In the case you mention, the source code is a trade secret, and the compiled code is copyrighted. The compiled code is made available to the public. The source code is kept locked up. If we don't allow copyright or patents in a particular area, that's going to increase the likelihood that the method of trade secrets will be used, which will mean that innovations are never, ever released to the public. I like copyrights and patents for the exact reason that they do allow innovations to be made public and not kept secret forever.
The rumor X is not related to Y will spread if there is people get emotional gratification out of it. If people believe they need to change their lifestyle to prevent global warming, then they are very eager to believe that "the warming is not related to burning fossil fuels."
Ironically, changing our lifestyle is one of the least effective ways to reduce use of fossil fuels. We just need to get our energy from other sources and we can keep our comfy lifestyle.
You may want to read about herd immunity. We need a certain percentage of the population to be vaccinated to protect everyone against the disease, including those who cannot have the vaccination. Leaving it up to everyone to decide for themselves what they want to do won't work. We don't let people decide what side of the road to drive on, now do we?
Ah, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Thousands die and are injured in traffic accidents every day, and yet I bet you ride in a car or other form of transportation regularly anyway.
It's not that the war is neverending. It's that the war makes the drugs even more available and cheaper by taking down drug kingpins so that the market is allowed to set the price. Additionally, by making drugs illegal, you create a black market that actually creates crime. Not to mention the otherwise law-abiding citizens whose only illegal act was to puff some weed who are thrown in jail for no good reason. If you still don't understand, look at what happened in the U.S. during prohibition. There's a reason alcohol is legal even though it's such a dangerous drug.
I suspect the end result will be similar to when the U.S. government took down the Medellin Cartel. In The Silk Road's place will pop up dozens of similar sites, and no one will ever be able to shut them all down. Welcome to the "war on drugs," which actually makes drugs more available and cheaper than ever before. Remember, boys and girls, when you fight an entity you often just end up making that entity even more powerful.
Because I am telling him what his statements say about himself. I am not simplistically overgeneralizing about the behavior of thousands of people I have had no connection whatsoever with. By doing so he is placing a blanket judgement on all people who break laws without regard for their individual reasons for doing so. He's essentially being a Nazi by being so rigidly judgemental.
His claim seems to be that every single individual that breaks the law is an "evildoer". That's an incredibly simplistic and immature view of morality. In fact, with a healthy view of morality you can understand that sometimes to moral thing to do is to break the law. It's the idea behind the Heinz dilemma.
Which happened first, the announcement or the trades, depends on your frame of reference. I think what you're trying to say is that to all human observers, the trades happened later than the announcement because humans do not move at relativistic speeds. But just because we all observe it as so does not make it an absolute fact.
If you wanted to subvert a processor in that way, it would be easiest to add a secret knock that would allow the attacker to run any code at all on it. And any CPU you buy can have such a secret knock built into it. I don't see any particular reason to trust one CPU manufacturer more than another. If you have some evidence that one is untrustworthy, please share it.
I think it *is* insightful. If they overstepped, why wouldn't the article just come out and say they did? So they use a loaded question, such as asking, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" That's why Betteride's law works, and is in fact insightful, if you only think about it...
I hope so. Without that complex, we wouldn't be able to grow and distribute food and other necessities. I would certainly hope all world governments do their best to make sure the complex works even better, and then we can all enjoy a higher standard of living. Why is this "complex" the enemy? Where do you think you get all your nice stuff that our ancestors didn't have? Let me know when you no long purchase any products made from the evil "complex".
The companies that those billionaires own are what drive the economy and do things like grow and distribute our food. I don't know about you, but I would prefer to protect those companies so I can keep eating. And of course I like my gadgets, books, music, and so forth. Sure, I can read an open-source book or listen to open-source music, but typically I prefer the commercial products. Just because an idea works with software doesn't mean it will work with everything. In other words, if you give a man a hammer, all he will see are nails.
