I've seen some people reply in this thread that we're being stereotyped as crackers, and going up in arms. Read the article, people! That's hardly what I infered.
They're saying that the Linux coders felt ignored because there wasn't a DVD decoder for Linux, so reversed-engineered it. To quote the article, Linux users are doers, not whiners. (Although you have to wonder about that when you go through some Slashdot threads.)
They then go on to say that someone else took it further and made the application that decodes the DVD and dumps it in unencoded format.
That's a far cry from accusing Linux users of all being hackers. It just shows there's a lot of insightful and clever Linux users, and they can do pretty much anything when they set their mind to it.
I don't know; I find it very flattering, and not insulting at all. No moral judgement is made on Linux users throughout the article.
The industry is going bonkers because there is now an easy way to transfer contents from a medium unto a computer. The industry is screaming bloody murder, as they figure this will mean the end of old-fashioned, healthy and amoral capitalism and empower users.
Sounds familiar? MP3, anyone?
Well, tough luck. The truth of the matter is, they're making a fuss over nothing. I may download "pirated" MP3s from the Internet, but the sheer time it takes means I'll usually settle for a song or two, then buy the album in a record store if I really like it.
Same goes for movies, really. Right now, I don't have a DVD reader, so I deal with VHS. I watch movies in theaters or on VHS, and if I like a film a lot, I'll buy it on VHS. Sure, I could just copy the VHS from the video rental store, but guess what? It's so much nicer to have a nice box, and feel like you have the real thing. Superficial? Maybe. But I'm not the only one doing that.
I think the same will go with DVDs, however easy they are to copy. Some people will get the movie for free, but so what? Other people, like me, will keep on buying the real thing. At $30 or lower, it's not that much to have a nice little video collection. It's the same reason I have original CDs in my music collection.
The movie industry should take a long, hard look at the CD and gaming industry. Has Sony gone bankrupt since those PSX chips hit the market? Is David Bowie on the streets because he places free MP3s on the net? Will the Wachowsky brothers have to resort to begging if you get a free copy of the Matrix DVD?
Anyone with a modicum of common sense will know the answer to all of the above is a resounding no.
I suppose cellphones don't quite qualify for the 'health of innocent bystanders' part, unless you count all the morons who try to drive when talking on a cell phone.
They also cause:
Brain cancer in people other than the ones using them, according to research (akin to second-hand smoke);
Explosions if you use them at a gas station;
Accidents when used in a car;
Etc.
So yeah, it qualifies for 'bad to other people's health', at least according to the above qualifications, which I think are silly. (A walkman can also cause an explosion at a gas station, but you don't see them being outlawed; the idea is that the electric discharge when completing a call could blow up leaking gas vapours.)
Yet another ridiculous experiment on lab mice to prove that cellphones will ruin your fertility, mind, social skills and your life.
I mean, this is getting a tad ridiculous. The cell-phone is getting the bad end of yet another technological witch hunt. Why?
Because, like cigarettes, it meets the following three criteria:
It annoys others
It's bad for the user's health
It's bad for poor innocent bystanders' health
And so, laws get passed, studies get made, all proving how less of a human being you are for using cellphones.
That's not to say I endorse smoking, by using the above analogy. But for gods' sake, people should calm down about it. I haven't seen governments entering crusades against alcohol (only against irresponsible drinking) or junk food, yet they lead to deterioration of your health and serious medical conditions.
Why don't we see governments legislating fast food? Because it's not annoying to bystanders. They can keep up with their life and not care whether you ate a Big Mac for breakfast for the last two weeks.
What I'm saying is: cell-phones seem like they're out to ruin everyone's lives nowadays; but this kind of media attention stems from a very simple fact that has nothing to do with your health: it's that it annoys everyone when you're carrying on a conversation on a cellphone in a public place.
Why will the first batch of games make of break the X-Box? IIRC, the first batch of games didn't make or break the Playstation.
Why, then, did WipeOut contribute largely to the escalation of sales of the Playstation? Also, the reason why the Sega Saturn sank was that there wasn't many games worth a damn on it. Nintendo, on the other hand, is assured a large part of the market because it has so many household names. Why do you think they always put out a Mario game first?
