Is it because they want to jerk everyone's schedules around to "build buzz" instead of letting us watch movies when we want to watch them?
Is it because they want to gouge the first world for the same product they sell cheap to the third world?
Is it because they want to maximize their profit at the expense of the entrepreneurial importer/exporter and other businessmen who actually cater to consumer demand?
Yeah they may hate it. They may hate it because all they care about is controlling their customers rather than serving them. My dollars prefer going to movies I want to see when I want to see them. They may hate doing it, but giving me that choice is the right thing to do.
To add to your list, patience has a dollar price tag too.
If I spend 20 minutes downloading a song on Kazaa then four songs cost me an 1 hour and 20 minutes of my life. If I spend 5 min per song on iTunes then those same four songs cost me 20 minutes of my life.
That's an hour difference for four songs. I'm saving $4.00 over that hour. That's "working" for far less than minimum wage to the get the song "free" on Kazaa. Unless you're unemployed, iTunes is a much better monitary value too.
I'll be curious to see what, if any, gag order the judge will place on IBM. The judge has not placed an injuction on IBM developing or selling the code in question so it would be unlikely They'd place further restriction on IBM disclosing or modifying "their" code after seeing "SCO's" code.
That said, it's unlikely IBM will do anything like that. They have little to gain by pissing off the judge by violating the spirity of the "closed court" rulling. They also have little to gain by changing the code and re-releasing because it will make them look like they're guilty.
Consider the case of someone who modifies the Linux kernel and then releases it via GPL, but he accidentally put some code in there that he didn't intend to GPL. Maybe he added a whole file that he had intended to modify before release, but forgot.
So the guy has this brought to his attention a year later and he says, "This was unintentional, I'm not GPLing this file" and he pulls it out of the kernel.
In the meantime, the kernel has gone through a release and others have used/modified the guy's file extensively for their own projects. What's the status of the code? Is it "irreversibly" GPLed, or does he get to pull it and screw over everyone who has since used it (in good faith) when they thought it was GPLed?
The fact is that if you release it under the GPL then others can use your code and re-release. It's GPLed, effectively, for good. Getting out of it is only easy right now because people are being nice.
If I'm wrong, then the consequences are far worse. If anyone can just pull their code at any time then GPLed software is a very precarious house of cards.
"But we can do all of these things through education. "
Yes, education solves everything. Once educated to help their fellow internet users, people will do what's best for the internet as a whole rather than their personal self-interest. I didn't used to think that this was human nature, but thank you for educating me that I was wrong.
It's a matter of degree. Asking a girl out at work a single time is considered "fair", but asking her out repetedly after she says no is considered sexual harrasment. Using a public restroom is "fair", but camping in there for a few weeks is considered trespassing. Borrowing a car from a friend is "fair" and you'll be covered by their insurance., but if you keep using it for a few months then they won't cover you.
All I'm saying is that we can't buckle under the pressure of the copyright holders to make all use seem like theft. We need to fight to our right for "fair" use. Filming the whole thing and posting it to the internet is certainly not "fair". But it's also not "fair" to prohibit me from doing any recording for any purpose. My use was "fair". If Ebert wanted to record part of a scene for a review, it would also be "fair". Under no circumstances should we let them tell us otherwise.
And what about F-ing fair use on that cell phone? I went to see The Matrix: Reloaded and at the end of the film, during the trailer for Revolutions, I squeezed off some shots with my Nokia 3650 and put them on my background for the phone. This is not theoretical, I actually did it.
Now I'm hearing one camp that says I'm a criminal and another camp that says it should be ok to merely poses the camera phone and not use it. Where's the camp saying, hey, this is not significant copyright violation and I should be able to do this?
I don't feel any more a criminal than guy using a VCR at home to tape HBO. I captured a few frames of a film for my own personal use. I payed to see the film. My recording was done in a way that didn't bother any of the other patrons (very important to me). This is fair and it should be legal.
People should stop buckling under this "no use is fair use" mentatlity hoisted on us by large copyright holders. Stand up and demand your right to fair personal-use copying!
"I love how the pictures just have to include one of these plans shooting a missle. You'd think the atomic bomb would've taught us all a lesson."
Umm.... It's a military project. Maybe it's time we come to grips with the grim fact that military projects sometimes include missles.
