A friend of mine once told me that this is actually an intended result of patents. Note that a patent applies to a specific way of arriving at something, not the something itself. So, the idea is that if the something is desirable, others will go out of their way to find alternative ways to arrive at something. Some of these might be better than the original. Or new somethings may be encountered along the way (inventions tend to happen by accident, yada yada). Whatever the case, patents foster innovation...in this case, by shutting the door on using what is already known to work.
``I should be able to buy some equipment, plug it in and watch my movies. thats it.''
To the supposed person in this situation (could be any of a host of people I know):
You are, as long as your movies and your equipment use standards and no DRM. If you can't watch the movies because the DRM prevents you from doing so, or because the equipment does not support the format the movies are in, it's your own fault. You're paying the price for not doing your homework.
Yes, I realize that sounds harsh, but consider the flip side. If people stood up against the companies that push this crap, these companies would stop soon enough (see, e.g. the Sony rootkit incident). It's because people actually _support_ companies pushing the crap that we keep getting more and more of it. First the world got locked into proprietary formats. Now people are paying for movies they are not allowed to watch (remember, you _could_ circumvent the DRM, but that's a crime).
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in my ivory tower and enjoying content that is freely available and plays on any player that bothers to implement the right codecs, specifications for which are freely available. It's your business what you spend your money on, but don't come whining to me when the product you paid for doesn't work. I told you so.
Anytime you want to get something free that does work, I'll be here to help you along. It will all be legal, too. The only caveat is that it won't be the same thing you see advertised everywhere you turn.
``Doctor: Hold on -- there, I've adjusted your screen resolution and font size on your home and work computers.''
If only that actually worked on Windows. I have to work with Windows for work purposes every now and then, and I can't seem to get the fonts in the title bars, the fonts in dialogs, and all the others right all at the same time. On Vista, I've had better luck with this than on XP, but even there, it's not all well. I think this used to work in older versions of Windows, but newer versions seem to just ignore some of the settings.
``...privacy controls are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record. Microsoft does not expect most individuals to type in much of their own health information into the Web-based record. Instead, the company hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send into their HealthVault record information like medicines prescribed or...''
That sounds good. You actually get full say in who is allowed to do what, and "give permission" sounds like the permissions are secure by default.
I have about zero trust that Microsoft will actually implement this correctly and securely (I've seen far too many stupid bugs from them lately), but at least they're saying the right things. Not vague promises that it will be "very secure", but an actual description of the security controls they are planning to provide. Moreover, those security controls seem to actually provide the security one would want in such a system.
When I read the title, I first thought about robotic _aircraft_. That seemed like a particularly bad idea...building transatlantic rockets for fun and profit! It's perfectly innocent, I assure you!
Choice overload is a problem, but only if you are actually faced with all the choices. It need not be that way. There are various kinds of parallelism and various angles to attack each. Some of the choices one has will not make a lot of sense for type of problem one is looking at. So, categorizing can help.
Some technologies will be in rapid development, others will be no longer actively maintained, and yet others will be stable but actively maintained. This also affects which choices are good.
Then there's licensing. Depending on the task, closed-source or copyleft licenses might not be acceptable.
Some of the solutions may be low-level, allowing programmers to build something matching their application out of the provided building blocks, where other solutions may focus on providing higher level constructs, ready to be used. Sometimes, these will match what you need, and sometimes, they won't.
I am sure there are other axes of differentiation. Setting requirements will narrow ones choices, as well as illustrate why choice is a Good Thing. If there were only a few choices, it is unavoidable that none of them would actually fit some sets of requirements.
Now, the thing is that categorizing the various solutions is not something that every potential user of the solutions has to do. Part of the work can be done by the developers of each solution. Presumably, the solution is developed because a satisfactory solution did not already exist. In my opinion, the developers _should_ list related work, compare their solution to it, and explain why they saw fit to develop their solution. This is a standard part of research.
Another part of the work is comparisons done by third parties. Some independent person would go and investigate a number of solutions, and provide a write-up of the requirements they assumed, the solutions they investigated, how these solutions fit their requirements, and what their overall impression of the solutions was (w.r.t. things like ease of setup, documentation, development status, etc.). This, too, is valid research. It should be published, so everyone benefits.