Read the article. The Wachowsky brothers designed Matrix as a lead-in to a story, a setup. They had this in mind for a long while, and it's no wonder the movie ended the way it did.
The first game console that comes with Ctrl, Alt and Del.:)
Seriously, though, they can throw all the technology they want in this X-Box, but they'll need more than that. Microsoft has done a few good games in the past, but these games worked mostly on a PC platform, and they tend to be long, drawn out games (Ages of Empires, Flight Simulator.) That won't work on a platform, where you want games that are more fast-paced and simpler to control from a controller POV.
And that first batch of games is gonna be what makes or breaks the X-Box. Frankly, I don't think MS has it in them to take the platform market by storm, not unless they begin stealing talent from every other game company out there.
But what about other game developpers? Will they be tempted to develop games for the X-Box? Considering that most of these companies are in direct competition with MS on the PC gaming market, I somehow doubt it.
I predict a flop.
Side note: so they're using Athlons... Is there a bolder statement that Athlons are cheaper than Intels?
Hearing about sequels to The Matrix, I feel quite nervous and excited at the same time. Like everyone, I feel there's a lot of potential for an ongoing storyline, but also that they could screw it up majorly and leave us bruised and frustrated.
But I guess that's how people felt when they heard there would be a sequel to Star Wars.
And that's exactly where The Matrix stands right now: it has the potential to spawn endless boring sequels, and it has the potential to be in the 2000's what Star Wars was in the 80's.
The key here is to make the sequel a segment which will give more depth to the story, not just give us the same old stuff we came to love in the first installment. Again, Empire Strikes Back is a good example of this. So is Terminator 2.
But you know what? I'm confident. The Wachowsky brothers are behind the next two movies, and these guys have yet to produce anything vaguely resembling crap. (I highly recommend Bound, by the same guys - killer thriller.)
So, as long as Neo's father ain't Agent Smith and Neo and Trinity aren't siblings... We should be fine.:)
If I am not mistaken, this is no different from how quantum logic computers would work. Two years ago, a computer/physics specialist gave a lecture at our physics department on how to store memory using only an atom or molecule per bit.
Quite simply, you use the spin of a single electron to determine whether you have a 0 ('down' spin) or 1 ('up' spin) for that given atom. These are read with lasers, and I believe this can be done rather quickly.
If this is the same thing, then the theory has existed for maybe three years, but they seem to have found a practical application for it. Before that, all they could do was use some sort of awkward prototype filled with lens for interferometry.
If this is indeed the same thing, it also leads to a spiffy thing: fuzzy logic. Since quantum mechanics is essentially a matter of statistics, it means an electron may be in a probabilistic state between 0 and 1. For instance, it could be:
1/Sqrt(2)|+> + 1/Sqrt(2)|->
How this can lead to more efficient calculations, I have no clue. Still, it's cool to think of a single bit as "maybe 0 but most probably 1".
Again, not sure if this is the same technology. It may just not be; but regardless, the idea remains a really cool one.
a while back when hotmail got cracked, wasnt the procedure censored from slashdot? (as I remember it, the procedure was part of the origional post)... maybe I'm wrong though (my memory sucks)...
Nope. Hemos (I think) posted the story, said he did see the page in question, but decided not to include it in the article. Within the next five minutes, someone on/. asked, 'Yeah, but what is the procedure?' and someone answered.
Sure enough, Hotmail got not only slashdotted, but cracked massively.:) I bet that's one of the reasons MS reacted so quickly (if somewhat stupidly.) And I still believe CNN took their info from Slashdot, because they tried it out too.
There's been no censorship of any kind in this story, only an editorial decision on the part of Hemos when posting the news article itself. But that's only fair, and a totally different issue.
Still, I think my point stands... The industry was certainly not hurt by everyone and their brother copying VHS cassettes. It's insane to say they're losing so much money because of piracy.
Did you ever hear of someone running an "illegally copied VHS ring"? I sure didn't. Yet up until now (as you point out), copying a VHS movie was standard.
And once you own it, you should damn well be able to copy it, sides.
Good example, |DaBuzz|. I guess it remains censorship one way or the other; I think, as others have pointed out, that censorship is unavoidable, but should be tolerated in small amounts. In that respect, I fail to see how the Yahoo story is overboard.
