I didn't read TFA, but I still think I can provide some interesting insights.
First of all, I have my own reasons for not wanting to use certain "new" communication methods. A particularly strong one is resentment. Many "new" communication methods do the same thing that existing methods do, only worse. For example, the new method might be technically inferior because they use the wrong tool for the job, they might be limiting because they only allow certain types of use, where the existing tools were more flexible, or they might use proprietary protocols where the existing tools used open protocols.
I don't like it when the new, inferior solution gets hugely popular, and then people think I'm weird for not wanting to participate. It is they who didn't participate in the existing system when it was there - and it is _because_ they jumped on the bandwagon of the new, incompatible system that this is even an issue. If people had stuck with the existing system, or if the new system had been compatible with the old system, or if the new system had been so much better that users of the old system all jumpd ship, there wouldn't have been any issue.
For some reason, people don't understand this. They just expect me to sign up with the cool, new thing, or be left out. Not that they would be willing to try the existing, old thing...why jump through all the hoops to start using this thing that nobody else uses, when all it will do is give you _two_ accounts that you have to maintain and all that? I understand that point very well, of course, the more because it is often the exact same situation _I_ am faced with!
Sometimes, I quit bitching and just sign up already. I, too, want to stay in touch with friends, after all. Sometimes, I moan and rant until people get so annoyed they never bring up the subject again. And, on rare occassions, I actually manage to convince them that my way is really better. But, usually, it's a lost cause. Once enough people have started using the new system, there is no going back, because they are locked in. And me, I just feel like a grumpy, old, bearded hacker who thinks he knows better than everyone else - but all he's ever accomplished is alienating himself from many who might otherwise have been his friends.
But hey, it's not all gloom and doom! I have a job that I love, where I get to use Debian and work with open source all day, and people actually appreciate my insights. Because, in business, you may stay afloat by doing the same thing as everybody else...but you only _really_ win by being _better_. And no, I don't have the illusion that my ideas are always the best - but, I try hard to make them as good as they can be, and sometimes, that leads to new insights that improve things for everyone. That is something that really makes me a _happy_ bearded hacker.
I don't understand why people seem to use the label "climate change" against the people who warn against it. Perhaps, indeed, the "global warming" movement of yesteryear has changed its terminology to "climate change", but why would that discredit them? To me, it seems that "climate change" is simply a better term. After all, if we manage to wipe ourselves out by causing climate change, it won't matter if it was because we made it too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, or too radcliffy.
The real question isn't wether you like the "climate change" doomsayers or the words they use. The real question is if our activities are harming the environment to the extent that we should be worried about it, and, if so, what we can do to improve things. Launching ad hominems at the people who are pointing out a potential threat doesn't do anything to make the world a better place. What we need is more awareness and less bias. In the meantime, I will work on reducing the emissions I cause, not just to be on the safe side, but also because I think it is a fun challenge. I don't _know_ the truth, so I won't condemn you for driving an SUV or using incandescent light bulbs if you are so inclined, but I will be angry with you for insulting the people who are trying to warn you, especially if it turns out they were right.
Incidentally, I think that the effects of global warming are much more obvious in other aspects of the climate than in average temperature; for example, a barely noticeable increase of a few degrees in average temperature could bring about a much stronger increase in rain and storms. But that's just what I think, based on things I heard, so don't take my word for it. Do your own research...and not just to find publications that agree with you, but to actually find out the truth. I think you will find that the issue is much more complex than "only idiots believe in climate change" or "only idiots deny climate change".
``Our desire for cheap international trade based around largely uninspected shipping containers exposes us to an enormous risk.''
The counter point to this is that while, indeed, the system is far from secure, things seem to be going alright.
I find this is the key difference between Real World security and computer security. In computer security, weaknesses, once known, _will_ be exploited on a massive scale. In the Real World, things are often far less grave. This explains both why so few people get computer security right (applying a Real World "it will be ok" attitude to computer security is a mistake), and why I think people should just relax and not worry so much about, for example, terrorists blowing up airplanes.
Security should, at least in my opinion, always be a cost-benefit trade-off. More severe security measures can reduce the risk of a disastrous security breach, but security measures incur their own cost, which you pay every day, even if no security breach is even attempted. The trick is finding the right balance.
Of course, it isn't a very comfortable idea that you or your friends might be blown up anytime, or get ruined by identity fraud, but I'd honestly rather live with that idea than to spend my life locked up in my house, afraid to go out because the bus might be blown up, and afraid to order anything online because my credit card data could be stolen...and _still_ run the risk to get killed in an earthquake.
``Actually, it is hogwash, but only because of the wildly silly implication that they ever weren't in a common framework of understanding.''
That was my first though, as well.
However, there is a qualification to make. Namely, it depends on the scope of the framework. If you make the scope large enough, _everything_ falls within it, but it will also make the framewore insanely complex and difficult to work with.