In the end, what you get to do when you need to pick a solution for parallel programming, is
1. Define your requirements 2. Get a list of possible solutions 3. See what has been written about them 4. Check if that seems to be valid (it might be out of date, for one) 5. Possibly investigate any solutions that you found but that haven't been covered by others. 6. Decide which one to go with, based on the information you have gathered.
Sure, this is a far cry from
1. Find the only available solution 2. There is no step 2
but for that you are almost guaranteed to get a choice that better fits your requirements (you would be very lucky to have the only available solution be a great match), without having to pay the full cost of investigating every solution out there.
The thing to remember about the paradox of choice is that you will probably _feel_ less happy (there is always the nagging feeling that you could have made a better choice), but that you will generally end up with something _better_ than if the choice hadn't been there is the first place.
If you _really_ aren't happy about having to choose, you can always pick one (say, at random) and pretend that was your only choice. I conjecture that this is what the situation of having only one option is really like.
``It may just say that the mobile space is really not targeting the hobbyist... should we change that?''
Hell yes! Imagine how cool it would be to develop apps for a hobby, and have yourself and your friends use them on your mobile phones! This is the scene where a little bit of programming effort can get you a hugely popular app, unlike the desktop space where you don't count unless you have spinning cubes and professionally designed lifelike 3d animated graphics.
It will be like the golden age of the home computer all over again, except that now everybody will own one instead of just the lucky few, and there is ubiquitous connectivity. If anything is uber-cool, this is it.
``I just don't get why J2ME development has to be so complicated: weird acronyms, half a dozen versions''
It's the Java way, or maybe the Enterprise way. They like acronyms and buzzwords and pretending they've invented something new, when it's really something that has existed outside the Java world for ages, or a workaround for some limitation of Java.
``Sun is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory; give it another few years and they'll have thoroughly destroyed the mobile Java market as well, just like they did with the Java desktop market.''
I believe Microsoft takes the credit for that one. Sun's premise was "compile once, run anywhere". Microsoft made it not work on Windows. Not being able to reach 90+% of your target audience = dead product.
I don't have a lot of time, but I'll just quickly give you all my take, without going into details too much.
1. J2ME. It's the Java you all know and either love or hate, but with a different library. Some things work the same way as they do on the desktop. Some things work differently. And some don't work at all. Generally, there will be differences from device to device. Lots of devices come with J2ME implementations. Developing tools are freely available. J2ME seems to be a relatively stable target.
2. Linux. It's Linux. In theory, it's the same as desktop, server, etc. Linux. You should be able to use the same developing tools and libraries, which are freely available. In practice, devices may have odd differences and limitations compared to desktops running Linux. Sometimes, vendors go out of their way to introduce incompatibilities. It's a mine field. The number of devices Linux runs on is limited, and the ones you can reasonably limited are fewer still. Although the core of the platform is stable, parts of it are very much moving targets.
3. Windows Mobile (formerly known an Windows CE and Pocket PC). Pretends to be Windows but isn't. The platform has odd limitations and restrictions that differ from version to version and from device to device. Developer tools are available, but not necessarily free of charge. It all depends on the target device, its configuration, and the version of Windows Mobile. In general, you will have to pay for developer tools, compile different versions of your app for different targets, and pay for signatures on some targets. Many devices come with some incarnation of Windows Mobile on them. The whole platform is a moving target, with incompatibilities introduced at about every release.
The way I see it, of the three, Java wins hands down. It's the only one that is actually workable.
I don't know where Vivek is coming from when he says ``I never thought that Windows Mobile would take the pie, but for a hobbyist programmer they offer the best SDK's and you can make applications without worrying about certificates while testing and debugging. With a windows mobile one really feels in control, if you want to screw up your mobile device its really upto you. One rarely feels tied down the API's are clean and functional. Getting your first demo program onto the device takes a few seconds. It just makes sense to develop for windows mobile. There is almost no need to get your applications signed, at least for testing.''
To me, it has been the exact opposite of that. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare to figure out what you have to download to get up and running. You can compile binaries for th platform with various tool chains, including some (user friendly for me) open source ones, but they won't run on all devices, as they will be lacking the right signatures. If you do get your application signed (which is costly; you have to sign every version of every exe, dll, and cab), it won't work on older releases that don't support code signing. The platform is almost ridiculously limited, and limitations aren't consistant across versions (e.g. you may or may not be able to get at a given file using the file open common dialog).