A small technicality:
Instead of the posts being deleted or moderated down into oblivion (-2... and yes, I've seen it happen.)
To the best of my knowledge, a post gets a score of -2 if a) it is moderated to -1, and b) you set a short comment threshold under which the message falls (e.g., you set your threshold to 30 chars, and the message is a mere 10), which gets it an additional -1. These messages will not be seen however low your threshold is.
I fail to understand how this is such a shock to the industry. Why, I have partially cracked DVD Encryption a long time ago:
Let assume c is the ciphertext and p the plaintext. Simply run the algorithm to decipher c, then dump the plaintext p unto another medium. Repeat for every c.
In simple words: run the DVD, and copy it on a VHS. You'll lose these fancy functions, but the essence of the DVD is still there: a copyrighted movie.
The point is: it's silly to try to prevent the copying of a film or music, whether it's in DVD, MP3 or CD format. Who the hell cares? Copyright laws are in place, and they're supposed to prevent anyone from making money illegally off of them. However, it's not illegal per se to copy a film or a song, once you bought them legally and are doing so for personal use.
So, breaking the DVD Encryption scheme is akin to figuring out how to copy VHS to VHS. The fact that this data can be transfered over the Internet is, I think, irrevelant. The industry needs to grow up; I certainly don't see a reason to stop producing DVDs because of this.
The rule of copy-protection scheme is: sooner or later, it's gonna get broken. Surely they realised that.
What I find amusing is that although the companies smell a business opportunity, none of them is getting a clue how the Open Source model can really rework their business model.
I wonder if we'll see cooperation between companies, at some point? That's how the Open Source venues become of such quality right now: many people pool their resources and code away. Businesses still see Linux as a product they can sell without paying for development; they add a little package, and off it goes making money.
And: how many more "dumb Linuxes" will we get yet? I can just see it coming: "Linux for Dummies: so amazingly easy even a moron with an IQ of 40 can install it!" What about new features, better applications and specialisations, people?
That raises an interesting question. The article implies that they removed information that was confidential in nature and could have been harmful if kept public (something to do with Lockheed-Martin... Wish I knew the whole story.)
Now, the moderation system here works wonders. That is, it works wonders to moderate down '1st post!'-ers and other trolls.
But what if sensitive personal information was posted? Say, Hemos' phone number and sexual preference? Or the password of a few Government mainframes? (I'm not saying they're of equal sensitivity, mind...:) )
How would the Slashdot crew react, then? Should the posts be removed under the basis of, I don't know, unfair use of a public BBoard system, thus exercising editorial control however limited? Should the post be left there? Should a system be put in place for messages to be permanently deleted from the system by a sort of moderation process? (Say, if it hits 5 -1's, it's deleted, or a special moderation category.)
I hope such a situation never arises on Slashdot, because I like the system as it is, moderated by the people, and every message available for reading. (I read even -1 comments, because sometimes they're insightful if not well-spoken, or downright funny.)
This is not useless! It's just way ahead of its time!
And if they complete it (which I hope they'll do... Hope these images are not just GIMPed up!), it means that the moment the holographic display monitor hits the market, Linux will run it first!
What I find amusing is that the House shot down the Bill because it was deemed "not secure enough". Fancy that, I didn't know the House reps. were cryptanalysis experts!
So it makes me wonder if what they did was protect our privacy and security, or if they just reacted aversely to a new technology they don't understand.
I mean, gosh, there are still people out there who are afraid of using the ATM to make withdrawals! There's surely plenty enough technophobia amongst politicians to fear digital signature, what they probably consider to be, 'your name at the bottom of an email' or something.
So, it's not a good thing. If they had shot down the Bill for reasonable security concerns over expert advice on cryptanalysis, it would be great. But now, it just smacks of technophobia, and so the breakthrough of a nation-wide digital signature standard won't make its way into the US just yet.
Maybe we should ask Al to do something about it...
It seems clear enough to me that Microsoft is losing ground in the operating systems department. As such, I would have expected a change of strategy in one of two directions:
Raise prices and push W2K as an enterprise-specific solution; focus on getting fewer but bigger clients (that is, in a marketing POV);
Lower prices and fight Linux and OSS on their own turf, by making W2K an affordable personal solution.
