One of my good friends was investigated for hacking the school district computers, and now faces criminal charges. Later on in this long saga (I will spare you the details), the computer lab that the hacking of district computers was done from was formed into a new network. Consequentially, the teacher had to set up a server, etc.
He is having me and another good friend set up the server. We are both good friends of the "black hat", but only he and only one other school employee know the password. All work we do is supervised. Although we can intentionally "neglect to put in certain security procedures", we can't exactly place back doors. Granted we are not "black hat", having "black hats" work seems not to be that bad of an idea.
Like other jobs, have a probationary period. Any hacker that is "black hat" status will simply have to do all stuff while being monitored. For example, don't give admin access, have station use screen captures, keyloggers, be physically watched, etc. It depends on what the security company is doing, but if the future employee could be utilized for setting appropriate security policies with the real net admin of the client present and watching.
This might be better for the client company as well, because the net admin would probably wonder why the guy is "black hat", and probably ask about his experiences. Productive conversations would probably come out of this, such as "network administration common flaws", "don't trust strangers based on the way they dress", "you have an AP? Wardrivers are probably having a ball", etc. They have already been caught, prosecuted, etc - so they can tell about (some of) the stuff they did.
Anyway, I understand completely why companies don't want to hire "black hats". However if "black hats" are supervized (especially by client net admins), others will learn from people who don't have to worry about telling of past exploits.
Then again, if the guy seems like a loser who fits the stereotypical "hacker profile", and seems like a slob - forget it. Use common sense. Simply put, the attitude must be one of "this is how you fix your stuff", as opposed to "you have X flaw with your setup".
Then again, this may be one of my many random mumblings. Don't mod down - reply!
You have the right to read this message (spam). You do not have the right to delete it, nor do you have the right to ignore it. You are circumventing the Digital Rights Management otherwise, therefore hacking (and thus a terrorist). Very un-PATRIOTic of you!
Hmmm... Wonder what we ought to do with all these new "hacker terrorists"? How about sending them to be gassed? At least involuntary servitude for life - c'mon.
The point is - Support the Electronic Frontieer Foundation (EFF: http://www.eff.org). These people are awesome, and if it weren't for them, we might have 5 DMCAs. Vote for representatives that believe in not regulating the unknown to them - the Internet.
If the network is correctly managed, there should be no problem.
If P2P file sharing becomes a problem, KaZaA and any other ports (other than FTP and HTTP) transmitting too much data can simply be set to a lower priority.
I think a clear TOS is right on the money. People don't have time to read 20 pages or whatever. Make the TOS one or two pages. It can say things like "If your internet usage excedes an average of 2 MB/s per month, your connection will be set at lower priority (if we face bandwidth constraints). Please don't make game servers with more than 20 player slots. Unauthorized usage of others' computers or networks prohibited (hacking). 50 emails per day is your limit. If you have any issues or special needs, please contact us and we can work things out."
The point is, this is pretty much what the 20 page TOSes say. There could be an official TOS for if there are any questions, but other than that, it is good if your customers actually know the TOS. Also, things can be worked out. If 50 sent emails per day is not enough for a customer because they run a Linux email newsletter that people register for, then fine. Otherwise, no ordinary user would need to be able to write near 50 emails per day.
I fail to see how RIAA claimed damages could total $90 some billion. In fact, I might venture that a monetary value cannot be assigned to losses because of these reasons:
(note: I know there are alternatives to MP3 but the desire for simplicity in my explanations prevailed)
1. The RIAA would have the burdon of proof that all logged transfers of MP3 files in their calculations were copyright violations and not students within fair use (i.e. students owned the CD and didn't want to spend time ripping).
2. The RIAA would have the burdon of proof that each and every copyright violation (see #1) resulted in a lost sale. Many who download MP3 files never would purchase CDs anyway, whether or not MP3 technology existed. In essence, the RIAA has to prove that the customer in each case would have actually bought a CD, had it not been for the search engine.
3. The RIAA would have to demonstrate that the purpose of the software was for music trading. It seems to me that this "spider" indexed everything. From the description of the software, it doesnt seem to be exclusively for media files. Media files are indexed along with all other content, as the software doesn't know whether an MP3 file is for a garage band posting their stuff or a video file is of someone dumping soap into a fountain to make it bubbly. Same goes for software - People may very well want to check out what the Computer Science department is chugging out.