I'm thinking Vivek just tested things using one device, and was lucky enough that it didn't throw a tantrum.
``[un]fortunately I am now running Ubuntu and I guess there is no easy way (not requiring a kernel patch or some magical.conf file mangling) way to set my computer to a low speed as in Windows.''
Why do you assume that something is difficult on Ubuntu? And what is difficult about editing configuration files?
Randomize checking so that an attacker can't predict the next check and avoid it? That's what I would do, too. Can I be a high-paid security consultant now?
Probably not. It probably takes more nerve and marketing skills than I have to stand up and demand the world for what is essentially an elementary idea that anybody who thinks about the issue should come up with.
This is what usually happens when something Debian-policy-related happens and is touted as silly:
1. I think: How silly of them. Just like Debian to do something stubborn and annoying like that. 2. Then I read the argumentation, the policy that led them to the decision. 3. I find myself agreeing with the policy and thus accepting the decision as the Right Thing. 4. I find someone, usually in the Debian project itself, has come up with a solution for those who don't like the decision.
The more time passes, the more I like Debian. They have policies that are good and they stick to them. When the policy causes them to do something that people don't like, they provide a workaround. With Debian, you can have your cake and eat it. Exclusively free software? Check. Proprietary software when you do want it? Check. Stable system that stays the same for years? Check. Recent versions of packages when you want them? Check. Support in the package manager for mixing and matching? Check. Oh, and they had dependencies figured out and working well long before any other distro I'm aware of. Debian isn't perfect, but it comes frighteningly close sometimes.
``Electronic voting is still young and what we see now is the system is not yet perfect. However with each election the system get better by learning from mistakes.''
Yes, as long as people investigate the issues and make a big ruckus when there's something wrong.
As we have seen, voting equipment vendors and governments alike will do their utmost to keep problems hidden and to downplay problems that are exposed.
They can and do go as far as threatening those who would save democracy.
And the worst thing is that most people are thinking "ah, it will be alright." Well, yes, it will be, as long as people are fighting the good fight and being allowed to succeed.
``We nearly ended up using the same kit here in Ireland.''
In fact, the rejection of the machines in Ireland seems to have sparked the (grass-roots, kudos go to wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl) investigation in the Netherlands. Finally, they seemed to have stirred up enough commotion that the government took some measures (although, I must say, they fell short of what would have been desirable).
It is amazing that voting systems like the ones we had in the Netherlands (and the Nedap machines we shipped to Ireland weren't the worst of them) were allowed in the first place. Perhaps we can now finally put an end to this debacle. I don't care what the voting machine manufacturers or the government have to offer. I understand they want to deny the problem and cover their asses. But we _need_ a voting procedure that we can trust. As far as I am concerned, we can straigh out ban most of the authority figures who have been involved in the process so far from ever having any influence on the process again. This is important, and they tried to mislead us into thinking everything was alright when it wasn't, and they should have known it wasn't (after all, this was after the findings from the irish and wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet).
There are ways to get vote counting right. Many people have thought about the issue, and some have come up with good solutions (for example, David Chaum's Punchscan, and Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot). However, the simple solution that works for most people, can be understood by pretty much everybody, and provides a decent level of trust, is simply voting on paper and counting by hand. Sure, it's labor intensive. But this is about who gets to rule us. Surely that's worth some trouble.
It is my understanding that chroot _can_ be an effective security tool. It just has its limitations. One such limitation is that processes run as root can break out of the "chroot jail" (why is this, by the way?). Another limitation is that you have to be root to use chroot (and why is this?).
I wrote a little program called chrootexec which allows you to run commands in chroot jails as a normal user, circumventing both these limitations. To do this, it must have the capability to do chroot, setuid to the real user id, and setgid to the real user id; this can be accomplished by installing it suid root.
``You know how the russian soldiers defeated them? They poured gasoline on them and set them on fire. They didn't have any anti-tank weapons that were effective, but the gas did the trick fine.
It's easy to get sucked in by wanting the "best" but the best is expensive, and expensive is always in short supply. Get functional and available first, before you try the sexy crap.''
