Ummmm, yeah... Terrorists don't even need to use an anonymising network - just have a spammer send out a couple of million emails, some of which go to the desired recipients if they've carefully seeded the net with email addresses. The actual message could easily be embedded in those nonsense sentences spammers are using to get through filters.
Where I work there's an retina scanner on one particular locked door. It's possible to get "visitation" rights to go through to the computer room without doing the retina scan, but you have to show your company photo-id and have a supervisor call ahead to get you in. Well, apparently, the scanner shows a number when it scans a retina, and one guy always does the scan even though he always has a visitors card. He usually scores between 60 & 80, which we believe means 60% to 80% match with someone in the database. Can't be him, as he's never had the initial scan for the database entry. The door is matching him to someone else...
Connection to a 911 operator, for example, would not be possible for a VOIP customer if there is a power failure or loss of Internet connection.
Same as it wouldn't be possible for someone with only a cordless phone when the power goes out?? Far as I know, the base station needs to be powered for the cordless to work. At least, I've never had one that would work with the base station disconnected from the wall power.
Same with cellphones - my daughter had to get herself a landline because she couldn't get a cell signal at her new apartment. At least, not without hanging off the balcony or running down the street.
You're not paying attention - Cuba is switching to Linux from Windows. It's probably more illegal (under US law only) for them to have Windows, which is distributed from Redmond, than to have some random Linux distro which may originate somewhere other than the US. Suse, for example, is of German origin, right? Note, the articles don't say what distro Cuba will be using, I just mention Suse as a non-US-origin OS.
there should be no problem with patches to Linux submitted by a Cuban.
And anyway, such patches could easily be filtered through, for example, a European kernel developer. Besides which, how hard would it be for a Cuban to get a non-Cuban email address from which to originate patches??
Remember Dr Andrew Tanenbaums's comment: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes." And then there's IP-over-carrier-pigeon...
Yep. We Brits got used to terrorists years ago, with the IRA blowing up random bits of scenery as well as a number of innocent bystanders and, occasionally, themselves. It's probably a good thing we didn't send troops to sort out the people funding the IRA because, as I recall, it was widely believed that Irish-Americans were up there on the list of contributors. If Dubya had been Prime Minister back then, he'd have invaded New York...
Given that there's a limit to the amount of cpu power that can fit into any given size of airplane, the flying cluster can have much higher "brainpower" than a single vehicle. If nothing else, it should allow the cluster to more easily recognise objects, threats, etc without having to refer back to an operator.
And as you say, there's builtin redundancy, so that maybe the cluster could decide to risk a member by letting it peek around or over an object while the main group stays safe. Also, members could be "dropped off" to act as communication relays if necessary. And then there's the attraction of having multiple eyes viewing the target from different directions...
Today, there's a certain amount of plausible deniability. If they *own* a company whose whole business model is based on supporting GPL stuff, it would be a lot harder to deny including GPL stuff in their non-GPL software. People would look a lot harder to try to prove GPL violations.
It's doubtful that their current contracts say that they can't compete after leaving Redhat. So, they would just have to resign one minute prior to the acquisition completes and anything negotiated between Microsoft and the remaining Redhat employees couldn't touch them..
Of course, Microsoft could easily pay them 2 or 3 years salary to remain idle. And then they could relocate, start up a new distro and not release it until the time limit was up...
They want big ticket sales in the theaters, then they release to DVD-for-rental, to capture the eyeballs of people that don't want to shell out for the tickets, then they release DVDs for general sale.
It's all designed to maximise profit. If you could buy the DVD on release day, they think they wouldn't see the big ticket sales. The only way they could win on that would be if the $15 DVD could only be watched by one person, once. If two people watch the DVD instead of buying $8 tickets, they lose $1 immediately, and every subsequent viewing is pure loss.
With more and more cars having in-car DVD players, I'd imagine the whole idea of authenticating via Internet will grind to a halt as soon as it impacts the auto-makers in Detroit. Hollywood might also find it difficult to get the new format DVDs shipped too, if enough truckers get pissed off because they can't watch a DVD in the cab during a rest break.