TW
Re:The greatest threat...
on
Real Security?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The human factor can screw you in more than just the social engineering scenerio. One of my favorites is personal firewalls. Since normal humans have no idea what *that* program file is or why it might want to talk on *that* port, they just hit 'yes', and let the attack right in, or they hit 'no', and dissallow a perfectly useful application.
My company now wants to deploy these magical devices to all employee computers and can't figure out what I mean when I say they'll make things less secure. I think this article was dead-on.
More specifically, stop treating us like ATM machines for coporations. What if I don't want to or like to spend money? What if I don't want to give my time (going to work), my dignity (begging for loans), my privacy (everywhere!) and now my very body to make if more convienient for companies to grab my cash.
This proposal is like someone who asks to fuck you before they've bought you flowers or even kissed you. At least have the decensy to lie to us that it's real purpose is "medical information" or "education" before swooping down on our wallets.
"If you read (and understand) the article, you'll realize that the complexity is worth it "
This, in and of itself, is a massive problem. How many people will understand the process enough to trust it? How many people will feel their votes is safe after they watch it get shredded? How many people will understand that "at least a 50% chance of [fraud] being detected" on their individual vote is a good thing?
It doesn't matter whether I understand it, it matters whether your aunt betsy and your garbage man can understand it. Both those people will understand large steel locks on a "secure ballot box" in a way that they'll never understand crytography of any kind. It's those people that felt disinfranchised by the butterfly ballot. It's those people that need to feel their vote is safe in order to get them out to vote.
Damn, I really like the idea of mandatory recounts. You could even mandate seperate computers and even a completely different software package be used for the recount. Wouldn't that give confidence to the populace? Great idea.
Well, it is broke. Lots of recent elections have proved this, including the last presidential election. The hanging chads were not even close to the only issue either.
That said, there are many things that truly weren't broke about the last system that need to be preserved.
1. Your receipt should not include a way to find out how you voted. If your vote doesn't stay completely in the voting booth then some people will try to coerce your vote because they will be able to ask you to "prove" how you voted. Picture your boss asking everyone to print out their receipts on line and show him that you voted for his pet project. This is very important and the old system preserved this confidentiality.
2. You should be able to easily, visually verify how you voted and THE EXACT SAME verification paper should be used to tabulate the vote. In other words, you should be able to look at a paper receipt listing all your choices with a big check mark next to them and that receipt goes straight in the ballot box which then electronically tabulates from the paper, just like the old system.
Folks, this is ridiculously simple. Vote on screen, print the vote, put the printout in a privacy envelope. Take the vote to the ballot box. The ballot box sucks in the vote, tabulates and encrypts it on the spot, then electronically sends it to the polling database. You take a receipt stub out with you and you can check online that it was valid, and you can track it to its final storage place much like the FedEx tracking system, but you can't find out details of the vote online. If there is impropriety, the ballots have already been neatly stacked by the ballot boxes (they work kind of like ATMs do with your deposit) so they can be reread at high speed by recount machines and everyone could check online to be sure their vote was recounted. In special circumstances the votes could be visually recounted and, yes, you could check online to make sure your ballot got the visual recount as well.
The important point here is that no one can do any funny business with the paper because it's in that secure box and no one can coerce you to vote their way. But most importantly, if the computer is messed up, fixes could be made and a second, third or fourth vote can take place from the original ballots almost as rapidly as what happened with the first ones. Finally, it's very simple for any non-technical person to understand, so regular people will have faith in the process. And don't we all need faith for the system to truly work?
Yeah, but it was a very minor crime. It's the equivilant to me yelling, "I'll tear off your head and shit down your neck if you ever come near my wife again!" if I caught you kissing her at the bar.
1. I was provoked 2. There's no real evidence I have the strength to tear off your head so it's probably not serious 3. I make no actual agressive moves toward you
It's just blustery anger, the guy doesn't deserver, and probably won't get, jail time.
That's my whole point, many parents have larger problems that must be addressed first. Suggesting a "free and open" internet policy hampers our abilities to address them because the children are being exposed to a large number of problematic ideas and organizations at the same time we're trying to get them back on track.
Kids sometimes want to take drugs, commit suicide, hang out with criminals. The "free and open" croud needs to acknowledge the special needs of these at-risk kids (and there are a whole lot of them) instead of just saying "have trust in your kid".