We need IP to protect the companies who are doing the research. But it can be difficult to know exactly where to draw the line between what can and cannot be patented. That's the real problem with our patent system -- too many obvious ideas being patented. As Jefferson himself said, "Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not."
Absolutely. And guess what would happen to any drug company that did not patent their drugs? How would they be able to compete with companies that did not have to pay the hundreds of millions in research to get the drug approved? The only reasonable alternative to patent systems that I can see are (a) trade secrets, which means that the discovery is not made available to all, or (b) go back to a patron system where a generous benefactor foots the bill for research, in which case the research that the scientists do is only what the benefactor wants, which may be the ultimate cure for baldness or a little dick. I think patents are better than the alternatives. That is, unless you can come up with a better idea. Just be sure to think it through...
"Of course, a hardware security system that is too complex to verify seems like a fatal flaw."
Why is that? We cannot verify that CPUs do not have "secret knock" codes. Is that a "fatal flaw"? All it really means is that you can't be sure that your CPU isn't performing any malicious activity. The best you can do is trust that it isn't. I suppose you could spend all your time looking for such evidence, but you still wouldn't be able to prove a CPU isn't performing malicious activity in exactly the same way you cannot prove a non-trivial program is correct simply by testing it on enough inputs.
Languages are not interpreted or compiled. Implementations are compilers or interpreters. These days Java is typically compiled at runtime, instead of ahead of time. Your comment is bogus.
Java is far, far safer than C++. C++ does not enforce type safety at all. For example, in Java you cannot possibly have a buffer overrun or access freed memory as you can in C++. I think most of the security notices are about C and C++ programs, not Java programs. I think you're referring to the Java runtime, which is written in, you guessed it, C.
Slashdot Mirror
It's brilliant!
1. Withhold important scientific information
2. ???
3. Profit
Why not quadruple and add four instead? Oh, right, you learned this from an assembly programmer.
In the case you mention, the source code is a trade secret, and the compiled code is copyrighted. The compiled code is made available to the public. The source code is kept locked up. If we don't allow copyright or patents in a particular area, that's going to increase the likelihood that the method of trade secrets will be used, which will mean that innovations are never, ever released to the public. I like copyrights and patents for the exact reason that they do allow innovations to be made public and not kept secret forever.
The rumor X is not related to Y will spread if there is people get emotional gratification out of it. If people believe they need to change their lifestyle to prevent global warming, then they are very eager to believe that "the warming is not related to burning fossil fuels."
Ironically, changing our lifestyle is one of the least effective ways to reduce use of fossil fuels. We just need to get our energy from other sources and we can keep our comfy lifestyle.
You may want to read about herd immunity. We need a certain percentage of the population to be vaccinated to protect everyone against the disease, including those who cannot have the vaccination. Leaving it up to everyone to decide for themselves what they want to do won't work. We don't let people decide what side of the road to drive on, now do we?
Ah, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Thousands die and are injured in traffic accidents every day, and yet I bet you ride in a car or other form of transportation regularly anyway.
People tend to perceive only information that fits their preconceptions. It's called cognitive dissonance.
It's not that the war is neverending. It's that the war makes the drugs even more available and cheaper by taking down drug kingpins so that the market is allowed to set the price. Additionally, by making drugs illegal, you create a black market that actually creates crime. Not to mention the otherwise law-abiding citizens whose only illegal act was to puff some weed who are thrown in jail for no good reason. If you still don't understand, look at what happened in the U.S. during prohibition. There's a reason alcohol is legal even though it's such a dangerous drug.
I suspect the end result will be similar to when the U.S. government took down the Medellin Cartel. In The Silk Road's place will pop up dozens of similar sites, and no one will ever be able to shut them all down. Welcome to the "war on drugs," which actually makes drugs more available and cheaper than ever before. Remember, boys and girls, when you fight an entity you often just end up making that entity even more powerful.
