If openly addressing vulnerabilities inevitably leads to those vulnerabilities being exploited, vendors will have no choice but to find other ways to protect their customers.
Considering that this essay is from Microsoft, I think it reads clearly as a thinly veiled threat to sue anyone who points out vulnerabilities in Microsoft products (UCITA, anyone?).
Oh crap! I was hoping it meant that Microsoft would release more secure software!
As someone who's married, I'm answering becuase I thought you might appreciate the perspective of someone who is not married to a geek.
My wife is fantastic and I wouldn't trade her for any other human being in the world. But to say that she's not a geek is an understatement. I look, with fond admiration at two friends of mine who are married to geeks. They have that in common, and they both can get excited about wiring their houses, or the new software that they've written or installed. Or the bug that they just squished.
My wife just doesn't get it. She doesn't get why I spend so much time in front of the computer. She doesn't get how working with computer software really gets me pumped up, and gives me feelings of accomplishment. She just doesn't get it, and it causes stress in our marriage. Fortunately, we're able to work it out.
Geek girls are starting to turn up more and more... however they're still exceedingly rare. The ability to share goals together and get excited over the same things will be much more important over the long run than the physical attractiveness of your spouse, which will inevitably decline. If you are a geek girl, you're sitting on a real gold mine. You'll be able to share the same sort of desires and get excited about the same thing as a *HUGE* number of men in the world. It's rare.
What I would like to know is, since Replay TV doesn't sell their program guide, then would they be opposed to someone else reverse engineering the service and providing a competing program guide? Or even better, handing out the specs so that someone else could easily provide a competing service. Personally, I'd like to see the program guides provided by the tv provider (i.e. your cable company or satelite provider). Why? Because then I know that both services will always be available simultaneously. I won't have to worry about getting a tv signal and not getting the program guide. Both will either work or fail. And if both fail, then I just switch to someone else who will provide both. With Tivo/Replay/Microsoft I might still get tv signal, but the program guide might go away. So clearly a competitive program guide is what I'd want.
But I don't think we'll ever see it. Clearly Tivo isn't going to do this, they want to sell the service. But I suspect that Replay won't do this either. Why? Because what they also want is the data that they download that tells them what you watched and when you watched it. They want the information about what programs interest you. They want the data about which commercials you skipped and which ones you watched. They want to know if you prefer the sports replays that the tv networks generate or the one that the PVR generates. They want to know who/what/where/when/why you watch TV.
Think about this. How can Tivo/Replay/Microsoft provide a service that needs to run forever, without corresponding income that gets generated forever? By selling the information gathered from the service to program providers, or advertisers or ??? Think this isn't a viable business model? Think of it as the same service that Nielson sells, but with tv viewers paying money to participate.
So with program guide going across an ethernet now, I imagine it's only a matter of time before the protocol is reversen engineered... unless of course, it's encrypted. And then it's only a matter of time before someone tries to hack the box to get the encryption secrets. And then it'll be only a matter of time before Replay/Tivo/et al, sue under the DMCA.
This will be an interesting next few years in the PVR world.
Prohibition almost never works. And certainly not when you are prohibiting something that anyone with even a tiny bit of smarts can do on their own.
When you said this, it reminded me of a
quote that I'd read in reference to the MP3/Napster brewhaha last year:
No law can be successfully imposed on a huge population that does not morally support it and possesses easy means for its invisible evasion. - John Perry Barlow, a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This is also pertinent here. How exactly does the government intend to enforce this law? Are they planning on trying to intercept and decrypt absolutely everything that goes by? It's just too easy to be able to violate this law w/out getting caught. So maybe I'm naive but I don't think that any such law can be effectively enforced.
Ok, I know that it's off topic, but now I do wonder why Hemos is so pre-occupied this morning. Let's see, he's not getting married,
saw that already. Having a baby?
Wait, did they release a new version of quake and nobody told me?
Inquiring minds... well ok, I'm just freaking nosey!
They care because the traffic generated by infected systems can be costly in both cash value and time. Not to mention the fact that there could be liability issues if they knew of infected systems but did nothing about it.
Besides, if there are 3 vulnerable systems on a network, and 1 infected system, the responsible thing to do is to protect the 3 remaining uninfected systems.