But, well, MS has done none of these things. The prices are not atrocious; they're basically the same thing.
Now, solutions like BeOS, FreeBSD and Linux have long ago proven their reliability. It's beginning to dawn on everyone that they're viable solutions for small businesses and personal use, Web hosting, etc.
So the real concern becomes price of switching to OSS vs. price of upgrading. At least for companies already using NT it is. These companies will seriously consider whether they trust W2K, whether the price of the upgrade is worth it, and there's a good chance they'll stick with it out of force of habit.
But... It's the new companies that will provide the bigger switch of camps. They'll simply see the various options, and the price tags attached. And, well, you can't beat the 0$ Linux price tag.
MS had a chance to react, and I don't think they will. So I only see Linux and other alternate OSs gaining ground in the following years. Couple that with the assuredly poor initial performance of W2K (I mean, MS never gets it quite right before SP1), and unless MS comes up with a miracle, they won't regain ground with W2K.
Alright, so what's amazing about politicians joining the Internet fray of greedy self-promoters? Perhaps that they're doing it so quickly, instead of the next century. (Oh, wait, that's just two months away.)
But the march was a slow but inevitable one. Let's see. First, there were the intellectuals and the perverts. Next, the businessmen walked in. Then, normal people with barely a clue on computer use (thank you AOL!). After that, lawyers.
Politicians joining the Internet are a logical conclusion.
Is the Internet and the geek community empowered by all the legal, commercial and political interest vested in their playground? I think not. It's a simple fact that all political parties are self-serving, and I don't think the big companies will find much solace in the political game. If anything, they'll get burned.
But personally, I think if we leave the politicians alone, they'll just use the Web for self-promotion without doing much harm. From Isaac Plutonium to that "TIME IS INERTIA" dude, wackos trying to promote their ideas are nothing new to the seasoned Internet veteran.
I hardly see the Internet matter yet. It matters as a promotional tool, a publicity stunt. To me, this further points to the crumbling of the Internet as a tool of societal transformation, and its transformation into an interactive TV.
I, for one, am excited about this, but not too much. Yes, 20 million motherboards sounds like an awful lot; but it's not like the PCs these motherboards carry come pre-installed with Corel Linux. That would be impressive.
Rather, the CDs will be put at the bottom of a pile, perhaps not even given to the customers by whoever sells them. And if they do indeed make their way to the customers' hands, I'm not sure everyone will go, 'Oh, my, look at this! An alternate OS! I shall try to install it by myself!'
But:
I still think it's a big step in the right direction. This shows one thing: it's easy to distribute GPL software and OS. Linux itself, be it the Corel distribution, is essentially cheap, because no one is receiving money or had to be paid for the development of the kernel. So putting a CD in a box as a freebie is a simple matter.
What are the odds of seeing this done with Windows 2000, Word 2000 and Office 2000? You'd end up with the free software costing more than the motherboard.
This is a definite advantage, and I hope other Linux and OSS ventures capitalize on it!
What about the proverbial longhaired, barefooted perpetual graduate student/hacker? UNC found that he and she only wrote 12 percent of Linux applications.
I knew we only had one longhaired, barefooted female graduate student/hacker in our midst, but gosh! She did 12% of all Linux applications? This chick is hot!
Slashdot Mirror
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Also, new Star Wars Lego are coming out in 2000. And we're talking classic trilogy, here! These models include:
X-Wing Technic
Vader's TIE Fighter Technic
B-Wing
Bobba Fett's Slave 1
Mindstorms AT-AT *drool*
And... The Millennium Falcon itself!
There's also some new TPM models, but who cares about those?
Man, it's great to be a Lego Maniac with money!
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
They're saying that the Linux coders felt ignored because there wasn't a DVD decoder for Linux, so reversed-engineered it. To quote the article, Linux users are doers, not whiners. (Although you have to wonder about that when you go through some Slashdot threads.)
They then go on to say that someone else took it further and made the application that decodes the DVD and dumps it in unencoded format.
That's a far cry from accusing Linux users of all being hackers. It just shows there's a lot of insightful and clever Linux users, and they can do pretty much anything when they set their mind to it.