In practice, we use simplifications. And this is where the scope of the framework becomes important. Because the simplifications, while technically wrong, can still give useful results. For example, simply adding velocities works well, as long as the velocities are much smaller than the speed of light. Hydrogen is not always gaseous, but good results can be gotten under most circumstances by assuming that it is. Or even by assuming that it is an ideal gas. And so on. So, depending on the specific assumptions you make, your framework may be more or less widely applicable.
What is interesting about a common framework that correctly predicts events on both Earth and Venus is that it tests cases that may not have been tested before. Some conditions may be so common on Earth that the behavior they elicit is taken for granted by Earth-based scientists. On Venus, these circumstances may not be present. This will test our theories under circumstances we may never have thought of. This, in turn, may lead to better understanding.
Indeed, this has always been Microsoft's strategy, and it has worked wonders for them. At least from Windows 95 onwards; I wasn't much following events before that.
Before Windows 95 was released, IBM had already released OS/2 Warp. It was 32-bit, could run legacy DOS and Windows (16-bit) apps, had a GUI, did multitasking, etc. etc. People could have used OS/2 (by the way, that's IBM OS/2, rather than Microsoft OS/2, which later became Windows NT). But they didn't. Everyone was waiting for the All Glorious Windows 95, which would soon be there, and which would be the best thing since sliced bread. Nay, better than that. It would be better than sliced bread!
Then Windows 95 was released. It was a memory hog. It crashed all the time. It wasn't compatible with lots of existing hardware (in all honesty, I think that went for OS/2, too).
Ever since then, Microsoft's operating system releases have been "not as good as people expected, but the concerns will be addressed in the next release". The conventional wisdom became not to upgrade to a new Microsoft OS immediately, but wait for the first service pack. Leading up to every OS release, there has been a huge media circus. Remember the Windows 98 that crashed while Bill Gates was showing it to the world? Media circus.
Windows Vista was no different. For years before the release, the Internet had been abuzz with stories about the exciting new features that would be in Vista (most of those never made it in, by the way). In the days leading up to the release, the media were going absolutely nuts. _Every_ newspaper and _every_ TV channel I saw at the time devoted a lot of attention to the upcoming Windows version.
And then it was released. And the reports started pouring in. Amid all the negativity, I managed to notice that, at least, the new Aero interface was very pretty. But I know of nobody who wants to get Vista. People are either apathic or want to stay away from it as far as they can. Vista is a fiasco.
I really wonder where people are going to go next. Upgrade to Vista when support for XP finally runs out? Or decide it's time to get out of the threadmill and try an OS from a different organization? Or perhaps Microsoft will play it's favorite trick again...pour out a torrent of magic dust that has everybody holding their breath for the _next_ Microsoft OS, which is going to be the best thing since Windows 95...nay, better!
Hey, you know what? All those legacy Windows apps run just fine on my Linux system. That is, when run on real Windows running on a virtual machine.
We don't have to wait for Windows 7 to get the dramatic departure and everything-better OS. It's already there. And if you have a copy of Windows now, you can also continue to run your Windows apps. Full backward compatibility! All that can be had today, without having to pay a penny.
And it wasn't his _identity_ that was used fraudulently, either. It was the _credentials_, based on which people wrongly assumed they were dealing with Simon Bunce.
Your _identity_ cannot be stolen. It is _identical_ with you.
Your _credentials_ can be stolen and/or copied.
Once someone has your credentials, they can _authenticate_ as you. That is, they show the credentials to a person or system, and that person or system then believes they are you.
Once they have authenticated as you, they will be _authorized_ to perform every action you are authorized to perform.
In practice, people can also get these authorizations through other means, e.g. by _exploiting security holes_ in software or through _social engineering_ (i.e. simply asking someone to authorize them).
_Logging_ and _auditing_ can and should be used to record what happened and investigate where things went wrong if something bad happened.
And now to connect this crash course in security terminology back to the Real World: if it has been recorded that someone was authorized to perform actions normally reserved to you at a certain time, and you can show it couldn't have been you (e.g. that person was at an ATM, but you were in a conference on the other side of the country at the time), you can make a pretty strong case that _you_ didn't perform those actions.
Unfortunately, in current society, organizations typically are as closed as they can be, which means you don't even get that chance at proving it wasn't you. And that is if they even have good logging and auditing in place.
``How society prosecutes child pornography... like a lynch mob: guilty until proven innocent and no recompense for those poor souls that did not deserve to be labeled and treated like some monster.''
I think that is the key point here, and it does not just apply to child pornography. There is a widespread tendency to make the mental leap from "has been arrested on charges of X" to "is guilty of X". And it's not even that strange: assuming the police and department of justice, etc. are doing their jobs decently, the people arrested will often be the people who committed the crime.