I don't believe that is the reason why the provider shutdown their customers. I believe the reason is that they have very specific expectations of bandwidth usage. And they use these expectations to create a nice little equation: for X broadband users we need to have f(X) available bandwidth from our service provider, where f(X) is significantly lower than sum(all user's subscription rates). So while they guarantee you 7x24 access (at whatever rate you paid for) they're only expecting you to be a user 1-2 hours a day, maybe 3-4 days a week. The virii turn your computer bandwidth usage into 7x24 at your subscribed rate. And this really screws up their equation. This is one of the reasons that several broadband providers don't allow you to have servers on your network. The usage patterns of your web server or email server are too unpredictable, and consequently they have to set a policy that forbids them.
If they don't know about, or stop the virii, they end up with bad trending data. The trending data is what they used to determine whether or not f(X) was reasonable. When the trending data changes, so does f(X), and they have to spend more money believing that they need more bandwidth. Failure to do this results in customers switching to another provider. This is *especially* true of DSL customers for whom other providers are nearly guaranteed to exist (since DSL has open access). So, when a provider know that the trending data is bad, they have one of two choices:
Fix the problem causing the bad trending data - i.e. turn off users who are infected. Hopefully, they will use good identification techniques to determine which users are actually infected. I wouldn't be surprised to see some providers who simply turn off any user who has used more than the expected bandwidth assuming that it must mean that they are infected.
Try and explain to their management why the trending data is bad, and why it's conclusions should be ignored. This of course has the added disadvantage that even though the data is bad, customers are still experiencing denial of service.
I guess I find myself agreeing with Taco, but only to a limited extent. The providers have to make at least some consession to the users who need to be able to download patches. It's easy for us in the *nix world to raise our noses at this. But don't forget that the very first Internet denial of service worm exploited sendmail. We're not immune. We're just not popular. And when the day comes that we are popular, I would like to think that there is a way for me to get the code that will resolve a problem that I didn't know I had.
Someone who actually uses Front Page needs to test this. They need to create a site that criticizes Microsoft, and loudly proclaims that the site uses Front Page. This someone has to have enough money to be able to defend themselves and then test this. This has *got* to be an unreasonable clause to put in a license agreement, and needs to be tested.
IANAL, but isn't there something in contract law that says that if you put a clause in a contract that is illegal, then the contract is null and void on its face. For example, I can't put a clause in a contract that says that you will become my slave if you agree to the contract. Slavery is illegal and no contract is allowed to supercede that (AFAIK).
So the fact that this exists, does it not render the license restrictions that MS is putting into place null and void? In other words, has MS just ceded their rights to control Front Page?
(Please chill on the flames. If I knew what I was talking about I wouldn't have had to ask!)
Re:Try be inovative instead of just replicate ?
on
Linux on the Desktop
·
· Score: 2
printing on a non-postscript printer still sucks in linux. It's more trouble than needed, and the results arent as nice as with NT.
Try using cups. It does a *very* good job of bringing printing in *nix to the same level of nice features that you see in winders and macos. I don't think it's all the way there, yet, but it's a dramatic improvement. Couple it with a large array of drivers from gimp-print and you've got a much more sane printing environment under *nix.
Thanks, Jon, for a very well written and very well reasoned piece on this topic. You are correct, that we need to remember that there are other rights to consider here than just rights to privacy, and free movement.
Still, I can't help but think that you've forgotten why those rights are granted. They're granted because we live in a country that was formed out of a history of oppression. Those rights are not there simply because people like them. They exist as safeguards and protections against the type of governments that oppress their people, that forbid them basic human rights. The rights to privacy ensure that our government can't simply weed out its detractors. It exists to prevent our government from becoming a powerful tyrant. It's already powerful, and it is through the vigilant exercise of our rights that it doesn't become a tyrant, capable of disposing of its detractors or those who might possibly restrict the exercise of that power.
I think you've written a great piece that needs to be part of the discussion. And I agree that some of our rights may need to be temporarily adjusted. But any sort of permanant abridgement of the basic rights that define our country is treading on very dangerous ground. The basic rights that I'm talking about, the ones that define our country, are set forth in our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the amendments to our Constitution. Any permanant restrictions of those rights will open up a threat that is at least as big as the threat of terrorist attack: a powerful and tyranical government with no restrictions on what it can and will do. And that threat is more insidious than terrorist attacks. It kills silently, not in one big explosion. It takes out people with very little fan fare, and whatever does happen to make the news, it spins into crime fighting, or outright suppresses altogether.
That threat is real. It's defenses have only existed for 225 years. The rest of human history is riddled with governments that tyranized their people. In our attempts to address a terrorist threat, we should not forget the other threats that we must always continue to address.
