I like to think that if someone sees a crime in progress, and calls the cops, it'll be a damn sight quicker to punch up the nearest cameras and start recording than to get an officer to the scene. At the least, the guy watching the monitor can coach the responding officers onto the perps trail, possibly spot the perp dumping evidence, and generally make it easier for the DA to indict.
Dunno about PDP-11, but back in, ummm, 1979 I had to write a program in PDP-8 assembler for Computer Science coursework at University. And that was write and hand-compile into binary... The task given to us was to write a program to add yards, feet and inches. I'd already had some practice writing pseudo-assembler on an early TI programmable calculator, so my PDP-8 program was among the shortest that year.
I hope it has lots of details, references, and footnotes, so the less technically inclined can follow it if they so desire to...
Personally, I hope they can get some of the original authors to provide notarized statements detailing their contributions. Something like the "provenance" documents that accompany high-dollar works of art, showing the chain of ownership back to the original artist. In the case of Unix/Linux, such docs could trace the origins and updates to things like errno.h, libc, the C compiler, &c.
That wouldn't necessarily prevent scum like Darl from claiming that the IP had come into their possession via some tortuous path through buyout deals, but it would certainly provide the FSF (and others) with a rock solid starting point for retaliatory fuck-off-and-die lawsuits.
Sco will find a way to use this history to further 'prove' that source code was acquired from commercial software at specific times from specific companies...
You may be assuming too much, namely that SCO will be around to take advantage of it when it's released. I'm sure I'm not alone in expecting the release date to coincide with SCO's final dissolution.
If advertising via spam were illegal, and if real, live marketing folks that used spam were to find themselves in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, I think the flow of spam would drop dramatically.
For spam to work as a marketing tool, there has to be some way for the suckers to reach the sellers, even if there isn't a clikable link or email address. So, launch a law enforcement team down the return path and see who they can dig up. Alternatively, launch Guido and a coupla friends down the return path and don't bother to ask where they buried the spam-advertiser...
Is there a mailer that works on a positive-id system? One where, if you're not in my addressbook, your mail doesn't even get delivered? I've seen stuff that only accepts mail from authenticated systems, but is there one that takes it a step further?
He's trying to offload the guilt by justifying that he's just "following orders."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the "I was just following orders" defence was pretty much destroyed during the Nuremburg trials after WWII. Soldiers that committed atrocities while "under orders" to do so were still convicted.
Just don't do what one id10t did back when I was working in a UK university. He was a Computer Science student and was "studying" a virus. We couldn't figure out why the public PCs kept on being infected - there were various countermeasures in place to limit writing to the disk, among other things - but still they got infected. Then someone told us about the id10t with the virus-on-a-floppy he was examining...
I think we barred him from the building, which pretty much fucked his degree, because he couldn't get access elsewhere to do his coursework. No, the virus wasn't part of his coursework, it was just a "hobby"...
What I did, when a copy of the AIDS computer virus showed up on a 5.25" floppy, was to take a junk PC, remove the network adaptor, then try installing it. It wanted a printer, to print out an invoice, or info sheet, or something. While printing, it was creating a dotdotdot directory with some nasty shit in it. The "hook" it used to get itself installed was an "Are you likely to get AIDS" quiz - i.e. "Do you have unprotected sex? No? You're probably clean!" I wiped the disk afterwards with one of those BIG bulk tape erasers, then low-level formatted it...
Did you hear a kind of whooshing noise as my point went right over your head? I was suggesting that CIA (or whomever) agents on the inspection teams wouldn't have to be American. Or is that still too subtle for you?
On the other hand, there's an awful lot of desert in Iraq... I was a little surprised that Iraqis didn't come boiling up out of hidden bunkers behind the advancing troops. But leaving that aside for a moment, there could still be tons of stuff buried out in the desert. Don't forget that people in that region are used to dealing with sand, and it painfully clear during Gulf War II that sandstorms provide excellent cover...
No, I think you'll find that both Americans and Terrorists actuall do put potential casualties and/or collateral damage on the agenda for discussion. It's just that the Americans try to minimize collateral damage for fear of losing voters, while the terrorists try to maximize collateral damage because they just don't give a shit about anyone who's not their religion/nationality/ethnic group.
This is what the whole "we'll let inspections resume if there are no Americans on it" thing was about.
Isn't that just a little shortsighted? I mean, if the CIA, or any other government three-letter-agency, can't find a couple of non-American agents I'd be very surprised...
Wasn't there a case not so long ago where Microsoft would have been fined a large sum of money per day for being in violation of something? I forget exactly what, now, but it was something like $1M per day until they complied with a court order, or until they ceased pissing people off. Anyone remember the details?
A one-time fine of $100M may not bite very hard, and they'll fight it in court forever, but if they were facing a per-day fine that might speed things up some.
I generally turn of extension-hiding on my Windows box at home, but I doubt that my kids and/or wife would notice the difference between abcdef.txt.exe and abcdef.txt so it's likely to get clicked on anyway. Fortunately, none of them get all that much email.
