Remember the bunnypeople!
on
The Ottoman PC
·
· Score: 1
Hey, at least they didn't have the bunnypeople dancing around the computer in pastel radioactivity protection jumpsuits this time!
I still think it's prettier than the half-melted-plastic-case-with-cards-poking-out-in- celluloid-alien-cocoons-complete-with-sl ime-feel design!
Can't they just build computers like they'd build a car? Don't drown the functionalities in the design, and don't give it a sombre design just because it's practical. Do a good job, then put a nice, curvy and colourful exterior.
If Intel didn't try so damn hard to come up with something original, they might actually come up with something that's aesthetically pleasing for once.
People! Don't have fashion designers design your PC cases! They know ergonomics as much as they know comfort!
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Oops. Forgot the smiley, did I? I love brain/computer analogies. I just hate having to reboot every night!:)
I see nothing wrong with trying to mimick the brain's functions. It's even more interesting that some of the brain's functionalities were not mimicked in AI attempts, but independently developped. Cybernetics rule.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
I think you're a bit too sensitive if you thought that was flamebait. It always bothers me when people don't consider software development to be creative or artistic. Software development is just as creative as architecture or classical music composition. Yes, there are strict rules that must be followed, but the truly creative learn to work within the rules rather than be constrained by them.
Oh, I meant, you underlined what could have been interpreted as flamebait in my own message.
I agree with your assessment of coding as an artistic activity. All "traditional" arts work with constraints: grammar is one, canvas size and types of brushes and paints is another one; the most obvious one is rhyme and meter in poetry.
The true artist will acknowledge these rules, respect them most of the time, break them when it suits them. There are rhymers and there are poets.
And likewise, I suppose, there are coders and there are... Hackers.:)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
What will I do when X-Files ends? I'll watch the first four seasons on video, trying to forget the awfulness of the last seasons.
And don't talk to me about Millennium; ever since Season 3, it's been a shameless X-Files clone... Such a pity, it was headed for pure brilliance!
It's a sign of times, guys... X-Files sucks and it's gonna end. X-Files was a show of the nineties, and in the nineties it had its place. The show for the year 2000 may already be "out there".
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
I guess the idea, then, is to write an overly cryptic book (a la James Joyce's Odyssey), give it away for free, but charge people to have it explained to them.:)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Er- now, that's an interesting point. I'm a fervent defender of Open Source, yet I wouldn't want someone else to "improve" upon a written fiction work I created. Why is it that I feel proprietary with fiction, but I don't mind sharing code? I don't know. The reason why I share code is because it becomes a collaborative work, and many contributions can enhance the code. Is it artistic? Well, yeah, in that it involves an intuitive creative process.
However, I don't feel treating any work of fiction like an Open Source project would better it. I quite welcome anyone to prove otherwise; but my feeling is, when you write fiction in commitees, you end up with something whose quality is on par with Star Trek: Voyager.
That being said, I can think of a few literary projects that worked like Open Source. The Cthulhu mythology is an example: one moderator who sets the vision and the standards (H.P. Lovecraft), a group of collaborators (A. Derleth et al) and a general public of writers bent on expanding the myth.
The important part is that the whole mythos is the Open Source work, and not individual stories. Yes, individual writers have seen their work retouched over the years, dusted off in places, or translated; the history of changes is established clearly (written by A, translated by B, etc.) and credits is given where credit is due.
So maybe a more Open Source model is possible for writing; that sounds like it has a lot of potential. I know all you did was raise a potential flamebait in my post, Zagadka, but you did make me reconsider my position!
If anyone would like to discuss an Open Source model for written fiction, and perhaps work on a prototype for one which could be built and designed through the web, then please, don't hesitate to Email me.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
But its not in the governments best interest to have the government kept in check, is it?
Yeah. And it's a pity. Firearms proponents have sometimes claimed that the right to bear arms was designed to keep the Government in check in case it goes bonkers. (I also think it's not a coincidence given this fact that many cypherpunks are pro-guns.) Although I think there are many reasons to disagree with using firearms to keep a Government in check, I think that self-imposed mechanisms to keep a Democracy from turning into Despotism is a wonderful concept.