Hopefully whoever presides over this case will throw it out as frivolous. In my opinion, this is similar to somebody suing "Perfect Kitchen Silverware Company", because someone was murdered with a knife manufactured by the company.
I have a similar experience
on
LCD Price Fixing?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
My laptop took a fall and the screen cracked. It did not completely break as I can see most of it (there are some black splots). Compaq will not fix the screen for less than $999.95. Seems strange cuz the screen was lower end, and you can buy 17 inch LCDs for $250 after shipping charges on the Internet.
Unfortunately, Compaq will not even sell the part for me to fix. So I'm pretty much screwed. I figure I will buy a $250 LCD (standalone not mount-on-laptop), and just connect my *new desktop* to it. I can take the laptop around if I need to but the screen looks like shit.
"Let's talk about something that really matters. My ancestors were forced into slavery and spent a lifetime tilling the soil and working for the white man. My enslaved ancestors and brothers spent a lifetime of work without pay all for the profit of the white man. It is about time that we, the African-Americans, that built this country, receive reparations for our hard work. The government, businesses, and the white man owe us trillions of dollars in unpaid reparations..."
A perfect example of why exclusive rights (read: copyright) should die with the person. Since Mickey's copyright is and will be held by (multiple) generations of descendents, shouldn't the right to compensation for a great (x2?) grandfather's work be held by some random black guy in front of a computer?
A lesson in today's politics. Reminds me a little of the "breaking windows is good for the economy because it creates jobs" philosophy.
I realize the article was full of doom and gloom, but I am a firm believer in Moore's Law, and other factors. For example, the smaller chips get, the less power they seem to need. Also, don't forget about promising technologies, breakthroughs in manufacturing processes, etc. Perhaps I am glimpsing 5-10 years from now, instead of the next year or two, like the CNet article.
If the megs to square cm ratio for flash is on par with current (or even yesteryear) hard drive platter megs to square cm ratio, then its great.
Hard drives will eventually reach a limit due to the laws of physics, and I think flash is a much better infrastructure than hard drives. In other words, I believe that a 3.5" HD which has reached the limits of the laws of physics will have much less capacity than a block of flash with the same cubic cm (reaching the limits of the laws of physics).
Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. My best friend got in trouble by the law for informing the school about a common security vulnerability (Search the net for "turlock school hacking"). After repeated emails warning of the vulnerability were dismissed by the people in the big chairs, he effortlessly decrypted a single file on a student computer to gain administrator access to servers. He went to them with a list of everyone's passwords and was shortly after arrested. Ever since Mr. Clinton left the white house, persons who point out security vulnerabilities have been synonimous with "hackers" which are now synonimous with "terrorists". Hmmm i wonder how long before my friend is taken before a firing squad for treason. lol i exaggerated the last part to make a point hopefully it wasn't lost.
Those in lofty places do wield power against little guys. I have good reason to suspect the cops are still harrassing my friend - trying to link him to any "hacker group" they can think of. All instigated by what I believe an administration trying to save face...
After all, what do all laws have in common? They all criminalize previously acceptable behavior. It seems that increasingly more laws have little grounding in what is right. It would seem better if industry experts decided whether or not firewalling should be a prosecutable offense as opposed to experts in brown-nosing.
Quite frankly, Windows NT 4 is why spaghetti coding is BAD. Earlier operating systems created by Microsoft show lack of focused planning and eagerness to create something new. I supposed the debugging/patching team finally had the last straw and had subsequent OSes built with more stable kernels. Developers: Always comment your code and begin coding with a well-thought out plan. Even with RAD, know what your doing before you start!
I remember the days of the antitrust suit against Microsoft... it was because everything was too integrated. Microsoft swore up and down that their severe integration was good. You decide that for yourself - especially in light of the current situation.
Although you may think I am simply another Linux proponent, I do not believe that a flaw would be simply unfixable with Linux. Distributions are highly modular, and although spaghetti code is inevitable, it is minimal in the Linux kernel and important services - namely because hundreds, perhaps thousands of developers contribute and sloppy base code is not an option. In no way am I saying Linux is for grandmas, however I would never entrust my business/server to Windows. It simply seems imprudent.