Re:Why is a civilian spouting off about war?
on
A New Kind of War
·
· Score: 1
Had the Military been allowed to do their job and fight that battle their own way, not so many people would have been killed. Instead, our brilliantly fucked up nation of civilians and politicians had way too much input and as a result way too much blood was shed.
Perhaps the conclusion that should be drawn from this is that our civilian population, who the military is ulitimately accountable to, did not want us to be in Vietnam. But the communication between the civilians and the elected officials who commanded the military broke down, as well as the communication between the elected officials and the military. Which basically left our military unsupported. They were asked to do a task by the president, who did not have a mandate by the people for this attack, and the president left the force that was already over there without sufficient support.
What happened in Vietnam was *not* because of complaints by civilians.
but if you aren't on the battle field, keep you fucking mouth shut and let those risking their lives make their own decisions.
I'm sorry to break this to you, but that's not the way our country works. That's not the military that our citizens participate in. The military that we have is accountable to the people. And when the people ask for an accounting, or are curious, or are fed up, "Shut the **** up" is not an appropriate response.
The military is accountable to the people. If you don't like it, that's too bad. What you want is a militant group of people accountable to no one. That's not our military. That's terrorism.
I don't plan on shutting the **** up. I would be ignoring my civic duty if I did so.
Re:Why is a civilian spouting off about war?
on
A New Kind of War
·
· Score: 2, Flamebait
Why is a civilian spouting off about war? Are you serious? Because ours is a government of the people by the people and for the people. NOT a goverment of the military, by the military and for the military.
Now, my reading of Katz's article is that he's just asking questions. But even if he was expressing concern or worry, or even if he was saying, let's go get them, why do you seem to think he shouldn't do that? It's just as much his government as it is yours.
Who would even begin to question whether or not the military knows more about making war than civilians? Certainly not I. But I *do* question whether or not the military should or shouldn't be used. And while the military may have good input on that question (like whether or not they think they'll be effective, what kind of effort a particular objective will take, etc) they can *NOT* all by themselves, say whether or not military action *SHOULD* happen. That is a job given to the President, who is accountable to ALL US CITIZENS (even *gasp* civilians).
Do you really think that, even now that we're in a heightened state, on the brink of war, that civilians don't count? I hope you are a minority representative of our military. Because you don't even know what you're fighting for.
What, it's only censorship if the government is doing it?
So what are you saying? That we need to make a law that forces Clear Channel to play those songs? To give equal time to that list? I hope that's not what you think.
If you're opposed to creating the law that forces certain songs to be played, then you are left to the will of the owner of the company to determine for themselves what they want or don't want to play. That's all there is to it. Either they have to freedom to choose which set of songs they want to play or they don't. Take your pick.
I have been waiting to hear public outcry about the restrictions of freedoms that the media says are coming. I've been waiting to find a voice that I can point to who would say, "Hey, restricting freedoms, temporarily in order to catch a criminal might be ok, but permanantly restricting freedoms is a problem." I've been waiting to read someone who points out that permanantly removing the freedoms afforded to US citizens puts those citizens in physical danger. A danger created by the risk of a government with too much power attempting to suppress or remove its detractors. I've been waiting to hear the voice of a sensible public figure stand up and say that destroying the freedoms that define america, by definition destroys america. And in doing so is a bigger threat to the safety of US citizens than any terrorist network. I've been waiting for someone to quote, much more loudly than I can, Benjamin Franklin who said that those of us who insist on security over freedom, will have, nor deserve neither.
I had hoped that RMS would provide the public voice I'd been waiting for.
It's too bad that he had to discredit all of his legitimate arguments with one tiny little phrase: "and your unelected president". I have little doubt that RMS sincerely believes the cheap shot, but it has nothing to do with what he's talking about. All he did was make his strong arguments no more valuable than his cheap shot.
At any rate, you didn't say in your (dated) original post what *you* had begun doing differently over the last week to account for the change in network behavior.
Yep that's true. Of course, until the previous poster mentioned libpcap and promiscuous mode, I didn't even realize that the problems started occurring about the same time that I started running snort. In part because I've run tcpdump and snort so many times on so many networks that putting a card into promiscuous mode seems a very normal part of everyday troubleshooting. I would have never guessed that this would create these kinds of problems on a token ring network.
Even if we have dedicated networks to homes, and even if those networks are deployed to everyone's home like telephones, and even if we create this cryptographically secure database, how do we prevent someone from getting information out of it, and then reselling that information to someone else?