I don't know; I find it very flattering, and not insulting at all. No moral judgement is made on Linux users throughout the article.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
The industry is going bonkers because there is now an easy way to transfer contents from a medium unto a computer. The industry is screaming bloody murder, as they figure this will mean the end of old-fashioned, healthy and amoral capitalism and empower users.
Sounds familiar? MP3, anyone?
Well, tough luck. The truth of the matter is, they're making a fuss over nothing. I may download "pirated" MP3s from the Internet, but the sheer time it takes means I'll usually settle for a song or two, then buy the album in a record store if I really like it.
Same goes for movies, really. Right now, I don't have a DVD reader, so I deal with VHS. I watch movies in theaters or on VHS, and if I like a film a lot, I'll buy it on VHS. Sure, I could just copy the VHS from the video rental store, but guess what? It's so much nicer to have a nice box, and feel like you have the real thing. Superficial? Maybe. But I'm not the only one doing that.
I think the same will go with DVDs, however easy they are to copy. Some people will get the movie for free, but so what? Other people, like me, will keep on buying the real thing. At $30 or lower, it's not that much to have a nice little video collection. It's the same reason I have original CDs in my music collection.
The movie industry should take a long, hard look at the CD and gaming industry. Has Sony gone bankrupt since those PSX chips hit the market? Is David Bowie on the streets because he places free MP3s on the net? Will the Wachowsky brothers have to resort to begging if you get a free copy of the Matrix DVD?
Anyone with a modicum of common sense will know the answer to all of the above is a resounding no.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
They also cause:
Brain cancer in people other than the ones using them, according to research (akin to second-hand smoke);
Explosions if you use them at a gas station;
Accidents when used in a car;
Etc.
So yeah, it qualifies for 'bad to other people's health', at least according to the above qualifications, which I think are silly. (A walkman can also cause an explosion at a gas station, but you don't see them being outlawed; the idea is that the electric discharge when completing a call could blow up leaking gas vapours.)
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
I mean, this is getting a tad ridiculous. The cell-phone is getting the bad end of yet another technological witch hunt. Why?
Because, like cigarettes, it meets the following three criteria:
It annoys others
It's bad for the user's health
It's bad for poor innocent bystanders' health
And so, laws get passed, studies get made, all proving how less of a human being you are for using cellphones.
That's not to say I endorse smoking, by using the above analogy. But for gods' sake, people should calm down about it. I haven't seen governments entering crusades against alcohol (only against irresponsible drinking) or junk food, yet they lead to deterioration of your health and serious medical conditions.
Why don't we see governments legislating fast food? Because it's not annoying to bystanders. They can keep up with their life and not care whether you ate a Big Mac for breakfast for the last two weeks.
What I'm saying is: cell-phones seem like they're out to ruin everyone's lives nowadays; but this kind of media attention stems from a very simple fact that has nothing to do with your health: it's that it annoys everyone when you're carrying on a conversation on a cellphone in a public place.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Why, then, did WipeOut contribute largely to the escalation of sales of the Playstation? Also, the reason why the Sega Saturn sank was that there wasn't many games worth a damn on it. Nintendo, on the other hand, is assured a large part of the market because it has so many household names. Why do you think they always put out a Mario game first?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Seriously, though, they can throw all the technology they want in this X-Box, but they'll need more than that. Microsoft has done a few good games in the past, but these games worked mostly on a PC platform, and they tend to be long, drawn out games (Ages of Empires, Flight Simulator.) That won't work on a platform, where you want games that are more fast-paced and simpler to control from a controller POV.
And that first batch of games is gonna be what makes or breaks the X-Box. Frankly, I don't think MS has it in them to take the platform market by storm, not unless they begin stealing talent from every other game company out there.
But what about other game developpers? Will they be tempted to develop games for the X-Box? Considering that most of these companies are in direct competition with MS on the PC gaming market, I somehow doubt it.
I predict a flop.
Side note: so they're using Athlons... Is there a bolder statement that Athlons are cheaper than Intels?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
But I guess that's how people felt when they heard there would be a sequel to Star Wars.
And that's exactly where The Matrix stands right now: it has the potential to spawn endless boring sequels, and it has the potential to be in the 2000's what Star Wars was in the 80's.
The key here is to make the sequel a segment which will give more depth to the story, not just give us the same old stuff we came to love in the first installment. Again, Empire Strikes Back is a good example of this. So is Terminator 2.