Yeah, I get it, the internet/knowledge is good for kids. But is it good for every kid in every situation? While you free access people are busy saying "everyone should be free on the internet" you're forgetting some basic points.
1.parents might like to restrict what kind of people and organizations their children will interact with. For example, I would not want my child to join the KKK or to hang out with people I know to be engaging in serious criminal activities. I wouldn't dream of making a distinction between "real life" or on line as far as these activities are concerned.
2.despite care taken in raising the child, some children will still desire to hang out with the KKK or with people they know to be engaging in criminal activity.
3.if the parents know that hanging out with these typpe of people is a desire of their children, it's perfectly valid for the parent to restrict the children from doing so.
My daughter, 12 years old at the time, was haveing cyber-sex with middle-aged men and was making plans to run away to California to live with some guy that she had met on the net. Yeah, you can say I was a crappy parent and that's why it happened, but don't you think I should _do_ something about the situation now that it's happening? Or maybe you think I should still let her have free access to the internet so she can continue to engage in these activities?
But wait, what if I knew she had these inclinations *before* she started these activities? What if I was given a clue by her engagement in online chatting with strangers and her curiosity about pornography? Whouldn't it have been better if I had restricted her before her activities started harming her?
I'm not going to take this to the conclusion that every curious kid should be banned from the net, but you folks need to grow up and realise that some of the more at-risk kids definately do need to be monitored and restricted.
Good news! The only distribution cost for these musicians will be bandwidth and a computer (and possibly some DRM licenses).
Anyone who thinks the "next generation music media" will be a physical standard just hasn't been paying attention. If you can get the word out about your band and that word includes a URL then you can sell as much or as little as the market can take without the need to resort to "production runs" of any kind.
Won't let you talk casually about what you do at work ("I develop a word processing application")...
Won't let you talk casually about what see at work ("My boss got fired")...
Won't let you talk casually about your working environment ("I use a fast PC with two monitors")...
??
I have to ask, if you work for a private company, why would you let your company control that level of detail? I'm all for not blabbing about all the details of your work, but where do you draw the line? Does it make you untrustworthy to talk about minor things at work (and, yes, getting a truckload of computers at work IS a minor thing)?
This is too true. I remember the US testing anti-satellite missiles in the late 80s. It wasn't technically part of the "Star Wars" initiative but it was closely related. All it took was a fighter jet and a moderately priced missile. Anybody could afford this.
When the word got out shortly thereafter about the GPS system we were deploying, everything suddenly gelled for me. Anti-satellite missiles + space-based military resources + general secrecy with a lot of big defense projects (think "stealth") = The US already has a space defense plan and deployed armament.
You could argue that the "deployed armament" doesn't follow and I certainly don't have any proof, but the military hates deploying stuff they can't defend so I think it's a reasonable assumption.
"... don't sell the oss community short on innovation."
Wonderful points and well taken. But I must point out that these are server products (mostly). Linux has exellent mind-share on the server, and rightly deserved. This is _because_ of the innovations you mention.
Where is the similar inovation on the desktop? Even one hit game or one hit device would make a big difference in mind-share.
Reading this comment reminds me of exactly why Apple has such great mind share with average home users and Linux doesn't. In a word: innovation.
Now, before you start flaming me, please listen to my intent:
Apple: puts out uber-cool, lickin' your chops iPod, but makes it only available on Macs (to start). Puts out actually workable online music service and makes is only available on Macs (to start). People love both of these things and buy them in hoards. Mac users have status and coolness as they're the only ones that can get this awesome stuff... at least for little while.
Linux: Can we run this on WINE? In other words, can we take this cool stuff from another platform and try to make it work on ours. You probably can and probably will, but meanwhile you have to wait for some point in time AFTER everyone else has it. Let's face it, cool is very often about being first... about having something others don't have.
What Linux needs is innovation. They need something that only they have (at least for a little while) that everyone else wants. That is how it will build mind share, not by saying "look, we can do it too (if you're only willing to wait a while)"
TW
IRDA is dead, long live Bluetooth(aka DIE CABLES!)
on
Is Bluetooth Dead?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I hate pointing my stuff at my other stuff if I want to transfer some stuff. I don't gotta point nothin' at nothin' if I use Bluetooth. For that reason alone, I love it and will continue to seek it out on the stuff I buy.