``What really grinds my gears, though, is how common sense goes right out the fucking window... if this guy had anything to hide, why would he have allowed the authorities to see it?''
Rule number one of paranoia: when you think you've got it all figured out, remember that's what _they_ want you to believe.
``The article goes on to tell the stories of how Burma's bloggers use proxy servers, free hosting services, and other technologies''
Remember this next time someone proposes to take this or some other security/anonimity technology (e.g. cryptography) away from you. These are important instruments of freedom!
``The difference is that most Americans are under the illusion that we still have a free press.''
Well, I believe so, too. It's just that the news outlets are run by people who often have their own agendas. It is not hard to imagine that, in a political system where everything is either Republican or Democrat, and the Republican policies tend to coincide with the interests of the wealthy and the corporations, the news outlets the masses get their news from (large corprorations run by wealthy people) would be biased in the Republicans' favor. Just one line of thought.
``And, for what it's worth, the name of the country actually sounds more like "Myanmar" than "Burma" - apparently the latter was a poor transliteration.''
Understandable. The keys are right next to one another.
I would love to play Planescape Torment if I could get my hands on a copy. I really liked the Baldur's Gate series (Baldur's Gate II is, I think, my favorite game in the genre, followed closely by Planeshift and Baldur's Gate I). I didn't really like Neverwinter Nights (the original; Hordes of the Underdark was great), because it seemed too limited in the choices it offers (i.e. the story is too linear). My understanding is that Planescape Torment is much better in this regard. Alas, the game seems to have failed so completely it's hard to get my hands on a copy. Ok, it's probably obtainable through file sharing, but that's not an option I'm willing to consider.
First of all, AllofMP3 was legal for me to use. I'm not sure if it is for people in the USA, but I wouldn't be too quick to assume it wasn't. Secondly, they provided various choices for the encoding, allowing you to determine quality and price, and enabling you to choose for open and unencumbered formats. That made it worth the price to me.
Slashdot Mirror
A friend of mine once told me that this is actually an intended result of patents. Note that a patent applies to a specific way of arriving at something, not the something itself. So, the idea is that if the something is desirable, others will go out of their way to find alternative ways to arrive at something. Some of these might be better than the original. Or new somethings may be encountered along the way (inventions tend to happen by accident, yada yada). Whatever the case, patents foster innovation...in this case, by shutting the door on using what is already known to work.
``I should be able to buy some equipment, plug it in and watch my movies. thats it.''
To the supposed person in this situation (could be any of a host of people I know):
You are, as long as your movies and your equipment use standards and no DRM. If you can't watch the movies because the DRM prevents you from doing so, or because the equipment does not support the format the movies are in, it's your own fault. You're paying the price for not doing your homework.
Yes, I realize that sounds harsh, but consider the flip side. If people stood up against the companies that push this crap, these companies would stop soon enough (see, e.g. the Sony rootkit incident). It's because people actually _support_ companies pushing the crap that we keep getting more and more of it. First the world got locked into proprietary formats. Now people are paying for movies they are not allowed to watch (remember, you _could_ circumvent the DRM, but that's a crime).
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in my ivory tower and enjoying content that is freely available and plays on any player that bothers to implement the right codecs, specifications for which are freely available. It's your business what you spend your money on, but don't come whining to me when the product you paid for doesn't work. I told you so.
Anytime you want to get something free that does work, I'll be here to help you along. It will all be legal, too. The only caveat is that it won't be the same thing you see advertised everywhere you turn.
``Doctor: Hold on -- there, I've adjusted your screen resolution and font size on your home and work computers.''
If only that actually worked on Windows. I have to work with Windows for work purposes every now and then, and I can't seem to get the fonts in the title bars, the fonts in dialogs, and all the others right all at the same time. On Vista, I've had better luck with this than on XP, but even there, it's not all well. I think this used to work in older versions of Windows, but newer versions seem to just ignore some of the settings.
``...privacy controls are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record. Microsoft does not expect most individuals to type in much of their own health information into the Web-based record. Instead, the company hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send into their HealthVault record information like medicines prescribed or...''
That sounds good. You actually get full say in who is allowed to do what, and "give permission" sounds like the permissions are secure by default.
