinch. And Mandrake has its own
proprietary system, which is also great. UL has none of the three, and
will rely on the outdated and frequently annoying RPM system. Shame on
them.
- UnitedLinux has no business support. Businesses prefer to get
things for free instead of paying for them, so it is no wonder why my
company tells us to head to linuxiso.org instead of UL when we need a new
Linux CD.
In summary: I will not be sad to see UnitedLinux die. It is a terrible idea whose day of reckoning has arrived.Let's take a look at the patents that Microsoft has filed that they are attempting to use to keep Samba down. Keep in mind that these may not be available on freebie patent search sites, as they have not been formally approved yet (a process that often takes 1-2 years). In the meantime, you can find them on Lexus-Nexis and other similar professional service networks.
- U.S. Patent T7086923: Authentication of an Untrusted Third Party
over a Packet Switched Network to control access to Network resources. As
the title may indicate, this is a very general patent; based on my Linux
experiences, the original BSD telnet daemon constitutes prior art. No
problem here.
- U.S. Patent T7065653: Connection-based random access file transport
mechanism with Authentication and Reliability. Sorry, but Apache beat them
to the punch several years ago. No go. Yes, http supports random access.
- U.S. Patent T7689363: Domain identification and logon based on
broadcast network packets. This is a little tougher, but BOOTP was around
before Microsoft was even formed. Check the dates on your RFCs as an
exercise, and tell me just how quickly this one will get thrown out of
court.
Yes, Microsoft has big, bad lawyers - but technically they don't have a legal leg to stand on. Bring RMS, ESR, and their millions of dollars into the picture, and Microsoft is going to have some serious problems enforcing their farce.~wally
I have friends who work in the security industry and crack codes for a living. Every time a watermarking scheme is publically proposed, they laugh long and heartily. The simple fact of the matter is that a system designed to check for a watermark can easily be changed to invalidate the watermark. Watermarks are necessarily little bit-flipping programs that don't alter the outward appearance of the media they are attached to, so what makes record execs and PHBs so sure that they can't be removed?
The only watermark that can't be removed is the watermark that can't be detected. And that doesn't help the digital rights management fascists one bit. So why do they bother?
Well, they still think it's a "deterrent." Just like Macrovision is a "deterrent" when you can buy filters to block it for under $25 on eBay. Sooner or later, though, the world is going to have to learn that information wants to be free, that trying to restrict the flow of bits on the information superhighway is futile, and that selling simple numbers and calling it "property" is patently absurd. Mathematics is a part of nature, and nobody owns nature; the sooner our laws are brought into line with this simple truth, the better.
~wally
The best authentication schemes involve something you know (a PIN or password) and something you have (a smartcard, RSA key fob, or some other device that implements a challenge/response system to authentication queries).
~wally
That said, this is a classic case for what we call a compulsory license. Because your vendor does not offer software on a particular platform and you can demonstrate a legitimate need to reverse engineer their software just to make your software work, you should be free and clear. Off the top of my head, your right to do this is protected by the Federal case law created in State of Illinois vs. Netscape Communications Corporation, Horowitz vs. Franklin, and Digital Equipment Corporation vs. IBM. These cases are definitely worth citing when you visit your lawyer (or get sued).
~wally
So what did you think of these two?
~wally
But I have been using a Win2k box at work, with IE 6.0 on it, for several hours a day now. In fact, we needed to temporarily install 3D Studio for one of my co-workers, so I visited astalavista and many "related sites" on that box - once for the software, twice for the dongle crack. And I can say for certain that my box hasn't been cracked.
So, as much as we want to believe that security through obscurity doesn't work, the vast majority of users have been safer because this sploit didn't show up on BUGTRAQ. Sure, Microsoft should have gotten off their collective tush and done something about it, and they should be held responsible now. But the mere notion that we are all in danger just because these bugs are kept secret is patently ridiculous.
~wally
~wally
Haven't you ever taken an objective look at this site and noticed that it is spiraling downward?
Haven't you ever stopped to consider that the most mature and intelligent geeks quit posting to Slashdot years ago, leaving a site full of groupthinking kiddies who learn and regurgitate the "party line" just to fit in?
And don't you wonder why it all had to end up like this?
It all boils down to respect. And if you lose the respect of your users, they will destroy your site. And all of the mod points, lameness filters, and *slap.pl scripts in the world aren't going to change that, because the users will find ways to beat your system. If programmers had a good solution to the ingenuity of a malicious human being, the computer security industry would have never been born.
What can you (the editors) do to gain the users' respect back?
