Do you really believe that a product you've purchased should be under the control of the guy who sold it to you? Maybe your car should limit you to the speed limit of the state you bought it in. Maybe women's underwear should have a license forbidding men from wearing them. Maybe when you buy fresh meat it can come with a contract forbidding you from freezing it "to preserve freshness." Maybe Microsoft Press programming books can come with a license prohibiting you from using the knowledge to create competing products.
Maybe everything should be licensed and nothing sold. Maybe every "manufacturer" should tell you everything you shouldn't do with their product and then warn you in the warranty that they're claiming "no fitness for a particular use or purpose."
Maybe when your car is leased, all your consumer products are licensed, your food is consumed on the spot at restaurants and your clothes are bought on credit you will really be free. You will be living in the very model of freedom for all the world to see. God bless America.
That's like saying it's ok to rearrange words in a quote as long as the essential meaning is correct.
"that's a step off the ladder for an astronaut but an even bigger step for everyone in the world" might *say* the same thing as the original, but it's not the same thing. What's the difference? Poetry.
There's poetry in an image too. To add or subtract from the poetry of the original image would be every bit as wrong as adding or subtracting from the poetry of an original quote.
Put 'em on your white list. Problem solved. you get all the great free stuff you want from whomever you want but the folks you don't know have to pay.
I even like the idea of the recipient being able to rachet up the price of the e-stamp or eliminate it if he so chooses. There could be an XML autoreply saying, "it costs $100.00 to send unsolicited email to this account." The charity and the sender harvest the price so the charity knows what to charge and the sender knows what the to pay. Your friends would call you and say, "dude, put me on the white list," and everyone else would go to hell.
You could even make it so everything charged over a certain amount goes to the recipient so you would be getting paid to get junk mail. Market effects would take over. People would stop complaining about spam either because they're getting less or they're getting paid and the click of a mouse would determine exactly by how much.
Oh yeah, and if you _want_ all the unsolicited stuff, all you gotta do is set the price to $0.00. Everybody would win.
"Depends on what you mean by good. If you mean the Darwinian sense, then yes, it's phenomenally successful"
I don't know of any other sense you should be using. The great thing about Darwinian success it that it needs no one to pronounce it successful. It is successful by definition.
We still won something very valuable. After 9/11 *everything* was going through without so much as a question. At least now our elected representatives are saying, "hold on a minute," instead of just rolling over. The victory is that someone, somewhere is remembering that we have something called rights and they're at least taking the time to see if they apply.
Ahmen! I know too many people that would hear this story and freak. It wouldn't matter if they had been using the DVD for a shovel in a sand pit, they'd just assume it wasn't playable because it was poorley manufactured.
People love to blame someone else as long as they have some excuse to take the blame off of them. I'm normally against this, but in this case the pendulum is so out of whack we need something extra to get it swinging back toward middle.
This is a perfect opportunity for the DVD distributors and they are too stupid to see it. If they made gettting replacements to bad, or even scratched, DVDs easy and cheap then they would have very good ammunition against people who say they need to make back-ups. "No, you don't need to get a back-up 'cause you can trade in your scratched disk for $1.00," they could say.
This policy/business model of forcing the consumer to buy another full copy at every chance they can get away with will eventually be their undoing.
>3) Snort, RealSecure, Dragon, NFR, and all that other crap >cannot detect this attack, or this type of attack.
But if it has infected "95% of all P2P participating hosts" then a few of us should be able to slap on a sniffer and simply look for the unauthorized traffic to prove if this is real or not. I personally don't trade over P2P so it wont do me much good, but there should be a bunch of you out there that could take this test.
If the exploit really is sending out the volume of data it claims, it should be fairly easy to spot. I know he "specially crafted" the traffic to make this more difficult, but how sneaky can it be when a catalog contains a few thousand MP3s? If "all media on the machine" is cataloged but you're only sharing out a subset of that media then a delta in the traffic would be pretty apparent.
The only thing I could think of that would make this really difficult is if the program sent the catalogs and then just stopped doing much until it was contacted or until a predetermined time. Solution: Attach a clean host with an infectable P2P client to your network with the suspected infected one. Make sure it has a HUGE catalog of music that isn't being shared to the P2P network. Then look for corresponding traffic.
Sounds like a lot of work, I know, but as my dad always said, "it builds character." Or, I suppose, we could just sit around and say "I think it's true" or "I think it's phony" all day.
By the time you get a robot good enough to go into a post-earthquake building and rescue someone you almost have to ask yourself whether the robot is more valuable than the person being saved.
As in: "Thank god we saved the 7-11 clerk and only lost three firefighters in the process!"
Yeah, I know, humans are always more important, but navigating the complexities of a half-colapsed building is almost a Turing test in itself.
Abosolutely. Writers show their "source" all the time, yet they're still protected.