In the article, the author mentioned a mail server bouncing a message to a bad address with the bounce containing the virus.
OK, we're all agreed that viruses commonly spoof return addresses to make their payload more likely to infect the recipient, right? So, why couldn't a virus be spoofing the AV software warnings as well? I mean, what other reason could there be for sending the virus back to the originator?
"Yo, dude! You're infected with the XYZ virus! Here's a copy of the infected file you sent. If you don't believe me, crack it open and see for yourself!"
Yeah, there's a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I saw one...
I refuse to kneel before Gates! Fight the Aristocracy!
I think (hope!) you may be missing the point. When a person is knighted, the ruling monarch touches that person on each shoulder with a sword, while saying the traditional words.
OK, so think about it - if Bill accepts the knighthood, he'll be letting her Majesty get within inches of his neck with about 3 feet of sharp steel... When you add in the fact that she's 78 years old this year, we can hope that she might just "slip" and join the dots with a straight line...
I can only hope that their NOC has multiple fibers coming to the building and that those fibers aren't in the same trench.
OK, all you cynics out there, why couldn't the NOC use a satellite uplink/downlink to replicate itself to its peers in the event that a backhoe takes out all the fibres?
Sure, fingerprinting is one way - up to a point. I know for a fact that a certain IIS server running on Windows 2000 is actually a 50MHz SparcClassic running Apache. Nmap swears up and down that it's Win2K/IIS, though...
And then there's the IP-Personality module that some bright spark produced for Linux-2.4.18 (I think). With that installed, you can make your Linux box look like a Sega Dreamcast, if you feel so inclined.
Someone else suggested that Netcraft could tell - so, does Netcraft just use the server ID string for that? If so, I'm sure it won't be long before there's a "what do you want your OS to be today" module for Apache, if there isn't already.
And that's just it - how the hell would SCO know just who's running what? How would they know that any given company is running Linux servers, to be able to claim their Linux Tax? How would they know who's got a Linux desktop at work or personal server at home? They certainly won't be allowed to issue fishing expedition subpoenas to the hundreds of thousands of various sized companies in this country who might have Linux, let alone to the millions of home users that could possibly ever have bought a PC capable of running Linux.
And then there's the rest of the world... Anyone want to bet that any non-US company will submit to the Linux Tax SCO is trying to levy on them?
So far, SCO has only threatened people who they know have any kind of Unix at all, and the reason they know about those people is that SCO sold them the product. In the article, it says that a "few companies have moved away from SCO's Unix", and those are the ones SCO is chasing. Well, that's a sure and certain way to win them back, eh Darl? And to keep the few remaining customers who haven't defected yet...
It comes down to the question of "where does the transaction take place?", which will be meaningful all over the Internet.
If I'm in Florida and buy something over the Internet from a store whose sole physical presence is in Oregon, did the purchase take place in Oregon? My credit card was certainly charged in Oregon, as surely as if I were there in person to hand it over to be swiped... The same would be true if I were in the UK buying from an HK website. Once purchased, the CD is my property so, would I then be importing it for my personal consumption if I instructed the dealer to forward it to me?
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I like to think that if someone sees a crime in progress, and calls the cops, it'll be a damn sight quicker to punch up the nearest cameras and start recording than to get an officer to the scene. At the least, the guy watching the monitor can coach the responding officers onto the perps trail, possibly spot the perp dumping evidence, and generally make it easier for the DA to indict.
Dunno about PDP-11, but back in, ummm, 1979 I had to write a program in PDP-8 assembler for Computer Science coursework at University. And that was write and hand-compile into binary... The task given to us was to write a program to add yards, feet and inches. I'd already had some practice writing pseudo-assembler on an early TI programmable calculator, so my PDP-8 program was among the shortest that year.
Personally, I hope they can get some of the original authors to provide notarized statements detailing their contributions. Something like the "provenance" documents that accompany high-dollar works of art, showing the chain of ownership back to the original artist. In the case of Unix/Linux, such docs could trace the origins and updates to things like errno.h, libc, the C compiler, &c.
That wouldn't necessarily prevent scum like Darl from claiming that the IP had come into their possession via some tortuous path through buyout deals, but it would certainly provide the FSF (and others) with a rock solid starting point for retaliatory fuck-off-and-die lawsuits.
You may be assuming too much, namely that SCO will be around to take advantage of it when it's released. I'm sure I'm not alone in expecting the release date to coincide with SCO's final dissolution.
You don't seriously think they'd only have one tracking system? Why only have one, when you can have two for twice the price?
For spam to work as a marketing tool, there has to be some way for the suckers to reach the sellers, even if there isn't a clikable link or email address. So, launch a law enforcement team down the return path and see who they can dig up. Alternatively, launch Guido and a coupla friends down the return path and don't bother to ask where they buried the spam-advertiser...
Is there a mailer that works on a positive-id system? One where, if you're not in my addressbook, your mail doesn't even get delivered? I've seen stuff that only accepts mail from authenticated systems, but is there one that takes it a step further?