I have about zero trust that Microsoft will actually implement this correctly and securely (I've seen far too many stupid bugs from them lately), but at least they're saying the right things. Not vague promises that it will be "very secure", but an actual description of the security controls they are planning to provide. Moreover, those security controls seem to actually provide the security one would want in such a system.
When I read the title, I first thought about robotic _aircraft_. That seemed like a particularly bad idea...building transatlantic rockets for fun and profit! It's perfectly innocent, I assure you!
Choice overload is a problem, but only if you are actually faced with all the choices. It need not be that way. There are various kinds of parallelism and various angles to attack each. Some of the choices one has will not make a lot of sense for type of problem one is looking
at. So, categorizing can help.
Some technologies will be in rapid development, others will be no longer actively maintained, and yet others will be stable but actively maintained. This also affects which choices are good.
Then there's licensing. Depending on the task, closed-source or copyleft
licenses might not be acceptable.
Some of the solutions may be low-level, allowing programmers to build something matching their application out of the provided building blocks, where other solutions may focus on providing higher level constructs, ready to be used. Sometimes, these will match what you need, and sometimes, they won't.
I am sure there are other axes of differentiation. Setting requirements will narrow ones choices, as well as illustrate why choice is a Good Thing. If there were only a few choices, it is unavoidable that none of them would actually fit some sets of requirements.
Now, the thing is that categorizing the various solutions is not something that every potential user of the solutions has to do. Part of the work can be done by the developers of each solution. Presumably, the solution is developed because a satisfactory solution did not already exist. In my opinion, the developers _should_ list related work, compare their solution to it, and explain why they saw fit to develop their solution. This is a standard part of research.
Another part of the work is comparisons done by third parties. Some independent person would go and investigate a number of solutions, and provide a write-up of the requirements they assumed, the solutions they investigated, how these solutions fit their requirements, and what their overall impression of the solutions was (w.r.t. things like ease of setup, documentation, development status, etc.). This, too, is valid research. It should be published, so everyone benefits.
In the end, what you get to do when you need to pick a solution for parallel programming, is
1. Define your requirements
2. Get a list of possible solutions
3. See what has been written about them
4. Check if that seems to be valid (it might be out of date, for one)
5. Possibly investigate any solutions that you found but that haven't been covered by others.
6. Decide which one to go with, based on the information you have gathered.
Sure, this is a far cry from
1. Find the only available solution
2. There is no step 2
but for that you are almost guaranteed to get a choice that better fits your requirements (you would be very lucky to have the only available solution be a great match), without having to pay the full cost of investigating every solution out there.
The thing to remember about the paradox of choice is that you will probably _feel_ less happy (there is always the nagging feeling that you could have made a better choice), but that you will generally end up with something _better_ than if the choice hadn't been there is the first place.
If you _really_ aren't happy about having to choose, you can always pick one (say, at random) and pretend that was your only choice. I conjecture that this is what the situation of having only one option is really like.
``It may just say that the mobile space is really not targeting the
hobbyist... should we change that?''
Hell yes! Imagine how cool it would be to develop apps for a hobby, and have yourself and your friends use them on your mobile phones! This is the scene where a little bit of programming effort can get you a hugely popular app, unlike the desktop space where you don't count unless you have spinning cubes and professionally designed lifelike 3d animated graphics.
It will be like the golden age of the home computer all over again, except that now everybody will own one instead of just the lucky few, and there is ubiquitous connectivity. If anything is uber-cool, this is it.
``I just don't get why J2ME development has to be so complicated: weird acronyms, half a dozen versions''
It's the Java way, or maybe the Enterprise way. They like acronyms and buzzwords and pretending they've invented something new, when it's really something that has existed outside the Java world for ages, or a workaround for some limitation of Java.
``Sun is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory; give it another few years and they'll have thoroughly destroyed the mobile Java market as well, just like they did with the Java desktop market.''
I believe Microsoft takes the credit for that one. Sun's premise was "compile once, run anywhere". Microsoft made it not work on Windows. Not being able to reach 90+% of your target audience = dead product.
I don't have a lot of time, but I'll just quickly give you all my take, without going into details too much.