Similarly, when you are a company about to hire somebody, it makes sense that you would want to know how trustworthy this person is. If you run a background check on that person and find that they have been involved in crimes, have very high debts, etc., it makes sense that you would be hesitant to hire them.
Unfortunately, these things can make it very difficult for people whose credentials have been abused to function normally in society. How do you change the minds of people once they have decided that you are a criminal? They might as well not trust anything you say. How do you clear the debts someone made in your name, when employers refuse to hire you because of these debts? It's impossible to live a normal life once you get into this situation.
To counter these problems, it is very important that recourse is provided for people whose credentials have been abused. We're talking about destroyed lives here. Someone is responsible for abusing the credentials of the person whose life has been ruined, and someone (or some entity) is responsible for allowing these credentials to fall into the hands of the abuser. Perhaps there is a role here for government, too.
Since I think it is a delusion to think that identity theft is going away, here's what I like to happen:
1. Ensure that there is a way for victims to demonstrate that their credentials have been abused. _You_ know what you have done, you shouldn't hit walls where people tell you "the system says you did X, therefore, you did X, whatever you say". We need to spread awareness that systems _are_ fallible and provide ways to _detect_ and _correct_ mistakes.
2. Provide compensation for victims. If someone else commits a crime or incurs a debt in your name, it isn't your fault. However, you will almost certainly get the blame. Your reputation will be damaged. Your life will be affected. You will bear the pain. You will have to make the effort, and the cost, of cleaning up the mess. But it wasn't your fault. You should be compensated for this. Not just get your monetary costs covered, but also get an official statement that it wasn't your fault, and a compensation for the nonmonetary damages.
3. Punish the guilty. If your credentials are abused by someone else, it is always a combination of (1) some person or entity being careless, so that the credentials could be obtained by the abuser, and (2) someone obtaining and abusing the credentials. These people or entities are the real culprits. They must be held responsible for the damage they caused. If they can be identified, they must be made to pay. This is what will encourage organizations to more securely handle credentials and what will discourage would-be abusers of said credentials.
4. Identify the weak spots in current authentication mechanisms and propose solutions. It is not enough to say that "the use of SSNs for pretty much everything under the Sun is a horrible idea" or "Real ID sucks". Point out the weaknesses, and, very importantly, point out how they can be fixed. You can't expect governments and other organizations to get this right if they have to come up with the solutions themselves. Even if they have the best of intentions, the simple truth is that most people don't have the necessary understanding of information security.
Most importantly, we need to raise awareness of these issues. For this, I commend the BBC on reporting this story. Identity fraud is real, and it could happen to you. Your interest here is getting the system improved _before_ you become a victim.
I've been impressed by Konqueror. I don't know how it compares to the new Firefox, but compared to Firefox 2.0.0.12, Konqueror 3.5.5 eats up a _lot_ less memory and runs noticeably faster. And, contrary to Opera, it is open source. I've run 3.x versions of Konqueror on machines with 64 MB memory and 200 MHz Pentium MMX CPUs...I don't know how that compares to the OLPC, but it may work. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes.
How does Konqueror stack up? I've been using Konqueror ever since I discovered it uses much less memory and (thus?) runs faster than Firefox. Now with the improvements in those areas for Firefox, this may no longer be true. Does anyone have numbers?
``Since when did memory usage become such a big deal?''
I think it has pretty much always been a big deal. Unless you have plenty of memory, memory is likely to be the limiting factor on the performance of your system. In extreme cases, memory shortage can cause programs to not work at all. Firefox has been a notorious memory hog. So I am _very_ glad to see this addressed. I might actually start using it again.
Isn't there a system that allows distributed content distribution, where, rather than a site being served by a single server, the same site can be served by a number of different servers? Preferably with participants in the system automagically becoming servers when demand increases? Sort of like Bittorrent, where more downloaders means more uploaders?
If not, we should probably start creating such a system. Sites like Wikipedia and Wikileaks seem to survive without it - but with lots of headaches about funding the hosting and bandwidth bills. If we could take that load off such sites' shoulders, I feel that would be a Good Thing.
Tips for getting rid of a marketer once you have one on the phone are helpful, but the real question is how to stop them from disturbing the peace of your home and disrupting your concentration in the first place.
Let's not pretend this is something specific to Microsoft. Apple, Debian, the BSDs...everybody phases out old versions of the OS after some time. Microsoft actually supports their operating systems for a very long time.
On the other hand, an upgrade from one Microsoft OS to the next is often much more disruptive (to your system and to your wallet) than upgrades to some other OSes. For example, Debian upgrades are free and usually very smooth.
Plus, the free operating systems are largely mix and match. You don't have to accept the package as a whole. With Apple and Microsoft, for example, if they decide to litter their new OS with DRM or other junk, your choices are to accept it or to not use the new OS. With, say, Linux or OpenBSD, you can just leave out the parts you don't want (usually by simply not installing them. in the very worst case, you will have to edit the source and recompile - but at least you _can_ do that).