- Show some interest in your site. (That means you too, Taco - stop
the anime tape for a second and listen.) Post interesting stories,
once. Post comments from time to time. Keep your opinions out of
the stories and put them where they belong. Post at +1 or +2 like everyone
else. Pretend that you're not too wealthy (?) to care what happens.
- Be honest with people. The parent post is a sign of progress but it is
too little, too late, and too sanctimonious. We geeks might not have very
good social skills but we can see through bullshit very easily.
- Don't pander to high schoolers. In fact, don't pander at all. Start
posting articles about the innovative, honest technologies coming out of
Redmond as well, instead of just complaining about the things that they
screw up. Help us open our minds.
- If you feel like posting fluff (such as Ask Slashdot submissions that
can be answered by Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button), don't post
anything at all.
- Don't silence critics. Somebody should be apologizing for the
moderation on the VA story, but that's only the tip of the iceberg.
- A little democracy never hurts. How about fixing the "automatic
voting" option and then running the "Dump the Jerk?" poll again?
- Most importantly, stop making this site into a gigantic role-playing
game. If you stop treating us like little kids with your automated rewards
and punishments, many of the troublemakers will get bored and move on. But
if you keep writing more filters, troll-detection scripts, and other
useless devices, you add to the fun of beating the system. Is that really
what you want? Some people live to beat "the system" and at least a few of
them are trolls here. Learn how to take away their fun.
This site isn't too big to fix. And certainly there is little profit motive to make it worth reading again, given that you already get half a million hits every day. But when VA finally gives up the ghost and Slashdot is a thing of the past, you will either be left with memories of running a crappy site and moderating ASCII art, or a sense of pride in what you created. Whether you want Slashdot to be remembered as a dismal failure or a great online community is up to you.Yes, IHBT.
~wally
~wally
Well, these "metrics" you claim to trust so much also indicate that the IBM 75GXP drives have a "normal" failure rate. And we all know the truth about that, don't we?
Just as John Wayne Gacy could claim innocence until the day they threw the switch, you can claim that you have no brand loyalty whilst condemning the Intel product (which, by the way, you haven't even tried out). And you can accuse me, who has both systems side by side, of lying. What nerve.
Next time you have occasion to leave your folks' basement, take a ride out to Best Buy and check out the excellent deals on a P4. Maybe even pick one up and try it out. I think you'll like it.
~wally
I'm not sure about you guys, but I noticed a really subtle pro-AMD bias in this article. For instance, the banner ad on the top of the page was for the new Athlon XPs and linked to AMD's page. And the author gave Intel a few token references, and then completely ignored them in the benchmarks.
Well, as a very satisfied Pentium 4 owner and a somewhat satisfied Athlon owner, I can tell you that if you're serious about getting work done (not just overclocking your Unreal box), you'd be best off going with a P4. My Athlon had some heat and manufacturing issues (this is my second chip because the first one was DOA), and really isn't any faster in the real world than my P4. In fact, having rebuilt my kernel with the new Intel compiler, the P4 just screams and leaves the Athlon in the dust. And with the bargain basement prices that PCs from major manufacturers (read: Pentiums - face the truth) are going for, there's no reason why they would be more expensive than a slower Athlon box.
So be forewarned - this article, like those on so many other hardware sites, was bought and paid for by the folks in Austin. Take this infomercial with a grain of salt.
~wally
So, I really can't blame them for doing this. Their network really isn't in very good shape (and my buddy has been job-hunting for several months because things are so miserable).
~wally
Most computer-savvy people I know display a horrific lack of the most basic social skills. More comfortable interacting with the machine than the person they are helping, they do things in the most efficient way for themselves, rather than teaching the user the simplest way to do things or explaining as they go on.
I know that I was just like that until I taught CS 101 for two years in graduate school. That changed my entire outlook and made me a much more patient, helpful individual. I would strongly encourage that every computer geek take the time to teach others in a professional capacity, as this would give our profession a better name and gain us more respect from our users.
~wally
This story takes place in a simpler time when ideas mattered - when there were actually opportunities for two young, idealistic, bright people to sell their idea to the public without selling their soul to evil corporations or greedy universities. That time is obviously past, and it is a crying shame for techies everywhere.
I long for the days when an ordinary hacker with time on his hands, good programming skills, and determination could invent a device in his garage that would change the world. Nowadays, with software patents and copyrights on every obvious and non-obvious concept in existence, that ordinary hacker would fall prey to the lawyers and be sued out of existence.
The fact remains that universities are in the business of providing an education and furthering technology. Not of trying to make record profits and not of selling their souls to Coca-Cola and other huge multinationals to make a quick buck. Maybe someday lawmakers will realize this and help take the greed out of academia. But I'm not counting on it anytime soon. After all, universities are just tools that facilitate corporate welfare, and corporate welfare makes politicians rich.