Even without the war with Iraq, governments in the United States have been downsizing (war means they downsize more). Many states are in debt (illegal according to their constitutions), with a growing list of people who have lost their government jobs.
During my freshman year in high school, if a vending machine ate money, the Activities office would have us sign our name and give us money. Now it is my senior year. Even at the beginning of the year, the school could not refund us our money. The lady apologized and complained that the school is broke - basically only payroll money is coming from above.
Money is tight on teaching material. In fact, a teacher (head of the department) was complaining that the budget for supplies is one fifth of what it was in the seventees (which comes out much less if you factor inflation).
This isn't just Turlock, CA we are talking about. If you observe closely and ask, chances are you will find that budgets are very thin.
At times, it seems like the American government is arrogant. Chances are, if anyone in power is pissing you off, other people will be pissed as well. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of government is its disconnectedness from the public. Politicians are subject to Judgement Day, and it is the duty of all citizens to destroy the political career of arrogant irresponsible politicans on that "first tuesday following the first monday of November". There are many good politicians out there - oust the bad ones at your local polling place.
My laptop just took a lil fall and the screen went cracky cracky. I can still read what the screen says, but its too bad that this laptop wasn't the one I dropped.
I wonder how they have the hard drive set up, or if they use flash. Normally, any hard drive experiencing even a small shock can be easily destroyed if the head is reading.
700 MhZ isn't too great but you could always take it in the shower for some good 'ol pr0n.;)
Ok slashdot stripped my enters and blended everything into one jumble. I don't normally have to inject
in my writing (and i forgot to switch to the Plain Old Text option). Here is what the comment should look like - sorry:
A potential issue might be such a topheavy structure once the payload is in geosynchronous orbit. It seems the further away a tethered object is from the base, the more stress and pull there is. Kinda like a kite that went too far up and the string broke. Since wind can be argued to be a factor, I will give other analogies.
Imagine holding the string of a teather ball while spinning. If you have 1 foot of rope let out, the ball will not pull as hard as if 5 feet were let out. Quite similarly, recall one of those times at the county fair, aboard the Graviton. While the operator could stand casually near the center, if you were 1 foot away from the pad - forget standing casually.
Perhaps this was already calculated - I don't know if it was or not. I believe the concept of a space elevator is feasable, however anything less than perfection in design could be catastrophic (the break in kite string doesn't always happen near the spool). I normally would be unconcerned, however with news like NASA designs failing simply due to "centemeters, inches... what's the difference" or doctors giving patients organs as incompatable as they come, etc... this had better be a perfect design which could even survive 1 airplane crash.
I don't even want to know the implications of failure. Better get it right the first time!
If my writing did not make sense, it's probably because I'm about to fall asleep... off to bed I go.
A potential issue might be such a topheavy structure once the payload is in geosynchronous orbit.
It seems the further away a tethered object is from the base, the more stress and pull there is. Kinda like a kite that went too far up and the string broke. Since wind can be argued to be a factor, I will give other analogies.
Imagine holding the string of a teather ball while spinning. If you have 1 foot of rope let out, the ball will not pull as hard as if 5 feet were let out.
Quite similarly, recall one of those times at the county fair, aboard the Graviton. While the operator could stand casually near the center, if you were a foot away from the pad - forget it.
Perhaps this was already calculated - I don't know if it was or not. I believe the concept is feasable, however anything less than perfection in design could be catastrophic (the break in kite string doesn't always happen near the spool). I normally would be unconcerned, however with news like NASA designs failing simply due to "centemeters, inches... what's the difference" or doctors giving patients organs as incompatable as they come, etc... this better be a perfect design which could even survive 1 airplane crash. I don't even want to know the implications of failure
If my writing did not make sense, it's probably because I'm about to fall asleep... off to bed I go.
This started happening to me last month. I tried to submit a story to Slashdot about this, but they didn't take it.
Anyway, I hate to disable the Windows Messaging Service. I have seriously used this as a conduit for communicating with friends in emergency situations when AIM wasn't running.
If I were running my local cable modem ISP, I would take complaints of people getting spammed, and with a little proof, block the IP address of the computer doing the spamming. If people want to still receive traffic from blacklisted IP's, the customers could optionally have the block removed.