Don't even get me started about cables either... not even worth the keystrokes. Plain proof the guy who wrote this is an idiot is this line:
"And what's wrong with a wired headset, which is cheaper, better-sounding, lighter and more reliable-and without the silly blinking LED? Gratuitous Bluetooth? You bet."
All the people who like wires raise your hands! I thought not.
"Preventing users from installing stuff is extremely useful on a multi-user system."
Great for businesses, but what about home users? Someone in that house is going to have to install stuff and that person, in most households, won't know an.exe from a peanut butter sandwich.
If you have to give someone install privileges then:
1. It has to be easy enough for them to do it (otherwise they'll never use the OS) 2. They have to make some sort of judgment about what is ok to install (because otherwise it's not truly _their_ computer)
If either 1 or 2 aren't correct then you definitely have a "broken" product as far as home use is concerned. The whole value of the "can't social engineer" argument the article author proposed was based on this very brokenness. When Linux is "fixed" enough so that average users can install software on their very own machine at home then it will be just as subject to social engineering as any Windows box ever made.
This is dead-on. There may be little in the way of viruses Right Now, but if the systems can be taken over by crackers manually then you're one small script away from having a virus.
The author of this article is not only parading his ignorance of logic (low virus numbers Right Now != more secure ) but also of human nature. He claims, for example, that since users can't just click an.exe to install a program that makes social engineering impossible (or at least mush less likely). Isn't it massively more likely that in order to get Linux on more desktops, distro/window environ/software authors will end up building one-click installs into the product? Isn't it more likely that "average" end users will demand it? Isn't it more likely that these "average" users will go ahead and do a quick login as root to install that nifty something Johnny sent them?
Linux prevents none of this. The only reason it prevents any of it now is because it's "broken" (read: not currently easy enough for "average" people).
Slashdot Mirror
Why will the industry hate it?
Is it because they want to jerk everyone's schedules around to "build buzz" instead of letting us watch movies when we want to watch them?
Is it because they want to gouge the first world for the same product they sell cheap to the third world?
Is it because they want to maximize their profit at the expense of the entrepreneurial importer/exporter and other businessmen who actually cater to consumer demand?
Yeah they may hate it. They may hate it because all they care about is controlling their customers rather than serving them. My dollars prefer going to movies I want to see when I want to see them. They may hate doing it, but giving me that choice is the right thing to do.
TW
To add to your list, patience has a dollar price tag too.
If I spend 20 minutes downloading a song on Kazaa then four songs cost me an 1 hour and 20 minutes of my life. If I spend 5 min per song on iTunes then those same four songs cost me 20 minutes of my life.
That's an hour difference for four songs. I'm saving $4.00 over that hour. That's "working" for far less than minimum wage to the get the song "free" on Kazaa. Unless you're unemployed, iTunes is a much better monitary value too.
TW
I'll be curious to see what, if any, gag order the judge will place on IBM. The judge has not placed an injuction on IBM developing or selling the code in question so it would be unlikely They'd place further restriction on IBM disclosing or modifying "their" code after seeing "SCO's" code.
That said, it's unlikely IBM will do anything like that. They have little to gain by pissing off the judge by violating the spirity of the "closed court" rulling. They also have little to gain by changing the code and re-releasing because it will make them look like they're guilty.
Whatevery happens, it'll be fun to watch.
TW
Yeah, but I still smell something wrong.
Consider the case of someone who modifies the Linux kernel and then releases it via GPL, but he accidentally put some code in there that he didn't intend to GPL. Maybe he added a whole file that he had intended to modify before release, but forgot.
So the guy has this brought to his attention a year later and he says, "This was unintentional, I'm not GPLing this file" and he pulls it out of the kernel.
In the meantime, the kernel has gone through a release and others have used/modified the guy's file extensively for their own projects. What's the status of the code? Is it "irreversibly" GPLed, or does he get to pull it and screw over everyone who has since used it (in good faith) when they thought it was GPLed?
The fact is that if you release it under the GPL then others can use your code and re-release. It's GPLed, effectively, for good. Getting out of it is only easy right now because people are being nice.
