"Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine."
I guess it seems to me that this program is most important as a proof of concept, as it shows some of the flaws inherent in DRM thinking. I would never use it spread files myself, but such things need to keep popping up to remind media companies of the futility of what they're trying to foist on those of us who just want the right to listen to the music we purchase without arbitrary restrictions.
What do you mean "unlike traditional media"? Traditional media is inherently biased towards anything that benefits traditional media, whether that be freedom of the press or corporate consolidation (of the media companies). Traditional media also tends to be very liberal, because only very liberal values will get them access to information and locations and embarrassing details and the private affairs of any and every entity that they think their consumers will pay for. The inherent bias of the media is the subject of books, journalism classes, and the careers of media researchers.
Actually, it's more like saying MSWin95 is DOS. Which it is, but with a huge gui hack. Kind of like OSX is to BSD. Except that unix does more for OSX than DOS for MSWin95 (e.g. the 32-bit multitasking is already there...).
Of course, then my analogy breaks down again with the Mach underkernel.
Ignored by Sun? What makes you say that? Sure, they didn't send you a goddamn thank-you note, but they do review the RFEs and act on them.
No, they do not. They haven't even responded to the RFE, as they have to those under it. There is a thread on the Apache lists from someone at Sun saying that there is a "lack of interest". So far Sun has ignored numerous requests for clarifictation on this matter.
Sounds like you need a little hand holding. Or, you should grab the blackdown source, get a license, and port the damn thing to FreeBSD yourself.
Third party development is prohibited by the license, specifically in the JIT, without which there isn't much purpose in the JDK.
the FBI has to go to court and explain that it was actually their investigations which placed the data on the node whose owner they are now trying to prosecute!
This is not really different than a standard sting operation. An undercover agent sets up a drug sale, or poses as a minor to try and get people online to meet them for a sexual liason across state borders, or poses as a common user requesting forbidden data which the unsuspecting freenet node operator downloads to cache and provides to the agent.
In each of these cases it does not matter to the (IMHO messed up) law whether a "crime" would have been committed without the encouragement of the federal agent. They are free to taunt and tempt individuals any way they choose (even to the point of breaking laws themselves, as in the case of the drug sale).
IANAL but I believe the act of knowingly running software which provides illegal content on request would keep you from being able to argue that the process was automatic and entirely the responsibility of the user which requested the information.
I don't know that it would be necessary (The download and inevitable network trace would be plenty to prosecute), but the downloaded content itself would easily be enough to secure a warrant to search and even (semi-)permanently seize your computer equipment and all related possesions. Yes, it may be encrypted, but there is the UK law which (may eventually) require people to turn over encryption keys -whether or not they have them - and the precedent of the U.S. Mitnick case in which they refused to return equipment unless Kevin helped them decrypt his information.
Back to the original problem, this is also dangerously close to the issue of whether internet access providers are liable for the content that comes over them and whether large discussion site are liable for every message posted on them. While I really hope that this point of view is eventually discredited in the courts, I'm worried that a court could rule for the access provider, while still ruling against Freenet by finding that the Freenet software itself is designed to obstruct justice and circumvent the law, and/or that the operator of a node is willfully providing access to illegal information by hooking up to the Freenet network.
I'm rooting for Freenet all the way, and I look forward to it or a similar system revolutionizing our increasingly corporate-controlled information exchange. However, I will likely wait until some court precedent is established before I risk joining this particular system. OTOH I would be willing to support legal efforts on Freenet's behalf, in the form of time or contributions.
(Re)Legitimizing the Mac
on
Rack An iMac
·
· Score: 2
Hacking aside, this is the direction they really need to go if anyone's ever going to take a Macintosh multi-user machine seriously again.
Has Apple totally abandoned the low-end server market?
Now we just need beowulf-type clustering for a stack of these things...
Well, who is going to maintain the NT box after the person "turned the key"? Schools that don't hire a dedicated administrator for their NT network are in for trouble. Maybe some schools will be naive enough to do that, but I suspect most won't.
Never underestimate the short-sightedness of a public bureaucracy. As the webmaster at one of the largest school districts in the country I can assure you that buying products without considering system administrators is common. And our district considers this a minor issue, since NT "admins" are a dime a dozen and you have to pay Unix sysadmins more.
If you sell schools a box that doesn't need to be maintained and just plugs into their network and gets the job done year after year, I think you have a good value proposition.
But the schools disagree. We have a Sparcstation 10 that serves email for the district. Until recently it hadn't been maintained at all -- no sysadmin, no one in the district who knew unix, etc. Since they hadn't really worked with it, they assumed it was arcane and obsolete. Network outages, firewall problems, etc. were always blamed on it because it was an easy target. They tried (rather unsuccessfully, so far) to replace it with a $500,000 M-SExchange installation and they actually have the audacity to assert that the hundreds of man(person?)-hours a week they spend trying to keep it together is a sign of how wonderfully advanced and modern NT "technology" is!