Yes, definitely a good solution now. However, at the time, I think I had DOS 3.x on a 286, and that was state-of-the-art...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the "I was just following orders" defence was pretty much destroyed during the Nuremburg trials after WWII. Soldiers that committed atrocities while "under orders" to do so were still convicted.
I think we barred him from the building, which pretty much fucked his degree, because he couldn't get access elsewhere to do his coursework. No, the virus wasn't part of his coursework, it was just a "hobby"...
What I did, when a copy of the AIDS computer virus showed up on a 5.25" floppy, was to take a junk PC, remove the network adaptor, then try installing it. It wanted a printer, to print out an invoice, or info sheet, or something. While printing, it was creating a dotdotdot directory with some nasty shit in it. The "hook" it used to get itself installed was an "Are you likely to get AIDS" quiz - i.e. "Do you have unprotected sex? No? You're probably clean!" I wiped the disk afterwards with one of those BIG bulk tape erasers, then low-level formatted it...
Did you hear a kind of whooshing noise as my point went right over your head? I was suggesting that CIA (or whomever) agents on the inspection teams wouldn't have to be American. Or is that still too subtle for you?
On the other hand, there's an awful lot of desert in Iraq... I was a little surprised that Iraqis didn't come boiling up out of hidden bunkers behind the advancing troops. But leaving that aside for a moment, there could still be tons of stuff buried out in the desert. Don't forget that people in that region are used to dealing with sand, and it painfully clear during Gulf War II that sandstorms provide excellent cover...
No, I think you'll find that both Americans and Terrorists actuall do put potential casualties and/or collateral damage on the agenda for discussion . It's just that the Americans try to minimize collateral damage for fear of losing voters, while the terrorists try to maximize collateral damage because they just don't give a shit about anyone who's not their religion/nationality/ethnic group.
Isn't that just a little shortsighted? I mean, if the CIA, or any other government three-letter-agency, can't find a couple of non-American agents I'd be very surprised...
A one-time fine of $100M may not bite very hard, and they'll fight it in court forever, but if they were facing a per-day fine that might speed things up some.
I generally turn of extension-hiding on my Windows box at home, but I doubt that my kids and/or wife would notice the difference between abcdef.txt.exe and abcdef.txt so it's likely to get clicked on anyway. Fortunately, none of them get all that much email.
OK, we're all agreed that viruses commonly spoof return addresses to make their payload more likely to infect the recipient, right? So, why couldn't a virus be spoofing the AV software warnings as well? I mean, what other reason could there be for sending the virus back to the originator?
"Yo, dude! You're infected with the XYZ virus! Here's a copy of the infected file you sent. If you don't believe me, crack it open and see for yourself!"
Yeah, there's a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I saw one...
OK, so think about it - if Bill accepts the knighthood, he'll be letting her Majesty get within inches of his neck with about 3 feet of sharp steel... When you add in the fact that she's 78 years old this year, we can hope that she might just "slip" and join the dots with a straight line...
OK, all you cynics out there, why couldn't the NOC use a satellite uplink/downlink to replicate itself to its peers in the event that a backhoe takes out all the fibres?
And then there's the IP-Personality module that some bright spark produced for Linux-2.4.18 (I think). With that installed, you can make your Linux box look like a Sega Dreamcast, if you feel so inclined.
Someone else suggested that Netcraft could tell - so, does Netcraft just use the server ID string for that? If so, I'm sure it won't be long before there's a "what do you want your OS to be today" module for Apache, if there isn't already.
I scanned one for you, but this damned web browser refuses to send it to you. Sorry...
Or that maybe he actually is the company legal expert, and has a very good idea of what he's doing?
I believe Australia (or was that New Zealand? I'm too tired to look it up) is in the process of doing much the same.
And that's just it - how the hell would SCO know just who's running what? How would they know that any given company is running Linux servers, to be able to claim their Linux Tax? How would they know who's got a Linux desktop at work or personal server at home? They certainly won't be allowed to issue fishing expedition subpoenas to the hundreds of thousands of various sized companies in this country who might have Linux, let alone to the millions of home users that could possibly ever have bought a PC capable of running Linux.
And then there's the rest of the world... Anyone want to bet that any non-US company will submit to the Linux Tax SCO is trying to levy on them?
So far, SCO has only threatened people who they know have any kind of Unix at all, and the reason they know about those people is that SCO sold them the product. In the article, it says that a "few companies have moved away from SCO's Unix", and those are the ones SCO is chasing. Well, that's a sure and certain way to win them back, eh Darl? And to keep the few remaining customers who haven't defected yet...
If I'm in Florida and buy something over the Internet from a store whose sole physical presence is in Oregon, did the purchase take place in Oregon? My credit card was certainly charged in Oregon, as surely as if I were there in person to hand it over to be swiped... The same would be true if I were in the UK buying from an HK website. Once purchased, the CD is my property so, would I then be importing it for my personal consumption if I instructed the dealer to forward it to me?