``I think that the only way community wifi is going to work is if it is community-run, not-for-profit, and vendor independent.''
There, I emphasized that, because I think it's the most important part. Whoever runs the operation, there is always a chance that they will turn against you. Not being dependent on them lowers the chance that they will and leaves you free to find an alternative if they still do. Vendor-independence is a Good Thing everywhere, not just for community wifi.
This is just sad. It just screams one thing at me:
If we fail to keep our heads above the water by making good products, we'll sue.
And this time, it's not just some slashdotter seeing ghosts where there may not be any: this is straight from the horse's mouth.
If they think their competitors should not be using certain technologies, they should negotiate with them to come to acceptable agreements. If that fails, they can sue. Threatening to sue if their competitors' products become successful is...evil.
What I heard that happened was that the Dutch UN soldiers were in Srebrenica, lightly armed and not authorized to open fire. They radioed for back-up from the other UN (and NATO?) forces, but got nothing.
It must have been terrible being one of these soldiers: knowing it is your duty to protect these people, but not allowed to open fire, and not receiving back-up, despite supposedly having allies nearby. Supposedly, they got the medals in recognition of that.
The medals certainly weren't pinned on them in a move by the politicians to save their asses. Far from trying to save their asses, the whole Dutch government resigned is response to a report about the incident.
Maybe it is my national pride (I am Dutch - and, as many Dutch, I have little national pride, but I do have some) that is being injured here, but I don't think it's fair to blame it all on the Dutch. Sure, it's convenient; the Dutch were there, so it's all their fault. But the Dutch weren't there alone: this was a UN mission, and so it was ultimately the UN and everybody who was there that failed. Yet I hear nothing about that. It's only the Dutch who are getting the blame.
You hit the nail on the head. This guy is flamebaiting. And everybody who bites is making things a bigger deal than they actually are.
Meanwhile, fewer and fewer people take him seriously, politically. It's one thing to want to get attention for important issues. It's quite another thing to make an issue where there hardly was one and act like a total ass just to get attention. This guy is a troll, and, fortunately, more and more people are seeing that.
``You have your facts wrong, a bit. Quicktime is part of OS X. You can't do without it. So you think you didn't install it (for whatever deluded reason) when you installed the OS, but thankfully, the install knew you needed it, and installed it anyway.''
Yes, you are right. It's a bit confusing, because Quicktime is both a library and a media player which uses that library. I actually have had an OS X install without the Quicktime library, and lots of programs on that install wouldn't work. I am a bit confused now about whether that update I mentioned was for Quicktime (the library) or Quicktime (the player).
But then again, the Quicktime update was just one example. There are others, although I cannot remember for certain right now. It's been months if not years ago since I last updated an OS X install. But I am positive that it gives you "updates", selected by default, for applications that you don't have installed. When you let the "update" proceed, you will have the application installed. It's not something Apple has started doing just now, they've done this for years.
``Okay, I don't get it, what's so broken about iTunes? On my process manager (on OS X) it shows up as a very low CPU and memory hog.''
It depends on what you are comparing it with, of course. You compare iTunes to Windows Media Player and RealPlayer. Compared to those, iTunes is indeed a relief.
My comparison is with the likes of mpd, XMMS, mp3blaster, and shell-fm. Compared to those, iTunes is huge.
That is not to say that iTunes is "broken" (that's your word, not mine). iTunes probably has a ton of features that the programs I mentioned don't have. But I don't need those features; I just want to be able to play music, and I can do that with much smaller programs than iTunes, leaving my precious RAM for useful things such as filesystem cache and web pages. One person's feature is another person's bloat.
If you like iTunes, nothing wrong with that. I don't like it, because, for me, it would eat up a lot of RAM for things I don't need, and it locks people into proprietary solutions (for example, it only runs on OS X and Windows, and doesn't play Vorbis, unless you install a Quicktime plugin for that yourself).
What is so funny about that? I thought it was much rather Insightful.
Not to offend anyone, but iTunes is a huge memory and CPU hog. All that for being a glorified music player, and one of the few programs that can access all the functions of Apple's proprietary (lock in, yada yada) iPod. And now it pushes other software, too, by disguising it as an update. Misleading and rude, if you ask me.
Perhaps iTunes isn't horrible in the exact same way that RealPlayer is, but this incident just makes me all the more happy I have stayed far from iTunes and iPods. It's bait, that's what it is. Beautiful, fashionable products that lock you into a net of proprietary protocols and DRM. But hey, it's your money and your freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't read TFA, but I still think I can provide some interesting insights.
First of all, I have my own reasons for not wanting to use certain "new" communication methods.
A particularly strong one is resentment. Many "new" communication methods do the same thing
that existing methods do, only worse. For example, the new method might be technically inferior
because they use the wrong tool for the job, they might be limiting because they only allow
certain types of use, where the existing tools were more flexible, or they might use proprietary
protocols where the existing tools used open protocols.