But you know what? I'm confident. The Wachowsky brothers are behind the next two movies, and these guys have yet to produce anything vaguely resembling crap. (I highly recommend Bound , by the same guys - killer thriller.)
So, as long as Neo's father ain't Agent Smith and Neo and Trinity aren't siblings... We should be fine. :)
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
I refered explicitely to the spin states as |+> and |->.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Quite simply, you use the spin of a single electron to determine whether you have a 0 ('down' spin) or 1 ('up' spin) for that given atom. These are read with lasers, and I believe this can be done rather quickly.
If this is the same thing, then the theory has existed for maybe three years, but they seem to have found a practical application for it. Before that, all they could do was use some sort of awkward prototype filled with lens for interferometry.
If this is indeed the same thing, it also leads to a spiffy thing: fuzzy logic. Since quantum mechanics is essentially a matter of statistics, it means an electron may be in a probabilistic state between 0 and 1. For instance, it could be:
How this can lead to more efficient calculations, I have no clue. Still, it's cool to think of a single bit as "maybe 0 but most probably 1".
Again, not sure if this is the same technology. It may just not be; but regardless, the idea remains a really cool one.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Nope. Hemos (I think) posted the story, said he did see the page in question, but decided not to include it in the article. Within the next five minutes, someone on /. asked, 'Yeah, but what is the procedure?' and someone answered.
Sure enough, Hotmail got not only slashdotted, but cracked massively. :) I bet that's one of the reasons MS reacted so quickly (if somewhat stupidly.) And I still believe CNN took their info from Slashdot, because they tried it out too.
There's been no censorship of any kind in this story, only an editorial decision on the part of Hemos when posting the news article itself. But that's only fair, and a totally different issue.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Still, I think my point stands... The industry was certainly not hurt by everyone and their brother copying VHS cassettes. It's insane to say they're losing so much money because of piracy.
Did you ever hear of someone running an "illegally copied VHS ring"? I sure didn't. Yet up until now (as you point out), copying a VHS movie was standard.
And once you own it, you should damn well be able to copy it, sides.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
A small technicality:
To the best of my knowledge, a post gets a score of -2 if a) it is moderated to -1, and b) you set a short comment threshold under which the message falls (e.g., you set your threshold to 30 chars, and the message is a mere 10), which gets it an additional -1. These messages will not be seen however low your threshold is.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Let assume c is the ciphertext and p the plaintext. Simply run the algorithm to decipher c, then dump the plaintext p unto another medium. Repeat for every c.
In simple words: run the DVD, and copy it on a VHS. You'll lose these fancy functions, but the essence of the DVD is still there: a copyrighted movie.
The point is: it's silly to try to prevent the copying of a film or music, whether it's in DVD, MP3 or CD format. Who the hell cares? Copyright laws are in place, and they're supposed to prevent anyone from making money illegally off of them. However, it's not illegal per se to copy a film or a song, once you bought them legally and are doing so for personal use.
So, breaking the DVD Encryption scheme is akin to figuring out how to copy VHS to VHS. The fact that this data can be transfered over the Internet is, I think, irrevelant. The industry needs to grow up; I certainly don't see a reason to stop producing DVDs because of this.
The rule of copy-protection scheme is: sooner or later, it's gonna get broken. Surely they realised that.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
I wonder if we'll see cooperation between companies, at some point? That's how the Open Source venues become of such quality right now: many people pool their resources and code away. Businesses still see Linux as a product they can sell without paying for development; they add a little package, and off it goes making money.
And: how many more "dumb Linuxes" will we get yet? I can just see it coming: "Linux for Dummies: so amazingly easy even a moron with an IQ of 40 can install it!" What about new features, better applications and specialisations, people?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Now, the moderation system here works wonders. That is, it works wonders to moderate down '1st post!'-ers and other trolls.
But what if sensitive personal information was posted? Say, Hemos' phone number and sexual preference? Or the password of a few Government mainframes? (I'm not saying they're of equal sensitivity, mind... :) )
How would the Slashdot crew react, then? Should the posts be removed under the basis of, I don't know, unfair use of a public BBoard system, thus exercising editorial control however limited? Should the post be left there? Should a system be put in place for messages to be permanently deleted from the system by a sort of moderation process? (Say, if it hits 5 -1's, it's deleted, or a special moderation category.)