I think that this guy has an interesting idea, but I don't think that it's necessarily a solution for the privacy problem. I do very much like the idea of flipping a switch on my home PC to invite people to advertise to me for services that I need at the current time (e.g. my washer just broke and I need a new one). But how do I then prevent the phone number, contact information, interests, etc that I just gave out to Sears (et al) from getting stored in their own database and being resold to someone else?
Did I miss something in the article that addressed this?
Geez am I glad I don't know you. You go around whacking people, and then after doing it you're not entirely certain that the thing they did, which prompted the whack, is bad!
You caused all this trouble and let Linux take the blame. Shame on you. Linux did only what it was told to do.
You're correct. That is why the last question of my post was: "How should I have done this differently so that using Linux would have been a more positive experience for my company?" From the start, my assumption was that I, without trying, made Linux look bad. My goal in posting this to/. was to share this experience so that it can be avoided in the future... by me and others who either are making the same mistake right now, or are about to.
Still, Linux was *not* doing what I asked it to do. I certainly did not ask it to generate ring errors when I put the card into promiscuous mode. I should just as soon expect that you're going to tell me that reading an email in outlook that spams all of the addresses is my fault.
While I should take much of the blame for doing something w/out fully understanding the ramifications of it, the underlying code can't get off scott free for behaving badly when performing a normal task.
A "receiver congestion" error is caused when the Linux driver doesn't remove packets from the card's buffers fast enough. In theory, they are suppose to indicate that packets are coming in too fast for the machine to handle. In practice, you see this happen when machines "hang" and fail to empty their queues. You might be running some sort of libpcap packet-sniffer on the system or have the adapter running in promiscuous mode (do an ifconfig to check) that is having some sort of pathelogical condition.
Wow! This has *got* to be what the problem was. This problem started showing up right around the time of the big Code Red hubub. So I installed snort just to watch and see what was going on. Snort, of course, uses libpcap and puts the card into promiscuous mode. Right afterwards, is when we started seeing problems on the network.
My guess is that your admins are just getting testy over the fact that your Linux box re-inserts itself more often than Windows boxen, causing a higher number of relatively harmless burst-errors. When they diagnose problems with the ring, they notice that your machine causes the highest number of errors, and therefore blamr any ring failure on you.
Holy schnikies! You must have been in the room! That is *exactly* what happened. They discovered these errors and basically said that the errors were the *only* thing that they could see that was wrong with the network. From this they concluded that the problem must have been caused by my running Linux.
About the only thing that does not fit, is that since I've stopped running Linux on the network at work, the problem has completely gone away. Not a single recurrance in several weeks time (I actually submitted this article to/. many weeks ago. Why it took so long to get accepted, I dunno.) They did, as part of their process of troubleshooting replace all of the TR equipment in the closet. But even after they did that, we were still having problems. So far the only thing that seems to have fixed this problem was me staying out of Linux.
The point I made, which you fail to address at all, is that abortion was not the issue of this article.
Abortion my not be the issue of the article, and I acknowledged that. But your post is criticizing some other post. To which I respond: If you thought it was murder, how would you react?
If you're going to criticize someone for ignoring a point in an article, that's fine. But you are not now free of criticism! I don't really care if the article did or did not talk directly about abortion. You lambasted that person for his/her reaction to it. You now think you get a free ride? If it's fair of you to criticize that person's reaction, it's fair of me to criticize your criticism.
This story is providing a nice little showcase of how pro-lifers are so fixated on a single topic that they are incapable of grasping a reality with a broader context. Thanks, I've never been more confidently pro-choice.
If you believed that abortion was murder, how would you react to it?
Let me put it another way. The story is about mothers who want additional information about their babies prior to birth. Some of those mothers will use this information to prepare as much as possible for the fact that they're going to have a baby with special needs. Others will decide other options, possibly to abort the baby. Let's suppose that it's a different set of tests. It's a set of tests that you do after the baby is born to determine whether or not that child is going to be autistic. (To my knowledge no such test exists - this is hypothetical.) Wouldn't you be offended at the idea that some are running these tests for the purposes of trying to determine whether or not to kill their children?
The point is that you shouldn't jump down the pro-lifers throats because they think that a murder might be committed. That's what they think, trying to protect the person being murdered is a more than reasonable reaction. If you disagree with them, disuss why you think that it's not a murder. Discuss why you think it is a legitmate choice.
Can't we once and for all, address what the real issue is in abortion: Is a fetus a life? Every thing else depends on how you answer that question. So let's talk about that question.
The public's reaction to the WTC terrorist attack can -- and probably will -- turn just as ugly as before: there are people clamouring to kick out American citizens based on their religion ("Muslims out") and people calling for the complete destruction of the mid-East, even though the mid-East isn't a homogenous society and even though most of the citizens over there aren't guilty.