I don't like it when the new, inferior solution gets hugely popular, and then people think I'm weird
for not wanting to participate. It is they who didn't participate in the existing system when it was
there - and it is _because_ they jumped on the bandwagon of the new, incompatible system that this
is even an issue. If people had stuck with the existing system, or if the new system had been
compatible with the old system, or if the new system had been so much better that users of the old
system all jumpd ship, there wouldn't have been any issue.
For some reason, people don't understand this. They just expect me to sign up with the cool, new thing,
or be left out. Not that they would be willing to try the existing, old thing...why jump through
all the hoops to start using this thing that nobody else uses, when all it will do is give you _two_
accounts that you have to maintain and all that? I understand that point very well, of course,
the more because it is often the exact same situation _I_ am faced with!
Sometimes, I quit bitching and just sign up already. I, too, want to stay in touch with friends,
after all. Sometimes, I moan and rant until people get so annoyed they never bring up the
subject again. And, on rare occassions, I actually manage to convince them that my way is really
better. But, usually, it's a lost cause. Once enough people have started using the new system,
there is no going back, because they are locked in. And me, I just feel like a grumpy, old, bearded
hacker who thinks he knows better than everyone else - but all he's ever accomplished is
alienating himself from many who might otherwise have been his friends.
But hey, it's not all gloom and doom! I have a job that I love, where I get to use Debian and work
with open source all day, and people actually appreciate my insights. Because, in business, you
may stay afloat by doing the same thing as everybody else...but you only _really_ win by being
_better_. And no, I don't have the illusion that my ideas are always the best - but, I try hard
to make them as good as they can be, and sometimes, that leads to new insights that improve things
for everyone. That is something that really makes me a _happy_ bearded hacker.
I don't understand why people seem to use the label "climate change" against the people who warn against it. Perhaps, indeed, the "global warming" movement of yesteryear has changed its terminology to "climate change", but why would that discredit them? To me, it seems that "climate change" is simply a better term. After all, if we manage to wipe ourselves out by causing climate change, it won't matter if it was because we made it too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, or too radcliffy.
The real question isn't wether you like the "climate change" doomsayers or the words they use. The real question is if our activities are harming the environment to the extent that we should be worried about it, and, if so, what we can do to improve things. Launching ad hominems at the people who are pointing out a potential threat doesn't do anything to make the world a better place. What we need is more awareness and less bias. In the meantime, I will work on reducing the emissions I cause, not just to be on the safe side, but also because I think it is a fun challenge. I don't _know_ the truth, so I won't condemn you for driving an SUV or using incandescent light bulbs if you are so inclined, but I will be angry with you for insulting the people who are trying to warn you, especially if it turns out they were right.
Incidentally, I think that the effects of global warming are much more obvious in other aspects of the climate than in average temperature; for example, a barely noticeable increase of a few degrees in average temperature could bring about a much stronger increase in rain and storms. But that's just what I think, based on things I heard, so don't take my word for it. Do your own research...and not just to find publications that agree with you, but to actually find out the truth. I think you will find that the issue is much more complex than "only idiots believe in climate change" or "only idiots deny climate change".
``Our desire for cheap international trade based around largely uninspected shipping containers exposes us to an enormous risk.''
The counter point to this is that while, indeed, the system is far from secure, things seem to be going alright.
I find this is the key difference between Real World security and computer security. In computer security, weaknesses, once known, _will_ be exploited on a massive scale. In the Real World, things are often far less grave. This explains both why so few people get computer security right (applying a Real World "it will be ok" attitude to computer security is a mistake), and why I think people should just relax and not worry so much about, for example, terrorists blowing up airplanes.
Security should, at least in my opinion, always be a cost-benefit trade-off. More severe security measures can reduce the risk of a disastrous security breach, but security measures incur their own cost, which you pay every day, even if no security breach is even attempted. The trick is finding the right balance.
Of course, it isn't a very comfortable idea that you or your friends might be blown up anytime, or get ruined by identity fraud, but I'd honestly rather live with that idea than to spend my life locked up in my house, afraid to go out because the bus might be blown up, and afraid to order anything online because my credit card data could be stolen...and _still_ run the risk to get killed in an earthquake.
``Actually, it is hogwash, but only because of the wildly silly implication that they ever weren't in a common framework of understanding.''
That was my first though, as well.
However, there is a qualification to make. Namely, it depends on the scope of the framework. If you make the scope large enough, _everything_ falls within it, but it will also make the framewore insanely complex and difficult to work with.
In practice, we use simplifications. And this is where the scope of the framework becomes important. Because the simplifications, while technically wrong, can still give useful results. For example, simply adding velocities works well, as long as the velocities are much smaller than the speed of light. Hydrogen is not always gaseous, but good results can be gotten under most circumstances by assuming that it is. Or even by assuming that it is an ideal gas. And so on. So, depending on the specific assumptions you make, your framework may be more or less widely applicable.