In the meantime, all Grandma's or Little Timothy's XP computer has to do is be connected to the Internet to receive messages instructing them how to get pornography in their inbox. Yet another example of how few it takes to screw the world.
Wow! lots of replys posted!
I use windows basically because it is more general... like how I like PCs. Linux is good at what it is designed for. Windows isn't as good but I can do more with it. That's simply because Linux doesn't have nearly as many developers as Windows.
I haven't read the comments. I know that I probably will get a -5 Redundant for this, since probably EVERY single slashdot user thought this when they saw this article:
1. Want open source operating system? Use Linux! The Defenders of the GPL aren't going to call a military strike if the Chinese (Taiwanese?) government modifies the code and passes it down closed source.
2. Ask Microsoft to release source code? I doubt they would even release the source code of Hover (game which came on Windows 95 cds), let alone source code of windows. We are going to have OSX running on PCs, 4G wireless for $10/mo, 10 Terrabyte laptop HDs, full comprehensive voice recognition, holographic output displays, and yes, the Star Trek transporters before Microsoft releases source code for the hell of it to a country that ranks highest for software piracy.
Seriously, I think that whichever operating system can give better native support to clustering will gain a lot of market value. Microsoft, as far as I know is not into clustering yet. Mandrake and the rest of the Open Source community seem to be taking steps in the right direction. Lets just hope that Microsoft doesn't start getting clustering for windows anytime soon:).
where millions upon millions of US Taxpayer dollars go: To keep military networks secure!
Seriously, I don't think that the guy was trying to completely keep his identity a secret. If something is easy enough to hack, there is no fun. I used to play around with my school's network (causing no damage). But since the network security was so easy to break, I leave their network alone and only use their computers when I have to (they are slow Win98 machines anyway).
Slashdot Mirror
One of my good friends was investigated for hacking the school district computers, and now faces criminal charges. Later on in this long saga (I will spare you the details), the computer lab that the hacking of district computers was done from was formed into a new network. Consequentially, the teacher had to set up a server, etc.
He is having me and another good friend set up the server. We are both good friends of the "black hat", but only he and only one other school employee know the password. All work we do is supervised. Although we can intentionally "neglect to put in certain security procedures", we can't exactly place back doors. Granted we are not "black hat", having "black hats" work seems not to be that bad of an idea.
Like other jobs, have a probationary period. Any hacker that is "black hat" status will simply have to do all stuff while being monitored. For example, don't give admin access, have station use screen captures, keyloggers, be physically watched, etc. It depends on what the security company is doing, but if the future employee could be utilized for setting appropriate security policies with the real net admin of the client present and watching.
This might be better for the client company as well, because the net admin would probably wonder why the guy is "black hat", and probably ask about his experiences. Productive conversations would probably come out of this, such as "network administration common flaws", "don't trust strangers based on the way they dress", "you have an AP? Wardrivers are probably having a ball", etc. They have already been caught, prosecuted, etc - so they can tell about (some of) the stuff they did.
Anyway, I understand completely why companies don't want to hire "black hats". However if "black hats" are supervized (especially by client net admins), others will learn from people who don't have to worry about telling of past exploits.
Then again, if the guy seems like a loser who fits the stereotypical "hacker profile", and seems like a slob - forget it. Use common sense. Simply put, the attitude must be one of "this is how you fix your stuff", as opposed to "you have X flaw with your setup".
Then again, this may be one of my many random mumblings. Don't mod down - reply!
The link is dead? Slashdotted already and this is the First Post lol. Too bad, I was wanting to read the comics rofl.
You have the right to read this message (spam). You do not have the right to delete it, nor do you have the right to ignore it. You are circumventing the Digital Rights Management otherwise, therefore hacking (and thus a terrorist). Very un-PATRIOTic of you!
Hmmm... Wonder what we ought to do with all these new "hacker terrorists"? How about sending them to be gassed? At least involuntary servitude for life - c'mon.
The point is - Support the Electronic Frontieer Foundation (EFF: http://www.eff.org). These people are awesome, and if it weren't for them, we might have 5 DMCAs. Vote for representatives that believe in not regulating the unknown to them - the Internet.
If the network is correctly managed, there should be no problem.