Of course, you're correct. It's not a good reaction to this to assume that all muslims are guilty by association. Still, I have not yet seen any reaction on/. anything close to what you're suggesting. But I have seen a *LOT* of reaction that the previous poster pointed out. Specifically, that we should *not* retaliate because of fear of the escalation.
You've put up a nice strawman, and then knocked it down, but you haven't given a single argument about what the previous poster was saying. His or her argument was that a response is called for, and that we as a nation can no longer tolerate the actions of terrorism. And not only that we can no longer tolerate the rogue nations who harbor and encourage terrorism. They are contributing to the problem.
Yes it'd be nice to figure out why the US is so thoroughly hated. But there are some things that you're ignoring.
Some people are irrational and hate you for no good reason. No amount of discussion with them will ever change that. And if they hate you, that's fine. Discuss with them all you want... up until they act out that hate. Then response is not only justified, it's demanded.
Some people will not discuss with you why they hate you. Or they won't use the standard mechanisms for airing their grievances. Terrorism falls squarely in this category, and countries and groups that make use of it have been given ample oppurtunity to communicate. Terroristic acts are done either because the terrorist hasn't tried to communicate, or hasn't been successful at convincing others of his point of view. Neither are justification for this type of violence.
You don't go up to a guy who's actively threatening you with a knife and ask him how he's feeling. You either pull out larger weaponry and defend yourself, or run and let him win.
I think that there is value in establishing communications with these countries. I'm sure that the US would welcome legitimate diplomacy. But recognize that there's only so far that diplomacy can go and there is a time to fight. And since they pulled out the knife, and already used it, it's time to fight.
I did this same exact thing. I eventually figured out that OpenSSH will default to protocol 2 before protocol 1. Since you're generating an RSA key, that's a protocol 1 feature. Which means, that first, you have to copy the correct key, which should be "identity.pub" and install it in "~/.ssh/authorized_keys".
Then on your local machine, you have to specify that you want to use protocol 1. This can be done by specifying '-1' on the command line or by editing $HOME/.ssh/config and putting in:
Host *
Protocol 1,2
The alternative, is not to generate an RSA key, but to generate a DSA key, and then do exactly what you're doing.
Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch said he got about 300 of those. "It's sleazy," Hatch said. "This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries."
Hatch responded with his own mailings to the senders, explaining his position.
Some of the recipients wrote back by hand, apologizing for passing along the Microsoft-inspired letters. "I sure was misled," one wrote. "It's time for you to get out there & kick butt."
Now I'd like to know what Hatch's letter said to inspire such a turnaround. Anyone have a copy?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh crap! I was hoping it meant that Microsoft would release more secure software!
As someone who's married, I'm answering becuase I thought you might appreciate the perspective of someone who is not married to a geek.
My wife is fantastic and I wouldn't trade her for any other human being in the world. But to say that she's not a geek is an understatement. I look, with fond admiration at two friends of mine who are married to geeks. They have that in common, and they both can get excited about wiring their houses, or the new software that they've written or installed. Or the bug that they just squished.
My wife just doesn't get it. She doesn't get why I spend so much time in front of the computer. She doesn't get how working with computer software really gets me pumped up, and gives me feelings of accomplishment. She just doesn't get it, and it causes stress in our marriage. Fortunately, we're able to work it out.
Geek girls are starting to turn up more and more... however they're still exceedingly rare. The ability to share goals together and get excited over the same things will be much more important over the long run than the physical attractiveness of your spouse, which will inevitably decline. If you are a geek girl, you're sitting on a real gold mine. You'll be able to share the same sort of desires and get excited about the same thing as a *HUGE* number of men in the world. It's rare.
Good luck.
What I would like to know is, since Replay TV doesn't sell their program guide, then would they be opposed to someone else reverse engineering the service and providing a competing program guide? Or even better, handing out the specs so that someone else could easily provide a competing service. Personally, I'd like to see the program guides provided by the tv provider (i.e. your cable company or satelite provider). Why? Because then I know that both services will always be available simultaneously. I won't have to worry about getting a tv signal and not getting the program guide. Both will either work or fail. And if both fail, then I just switch to someone else who will provide both. With Tivo/Replay/Microsoft I might still get tv signal, but the program guide might go away. So clearly a competitive program guide is what I'd want.