"I'm returning this DVD player because it's busted." "Did you hook it up to the Internet?" "No, why?" "All DVD players have to be hooked up to the Internet now." "I don't have Internet. Give me my money back."
"I'm returning this DVD because it won't play." "Did you buy a new player?" "No, the old one works perfectly fine for all other DVDs." "Well, you need a new, Internet-connected player for the new DVDs." "Screw that. Give me my money back."
"Breaking news: DVD Jon was arrested again for cracking the new DVD encryption. He was released minutes later when crowds of enraged would-be movie watchers stormed the police station and trashed the building. Film at 11 (brought to you unencrypted courtesy of DVD Jon)"
God, that girl's busy... No wonder she doesn't have time for interviews...
Kidding aside, I agree with you - it's a huge violation of ethics, and not just because she supposedly tracked down PJ's mom and brother. I don't think MoG did a credible job of tracking down the PJ of Groklaw fame, and if not, she's published damaging statements about people completely unrelated to the real PJ.
The author was using fsync with the expectation that it would not return until all data was on the platters.
According to the fsync man page, that's actually a reasonable expectation:
fsync copies all in-core parts of a file to disk, and waits until the device reports that all parts are on stable storage.
I.e. "stop caching and actually write all cache and buffers out to the platters." I don't think that non-battery-backed cache in the drive electronics would be included in the definition of "stable storage".
The man page states: fsync copies all in-core parts of a file to disk, and waits until the device reports that all parts are on stable storage.
Here's a stupid, real world example: you go to the bank and pay in some money. The teller drops the money in a drawer and makes a note on a Postit which he then sticks on some surface that's out of your sight. You leave the bank believing that your account has been credited, whereas in fact the credit doesn't happen until the teller processes all the postits some time later. This system works fine, until some complete bastard opens a window and a bunch of postits flies away. You'd be extremely pissed if your transaction literally flew out the window, but you'd have no proof you were even in the bank, let alone making a deposit.
The argument in the original article is that when fsync() is executed, the drive and/or drivers are not supposed to return the success code until all data is safely recorded on the platters. It's what the spec says, and it's what the OS and app writers expect.
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RTFA. The metal outside is in addition to the foil lining on the inside walls and a foil-like material (space blanket?) on their beds.
I thought at first it said "The Crank Channel", which would have fitted right in with the body of the article...
And Dubya absolutely doesn't give a shit about Iraq owning large oilfields, right??
Now there's a novel word for the procedure...
Ummmm, yeah... Terrorists don't even need to use an anonymising network - just have a spammer send out a couple of million emails, some of which go to the desired recipients if they've carefully seeded the net with email addresses. The actual message could easily be embedded in those nonsense sentences spammers are using to get through filters.
Where I work there's an retina scanner on one particular locked door. It's possible to get "visitation" rights to go through to the computer room without doing the retina scan, but you have to show your company photo-id and have a supervisor call ahead to get you in. Well, apparently, the scanner shows a number when it scans a retina, and one guy always does the scan even though he always has a visitors card. He usually scores between 60 & 80, which we believe means 60% to 80% match with someone in the database. Can't be him, as he's never had the initial scan for the database entry. The door is matching him to someone else...
Same as it wouldn't be possible for someone with only a cordless phone when the power goes out?? Far as I know, the base station needs to be powered for the cordless to work. At least, I've never had one that would work with the base station disconnected from the wall power.
Same with cellphones - my daughter had to get herself a landline because she couldn't get a cell signal at her new apartment. At least, not without hanging off the balcony or running down the street.
You're not paying attention - Cuba is switching to Linux from Windows. It's probably more illegal (under US law only) for them to have Windows, which is distributed from Redmond, than to have some random Linux distro which may originate somewhere other than the US. Suse, for example, is of German origin, right? Note, the articles don't say what distro Cuba will be using, I just mention Suse as a non-US-origin OS.
And anyway, such patches could easily be filtered through, for example, a European kernel developer. Besides which, how hard would it be for a Cuban to get a non-Cuban email address from which to originate patches??