If P2P file sharing becomes a problem, KaZaA and any other ports (other than FTP and HTTP) transmitting too much data can simply be set to a lower priority.
I think a clear TOS is right on the money. People don't have time to read 20 pages or whatever. Make the TOS one or two pages. It can say things like "If your internet usage excedes an average of 2 MB/s per month, your connection will be set at lower priority (if we face bandwidth constraints). Please don't make game servers with more than 20 player slots. Unauthorized usage of others' computers or networks prohibited (hacking). 50 emails per day is your limit. If you have any issues or special needs, please contact us and we can work things out."
The point is, this is pretty much what the 20 page TOSes say. There could be an official TOS for if there are any questions, but other than that, it is good if your customers actually know the TOS. Also, things can be worked out. If 50 sent emails per day is not enough for a customer because they run a Linux email newsletter that people register for, then fine. Otherwise, no ordinary user would need to be able to write near 50 emails per day.
An interesting approach to the task at hand: to waste as much time as humanly possible coding a spider that relies on AOL software and... yeah
What's that I hear? "I'll bet you wish you thought of it first"??? *sobs* well... yeah.
I fail to see how RIAA claimed damages could total $90 some billion. In fact, I might venture that a monetary value cannot be assigned to losses because of these reasons:
(note: I know there are alternatives to MP3 but the desire for simplicity in my explanations prevailed)
1. The RIAA would have the burdon of proof that all logged transfers of MP3 files in their calculations were copyright violations and not students within fair use (i.e. students owned the CD and didn't want to spend time ripping).
2. The RIAA would have the burdon of proof that each and every copyright violation (see #1) resulted in a lost sale. Many who download MP3 files never would purchase CDs anyway, whether or not MP3 technology existed. In essence, the RIAA has to prove that the customer in each case would have actually bought a CD, had it not been for the search engine.
3. The RIAA would have to demonstrate that the purpose of the software was for music trading. It seems to me that this "spider" indexed everything. From the description of the software, it doesnt seem to be exclusively for media files. Media files are indexed along with all other content, as the software doesn't know whether an MP3 file is for a garage band posting their stuff or a video file is of someone dumping soap into a fountain to make it bubbly. Same goes for software - People may very well want to check out what the Computer Science department is chugging out.
Hopefully whoever presides over this case will throw it out as frivolous. In my opinion, this is similar to somebody suing "Perfect Kitchen Silverware Company", because someone was murdered with a knife manufactured by the company.
My laptop took a fall and the screen cracked. It did not completely break as I can see most of it (there are some black splots). Compaq will not fix the screen for less than $999.95. Seems strange cuz the screen was lower end, and you can buy 17 inch LCDs for $250 after shipping charges on the Internet.
Unfortunately, Compaq will not even sell the part for me to fix. So I'm pretty much screwed. I figure I will buy a $250 LCD (standalone not mount-on-laptop), and just connect my *new desktop* to it. I can take the laptop around if I need to but the screen looks like shit.
"Let's talk about something that really matters. My ancestors were forced into slavery and spent a lifetime tilling the soil and working for the white man. My enslaved ancestors and brothers spent a lifetime of work without pay all for the profit of the white man. It is about time that we, the African-Americans, that built this country, receive reparations for our hard work. The government, businesses, and the white man owe us trillions of dollars in unpaid reparations..."
A perfect example of why exclusive rights (read: copyright) should die with the person. Since Mickey's copyright is and will be held by (multiple) generations of descendents, shouldn't the right to compensation for a great (x2?) grandfather's work be held by some random black guy in front of a computer?
A lesson in today's politics. Reminds me a little of the "breaking windows is good for the economy because it creates jobs" philosophy.
I realize the article was full of doom and gloom, but I am a firm believer in Moore's Law, and other factors. For example, the smaller chips get, the less power they seem to need. Also, don't forget about promising technologies, breakthroughs in manufacturing processes, etc. Perhaps I am glimpsing 5-10 years from now, instead of the next year or two, like the CNet article.
If the megs to square cm ratio for flash is on par with current (or even yesteryear) hard drive platter megs to square cm ratio, then its great.