But I don't think we'll ever see it. Clearly Tivo isn't going to do this, they want to sell the service. But I suspect that Replay won't do this either. Why? Because what they also want is the data that they download that tells them what you watched and when you watched it. They want the information about what programs interest you. They want the data about which commercials you skipped and which ones you watched. They want to know if you prefer the sports replays that the tv networks generate or the one that the PVR generates. They want to know who/what/where/when/why you watch TV.
Think about this. How can Tivo/Replay/Microsoft provide a service that needs to run forever, without corresponding income that gets generated forever? By selling the information gathered from the service to program providers, or advertisers or ??? Think this isn't a viable business model? Think of it as the same service that Nielson sells, but with tv viewers paying money to participate.
So with program guide going across an ethernet now, I imagine it's only a matter of time before the protocol is reversen engineered... unless of course, it's encrypted. And then it's only a matter of time before someone tries to hack the box to get the encryption secrets. And then it'll be only a matter of time before Replay/Tivo/et al, sue under the DMCA.
This will be an interesting next few years in the PVR world.
This is also pertinent here. How exactly does the government intend to enforce this law? Are they planning on trying to intercept and decrypt absolutely everything that goes by? It's just too easy to be able to violate this law w/out getting caught. So maybe I'm naive but I don't think that any such law can be effectively enforced.
Wait, did they release a new version of quake and nobody told me?
Inquiring minds ... well ok, I'm just freaking nosey!
I don't believe that is the reason why the provider shutdown their customers. I believe the reason is that they have very specific expectations of bandwidth usage. And they use these expectations to create a nice little equation: for X broadband users we need to have f(X) available bandwidth from our service provider, where f(X) is significantly lower than sum(all user's subscription rates). So while they guarantee you 7x24 access (at whatever rate you paid for) they're only expecting you to be a user 1-2 hours a day, maybe 3-4 days a week. The virii turn your computer bandwidth usage into 7x24 at your subscribed rate. And this really screws up their equation. This is one of the reasons that several broadband providers don't allow you to have servers on your network. The usage patterns of your web server or email server are too unpredictable, and consequently they have to set a policy that forbids them.
If they don't know about, or stop the virii, they end up with bad trending data. The trending data is what they used to determine whether or not f(X) was reasonable. When the trending data changes, so does f(X), and they have to spend more money believing that they need more bandwidth. Failure to do this results in customers switching to another provider. This is *especially* true of DSL customers for whom other providers are nearly guaranteed to exist (since DSL has open access). So, when a provider know that the trending data is bad, they have one of two choices:
I guess I find myself agreeing with Taco, but only to a limited extent. The providers have to make at least some consession to the users who need to be able to download patches. It's easy for us in the *nix world to raise our noses at this. But don't forget that the very first Internet denial of service worm exploited sendmail. We're not immune. We're just not popular. And when the day comes that we are popular, I would like to think that there is a way for me to get the code that will resolve a problem that I didn't know I had.
Someone who actually uses Front Page needs to test this. They need to create a site that criticizes Microsoft, and loudly proclaims that the site uses Front Page. This someone has to have enough money to be able to defend themselves and then test this. This has *got* to be an unreasonable clause to put in a license agreement, and needs to be tested.
I officially un-volunteer! (Not enough $$)
So the fact that this exists, does it not render the license restrictions that MS is putting into place null and void? In other words, has MS just ceded their rights to control Front Page?
(Please chill on the flames. If I knew what I was talking about I wouldn't have had to ask!)
Try using cups. It does a *very* good job of bringing printing in *nix to the same level of nice features that you see in winders and macos. I don't think it's all the way there, yet, but it's a dramatic improvement. Couple it with a large array of drivers from gimp-print and you've got a much more sane printing environment under *nix.
Still, I can't help but think that you've forgotten why those rights are granted. They're granted because we live in a country that was formed out of a history of oppression. Those rights are not there simply because people like them. They exist as safeguards and protections against the type of governments that oppress their people, that forbid them basic human rights. The rights to privacy ensure that our government can't simply weed out its detractors. It exists to prevent our government from becoming a powerful tyrant. It's already powerful, and it is through the vigilant exercise of our rights that it doesn't become a tyrant, capable of disposing of its detractors or those who might possibly restrict the exercise of that power.
I think you've written a great piece that needs to be part of the discussion. And I agree that some of our rights may need to be temporarily adjusted. But any sort of permanant abridgement of the basic rights that define our country is treading on very dangerous ground. The basic rights that I'm talking about, the ones that define our country, are set forth in our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the amendments to our Constitution. Any permanant restrictions of those rights will open up a threat that is at least as big as the threat of terrorist attack: a powerful and tyranical government with no restrictions on what it can and will do. And that threat is more insidious than terrorist attacks. It kills silently, not in one big explosion. It takes out people with very little fan fare, and whatever does happen to make the news, it spins into crime fighting, or outright suppresses altogether.