Remember Dr Andrew Tanenbaums's comment: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes." And then there's IP-over-carrier-pigeon...
Yep. We Brits got used to terrorists years ago, with the IRA blowing up random bits of scenery as well as a number of innocent bystanders and, occasionally, themselves. It's probably a good thing we didn't send troops to sort out the people funding the IRA because, as I recall, it was widely believed that Irish-Americans were up there on the list of contributors. If Dubya had been Prime Minister back then, he'd have invaded New York...
And as you say, there's builtin redundancy, so that maybe the cluster could decide to risk a member by letting it peek around or over an object while the main group stays safe. Also, members could be "dropped off" to act as communication relays if necessary. And then there's the attraction of having multiple eyes viewing the target from different directions...
Today, there's a certain amount of plausible deniability. If they *own* a company whose whole business model is based on supporting GPL stuff, it would be a lot harder to deny including GPL stuff in their non-GPL software. People would look a lot harder to try to prove GPL violations.
But they'd have to be extremely careful not to let developers with GPL stuff get into the non-GPL stuff.
Wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft sued SCO over that?? :)
Of course, Microsoft could easily pay them 2 or 3 years salary to remain idle. And then they could relocate, start up a new distro and not release it until the time limit was up...
It's all designed to maximise profit. If you could buy the DVD on release day, they think they wouldn't see the big ticket sales. The only way they could win on that would be if the $15 DVD could only be watched by one person, once. If two people watch the DVD instead of buying $8 tickets, they lose $1 immediately, and every subsequent viewing is pure loss.
What about a video camera pointed at a video projector wall screen??
With more and more cars having in-car DVD players, I'd imagine the whole idea of authenticating via Internet will grind to a halt as soon as it impacts the auto-makers in Detroit. Hollywood might also find it difficult to get the new format DVDs shipped too, if enough truckers get pissed off because they can't watch a DVD in the cab during a rest break.
"Did you hook it up to the Internet?"
"No, why?"
"All DVD players have to be hooked up to the Internet now."
"I don't have Internet. Give me my money back."
"Did you buy a new player?"
"No, the old one works perfectly fine for all other DVDs."
"Well, you need a new, Internet-connected player for the new DVDs."
"Screw that. Give me my money back."
- a number of entries about Groklaw
- a link to a list of speeches by Pamela Jones Harbour (an FTC Commissioner)
- an ASCII Resume Sample that may not even relate to a real person, let alone PJ
- a link to an Australian craft site that shows Pamela Jones publishes cross stitch and needlepoint designs.
- Pamela Jones, nutrition consultant, in Tring, Hertfordshire, England
- Pamela Jones, photographer, in Florida
- Pamela Jones, cruise reviewer.
That's just on the first couple of pages...And then there's three PJ's listed on IMDB:
God, that girl's busy... No wonder she doesn't have time for interviews...
Kidding aside, I agree with you - it's a huge violation of ethics, and not just because she supposedly tracked down PJ's mom and brother. I don't think MoG did a credible job of tracking down the PJ of Groklaw fame, and if not, she's published damaging statements about people completely unrelated to the real PJ.
I'm fairly sure that when the patch is provided, it won't be coming from Microsoft...
According to the fsync man page, that's actually a reasonable expectation:
I.e. "stop caching and actually write all cache and buffers out to the platters." I don't think that non-battery-backed cache in the drive electronics would be included in the definition of "stable storage".Here's a stupid, real world example: you go to the bank and pay in some money. The teller drops the money in a drawer and makes a note on a Postit which he then sticks on some surface that's out of your sight. You leave the bank believing that your account has been credited, whereas in fact the credit doesn't happen until the teller processes all the postits some time later. This system works fine, until some complete bastard opens a window and a bunch of postits flies away. You'd be extremely pissed if your transaction literally flew out the window, but you'd have no proof you were even in the bank, let alone making a deposit.
The argument in the original article is that when fsync() is executed, the drive and/or drivers are not supposed to return the success code until all data is safely recorded on the platters. It's what the spec says, and it's what the OS and app writers expect.