Hard drives will eventually reach a limit due to the laws of physics, and I think flash is a much better infrastructure than hard drives. In other words, I believe that a 3.5" HD which has reached the limits of the laws of physics will have much less capacity than a block of flash with the same cubic cm (reaching the limits of the laws of physics).
Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. My best friend got in trouble by the law for informing the school about a common security vulnerability (Search the net for "turlock school hacking"). After repeated emails warning of the vulnerability were dismissed by the people in the big chairs, he effortlessly decrypted a single file on a student computer to gain administrator access to servers. He went to them with a list of everyone's passwords and was shortly after arrested. Ever since Mr. Clinton left the white house, persons who point out security vulnerabilities have been synonimous with "hackers" which are now synonimous with "terrorists". Hmmm i wonder how long before my friend is taken before a firing squad for treason. lol i exaggerated the last part to make a point hopefully it wasn't lost.
Those in lofty places do wield power against little guys. I have good reason to suspect the cops are still harrassing my friend - trying to link him to any "hacker group" they can think of. All instigated by what I believe an administration trying to save face...
After all, what do all laws have in common? They all criminalize previously acceptable behavior. It seems that increasingly more laws have little grounding in what is right. It would seem better if industry experts decided whether or not firewalling should be a prosecutable offense as opposed to experts in brown-nosing.
Do the bums have insane Internet access too? :-D
:-/
**Slips his laptop into a backpack and prepares to hitch a ride up to Washington**
If not I can always hold up a "Will Code for Bandwidth" sign. Damn this backassward town i live in
Quite frankly, Windows NT 4 is why spaghetti coding is BAD. Earlier operating systems created by Microsoft show lack of focused planning and eagerness to create something new. I supposed the debugging/patching team finally had the last straw and had subsequent OSes built with more stable kernels. Developers: Always comment your code and begin coding with a well-thought out plan. Even with RAD, know what your doing before you start!
I remember the days of the antitrust suit against Microsoft... it was because everything was too integrated. Microsoft swore up and down that their severe integration was good. You decide that for yourself - especially in light of the current situation.
Although you may think I am simply another Linux proponent, I do not believe that a flaw would be simply unfixable with Linux. Distributions are highly modular, and although spaghetti code is inevitable, it is minimal in the Linux kernel and important services - namely because hundreds, perhaps thousands of developers contribute and sloppy base code is not an option. In no way am I saying Linux is for grandmas, however I would never entrust my business/server to Windows. It simply seems imprudent.
Even without the war with Iraq, governments in the United States have been downsizing (war means they downsize more). Many states are in debt (illegal according to their constitutions), with a growing list of people who have lost their government jobs.
During my freshman year in high school, if a vending machine ate money, the Activities office would have us sign our name and give us money. Now it is my senior year. Even at the beginning of the year, the school could not refund us our money. The lady apologized and complained that the school is broke - basically only payroll money is coming from above.
Money is tight on teaching material. In fact, a teacher (head of the department) was complaining that the budget for supplies is one fifth of what it was in the seventees (which comes out much less if you factor inflation).
This isn't just Turlock, CA we are talking about. If you observe closely and ask, chances are you will find that budgets are very thin.
At times, it seems like the American government is arrogant. Chances are, if anyone in power is pissing you off, other people will be pissed as well. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of government is its disconnectedness from the public. Politicians are subject to Judgement Day, and it is the duty of all citizens to destroy the political career of arrogant irresponsible politicans on that "first tuesday following the first monday of November". There are many good politicians out there - oust the bad ones at your local polling place.
My laptop just took a lil fall and the screen went cracky cracky. I can still read what the screen says, but its too bad that this laptop wasn't the one I dropped.
;)
I wonder how they have the hard drive set up, or if they use flash. Normally, any hard drive experiencing even a small shock can be easily destroyed if the head is reading.
700 MhZ isn't too great but you could always take it in the shower for some good 'ol pr0n.
Ok slashdot stripped my enters and blended everything into one jumble. I don't normally have to inject
in my writing (and i forgot to switch to the Plain Old Text option). Here is what the comment should look like - sorry:
A potential issue might be such a topheavy structure once the payload is in geosynchronous orbit. It seems the further away a tethered object is from the base, the more stress and pull there is. Kinda like a kite that went too far up and the string broke. Since wind can be argued to be a factor, I will give other analogies.