If I'm wrong, then the consequences are far worse. If anyone can just pull their code at any time then GPLed software is a very precarious house of cards.
TW
Average lifespan doubling due to medicine and sanitation or big metal thing in space.
Hmmmm....
Can't help agree with the parent. "Debateably" should definately be added.
TW
" Stay the fuck away from my Internet." ...
"But we can do all of these things through education. "
Yes, education solves everything. Once educated to help their fellow internet users, people will do what's best for the internet as a whole rather than their personal self-interest. I didn't used to think that this was human nature, but thank you for educating me that I was wrong.
TW
It's a matter of degree. Asking a girl out at work a single time is considered "fair", but asking her out repetedly after she says no is considered sexual harrasment. Using a public restroom is "fair", but camping in there for a few weeks is considered trespassing. Borrowing a car from a friend is "fair" and you'll be covered by their insurance., but if you keep using it for a few months then they won't cover you.
All I'm saying is that we can't buckle under the pressure of the copyright holders to make all use seem like theft. We need to fight to our right for "fair" use. Filming the whole thing and posting it to the internet is certainly not "fair". But it's also not "fair" to prohibit me from doing any recording for any purpose. My use was "fair". If Ebert wanted to record part of a scene for a review, it would also be "fair". Under no circumstances should we let them tell us otherwise.
TW
And what about F-ing fair use on that cell phone? I went to see The Matrix: Reloaded and at the end of the film, during the trailer for Revolutions, I squeezed off some shots with my Nokia 3650 and put them on my background for the phone. This is not theoretical, I actually did it.
Now I'm hearing one camp that says I'm a criminal and another camp that says it should be ok to merely poses the camera phone and not use it. Where's the camp saying, hey, this is not significant copyright violation and I should be able to do this?
I don't feel any more a criminal than guy using a VCR at home to tape HBO. I captured a few frames of a film for my own personal use. I payed to see the film. My recording was done in a way that didn't bother any of the other patrons (very important to me). This is fair and it should be legal.
People should stop buckling under this "no use is fair use" mentatlity hoisted on us by large copyright holders. Stand up and demand your right to fair personal-use copying!
TW
"I love how the pictures just have to include one of these plans shooting a missle. You'd think the atomic bomb would've taught us all a lesson."
Umm.... It's a military project. Maybe it's time we come to grips with the grim fact that military projects sometimes include missles.
TW
The human factor can screw you in more than just the social engineering scenerio. One of my favorites is personal firewalls. Since normal humans have no idea what *that* program file is or why it might want to talk on *that* port, they just hit 'yes', and let the attack right in, or they hit 'no', and dissallow a perfectly useful application.
My company now wants to deploy these magical devices to all employee computers and can't figure out what I mean when I say they'll make things less secure. I think this article was dead-on.
TW
More specifically, stop treating us like ATM machines for coporations. What if I don't want to or like to spend money? What if I don't want to give my time (going to work), my dignity (begging for loans), my privacy (everywhere!) and now my very body to make if more convienient for companies to grab my cash.
This proposal is like someone who asks to fuck you before they've bought you flowers or even kissed you. At least have the decensy to lie to us that it's real purpose is "medical information" or "education" before swooping down on our wallets.
TW
"If you read (and understand) the article, you'll realize that the complexity is worth it "
This, in and of itself, is a massive problem. How many people will understand the process enough to trust it? How many people will feel their votes is safe after they watch it get shredded? How many people will understand that "at least a 50% chance of [fraud] being detected" on their individual vote is a good thing?
It doesn't matter whether I understand it, it matters whether your aunt betsy and your garbage man can understand it. Both those people will understand large steel locks on a "secure ballot box" in a way that they'll never understand crytography of any kind. It's those people that felt disinfranchised by the butterfly ballot. It's those people that need to feel their vote is safe in order to get them out to vote.
TW
Damn, I really like the idea of mandatory recounts. You could even mandate seperate computers and even a completely different software package be used for the recount. Wouldn't that give confidence to the populace? Great idea.
Well, it is broke. Lots of recent elections have proved this, including the last presidential election. The hanging chads were not even close to the only issue either.
That said, there are many things that truly weren't broke about the last system that need to be preserved.