1. J2ME. It's the Java you all know and either love or hate, but with a different library. Some things work the same way as they do on the desktop. Some things work differently. And some don't work at all. Generally, there will be differences from device to device. Lots of devices come with J2ME implementations. Developing tools are freely available. J2ME seems to be a relatively stable target.
2. Linux. It's Linux. In theory, it's the same as desktop, server, etc. Linux. You should be able to use the same developing tools and libraries, which are freely available. In practice, devices may have odd differences and limitations compared to desktops running Linux. Sometimes, vendors go out of their way to introduce incompatibilities. It's a mine field. The number of devices Linux runs on is limited, and the ones you can reasonably limited are fewer still. Although the core of the platform is stable, parts of it are very much moving targets.
3. Windows Mobile (formerly known an Windows CE and Pocket PC). Pretends to be Windows but isn't. The platform has odd limitations and restrictions that differ from version to version and from device to device. Developer tools are available, but not necessarily free of charge. It all depends on the target device, its configuration, and the version of Windows Mobile. In general, you will have to pay for developer tools, compile different versions of your app for different targets, and pay for signatures on some targets. Many devices come with some incarnation of Windows Mobile on them. The whole platform is a moving target, with incompatibilities introduced at about every release.
The way I see it, of the three, Java wins hands down. It's the only one that is actually workable.
I don't know where Vivek is coming from when he says ``I never thought that Windows Mobile would take the pie, but for a hobbyist programmer they offer the best SDK's and you can make applications without worrying about certificates while testing and debugging. With a windows mobile one really feels in control, if you want to screw up your mobile device its really upto you. One rarely feels tied down the API's are clean and functional. Getting your first demo program onto the device takes a few seconds. It just makes sense to develop for windows mobile. There is almost no need to get your applications signed, at least for testing.''
To me, it has been the exact opposite of that. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare to figure out what you have to download to get up and running. You can compile binaries for th platform with various tool chains, including some (user friendly for me) open source ones, but they won't run on all devices, as they will be lacking the right signatures. If you do get your application signed (which is costly; you have to sign every version of every exe, dll, and cab), it won't work on older releases that don't support code signing. The platform is almost ridiculously limited, and limitations aren't consistant across versions (e.g. you may or may not be able to get at a given file using the file open common dialog).
I'm thinking Vivek just tested things using one device, and was lucky enough that it didn't throw a tantrum.
``[un]fortunately I am now running Ubuntu and I guess there is no easy way (not requiring a kernel patch or some magical .conf file mangling) way to set my computer to a low speed as in Windows.''
Why do you assume that something is difficult on Ubuntu? And what is difficult about editing configuration files?
Randomize checking so that an attacker can't predict the next check and avoid it? That's what I would do, too. Can I be a high-paid security consultant now?
Probably not. It probably takes more nerve and marketing skills than I have to stand up and demand the world for what is essentially an elementary idea that anybody who thinks about the issue should come up with.
This is what usually happens when something Debian-policy-related happens and is touted as silly:
1. I think: How silly of them. Just like Debian to do something stubborn and annoying like that.
2. Then I read the argumentation, the policy that led them to the decision.
3. I find myself agreeing with the policy and thus accepting the decision as the Right Thing.
4. I find someone, usually in the Debian project itself, has come up with a solution for those who don't like the decision.
The more time passes, the more I like Debian. They have policies that are good and they stick to them. When the policy causes them to do something that people don't like, they provide a workaround. With Debian, you can have your cake and eat it. Exclusively free software? Check. Proprietary software when you do want it? Check. Stable system that stays the same for years? Check. Recent versions of packages when you want them? Check. Support in the package manager for mixing and matching? Check. Oh, and they had dependencies figured out and working well long before any other distro I'm aware of. Debian isn't perfect, but it comes frighteningly close sometimes.
``Electronic voting is still young and what we see now is the system is not yet perfect. However with each election the system get better by learning from mistakes.''
Yes, as long as people investigate the issues and make a big ruckus when there's something wrong.
As we have seen, voting equipment vendors and governments alike will do their utmost to keep problems hidden and to downplay problems that are exposed.
They can and do go as far as threatening those who would save democracy.
And the worst thing is that most people are thinking "ah, it will be alright." Well, yes, it will be, as long as people are fighting the good fight and being allowed to succeed.
``We nearly ended up using the same kit here in Ireland.''