When it comes to new technology, the important thing for them is "features". It has to have something for everyone so that it can satisfy several dozen technology-challenged product reviewers, the Superintendant and everyone in the IS management, the legal department, accounting, the school board, the funding committee, and anyone else in authority who can unceremoniously pull the plug on a whim. There is no "second opinion" research, they don't listen to technical people who are "beneath them", and they trust everything the vendor says.
This is M$'s strength. The market was tailor-made for them. Without the marketing machine, the capacity for lying, and the corporate muscle, you will never, ever be able to compete on a technical footing.
That said, many of us are busy foisting better solutions on them for their own good from the inside. We need good alternative products for "quiet" implementations. Please build it so we can use it (we'll even help). But don't waste time dreaming you can even be noticed when it comes to non-technical public bureaucrats.
Patent number 5,914,94 1 at www.uspto.com describes the patent as announced. What's more, it appears to explicitly include laptops, desktop computers, etc.
My faith in the US Patent office, already quite low, is now unrecoverable.
Slashdot Mirror
"Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine."
I guess it seems to me that this program is most important as a proof of concept, as it shows some of the flaws inherent in DRM thinking. I would never use it spread files myself, but such things need to keep popping up to remind media companies of the futility of what they're trying to foist on those of us who just want the right to listen to the music we purchase without arbitrary restrictions.
What do you mean "unlike traditional media"? Traditional media is inherently biased towards anything that benefits traditional media, whether that be freedom of the press or corporate consolidation (of the media companies). Traditional media also tends to be very liberal, because only very liberal values will get them access to information and locations and embarrassing details and the private affairs of any and every entity that they think their consumers will pay for. The inherent bias of the media is the subject of books, journalism classes, and the careers of media researchers.
"Can you hear me now?"
Actually, it's more like saying MSWin95 is DOS. Which it is, but with a huge gui hack. Kind of like OSX is to BSD. Except that unix does more for OSX than DOS for MSWin95 (e.g. the 32-bit multitasking is already there...). Of course, then my analogy breaks down again with the Mach underkernel.
Ignored by Sun? What makes you say that? Sure, they didn't send you a goddamn thank-you note, but they do review the RFEs and act on them.
No, they do not. They haven't even responded to the RFE, as they have to those under it. There is a thread on the Apache lists from someone at Sun saying that there is a "lack of interest". So far Sun has ignored numerous requests for clarifictation on this matter.
Sounds like you need a little hand holding. Or, you should grab the blackdown source, get a license, and port the damn thing to FreeBSD yourself.
Third party development is prohibited by the license, specifically in the JIT, without which there isn't much purpose in the JDK.
Hacking aside, this is the direction they really need to go if anyone's ever going to take a Macintosh multi-user machine seriously again.
Has Apple totally abandoned the low-end server market?
Now we just need beowulf-type clustering for a stack of these things...
Never underestimate the short-sightedness of a public bureaucracy. As the webmaster at one of the largest school districts in the country I can assure you that buying products without considering system administrators is common. And our district considers this a minor issue, since NT "admins" are a dime a dozen and you have to pay Unix sysadmins more.
If you sell schools a box that doesn't need to be maintained and just plugs into their network and gets the job done year after year, I think you have a good value proposition.
But the schools disagree. We have a Sparcstation 10 that serves email for the district. Until recently it hadn't been maintained at all -- no sysadmin, no one in the district who knew unix, etc. Since they hadn't really worked with it, they assumed it was arcane and obsolete. Network outages, firewall problems, etc. were always blamed on it because it was an easy target. They tried (rather unsuccessfully, so far) to replace it with a $500,000 M-SExchange installation and they actually have the audacity to assert that the hundreds of man(person?)-hours a week they spend trying to keep it together is a sign of how wonderfully advanced and modern NT "technology" is!
When it comes to new technology, the important thing for them is "features". It has to have something for everyone so that it can satisfy several dozen technology-challenged product reviewers, the Superintendant and everyone in the IS management, the legal department, accounting, the school board, the funding committee, and anyone else in authority who can unceremoniously pull the plug on a whim. There is no "second opinion" research, they don't listen to technical people who are "beneath them", and they trust everything the vendor says.
This is M$'s strength. The market was tailor-made for them. Without the marketing machine, the capacity for lying, and the corporate muscle, you will never, ever be able to compete on a technical footing.
That said, many of us are busy foisting better solutions on them for their own good from the inside. We need good alternative products for "quiet" implementations. Please build it so we can use it (we'll even help). But don't waste time dreaming you can even be noticed when it comes to non-technical public bureaucrats.
What's more, it appears to explicitly include laptops, desktop computers, etc.
My faith in the US Patent office, already quite low, is now unrecoverable.