Hey, I bet if the USA were founded today, by the same kind of people who founded it and not the current batch of demagogues, Americans would have a constitutional right to strong encryption!:)
But instead, we get a bunch of paranoid politicians knowing their country is not run straight enough not to fear perfectly secure criticism. And so we get Echelon, strong crypto export laws and a paranoid NSA breathing down cryptographer necks.
There, the soapbox is available now, I'm done.:)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Yeah, I know, I wasn't clear about what I meant. I meant that arguments on both sides seem to assume that US counter acts == bad and China counter acts == good. That's the hypocrisy I was denouncing. The question is not, 'crypto against US is bad but cryto against China is good', it should be, 'crypto in any country is good as a check against the Government'.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
What I mean is, this sounds like a great way to use the Internet as an alternate distribution channel that doesn't require outside capital that may compromise my work's integrity.
You can certainly manage this with self-publishing, but it's a heck of a lot harder to do than use the Internet. Ditto for self-recording: can you manage a distribution of 100,000 CDs traditionally? The Internet can allow you that. And no one will try to convince me to write in their wife or their dog as main protagonists because they feel that making money off my work is reason enough to control something else than its distribution.
So, in essence, if you want a decent exposure for your work, you indeed are forced to compromise it by relinquishing editorial control.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
This is a fantastic idea, which I love both as an avid reader and a struggling writer. Anyone in the deadtree business will tell you that you basically get screwed every time you go through a publisher to get your work printed. They ask you to rewrite it most of the time, and you make perhaps a dime per sold book for a hardcover $30.00 bestseller.
What this has the potential to do is revolutionise the publishing industry in the same way that MP3 is taking over the record industry. It means artists can control their product from end to finish. It means they can make a lot more money per sale than if they have to go through a publisher.
It may not be "open source", but indeed, writers need to make money somehow from this. The equivalent of open source for written works would be to put it up on your webpage and allow people to contribute to it. It's a neat idea, but I feel there is an additional factor with an artistic product, and that is artist integrity.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
You know, there's something that gets me every time, it's the ambivalent discourse used by both sides of the Government on this issue.
On one side, the US Government fears "terrorists and criminals" would use strong crypto as part o their efforts to destabilise the US Government. Yet they think it perfectly rational to allow dissidents in other countries like China to use strong crypto, because these men are fighting an oppressor.
Does that mean you're a terrorist when you fight the US Government, but you become a liberator when you fight the Commies? Please. If the US Government was minimally confident in their policies, they would recognise that strong crypto may actually help the people to keep the Government in check.
But that's asking too much of politicians, of course.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
You may be aware from published reports that today MSN Hotmail experienced service issues that have generated questions about security.
Questions such as, 'Do Microsoft have any idea what security is?' Note that published reports is why you would be aware of this, certainly not from M$ itself.
We can tell you that the issue has been resolved and MSN Hotmail is currently operating normally.
Normally? Uh oh, that's scary. It was working normally before...
This letter is intended to address your concerns and provide you with the latest information concerning this issue.
Unfortunately, it doesn't.
Microsoft was notified early Monday morning (August 30, 1999) of a potential security vulnerability that could enable unauthorized access to Hotmail servers. Microsoft immediately began to investigate the issue and in the interest of user privacy and security made the decision to temporarily take Hotmail servers offline. In light of the inconvenience that such an action can cause users, this is not something that we take lightly but felt that, given Microsoft's commitment to protecting people's private data and information, it was an appropriate course of action.
I don't find it reassuring that any company would take a long time to decide to bring down their service if they knew there was a major security risk. I'd feel much more comfortable knowing that a website on which I have private information stored will bring their service down immediately instead of compromising the integrity of my data.
Since then, Microsoft engineers have worked quickly to pinpoint the issue and to resolve it and have restored the Hotmail servers so that users can continue enjoying the benefits of Hotmail with full privacy and security. Please note that no action on your part is necessary to take advantage of the updated Hotmail.