What is interesting about a common framework that correctly predicts events on both Earth and Venus is that it tests cases that may not have been tested before. Some conditions may be so common on Earth that the behavior they elicit is taken for granted by Earth-based scientists. On Venus, these circumstances may not be present. This will test our theories under circumstances we may never have thought of. This, in turn, may lead to better understanding.
``Every release of Windows, most releases of OS X and even some new flavors of Linux have increased resource use because they do more.''
Is that actually true for OS X? I've heard that many releases actually ran faster than their predecessors.
Indeed, this has always been Microsoft's strategy, and it has worked wonders for them. At least from Windows 95 onwards; I wasn't much following events before that.
Before Windows 95 was released, IBM had already released OS/2 Warp. It was 32-bit, could run legacy DOS and Windows (16-bit) apps, had a GUI, did multitasking, etc. etc. People could have used OS/2 (by the way, that's IBM OS/2, rather than Microsoft OS/2, which later became Windows NT). But they didn't. Everyone was waiting for the All Glorious Windows 95, which would soon be there, and which would be the best thing since sliced bread. Nay, better than that. It would be better than sliced bread!
Then Windows 95 was released. It was a memory hog. It crashed all the time. It wasn't compatible with lots of existing hardware (in all honesty, I think that went for OS/2, too).
Ever since then, Microsoft's operating system releases have been "not as good as people expected, but the concerns will be addressed in the next release". The conventional wisdom became not to upgrade to a new Microsoft OS immediately, but wait for the first service pack. Leading up to every OS release, there has been a huge media circus. Remember the Windows 98 that crashed while Bill Gates was showing it to the world? Media circus.
Windows Vista was no different. For years before the release, the Internet had been abuzz with stories about the exciting new features that would be in Vista (most of those never made it in, by the way). In the days leading up to the release, the media were going absolutely nuts. _Every_ newspaper and _every_ TV channel I saw at the time devoted a lot of attention to the upcoming Windows version.
And then it was released. And the reports started pouring in. Amid all the negativity, I managed to notice that, at least, the new Aero interface was very pretty. But I know of nobody who wants to get Vista. People are either apathic or want to stay away from it as far as they can. Vista is a fiasco.
I really wonder where people are going to go next. Upgrade to Vista when support for XP finally runs out? Or decide it's time to get out of the threadmill and try an OS from a different organization? Or perhaps Microsoft will play it's favorite trick again...pour out a torrent of magic dust that has everybody holding their breath for the _next_ Microsoft OS, which is going to be the best thing since Windows 95...nay, better!
Hey, you know what? All those legacy Windows apps run just fine on my Linux system. That is, when run on real Windows running on a virtual machine.
We don't have to wait for Windows 7 to get the dramatic departure and everything-better OS. It's already there. And if you have a copy of Windows now, you can also continue to run your Windows apps. Full backward compatibility! All that can be had today, without having to pay a penny.
And it wasn't his _identity_ that was used fraudulently, either. It was the _credentials_, based on which people wrongly assumed they were dealing with Simon Bunce.
Your _identity_ cannot be stolen. It is _identical_ with you.
Your _credentials_ can be stolen and/or copied.
Once someone has your credentials, they can _authenticate_ as you. That is, they show the credentials to a person or system, and that person or system then believes they are you.
Once they have authenticated as you, they will be _authorized_ to perform every action you are authorized to perform.
In practice, people can also get these authorizations through other means, e.g. by _exploiting security holes_ in software or through _social engineering_ (i.e. simply asking someone to authorize them).
_Logging_ and _auditing_ can and should be used to record what happened and investigate where things went wrong if something bad happened.
And now to connect this crash course in security terminology back to the Real World: if it has been recorded that someone was authorized to perform actions normally reserved to you at a certain time, and you can show it couldn't have been you (e.g. that person was at an ATM, but you were in a conference on the other side of the country at the time), you can make a pretty strong case that _you_ didn't perform those actions.
Unfortunately, in current society, organizations typically are as closed as they can be, which means you don't even get that chance at proving it wasn't you. And that is if they even have good logging and auditing in place.
``How society prosecutes child pornography... like a lynch mob: guilty until proven innocent and no recompense for those poor souls that did not deserve to be labeled and treated like some monster.''
I think that is the key point here, and it does not just apply to child pornography. There is a widespread tendency to make the mental leap from "has been arrested on charges of X" to "is guilty of X". And it's not even that strange: assuming the police and department of justice, etc. are doing their jobs decently, the people arrested will often be the people who committed the crime.
Similarly, when you are a company about to hire somebody, it makes sense that you would want to know how trustworthy this person is. If you run a background check on that person and find that they have been involved in crimes, have very high debts, etc., it makes sense that you would be hesitant to hire them.