1. Your receipt should not include a way to find out how you voted. If your vote doesn't stay completely in the voting booth then some people will try to coerce your vote because they will be able to ask you to "prove" how you voted. Picture your boss asking everyone to print out their receipts on line and show him that you voted for his pet project. This is very important and the old system preserved this confidentiality.
2. You should be able to easily, visually verify how you voted and THE EXACT SAME verification paper should be used to tabulate the vote. In other words, you should be able to look at a paper receipt listing all your choices with a big check mark next to them and that receipt goes straight in the ballot box which then electronically tabulates from the paper, just like the old system.
Folks, this is ridiculously simple. Vote on screen, print the vote, put the printout in a privacy envelope. Take the vote to the ballot box. The ballot box sucks in the vote, tabulates and encrypts it on the spot, then electronically sends it to the polling database. You take a receipt stub out with you and you can check online that it was valid, and you can track it to its final storage place much like the FedEx tracking system, but you can't find out details of the vote online. If there is impropriety, the ballots have already been neatly stacked by the ballot boxes (they work kind of like ATMs do with your deposit) so they can be reread at high speed by recount machines and everyone could check online to be sure their vote was recounted. In special circumstances the votes could be visually recounted and, yes, you could check online to make sure your ballot got the visual recount as well.
The important point here is that no one can do any funny business with the paper because it's in that secure box and no one can coerce you to vote their way. But most importantly, if the computer is messed up, fixes could be made and a second, third or fourth vote can take place from the original ballots almost as rapidly as what happened with the first ones. Finally, it's very simple for any non-technical person to understand, so regular people will have faith in the process. And don't we all need faith for the system to truly work?
TW
Yeah, but it was a very minor crime. It's the equivilant to me yelling, "I'll tear off your head and shit down your neck if you ever come near my wife again!" if I caught you kissing her at the bar.
1. I was provoked
2. There's no real evidence I have the strength to tear off your head so it's probably not serious
3. I make no actual agressive moves toward you
It's just blustery anger, the guy doesn't deserver, and probably won't get, jail time.
TW
That's my whole point, many parents have larger problems that must be addressed first. Suggesting a "free and open" internet policy hampers our abilities to address them because the children are being exposed to a large number of problematic ideas and organizations at the same time we're trying to get them back on track.
Kids sometimes want to take drugs, commit suicide, hang out with criminals. The "free and open" croud needs to acknowledge the special needs of these at-risk kids (and there are a whole lot of them) instead of just saying "have trust in your kid".
TW
Yeah, I get it, the internet/knowledge is good for kids. But is it good for every kid in every situation? While you free access people are busy saying "everyone should be free on the internet" you're forgetting some basic points.
1.parents might like to restrict what kind of people and organizations their children will interact with. For example, I would not want my child to join the KKK or to hang out with people I know to be engaging in serious criminal activities. I wouldn't dream of making a distinction between "real life" or on line as far as these activities are concerned.
2.despite care taken in raising the child, some children will still desire to hang out with the KKK or with people they know to be engaging in criminal activity.
3.if the parents know that hanging out with these typpe of people is a desire of their children, it's perfectly valid for the parent to restrict the children from doing so.
My daughter, 12 years old at the time, was haveing cyber-sex with middle-aged men and was making plans to run away to California to live with some guy that she had met on the net. Yeah, you can say I was a crappy parent and that's why it happened, but don't you think I should _do_ something about the situation now that it's happening? Or maybe you think I should still let her have free access to the internet so she can continue to engage in these activities?
But wait, what if I knew she had these inclinations *before* she started these activities? What if I was given a clue by her engagement in online chatting with strangers and her curiosity about pornography? Whouldn't it have been better if I had restricted her before her activities started harming her?
I'm not going to take this to the conclusion that every curious kid should be banned from the net, but you folks need to grow up and realise that some of the more at-risk kids definately do need to be monitored and restricted.
TW
Good news! The only distribution cost for these musicians will be bandwidth and a computer (and possibly some DRM licenses).
Anyone who thinks the "next generation music media" will be a physical standard just hasn't been paying attention. If you can get the word out about your band and that word includes a URL then you can sell as much or as little as the market can take without the need to resort to "production runs" of any kind.
TW
Are you saying that the NDA you signed:
Won't let you talk casually about what you do at work ("I develop a word processing application")...
Won't let you talk casually about what see at work ("My boss got fired")...