~wally
Well, here are my own personal reasons why I have a Windows box in the middle of my shelf of Linux boxen:
I love Linux - it is the best all-around OS I have ever used. Linux isn't the problem; third parties are the problem. Microsoft made the brilliant move of leveraging its monopolies to reinforce each other and it has worked like a charm. I'd drop Windows in a heartbeat but M$ gets my upgrade dollars because I really have no choice. And I suspect that any office that tried to transition to Linux will fail miserably for the same reasons. Linux just isn't ready for widespread desktop use.
~wally
Although many conservative religious leaders and followers will undoubtedly condemn this action, it will prove or disprove the point they have been arguing for centuries: that humans have a soul, and animals do not.
If the experiments are able to produce human-like creatures without coitus and traditional conception, the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that the "soul" does not exist, and that humans are no more sophisticated than the most advanced carbon-based machine we can invent.
If the experiments are not able to produce creatures that demonstrate free will, emotions and feelings, and other characteristically human qualities, the inevitable conclusion will be that a soul does exist in each of us, and the religious will most likely be able to use this as a rationale for banning abortion, stem cell research, and other procedures that involve the sacrifice of young human life.
Although Pat Robertson et al will likely oppose this research, they do so out of the fear that their position will become obsolete. But instead they should see it as a natural step in the quest for truth, and learn to live with the outcome. It can help them just as much as it can hurt them.
~wally
Actually, I bought a console for about $30 at a garage sale back in 1997. Must have been a pretty good bargain, considering that my setup is still going for $100+ on ebay.
~wally
However, all is not lost. There are still many options for us:
This is going to be aggravating for all of us, but the ability to survive adversity separates the men from the boys. I wish you all luck this weekend getting your new service working.
~wally
That's not my point. Nobody can provide "unlimited" bandwidth and @home is a liar and a thief for promising it.
But who can you blame when you run out of RF bandwidth? Well, nobody promised that it was unlimited in the first place. And I'm telling you here that it isn't. Coupled with the fact that controlling access to the media will be very difficult without the involvement of a central authority (called the FCC), cooperation will not work and hogs will rule the system.
~wally
Cable modem bandwidth is finite.
RF bandwidth is finite.
What's your point? Mine is that when given a finite resource, people will try to maximize their share if it suits them.
Don't blame the cable companies for a fundamental problem with human nature. Blame them for not enforcing bandwidth limitations when they sign people up. IMHO, using the word "unlimited" in any marketing campaign should be a felony.
~wally
As a cable modem customer, I know all too well that a "plentiful" reserve of bandwidth quickly gets hogged by jerks who queue up and download several movies, ISOs, and pieces of warez simultaneously. This is a prime example of the tragedy of the commons.
One thing I learned at Worldcom is that the dirty little secret of CDMA, TDMA, and any other spectrum-sharing technology is that a small percentage of "rogue" devices that are designed to hog bandwidth or disrupt service will be able to do so, at the expense of everybody elses service.
Currently, if a terrorist wanted to block a wireless service (say, television or 802.11b), he would use a transmitter that is easy to locate through triangulation, and only focuses on one particular service. If, however, spectrum is shared amongst many services, that terrorist could take out all of those services and it would be almost impossible to tell which transmitter was his, and which belonged to legitimate users.
Although the idea sounds utopian and attractive, one must keep security in mind. And with security in mind, I pronounce the idea DOA.
~wally
The problem here is that it's perfectly legal for large corporations to strong-arm the little guy with threatening letters, and subsequently fail to follow through with the threat.
I talked with a lawyer friend of mine once about this issue, and he remarked on the irony here: you can be arrested and jailed for threatening violence against somebody, but the courts will do nothing to you if you repeatedly threaten to abuse the legal system against somebody. What's a more potent weapon - a fist, or the state (and, by extension, the prison rape it supports)? You decide.
I guess the solution here is the tired old mantra that everyone on Slashdot says but never does: Write your congressmen. Lobby for your rights. Nobody else will stand up for you.
~wally
Bad comparison. There's a big difference between AT&T Cable upgrading the network in my area to support internet access for thousands of customers (and compete with the Baby Bells, in most cases), and the entire rest of the internet upgrading its hardware to support a couple of people who want to be multi-homed on a shoestring.
Count the beneficiaries and you'll see why small entities won't ever be multi-homed. Same reason why so many of us Linux users are still @home customers, despite the fact that they block most of the useful inbound ports.
~wally