Unfortunately, these things can make it very difficult for people whose credentials have been abused to function normally in society. How do you change the minds of people once they have decided that you are a criminal? They might as well not trust anything you say. How do you clear the debts someone made in your name, when employers refuse to hire you because of these debts? It's impossible to live a normal life once you get into this situation.
To counter these problems, it is very important that recourse is provided for people whose credentials have been abused. We're talking about destroyed lives here. Someone is responsible for abusing the credentials of the person whose life has been ruined, and someone (or some entity) is responsible for allowing these credentials to fall into the hands of the abuser. Perhaps there is a role here for government, too.
Since I think it is a delusion to think that identity theft is going away, here's what I like to happen:
1. Ensure that there is a way for victims to demonstrate that their credentials have been abused. _You_ know what you have done, you shouldn't hit walls where people tell you "the system says you did X, therefore, you did X, whatever you say". We need to spread awareness that systems _are_ fallible and provide ways to _detect_ and _correct_ mistakes.
2. Provide compensation for victims. If someone else commits a crime or incurs a debt in your name, it isn't your fault. However, you will almost certainly get the blame. Your reputation will be damaged. Your life will be affected. You will bear the pain. You will have to make the effort, and the cost, of cleaning up the mess. But it wasn't your fault. You should be compensated for this. Not just get your monetary costs covered, but also get an official statement that it wasn't your fault, and a compensation for the nonmonetary damages.
3. Punish the guilty. If your credentials are abused by someone else, it is always a combination of (1) some person or entity being careless, so that the credentials could be obtained by the abuser, and (2) someone obtaining and abusing the credentials. These people or entities are the real culprits. They must be held responsible for the damage they caused. If they can be identified, they must be made to pay. This is what will encourage organizations to more securely handle credentials and what will discourage would-be abusers of said credentials.
4. Identify the weak spots in current authentication mechanisms and propose solutions. It is not enough to say that "the use of SSNs for pretty much everything under the Sun is a horrible idea" or "Real ID sucks". Point out the weaknesses, and, very importantly, point out how they can be fixed. You can't expect governments and other organizations to get this right if they have to come up with the solutions themselves. Even if they have the best of intentions, the simple truth is that most people don't have the necessary understanding of information security.
Most importantly, we need to raise awareness of these issues. For this, I commend the BBC on reporting this story. Identity fraud is real, and it could happen to you. Your interest here is getting the system improved _before_ you become a victim.
I've been impressed by Konqueror. I don't know how it compares to the new Firefox, but compared to Firefox 2.0.0.12, Konqueror 3.5.5 eats up a _lot_ less memory and runs noticeably faster. And, contrary to Opera, it is open source. I've run 3.x versions of Konqueror on machines with 64 MB memory and 200 MHz Pentium MMX CPUs...I don't know how that compares to the OLPC, but it may work. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes.
How does Konqueror stack up? I've been using Konqueror ever since I discovered it uses much less memory and (thus?) runs faster than Firefox. Now with the improvements in those areas for Firefox, this may no longer be true. Does anyone have numbers?
``Since when did memory usage become such a big deal?''
I think it has pretty much always been a big deal. Unless you have plenty of memory, memory is likely to be the limiting factor on the performance of your system. In extreme cases, memory shortage can cause programs to not work at all. Firefox has been a notorious memory hog. So I am _very_ glad to see this addressed. I might actually start using it again.
Isn't there a system that allows distributed content distribution, where, rather than a site being served by a single server, the same site can be served by a number of different servers? Preferably with participants in the system automagically becoming servers when demand increases? Sort of like Bittorrent, where more downloaders means more uploaders?
If not, we should probably start creating such a system. Sites like Wikipedia and Wikileaks seem to survive without it - but with lots of headaches about funding the hosting and bandwidth bills. If we could take that load off such sites' shoulders, I feel that would be a Good Thing.
Tips for getting rid of a marketer once you have one on the phone are helpful, but the real question is how to stop them from disturbing the peace of your home and disrupting your concentration in the first place.
``Why can't this be done adequately using low-powered CPUs? Are Microsoft's coders that inept?''
That, or they did it on purpose. They help the hardware manufacturers. The hardware manufacturers help them.
Let's not pretend this is something specific to Microsoft. Apple, Debian, the BSDs...everybody phases out old versions of the OS after some time. Microsoft actually supports their operating systems for a very long time.
On the other hand, an upgrade from one Microsoft OS to the next is often much more disruptive (to your system and to your wallet) than upgrades to some other OSes. For example, Debian upgrades are free and usually very smooth.
Plus, the free operating systems are largely mix and match. You don't have to accept the package as a whole. With Apple and Microsoft, for example, if they decide to litter their new OS with DRM or other junk, your choices are to accept it or to not use the new OS. With, say, Linux or OpenBSD, you can just leave out the parts you don't want (usually by simply not installing them. in the very worst case, you will have to edit the source and recompile - but at least you _can_ do that).