Just sit back and trust us. Really, it's fixed! Don't take action! I like the way they say, 'continue enjoying the benefits of Hotmail with full privacy and security'. That slays me. Is that 'You can continue from now on to experience full security and privacy', or 'You can expect the same security and privacy in the future'?
We apologize for the inconvenience this issue may have caused. We are gratified that you have made Hotmail the world's most popular free e-mail provider, and are committed to further improving the award-winning service in the months ahead.
Next month: your mail now secure from your 14 year-old sister!
Ok, I'll stop now. This ain't Microsoft-bashing, it's pampering PR-bashing.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
You're reading too much into that sentence, Enoch. They were simply editing the article; I read the first version, where they implied that the Swedish site was still up, but when it was blanked, they changed that sentence and almost nothing else. I don't think it was an attempt to take credit.
Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. I still think whoever stumbled upon this at CNN was reading it right off Slashdot.
WHat bugs me about all the mainstream articles I've read so far -- CNN, even News.com -- seem to believe that the crack was only possible with the CGI script. The Hotmail PR line is "advanced programming techniques" -- which news.com swallowed whole hog.
I know, and I agree; it's irritating. The crux of the matter is, the bug was there in plain sight, but it didn't come to attention before. It's easy to go through a normal Webmail usage routine, and try to see if any URL can be validated without password.
The backdoor, as it is, wouldn't be such a big deal if it were an advance programming technique. It's the simplicity of it that's a little boggling, and it may be easier to criticise than to actually do it, but this sort of things would be foremost on my mind when developping a Web-based mail service. It's basic stuff: you want no URL to be valid when it deals with private information if there is no password validation taking place.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
The story at CNN Interactive is interesting, because they're taking credit where credit arguably goes to Slashdot.
For instance:
Web posted at: 12:40 p.m. EDT (1640 GMT)
(...)
Shortly after CNN Interactive posted the story, one of the sites, based in Stockholm, Sweden, was changed to a simple message, "Microsoft rules."
Funny. The story was posted on CNN after it was reported here, and Hotmail went down at around 11:45 AM EDT, following the assault of/.ers. Besides, they don't mention the URL; how the hell could the CNN readers find it? It was posted here on/., though.
Funny, seems we helped Microsoft this morning by forcing them to realise they were in trouble, and now CNN is taking the responsibility!
I think Rob and Hemos should sue!!!
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
That may not be the case. Hotmail is back up, so I'm wondering... Did we just/. Hotmail itself?
At any rate, I'm not sure it's illegal to type in a URL? Like someone pointed out, what if you're just testing the integrity of your own mailbox? I only checked friends' accounts, after getting their permission.
Sides, I'd like to see Microsoft sue the whole of the Slashdot readership!
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
If you go to the crack page now, all it shows is a message reading, "microsoft rules". I guess somebody came down on their asses, or else they chickened out.
However, the analysis provided by many people on here is correct. Using the URL:
still works, and I'm curious to see how long it will take M$ to patch the hole up. Given M$'s security history, they seem to think a security hole is patched if no one knows about it.
Anyone wants to start a pool to determine how long it will be before it's fixed?
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Nope. That's not the same security hole. In this case, it's a backdoor, because the Open Inbox doesn't check for password, which is downright silly. That's the kind of thing *I* would have thought of if I were designing a Webmail service. Silly, silly M$.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Slashdot Mirror
I still think it's prettier than the half-melted-plastic-case-with-cards-poking-out-in- celluloid-alien-cocoons-complete-with-sl ime-feel design!
Can't they just build computers like they'd build a car? Don't drown the functionalities in the design, and don't give it a sombre design just because it's practical. Do a good job, then put a nice, curvy and colourful exterior.
If Intel didn't try so damn hard to come up with something original, they might actually come up with something that's aesthetically pleasing for once.
People! Don't have fashion designers design your PC cases! They know ergonomics as much as they know comfort!