But, like writers, you need to make sure you're not writing for hire for a work that will be owned by the company paying for it. Your contract has to explicitly state that you own the copyright and you're merely selling/licensing copies to the company. After that they can see all the source they want without legaly being able to copy it (except standard fair use, of course).
Lets face it, Slashdoters can be merciless to you if you speak up in favor of MS or Windows. It can be like a republican walking into a democratic rally and saying, "I think Bush is doing great!"
I'd probably hide behind anonymity too if I thought everyone in the room was going to be throwing rotten tomatos at me.
My company already did the switch for most users to Win2K, but there are 1 or 2 apps we use that don't run on Win2K and more than a few customers we need to support that are still on Win95. Because of this we probably have about a dozen Win95 boxes hanging around. We genuinely find these useful, and in some cases critical.
So my question is, how does MS justify giving up support for this stuff while so many people are still using it? I can kind of understand DOS support going away, but DOS 6.22 was still being sold less than half a dozen years ago.
Considering UNIX is still going strong after more than a quarter century, and the average car loan being made for five years (while staying on the road much longer), it's a shame we're abandoning our old OSs after such a short time.
I don't see why Penthouse wouldn't fit within the mission of a Library. I can be quite political at times. Same with Hustler and Playboy. Libraries archive knowledge and like it or not, these periodicals actually contain reasonable amounts of knowledge.
Now, I can see them requiring an ID to see the magazines, but shouldn't you be able to get past Net Nanny with an ID too?
I should have read the article and I am glad they're being more selective. I can't even imagine what could happen to our kids if they were subject to that specific word pairing.
I'm all in favor of blocking now that I know the kind of filth they'll be spared from.
Billy Idol (Flesh for Fantasy)
Vegetarianism ("I'm not a flesh eater")
Ebola (flesh eating bacteria)
Religion ("this bread is my flesh")
Do I really need to go on?
TW
Why doesn't the question make sense? Aren't there moral questions in science?
If I wanted to test a new kind of atom bomb at my house in northern Virginia it may be science but it's certainly not moral. This life-creating experiment is also potentially dangerous. Asking the question not only make sense, but should be considered a certain requirement.
Put another way, why would they have taken such precautions if the experiment didn't have some potential downsides to our ecosphere? If it has the potential of affecting the ecosphere, shouldn't they at least question whether it's moral to begin with?
Don't we have a right to at least ask the question of whether or not it's moral? That looks like all that's being presented here. And that's not a bad idea. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we supported the question of morality instead of just assuming it's irrelevant?
Star Thistle is commonly found in California fields only it's not native and it wasn't put there on purpose. It has displaced the local grasses almost completely in some areas. This is only one of thousands of examples of non-native species that have infested new (to them) environments.
All environments will be new to this critter. That makes the "scary" part, to me anyway, the fact that if this were to escape and survive it would displace something else with absolutely unknown consequences. We are completely dependant on our environment's biology for breathable air and edible food so it's pretty damn important that we don't accidentally (no one would even _consider_ doing it purposely, would they?) introduce some species that will screw it up.
I'm not saying we shouldn't experiment. I'm just saying that everyone should have a healthy dose of fear over this particular kind of experiment.
New Stuff. If new stuff comes out it generally works with Windows. Sometimes, if it's really popular, it'll be made to work with Linux too but it usually takes a while and it usually doesn't work exactly like the Windows stuff does.
MP3 players Video cards Printers Games PDAs Etc.
It all adds up. After a while you start to wonder just how far behind the curve you are if you use Linux.
If Linux had a bunch of new stuff come out for it that Windows didn't support you could bet I'd be using it instead.
Agreed. If you put a desk and computer outside your building with a sign that said "Browse the Internet for FREE!" would you consider it a honeypot? If I stopped to use it, would I be a hacker? This is nonsense.
TW
If they were able to change the public key at Verisign as well as compromise the Sendmail server? Damn, those guys would deserve some kind of hacker medal.
Changing the MD5 hash of a file they created themselves just means they're competent at covering their tracks.
TW
The MD5 checksum would have caught this particular problem, but they're not always reliable. The same guy that compromised the code could have subbed the checksum too if he had taken the extra time (he already owned the box, why not go the extra step?).
Clearly the private key signature would be the only truely reliable solution.
This is simply not true. Have you heard of for-profit software vendors _ever_ taking monetary responsibility for damage their software has caused through bugs? Never. They'd classify this as a bug, fix it, apologize and go on..... Just like Sendmail will.
It's also not true in the assertion that for-profit vendors don't send trojans or worms with their disks. Doesn't happen much anymore, but it was know to happen in the days before _everyone_ started using AV software (pre melisa).