That threat is real. It's defenses have only existed for 225 years. The rest of human history is riddled with governments that tyranized their people. In our attempts to address a terrorist threat, we should not forget the other threats that we must always continue to address.
Perhaps the conclusion that should be drawn from this is that our civilian population, who the military is ulitimately accountable to, did not want us to be in Vietnam. But the communication between the civilians and the elected officials who commanded the military broke down, as well as the communication between the elected officials and the military. Which basically left our military unsupported. They were asked to do a task by the president, who did not have a mandate by the people for this attack, and the president left the force that was already over there without sufficient support.
What happened in Vietnam was *not* because of complaints by civilians.
I'm sorry to break this to you, but that's not the way our country works. That's not the military that our citizens participate in. The military that we have is accountable to the people. And when the people ask for an accounting, or are curious, or are fed up, "Shut the **** up" is not an appropriate response.
The military is accountable to the people. If you don't like it, that's too bad. What you want is a militant group of people accountable to no one. That's not our military. That's terrorism.
I don't plan on shutting the **** up. I would be ignoring my civic duty if I did so.
Why is a civilian spouting off about war? Are you serious? Because ours is a government of the people by the people and for the people. NOT a goverment of the military, by the military and for the military.
Now, my reading of Katz's article is that he's just asking questions. But even if he was expressing concern or worry, or even if he was saying, let's go get them, why do you seem to think he shouldn't do that? It's just as much his government as it is yours.
Who would even begin to question whether or not the military knows more about making war than civilians? Certainly not I. But I *do* question whether or not the military should or shouldn't be used. And while the military may have good input on that question (like whether or not they think they'll be effective, what kind of effort a particular objective will take, etc) they can *NOT* all by themselves, say whether or not military action *SHOULD* happen. That is a job given to the President, who is accountable to ALL US CITIZENS (even *gasp* civilians).
Do you really think that, even now that we're in a heightened state, on the brink of war, that civilians don't count? I hope you are a minority representative of our military. Because you don't even know what you're fighting for.
So what are you saying? That we need to make a law that forces Clear Channel to play those songs? To give equal time to that list? I hope that's not what you think.
If you're opposed to creating the law that forces certain songs to be played, then you are left to the will of the owner of the company to determine for themselves what they want or don't want to play. That's all there is to it. Either they have to freedom to choose which set of songs they want to play or they don't. Take your pick.
Either way, this isn't censorship.
I have been waiting to hear public outcry about the restrictions of freedoms that the media says are coming. I've been waiting to find a voice that I can point to who would say, "Hey, restricting freedoms, temporarily in order to catch a criminal might be ok, but permanantly restricting freedoms is a problem." I've been waiting to read someone who points out that permanantly removing the freedoms afforded to US citizens puts those citizens in physical danger. A danger created by the risk of a government with too much power attempting to suppress or remove its detractors. I've been waiting to hear the voice of a sensible public figure stand up and say that destroying the freedoms that define america, by definition destroys america. And in doing so is a bigger threat to the safety of US citizens than any terrorist network. I've been waiting for someone to quote, much more loudly than I can, Benjamin Franklin who said that those of us who insist on security over freedom, will have, nor deserve neither.
I had hoped that RMS would provide the public voice I'd been waiting for.
It's too bad that he had to discredit all of his legitimate arguments with one tiny little phrase: "and your unelected president". I have little doubt that RMS sincerely believes the cheap shot, but it has nothing to do with what he's talking about. All he did was make his strong arguments no more valuable than his cheap shot.
Difference of opinion noted.
Yep that's true. Of course, until the previous poster mentioned libpcap and promiscuous mode, I didn't even realize that the problems started occurring about the same time that I started running snort. In part because I've run tcpdump and snort so many times on so many networks that putting a card into promiscuous mode seems a very normal part of everyday troubleshooting. I would have never guessed that this would create these kinds of problems on a token ring network.
Even if we have dedicated networks to homes, and even if those networks are deployed to everyone's home like telephones, and even if we create this cryptographically secure database, how do we prevent someone from getting information out of it, and then reselling that information to someone else?
I think that this guy has an interesting idea, but I don't think that it's necessarily a solution for the privacy problem. I do very much like the idea of flipping a switch on my home PC to invite people to advertise to me for services that I need at the current time (e.g. my washer just broke and I need a new one). But how do I then prevent the phone number, contact information, interests, etc that I just gave out to Sears (et al) from getting stored in their own database and being resold to someone else?