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
What?? you're suggesting I get out of the house to keep abreast of scientific discoveries? :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
I see nothing wrong with trying to mimick the brain's functions. It's even more interesting that some of the brain's functionalities were not mimicked in AI attempts, but independently developped. Cybernetics rule.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Could anyone kindly mirror it and post the URL here?
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Oh, I meant, you underlined what could have been interpreted as flamebait in my own message.
I agree with your assessment of coding as an artistic activity. All "traditional" arts work with constraints: grammar is one, canvas size and types of brushes and paints is another one; the most obvious one is rhyme and meter in poetry.
The true artist will acknowledge these rules, respect them most of the time, break them when it suits them. There are rhymers and there are poets.
And likewise, I suppose, there are coders and there are... Hackers. :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
And don't talk to me about Millennium; ever since Season 3, it's been a shameless X-Files clone... Such a pity, it was headed for pure brilliance!
It's a sign of times, guys... X-Files sucks and it's gonna end. X-Files was a show of the nineties, and in the nineties it had its place. The show for the year 2000 may already be "out there".
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Er- now, that's an interesting point. I'm a fervent defender of Open Source, yet I wouldn't want someone else to "improve" upon a written fiction work I created. Why is it that I feel proprietary with fiction, but I don't mind sharing code? I don't know. The reason why I share code is because it becomes a collaborative work, and many contributions can enhance the code. Is it artistic? Well, yeah, in that it involves an intuitive creative process.
However, I don't feel treating any work of fiction like an Open Source project would better it. I quite welcome anyone to prove otherwise; but my feeling is, when you write fiction in commitees, you end up with something whose quality is on par with Star Trek: Voyager.
That being said, I can think of a few literary projects that worked like Open Source. The Cthulhu mythology is an example: one moderator who sets the vision and the standards (H.P. Lovecraft), a group of collaborators (A. Derleth et al) and a general public of writers bent on expanding the myth.
The important part is that the whole mythos is the Open Source work, and not individual stories. Yes, individual writers have seen their work retouched over the years, dusted off in places, or translated; the history of changes is established clearly (written by A, translated by B, etc.) and credits is given where credit is due.
So maybe a more Open Source model is possible for writing; that sounds like it has a lot of potential. I know all you did was raise a potential flamebait in my post, Zagadka, but you did make me reconsider my position!
If anyone would like to discuss an Open Source model for written fiction, and perhaps work on a prototype for one which could be built and designed through the web, then please, don't hesitate to Email me.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Yeah. And it's a pity. Firearms proponents have sometimes claimed that the right to bear arms was designed to keep the Government in check in case it goes bonkers. (I also think it's not a coincidence given this fact that many cypherpunks are pro-guns.) Although I think there are many reasons to disagree with using firearms to keep a Government in check, I think that self-imposed mechanisms to keep a Democracy from turning into Despotism is a wonderful concept.
Hey, I bet if the USA were founded today, by the same kind of people who founded it and not the current batch of demagogues, Americans would have a constitutional right to strong encryption! :)
But instead, we get a bunch of paranoid politicians knowing their country is not run straight enough not to fear perfectly secure criticism. And so we get Echelon, strong crypto export laws and a paranoid NSA breathing down cryptographer necks.
There, the soapbox is available now, I'm done. :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
You can certainly manage this with self-publishing, but it's a heck of a lot harder to do than use the Internet. Ditto for self-recording: can you manage a distribution of 100,000 CDs traditionally? The Internet can allow you that. And no one will try to convince me to write in their wife or their dog as main protagonists because they feel that making money off my work is reason enough to control something else than its distribution.
So, in essence, if you want a decent exposure for your work, you indeed are forced to compromise it by relinquishing editorial control.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
What this has the potential to do is revolutionise the publishing industry in the same way that MP3 is taking over the record industry. It means artists can control their product from end to finish. It means they can make a lot more money per sale than if they have to go through a publisher.