``I think that the only way community wifi is going to work is if it is community-run, not-for-profit, and vendor independent.''
There, I emphasized that, because I think it's the most important part. Whoever runs the operation, there is always a chance that they will turn against you. Not being dependent on them lowers the chance that they will and leaves you free to find an alternative if they still do. Vendor-independence is a Good Thing everywhere, not just for community wifi.
This is just sad. It just screams one thing at me:
If we fail to keep our heads above the water by making good products, we'll sue.
And this time, it's not just some slashdotter seeing ghosts where there may not be any: this is straight from the horse's mouth.
If they think their competitors should not be using certain technologies, they should negotiate with them to come to acceptable agreements. If that fails, they can sue. Threatening to sue if their competitors' products become successful is...evil.
That's not how I recall events.
What I heard that happened was that the Dutch UN soldiers were in Srebrenica, lightly armed and not authorized to open fire. They radioed for back-up from the other UN (and NATO?) forces, but got nothing.
It must have been terrible being one of these soldiers: knowing it is your duty to protect these people, but not allowed to open fire, and not receiving back-up, despite supposedly having allies nearby. Supposedly, they got the medals in recognition of that.
The medals certainly weren't pinned on them in a move by the politicians to save their asses. Far from trying to save their asses, the whole Dutch government resigned is response to a report about the incident.
Maybe it is my national pride (I am Dutch - and, as many Dutch, I have little national pride, but I do have some) that is being injured here, but I don't think it's fair to blame it all on the Dutch. Sure, it's convenient; the Dutch were there, so it's all their fault. But the Dutch weren't there alone: this was a UN mission, and so it was ultimately the UN and everybody who was there that failed. Yet I hear nothing about that. It's only the Dutch who are getting the blame.
You hit the nail on the head. This guy is flamebaiting. And everybody who bites is making things a bigger deal than they actually are.
Meanwhile, fewer and fewer people take him seriously, politically. It's one thing to want to get attention for important issues. It's quite another thing to make an issue where there hardly was one and act like a total ass just to get attention. This guy is a troll, and, fortunately, more and more people are seeing that.
I don't have any e-Books, because all I've ever heard about them was DRM and proprietary lock-in.
I don't know why this is news.
Ah, some good news. We need more of that.
``You have your facts wrong, a bit. Quicktime is part of OS X. You can't do without it. So you think you didn't install it (for whatever deluded reason) when you installed the OS, but thankfully, the install knew you needed it, and installed it anyway.''
Yes, you are right. It's a bit confusing, because Quicktime is both a library and a media player which uses that library. I actually have had an OS X install without the Quicktime library, and lots of programs on that install wouldn't work. I am a bit confused now about whether that update I mentioned was for Quicktime (the library) or Quicktime (the player).
But then again, the Quicktime update was just one example. There are others, although I cannot remember for certain right now. It's been months if not years ago since I last updated an OS X install. But I am positive that it gives you "updates", selected by default, for applications that you don't have installed. When you let the "update" proceed, you will have the application installed. It's not something Apple has started doing just now, they've done this for years.
``Okay, I don't get it, what's so broken about iTunes? On my process manager (on OS X) it shows up as a very low CPU and memory hog.''
It depends on what you are comparing it with, of course. You compare iTunes to Windows Media Player and RealPlayer. Compared to those, iTunes is indeed a relief.
My comparison is with the likes of mpd, XMMS, mp3blaster, and shell-fm. Compared to those, iTunes is huge.
That is not to say that iTunes is "broken" (that's your word, not mine). iTunes probably has a ton of features that the programs I mentioned don't have. But I don't need those features; I just want to be able to play music, and I can do that with much smaller programs than iTunes, leaving my precious RAM for useful things such as filesystem cache and web pages. One person's feature is another person's bloat.
If you like iTunes, nothing wrong with that. I don't like it, because, for me, it would eat up a lot of RAM for things I don't need, and it locks people into proprietary solutions (for example, it only runs on OS X and Windows, and doesn't play Vorbis, unless you install a Quicktime plugin for that yourself).
What is so funny about that? I thought it was much rather Insightful.
Not to offend anyone, but iTunes is a huge memory and CPU hog. All that for being a glorified music player, and one of the few programs that can access all the functions of Apple's proprietary (lock in, yada yada) iPod. And now it pushes other software, too, by disguising it as an update. Misleading and rude, if you ask me.
Perhaps iTunes isn't horrible in the exact same way that RealPlayer is, but this incident just makes me all the more happy I have stayed far from iTunes and iPods. It's bait, that's what it is. Beautiful, fashionable products that lock you into a net of proprietary protocols and DRM. But hey, it's your money and your freedom.