In fact, the rejection of the machines in Ireland seems to have sparked the (grass-roots, kudos go to wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl) investigation in the Netherlands. Finally, they seemed to have stirred up enough commotion that the government took some measures (although, I must say, they fell short of what would have been desirable).
It is amazing that voting systems like the ones we had in the Netherlands (and the Nedap machines we shipped to Ireland weren't the worst of them) were allowed in the first place. Perhaps we can now finally put an end to this debacle. I don't care what the voting machine manufacturers or the government have to offer. I understand they want to deny the problem and cover their asses. But we _need_ a voting procedure that we can trust. As far as I am concerned, we can straigh out ban most of the authority figures who have been involved in the process so far from ever having any influence on the process again. This is important, and they tried to mislead us into thinking everything was alright when it wasn't, and they should have known it wasn't (after all, this was after the findings from the irish and wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet).
There are ways to get vote counting right. Many people have thought about the issue, and some have come up with good solutions (for example, David Chaum's Punchscan, and Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot). However, the simple solution that works for most people, can be understood by pretty much everybody, and provides a decent level of trust, is simply voting on paper and counting by hand. Sure, it's labor intensive. But this is about who gets to rule us. Surely that's worth some trouble.
``Apparently you also need to be root to run fdisk and mkfs.''
Err, no? Not on my system...
It is my understanding that chroot _can_ be an effective security tool. It just has its limitations. One such limitation is that processes run as root can break out of the "chroot jail" (why is this, by the way?). Another limitation is that you have to be root to use chroot (and why is this?).
I wrote a little program called chrootexec which allows you to run commands in chroot jails as a normal user, circumventing both these limitations. To do this, it must have the capability to do chroot, setuid to the real user id, and setgid to the real user id; this can be accomplished by installing it suid root.
Thank you. Thank you for the insightful post.
``You know how the russian soldiers defeated them? They poured gasoline on them and set them on fire. They didn't have any anti-tank weapons that were effective, but the gas did the trick fine.
It's easy to get sucked in by wanting the "best" but the best is expensive, and expensive is always in short supply. Get functional and available first, before you try the sexy crap.''
This advice is also worded as Worse Is Better.
``What really grinds my gears, though, is how common sense goes right out the fucking window... if this guy had anything to hide, why would he have allowed the authorities to see it?''
Rule number one of paranoia: when you think you've got it all figured out, remember that's what _they_ want you to believe.
``Do we need a war to wake people up?''
No, we needed to delude people so we could go to war. "Weapons of mass destruction" "mushroom cloud" etc.
``The article goes on to tell the stories of how Burma's bloggers use proxy servers, free hosting services, and other technologies''
Remember this next time someone proposes to take this or some other security/anonimity technology (e.g. cryptography) away from you. These are important instruments of freedom!
``The difference is that most Americans are under the illusion that we still have a free press.''
Well, I believe so, too. It's just that the news outlets are run by people who often have their own agendas. It is not hard to imagine that, in a political system where everything is either Republican or Democrat, and the Republican policies tend to coincide with the interests of the wealthy and the corporations, the news outlets the masses get their news from (large corprorations run by wealthy people) would be biased in the Republicans' favor. Just one line of thought.
``And, for what it's worth, the name of the country actually sounds more like "Myanmar" than "Burma" - apparently the latter was a poor transliteration.''
Understandable. The keys are right next to one another.
I would love to play Planescape Torment if I could get my hands on a copy. I really liked the Baldur's Gate series (Baldur's Gate II is, I think, my favorite game in the genre, followed closely by Planeshift and Baldur's Gate I). I didn't really like Neverwinter Nights (the original; Hordes of the Underdark was great), because it seemed too limited in the choices it offers (i.e. the story is too linear). My understanding is that Planescape Torment is much better in this regard. Alas, the game seems to have failed so completely it's hard to get my hands on a copy. Ok, it's probably obtainable through file sharing, but that's not an option I'm willing to consider.
First of all, AllofMP3 was legal for me to use. I'm not sure if it is for people in the USA, but I wouldn't be too quick to assume it wasn't. Secondly, they provided various choices for the encoding, allowing you to determine quality and price, and enabling you to choose for open and unencumbered formats. That made it worth the price to me.