Slashdot Mirror
Do you really believe that a product you've purchased should be under the control of the guy who sold it to you? Maybe your car should limit you to the speed limit of the state you bought it in. Maybe women's underwear should have a license forbidding men from wearing them. Maybe when you buy fresh meat it can come with a contract forbidding you from freezing it "to preserve freshness." Maybe Microsoft Press programming books can come with a license prohibiting you from using the knowledge to create competing products.
Maybe everything should be licensed and nothing sold. Maybe every "manufacturer" should tell you everything you shouldn't do with their product and then warn you in the warranty that they're claiming "no fitness for a particular use or purpose."
Maybe when your car is leased, all your consumer products are licensed, your food is consumed on the spot at restaurants and your clothes are bought on credit you will really be free. You will be living in the very model of freedom for all the world to see. God bless America.
TW
That's like saying it's ok to rearrange words in a quote as long as the essential meaning is correct.
"that's a step off the ladder for an astronaut but an even bigger step for everyone in the world" might *say* the same thing as the original, but it's not the same thing. What's the difference? Poetry.
There's poetry in an image too. To add or subtract from the poetry of the original image would be every bit as wrong as adding or subtracting from the poetry of an original quote.
TW
Put 'em on your white list. Problem solved. you get all the great free stuff you want from whomever you want but the folks you don't know have to pay.
I even like the idea of the recipient being able to rachet up the price of the e-stamp or eliminate it if he so chooses. There could be an XML autoreply saying, "it costs $100.00 to send unsolicited email to this account." The charity and the sender harvest the price so the charity knows what to charge and the sender knows what the to pay. Your friends would call you and say, "dude, put me on the white list," and everyone else would go to hell.
You could even make it so everything charged over a certain amount goes to the recipient so you would be getting paid to get junk mail. Market effects would take over. People would stop complaining about spam either because they're getting less or they're getting paid and the click of a mouse would determine exactly by how much.
Oh yeah, and if you _want_ all the unsolicited stuff, all you gotta do is set the price to $0.00. Everybody would win.
TW
"Depends on what you mean by good. If you mean the Darwinian sense, then yes, it's phenomenally successful"
I don't know of any other sense you should be using. The great thing about Darwinian success it that it needs no one to pronounce it successful. It is successful by definition.
TW
We still won something very valuable. After 9/11 *everything* was going through without so much as a question. At least now our elected representatives are saying, "hold on a minute," instead of just rolling over. The victory is that someone, somewhere is remembering that we have something called rights and they're at least taking the time to see if they apply.
TW
Ahmen! I know too many people that would hear this story and freak. It wouldn't matter if they had been using the DVD for a shovel in a sand pit, they'd just assume it wasn't playable because it was poorley manufactured.
People love to blame someone else as long as they have some excuse to take the blame off of them. I'm normally against this, but in this case the pendulum is so out of whack we need something extra to get it swinging back toward middle.
TW
This is a perfect opportunity for the DVD distributors and they are too stupid to see it. If they made gettting replacements to bad, or even scratched, DVDs easy and cheap then they would have very good ammunition against people who say they need to make back-ups. "No, you don't need to get a back-up 'cause you can trade in your scratched disk for $1.00," they could say.
This policy/business model of forcing the consumer to buy another full copy at every chance they can get away with will eventually be their undoing.
TW
>3) Snort, RealSecure, Dragon, NFR, and all that other crap
>cannot detect this attack, or this type of attack.
But if it has infected "95% of all P2P participating hosts" then a few of us should be able to slap on a sniffer and simply look for the unauthorized traffic to prove if this is real or not. I personally don't trade over P2P so it wont do me much good, but there should be a bunch of you out there that could take this test.
If the exploit really is sending out the volume of data it claims, it should be fairly easy to spot. I know he "specially crafted" the traffic to make this more difficult, but how sneaky can it be when a catalog contains a few thousand MP3s? If "all media on the machine" is cataloged but you're only sharing out a subset of that media then a delta in the traffic would be pretty apparent.
The only thing I could think of that would make this really difficult is if the program sent the catalogs and then just stopped doing much until it was contacted or until a predetermined time. Solution: Attach a clean host with an infectable P2P client to your network with the suspected infected one. Make sure it has a HUGE catalog of music that isn't being shared to the P2P network. Then look for corresponding traffic.
Sounds like a lot of work, I know, but as my dad always said, "it builds character." Or, I suppose, we could just sit around and say "I think it's true" or "I think it's phony" all day.
TW
By the time you get a robot good enough to go into a post-earthquake building and rescue someone you almost have to ask yourself whether the robot is more valuable than the person being saved.
As in: "Thank god we saved the 7-11 clerk and only lost three firefighters in the process!"
Yeah, I know, humans are always more important, but navigating the complexities of a half-colapsed building is almost a Turing test in itself.
TW
Don't forget the french maid's outfit so you can make the world's first "Rosie".
http://www.jeffbots.com/rosie.html
TW
Weren't they responsible for developing the Internet?