Did I miss something in the article that addressed this?
Geez am I glad I don't know you. You go around whacking people, and then after doing it you're not entirely certain that the thing they did, which prompted the whack, is bad!
Shoot first, ask questions later, huh?
You're correct. That is why the last question of my post was: "How should I have done this differently so that using Linux would have been a more positive experience for my company?" From the start, my assumption was that I, without trying, made Linux look bad. My goal in posting this to /. was to share this experience so that it can be avoided in the future... by me and others who either are making the same mistake right now, or are about to.
Still, Linux was *not* doing what I asked it to do. I certainly did not ask it to generate ring errors when I put the card into promiscuous mode. I should just as soon expect that you're going to tell me that reading an email in outlook that spams all of the addresses is my fault.
While I should take much of the blame for doing something w/out fully understanding the ramifications of it, the underlying code can't get off scott free for behaving badly when performing a normal task.
Wow! This has *got* to be what the problem was. This problem started showing up right around the time of the big Code Red hubub. So I installed snort just to watch and see what was going on. Snort, of course, uses libpcap and puts the card into promiscuous mode. Right afterwards, is when we started seeing problems on the network.
Holy schnikies! You must have been in the room! That is *exactly* what happened. They discovered these errors and basically said that the errors were the *only* thing that they could see that was wrong with the network. From this they concluded that the problem must have been caused by my running Linux.
About the only thing that does not fit, is that since I've stopped running Linux on the network at work, the problem has completely gone away. Not a single recurrance in several weeks time (I actually submitted this article to /. many weeks ago. Why it took so long to get accepted, I dunno.) They did, as part of their process of troubleshooting replace all of the TR equipment in the closet. But even after they did that, we were still having problems. So far the only thing that seems to have fixed this problem was me staying out of Linux.
Thanks for you're very informative post!
If you're going to criticize someone for ignoring a point in an article, that's fine. But you are not now free of criticism! I don't really care if the article did or did not talk directly about abortion. You lambasted that person for his/her reaction to it. You now think you get a free ride? If it's fair of you to criticize that person's reaction, it's fair of me to criticize your criticism.
Let me put it another way. The story is about mothers who want additional information about their babies prior to birth. Some of those mothers will use this information to prepare as much as possible for the fact that they're going to have a baby with special needs. Others will decide other options, possibly to abort the baby. Let's suppose that it's a different set of tests. It's a set of tests that you do after the baby is born to determine whether or not that child is going to be autistic. (To my knowledge no such test exists - this is hypothetical.) Wouldn't you be offended at the idea that some are running these tests for the purposes of trying to determine whether or not to kill their children?
The point is that you shouldn't jump down the pro-lifers throats because they think that a murder might be committed. That's what they think, trying to protect the person being murdered is a more than reasonable reaction. If you disagree with them, disuss why you think that it's not a murder. Discuss why you think it is a legitmate choice.
Can't we once and for all, address what the real issue is in abortion: Is a fetus a life? Every thing else depends on how you answer that question. So let's talk about that question.
If there were a moderation option "Banned: -1000", I would have used it on you.
Of course, you're correct. It's not a good reaction to this to assume that all muslims are guilty by association. Still, I have not yet seen any reaction on /. anything close to what you're suggesting. But I have seen a *LOT* of reaction that the previous poster pointed out. Specifically, that we should *not* retaliate because of fear of the escalation.
You've put up a nice strawman, and then knocked it down, but you haven't given a single argument about what the previous poster was saying. His or her argument was that a response is called for, and that we as a nation can no longer tolerate the actions of terrorism. And not only that we can no longer tolerate the rogue nations who harbor and encourage terrorism. They are contributing to the problem.
Yes it'd be nice to figure out why the US is so thoroughly hated. But there are some things that you're ignoring.
I think that there is value in establishing communications with these countries. I'm sure that the US would welcome legitimate diplomacy. But recognize that there's only so far that diplomacy can go and there is a time to fight. And since they pulled out the knife, and already used it, it's time to fight.
Then on your local machine, you have to specify that you want to use protocol 1. This can be done by specifying '-1' on the command line or by editing $HOME/.ssh/config and putting in:
The alternative, is not to generate an RSA key, but to generate a DSA key, and then do exactly what you're doing.Hope this is helpful.
Now I'd like to know what Hatch's letter said to inspire such a turnaround. Anyone have a copy?