Won't let you talk casually about your working environment ("I use a fast PC with two monitors")...
??
I have to ask, if you work for a private company, why would you let your company control that level of detail? I'm all for not blabbing about all the details of your work, but where do you draw the line? Does it make you untrustworthy to talk about minor things at work (and, yes, getting a truckload of computers at work IS a minor thing)?
TW
This is too true. I remember the US testing anti-satellite missiles in the late 80s. It wasn't technically part of the "Star Wars" initiative but it was closely related. All it took was a fighter jet and a moderately priced missile. Anybody could afford this.
When the word got out shortly thereafter about the GPS system we were deploying, everything suddenly gelled for me. Anti-satellite missiles + space-based military resources + general secrecy with a lot of big defense projects (think "stealth") = The US already has a space defense plan and deployed armament.
You could argue that the "deployed armament" doesn't follow and I certainly don't have any proof, but the military hates deploying stuff they can't defend so I think it's a reasonable assumption.
TW
"-apache
-Sendmail
-khtml
-ssh"
"... don't sell the oss community short on innovation."
Wonderful points and well taken. But I must point out that these are server products (mostly). Linux has exellent mind-share on the server, and rightly deserved. This is _because_ of the innovations you mention.
Where is the similar inovation on the desktop? Even one hit game or one hit device would make a big difference in mind-share.
TW
Reading this comment reminds me of exactly why Apple has such great mind share with average home users and Linux doesn't. In a word: innovation.
Now, before you start flaming me, please listen to my intent:
Apple: puts out uber-cool, lickin' your chops iPod, but makes it only available on Macs (to start). Puts out actually workable online music service and makes is only available on Macs (to start). People love both of these things and buy them in hoards. Mac users have status and coolness as they're the only ones that can get this awesome stuff... at least for little while.
Linux: Can we run this on WINE? In other words, can we take this cool stuff from another platform and try to make it work on ours. You probably can and probably will, but meanwhile you have to wait for some point in time AFTER everyone else has it. Let's face it, cool is very often about being first... about having something others don't have.
What Linux needs is innovation. They need something that only they have (at least for a little while) that everyone else wants. That is how it will build mind share, not by saying "look, we can do it too (if you're only willing to wait a while)"
TW
I hate pointing my stuff at my other stuff if I want to transfer some stuff. I don't gotta point nothin' at nothin' if I use Bluetooth. For that reason alone, I love it and will continue to seek it out on the stuff I buy.
Don't even get me started about cables either... not even worth the keystrokes. Plain proof the guy who wrote this is an idiot is this line:
"And what's wrong with a wired headset, which is cheaper, better-sounding, lighter and more reliable-and without the silly blinking LED? Gratuitous Bluetooth? You bet."
All the people who like wires raise your hands! I thought not.
TW
"Preventing users from installing stuff is extremely useful on a multi-user system."
.exe from a peanut butter sandwich.
Great for businesses, but what about home users? Someone in that house is going to have to install stuff and that person, in most households, won't know an
If you have to give someone install privileges then:
1. It has to be easy enough for them to do it (otherwise they'll never use the OS)
2. They have to make some sort of judgment about what is ok to install (because otherwise it's not truly _their_ computer)
If either 1 or 2 aren't correct then you definitely have a "broken" product as far as home use is concerned. The whole value of the "can't social engineer" argument the article author proposed was based on this very brokenness. When Linux is "fixed" enough so that average users can install software on their very own machine at home then it will be just as subject to social engineering as any Windows box ever made.
TW
This is dead-on. There may be little in the way of viruses Right Now, but if the systems can be taken over by crackers manually then you're one small script away from having a virus.
.exe to install a program that makes social engineering impossible (or at least mush less likely). Isn't it massively more likely that in order to get Linux on more desktops, distro/window environ/software authors will end up building one-click installs into the product? Isn't it more likely that "average" end users will demand it? Isn't it more likely that these "average" users will go ahead and do a quick login as root to install that nifty something Johnny sent them?
The author of this article is not only parading his ignorance of logic (low virus numbers Right Now != more secure ) but also of human nature. He claims, for example, that since users can't just click an
Linux prevents none of this. The only reason it prevents any of it now is because it's "broken" (read: not currently easy enough for "average" people).
TW