TW
Abosolutely. Writers show their "source" all the time, yet they're still protected.
But, like writers, you need to make sure you're not writing for hire for a work that will be owned by the company paying for it. Your contract has to explicitly state that you own the copyright and you're merely selling/licensing copies to the company. After that they can see all the source they want without legaly being able to copy it (except standard fair use, of course).
TW
Lets face it, Slashdoters can be merciless to you if you speak up in favor of MS or Windows. It can be like a republican walking into a democratic rally and saying, "I think Bush is doing great!"
I'd probably hide behind anonymity too if I thought everyone in the room was going to be throwing rotten tomatos at me.
TW
My company already did the switch for most users to Win2K, but there are 1 or 2 apps we use that don't run on Win2K and more than a few customers we need to support that are still on Win95. Because of this we probably have about a dozen Win95 boxes hanging around. We genuinely find these useful, and in some cases critical.
So my question is, how does MS justify giving up support for this stuff while so many people are still using it? I can kind of understand DOS support going away, but DOS 6.22 was still being sold less than half a dozen years ago.
Considering UNIX is still going strong after more than a quarter century, and the average car loan being made for five years (while staying on the road much longer), it's a shame we're abandoning our old OSs after such a short time.
TW
I don't see why Penthouse wouldn't fit within the mission of a Library. I can be quite political at times. Same with Hustler and Playboy. Libraries archive knowledge and like it or not, these periodicals actually contain reasonable amounts of knowledge.
Now, I can see them requiring an ID to see the magazines, but shouldn't you be able to get past Net Nanny with an ID too?
TW
I should have read the article and I am glad they're being more selective. I can't even imagine what could happen to our kids if they were subject to that specific word pairing.
I'm all in favor of blocking now that I know the kind of filth they'll be spared from.
TW
Billy Idol (Flesh for Fantasy) Vegetarianism ("I'm not a flesh eater") Ebola (flesh eating bacteria) Religion ("this bread is my flesh") Do I really need to go on? TW
Why doesn't the question make sense? Aren't there moral questions in science?
If I wanted to test a new kind of atom bomb at my house in northern Virginia it may be science but it's certainly not moral. This life-creating experiment is also potentially dangerous. Asking the question not only make sense, but should be considered a certain requirement.
Put another way, why would they have taken such precautions if the experiment didn't have some potential downsides to our ecosphere? If it has the potential of affecting the ecosphere, shouldn't they at least question whether it's moral to begin with?
TW
Don't we have a right to at least ask the question of whether or not it's moral? That looks like all that's being presented here. And that's not a bad idea. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we supported the question of morality instead of just assuming it's irrelevant?
TW
Star Thistle is commonly found in California fields only it's not native and it wasn't put there on purpose. It has displaced the local grasses almost completely in some areas. This is only one of thousands of examples of non-native species that have infested new (to them) environments.
All environments will be new to this critter. That makes the "scary" part, to me anyway, the fact that if this were to escape and survive it would displace something else with absolutely unknown consequences. We are completely dependant on our environment's biology for breathable air and edible food so it's pretty damn important that we don't accidentally (no one would even _consider_ doing it purposely, would they?) introduce some species that will screw it up.
I'm not saying we shouldn't experiment. I'm just saying that everyone should have a healthy dose of fear over this particular kind of experiment.
TW
New Stuff. If new stuff comes out it generally works with Windows. Sometimes, if it's really popular, it'll be made to work with Linux too but it usually takes a while and it usually doesn't work exactly like the Windows stuff does.
MP3 players
Video cards
Printers
Games
PDAs
Etc.
It all adds up. After a while you start to wonder just how far behind the curve you are if you use Linux.
If Linux had a bunch of new stuff come out for it that Windows didn't support you could bet I'd be using it instead.
TW
Agreed. If you put a desk and computer outside your building with a sign that said "Browse the Internet for FREE!" would you consider it a honeypot? If I stopped to use it, would I be a hacker? This is nonsense. TW
If they were able to change the public key at Verisign as well as compromise the Sendmail server? Damn, those guys would deserve some kind of hacker medal. Changing the MD5 hash of a file they created themselves just means they're competent at covering their tracks. TW
The MD5 checksum would have caught this particular problem, but they're not always reliable. The same guy that compromised the code could have subbed the checksum too if he had taken the extra time (he already owned the box, why not go the extra step?).
Clearly the private key signature would be the only truely reliable solution.
TW
This is simply not true. Have you heard of for-profit software vendors _ever_ taking monetary responsibility for damage their software has caused through bugs? Never. They'd classify this as a bug, fix it, apologize and go on..... Just like Sendmail will.
It's also not true in the assertion that for-profit vendors don't send trojans or worms with their disks. Doesn't happen much anymore, but it was know to happen in the days before _everyone_ started using AV software (pre melisa).
TW