I hope such a situation never arises on Slashdot, because I like the system as it is, moderated by the people, and every message available for reading. (I read even -1 comments, because sometimes they're insightful if not well-spoken, or downright funny.)
But, well... What if?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
And if they complete it (which I hope they'll do... Hope these images are not just GIMPed up!), it means that the moment the holographic display monitor hits the market, Linux will run it first!
Quick, someone begin coding the drivers! :)
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
So it makes me wonder if what they did was protect our privacy and security, or if they just reacted aversely to a new technology they don't understand.
I mean, gosh, there are still people out there who are afraid of using the ATM to make withdrawals! There's surely plenty enough technophobia amongst politicians to fear digital signature, what they probably consider to be, 'your name at the bottom of an email' or something.
So, it's not a good thing. If they had shot down the Bill for reasonable security concerns over expert advice on cryptanalysis, it would be great. But now, it just smacks of technophobia, and so the breakthrough of a nation-wide digital signature standard won't make its way into the US just yet.
Maybe we should ask Al to do something about it...
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Which is my point, really. Those running NT will probably stick to it, but the new companies will be better off considering alternate OSes.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Raise prices and push W2K as an enterprise-specific solution; focus on getting fewer but bigger clients (that is, in a marketing POV);
Lower prices and fight Linux and OSS on their own turf, by making W2K an affordable personal solution.
But, well, MS has done none of these things. The prices are not atrocious; they're basically the same thing.
Now, solutions like BeOS, FreeBSD and Linux have long ago proven their reliability. It's beginning to dawn on everyone that they're viable solutions for small businesses and personal use, Web hosting, etc.
So the real concern becomes price of switching to OSS vs. price of upgrading. At least for companies already using NT it is. These companies will seriously consider whether they trust W2K, whether the price of the upgrade is worth it, and there's a good chance they'll stick with it out of force of habit.
But... It's the new companies that will provide the bigger switch of camps. They'll simply see the various options, and the price tags attached. And, well, you can't beat the 0$ Linux price tag.
MS had a chance to react, and I don't think they will. So I only see Linux and other alternate OSs gaining ground in the following years. Couple that with the assuredly poor initial performance of W2K (I mean, MS never gets it quite right before SP1), and unless MS comes up with a miracle, they won't regain ground with W2K.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
But the march was a slow but inevitable one. Let's see. First, there were the intellectuals and the perverts. Next, the businessmen walked in. Then, normal people with barely a clue on computer use (thank you AOL!). After that, lawyers.
Politicians joining the Internet are a logical conclusion.
Is the Internet and the geek community empowered by all the legal, commercial and political interest vested in their playground? I think not. It's a simple fact that all political parties are self-serving, and I don't think the big companies will find much solace in the political game. If anything, they'll get burned.
But personally, I think if we leave the politicians alone, they'll just use the Web for self-promotion without doing much harm. From Isaac Plutonium to that "TIME IS INERTIA" dude, wackos trying to promote their ideas are nothing new to the seasoned Internet veteran.
I hardly see the Internet matter yet. It matters as a promotional tool, a publicity stunt. To me, this further points to the crumbling of the Internet as a tool of societal transformation, and its transformation into an interactive TV.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Rather, the CDs will be put at the bottom of a pile, perhaps not even given to the customers by whoever sells them. And if they do indeed make their way to the customers' hands, I'm not sure everyone will go, 'Oh, my, look at this! An alternate OS! I shall try to install it by myself!'
But:
I still think it's a big step in the right direction. This shows one thing: it's easy to distribute GPL software and OS. Linux itself, be it the Corel distribution, is essentially cheap, because no one is receiving money or had to be paid for the development of the kernel. So putting a CD in a box as a freebie is a simple matter.
What are the odds of seeing this done with Windows 2000, Word 2000 and Office 2000? You'd end up with the free software costing more than the motherboard.
This is a definite advantage, and I hope other Linux and OSS ventures capitalize on it!
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
I knew we only had one longhaired, barefooted female graduate student/hacker in our midst, but gosh! She did 12% of all Linux applications? This chick is hot!
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"