Because I am telling him what his statements say about himself. I am not simplistically overgeneralizing about the behavior of thousands of people I have had no connection whatsoever with. By doing so he is placing a blanket judgement on all people who break laws without regard for their individual reasons for doing so. He's essentially being a Nazi by being so rigidly judgemental.
His claim seems to be that every single individual that breaks the law is an "evildoer". That's an incredibly simplistic and immature view of morality. In fact, with a healthy view of morality you can understand that sometimes to moral thing to do is to break the law. It's the idea behind the Heinz dilemma.
I see your brainwashing has been 100% successful. Congratulations on having no ability to think for yourself. You earned it!
Which happened first, the announcement or the trades, depends on your frame of reference. I think what you're trying to say is that to all human observers, the trades happened later than the announcement because humans do not move at relativistic speeds. But just because we all observe it as so does not make it an absolute fact.
If you wanted to subvert a processor in that way, it would be easiest to add a secret knock that would allow the attacker to run any code at all on it. And any CPU you buy can have such a secret knock built into it. I don't see any particular reason to trust one CPU manufacturer more than another. If you have some evidence that one is untrustworthy, please share it.
I think it *is* insightful. If they overstepped, why wouldn't the article just come out and say they did? So they use a loaded question, such as asking, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" That's why Betteride's law works, and is in fact insightful, if you only think about it...
Yeah, that's exactly how the world works. Nice observation. Fair is a temporary amusement park.
I hope so. Without that complex, we wouldn't be able to grow and distribute food and other necessities. I would certainly hope all world governments do their best to make sure the complex works even better, and then we can all enjoy a higher standard of living. Why is this "complex" the enemy? Where do you think you get all your nice stuff that our ancestors didn't have? Let me know when you no long purchase any products made from the evil "complex".
No. See, I can do it too. Do I get a medal?
"Did Goldman Sachs Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?"
No.
The companies that those billionaires own are what drive the economy and do things like grow and distribute our food. I don't know about you, but I would prefer to protect those companies so I can keep eating. And of course I like my gadgets, books, music, and so forth. Sure, I can read an open-source book or listen to open-source music, but typically I prefer the commercial products. Just because an idea works with software doesn't mean it will work with everything. In other words, if you give a man a hammer, all he will see are nails.
We need IP to protect the companies who are doing the research. But it can be difficult to know exactly where to draw the line between what can and cannot be patented. That's the real problem with our patent system -- too many obvious ideas being patented. As Jefferson himself said, "Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not."
Absolutely. And guess what would happen to any drug company that did not patent their drugs? How would they be able to compete with companies that did not have to pay the hundreds of millions in research to get the drug approved? The only reasonable alternative to patent systems that I can see are (a) trade secrets, which means that the discovery is not made available to all, or (b) go back to a patron system where a generous benefactor foots the bill for research, in which case the research that the scientists do is only what the benefactor wants, which may be the ultimate cure for baldness or a little dick. I think patents are better than the alternatives. That is, unless you can come up with a better idea. Just be sure to think it through...
"Of course, a hardware security system that is too complex to verify seems like a fatal flaw."
Why is that? We cannot verify that CPUs do not have "secret knock" codes. Is that a "fatal flaw"? All it really means is that you can't be sure that your CPU isn't performing any malicious activity. The best you can do is trust that it isn't. I suppose you could spend all your time looking for such evidence, but you still wouldn't be able to prove a CPU isn't performing malicious activity in exactly the same way you cannot prove a non-trivial program is correct simply by testing it on enough inputs.
Languages are not interpreted or compiled. Implementations are compilers or interpreters. These days Java is typically compiled at runtime, instead of ahead of time. Your comment is bogus.
Java is far, far safer than C++. C++ does not enforce type safety at all. For example, in Java you cannot possibly have a buffer overrun or access freed memory as you can in C++. I think most of the security notices are about C and C++ programs, not Java programs. I think you're referring to the Java runtime, which is written in, you guessed it, C.