It may not be "open source", but indeed, writers need to make money somehow from this. The equivalent of open source for written works would be to put it up on your webpage and allow people to contribute to it. It's a neat idea, but I feel there is an additional factor with an artistic product, and that is artist integrity.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
On one side, the US Government fears "terrorists and criminals" would use strong crypto as part o their efforts to destabilise the US Government. Yet they think it perfectly rational to allow dissidents in other countries like China to use strong crypto, because these men are fighting an oppressor.
Does that mean you're a terrorist when you fight the US Government, but you become a liberator when you fight the Commies? Please. If the US Government was minimally confident in their policies, they would recognise that strong crypto may actually help the people to keep the Government in check.
But that's asking too much of politicians, of course.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Oh, come on, that's silly. That's like saying putting a lock on your door and blinds on your window is the surest way to attract police attention.
Your statement holds the same for PGP. Do you think the FBI keeps track of everyone using PGP and follow them around?
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Also noteworthy is that HushMail released their source code.
If you ask me, it beats Hotmail hands down. :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Questions such as, 'Do Microsoft have any idea what security is?' Note that published reports is why you would be aware of this, certainly not from M$ itself.
Normally? Uh oh, that's scary. It was working normally before...
Unfortunately, it doesn't.
I don't find it reassuring that any company would take a long time to decide to bring down their service if they knew there was a major security risk. I'd feel much more comfortable knowing that a website on which I have private information stored will bring their service down immediately instead of compromising the integrity of my data.
Just sit back and trust us. Really, it's fixed! Don't take action! I like the way they say, 'continue enjoying the benefits of Hotmail with full privacy and security'. That slays me. Is that 'You can continue from now on to experience full security and privacy', or 'You can expect the same security and privacy in the future'?
Next month: your mail now secure from your 14 year-old sister!
Ok, I'll stop now. This ain't Microsoft-bashing, it's pampering PR-bashing.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. I still think whoever stumbled upon this at CNN was reading it right off Slashdot.
WHat bugs me about all the mainstream articles I've read so far -- CNN, even News.com -- seem to believe that the crack was only possible with the CGI script. The Hotmail PR line is "advanced programming techniques" -- which news.com swallowed whole hog.
I know, and I agree; it's irritating. The crux of the matter is, the bug was there in plain sight, but it didn't come to attention before. It's easy to go through a normal Webmail usage routine, and try to see if any URL can be validated without password.
The backdoor, as it is, wouldn't be such a big deal if it were an advance programming technique. It's the simplicity of it that's a little boggling, and it may be easier to criticise than to actually do it, but this sort of things would be foremost on my mind when developping a Web-based mail service. It's basic stuff: you want no URL to be valid when it deals with private information if there is no password validation taking place.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
*looks up your email in the message header*
Oh, would that be, I dunno, Netscape.net?
*begins cracking* :-)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
For instance:
Funny. The story was posted on CNN after it was reported here, and Hotmail went down at around 11:45 AM EDT, following the assault of /.ers. Besides, they don't mention the URL; how the hell could the CNN readers find it? It was posted here on /., though.
Funny, seems we helped Microsoft this morning by forcing them to realise they were in trouble, and now CNN is taking the responsibility!
I think Rob and Hemos should sue!!!
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Well, shesh, my apologies to the XOR fans out there... :-)
I was indeed thinking of those companies that call XOR'ing the plaintext with a fixed string "secure encryption".
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
At any rate, I'm not sure it's illegal to type in a URL? Like someone pointed out, what if you're just testing the integrity of your own mailbox? I only checked friends' accounts, after getting their permission.
Sides, I'd like to see Microsoft sue the whole of the Slashdot readership!
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
However, the analysis provided by many people on here is correct. Using the URL:
http://207.82.250.251/cgi-bin/start?curmbox=ACTIVE &js=no&login=UserID&passwd=eh
still works, and I'm curious to see how long it will take M$ to patch the hole up. Given M$'s security history, they seem to think a security hole is patched if no one knows about it.
Anyone wants to start a pool to determine how long it will be before it's fixed?
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."