Imagine holding the string of a teather ball while spinning. If you have 1 foot of rope let out, the ball will not pull as hard as if 5 feet were let out. Quite similarly, recall one of those times at the county fair, aboard the Graviton. While the operator could stand casually near the center, if you were 1 foot away from the pad - forget standing casually.
Perhaps this was already calculated - I don't know if it was or not. I believe the concept of a space elevator is feasable, however anything less than perfection in design could be catastrophic (the break in kite string doesn't always happen near the spool). I normally would be unconcerned, however with news like NASA designs failing simply due to "centemeters, inches... what's the difference" or doctors giving patients organs as incompatable as they come, etc... this had better be a perfect design which could even survive 1 airplane crash.
I don't even want to know the implications of failure. Better get it right the first time!
If my writing did not make sense, it's probably because I'm about to fall asleep... off to bed I go.
A potential issue might be such a topheavy structure once the payload is in geosynchronous orbit. It seems the further away a tethered object is from the base, the more stress and pull there is. Kinda like a kite that went too far up and the string broke. Since wind can be argued to be a factor, I will give other analogies. Imagine holding the string of a teather ball while spinning. If you have 1 foot of rope let out, the ball will not pull as hard as if 5 feet were let out. Quite similarly, recall one of those times at the county fair, aboard the Graviton. While the operator could stand casually near the center, if you were a foot away from the pad - forget it. Perhaps this was already calculated - I don't know if it was or not. I believe the concept is feasable, however anything less than perfection in design could be catastrophic (the break in kite string doesn't always happen near the spool). I normally would be unconcerned, however with news like NASA designs failing simply due to "centemeters, inches... what's the difference" or doctors giving patients organs as incompatable as they come, etc... this better be a perfect design which could even survive 1 airplane crash. I don't even want to know the implications of failure If my writing did not make sense, it's probably because I'm about to fall asleep... off to bed I go.
Wow! Exactly what I wanted for christmas!
This started happening to me last month. I tried to submit a story to Slashdot about this, but they didn't take it.
Anyway, I hate to disable the Windows Messaging Service. I have seriously used this as a conduit for communicating with friends in emergency situations when AIM wasn't running.
If I were running my local cable modem ISP, I would take complaints of people getting spammed, and with a little proof, block the IP address of the computer doing the spamming. If people want to still receive traffic from blacklisted IP's, the customers could optionally have the block removed.
In the meantime, all Grandma's or Little Timothy's XP computer has to do is be connected to the Internet to receive messages instructing them how to get pornography in their inbox. Yet another example of how few it takes to screw the world.
McDonalds employees like me get employee discounts at the virtual mcdonalds?
Wow! lots of replys posted! I use windows basically because it is more general... like how I like PCs. Linux is good at what it is designed for. Windows isn't as good but I can do more with it. That's simply because Linux doesn't have nearly as many developers as Windows.
You think that's a long time to rearange matter? Get it to clean my room!
I haven't read the comments. I know that I probably will get a -5 Redundant for this, since probably EVERY single slashdot user thought this when they saw this article:
1. Want open source operating system? Use Linux! The Defenders of the GPL aren't going to call a military strike if the Chinese (Taiwanese?) government modifies the code and passes it down closed source.
2. Ask Microsoft to release source code? I doubt they would even release the source code of Hover (game which came on Windows 95 cds), let alone source code of windows. We are going to have OSX running on PCs, 4G wireless for $10/mo, 10 Terrabyte laptop HDs, full comprehensive voice recognition, holographic output displays, and yes, the Star Trek transporters before Microsoft releases source code for the hell of it to a country that ranks highest for software piracy.
Seriously, I think that whichever operating system can give better native support to clustering will gain a lot of market value. Microsoft, as far as I know is not into clustering yet. Mandrake and the rest of the Open Source community seem to be taking steps in the right direction. Lets just hope that Microsoft doesn't start getting clustering for windows anytime soon :).
where millions upon millions of US Taxpayer dollars go: To keep military networks secure!
Seriously, I don't think that the guy was trying to completely keep his identity a secret. If something is easy enough to hack, there is no fun. I used to play around with my school's network (causing no damage). But since the network security was so easy to break, I leave their network alone and only use their computers when I have to (they are slow Win98 machines anyway).