Relax now, new software will be shipped as fat binaries, ready to run on Intel natively. Hardware is more of an issue for people who want to hold on to it for long time, because at some point PPC version will be dropped or get less testing. Apple should release x86 emulator for PPC to encourage people to buy current hardware and developers to test their apps without buying a special kit.
It's ridiculous to pass ultra-strict laws and not make it easy for an average citizen to be obedient. Nobody can drive safely all the time or accurately predict when they are unsafe. Are you going to lock up the whole population in jail? Most people can not afford taxi rides or walk the distances involved. But give them a decent bus or subway service like what the rest of world has and they will gladly ditch risks and financial burdens of driving.
Driving is dangerous under the best of circumstances, and you have been a more dangerous driver than a drunk more than twice in your lifetime by being sleepy, lost, distracted or inexperienced. Rather than passing more laws for what's already illegal, lets give people an option. Change zoning laws so that every place of living or drinking is accessible by realistic public transportation. Coincidentally, we'll also stop destroying undeveloped or farming lands by building suburbs in crazy places. And kick dependence on oil big time.
Just use some tool like automatic screwdriver to wind the tape in front of a webcam, then write a program to find different brightness of the holes. I am sure this guy will do it for a reasonable reward. But in any case, the analyzes part can be delayed for any amount of time after the video is made and archived.
But why would you want to rely on the government to protect you when you can just go to a shop next door and reward them for decency? Just buy a Linux PDA for games and let Sony's closed platform be as "successful" as their non-MP3 music players.
Funny, I don't recall anybody characterizing the majority as tyrannical when it tried to enact the platform upon which it ran during the elections when that majority was the Democratic party.
If you were forced to have an abortion, enter a gay marriage or undergo stem cell-based therapy when Democrats were in power, by all means come forward and complain about tyranny. Otherwise, the word you are looking for is freedom.
I don't understand why is it a "thin line". If you see someone getting mugged, you have the physical strength and there is no police around, why shouldn't you intervene?
Those sites are stealing more money from each person than someone taking your wallet on the street and can keep misusing one's identity for many years afterwards. They often reside in jurisdiction where police would rather combat massive real-world violence than bother with some web sites (as well they should!). If you have the skills, you should go and wipe out then next phishing link that shows up in your inbox.
A thin line would be DDoSing Gator. As much as it's tempting to beat up the bastards trying to sell a 100 magazine subscriptions to an old lady who dreams of winning some sweapstakes...
In a free market, the price of most software will be zero:
1. It's free to make lots of copies of software and production cost is less than say writing a book or making an episode of Simpsons. In fact, people are willing to program as a hobby or, in 3rd world countries, for very low pay by our standards.
2. As McVoy pointed out, users of the software - big companies like Apple (hardware maker) or IBM (making money on service and support) - have interest in open source to free customer's money for themselves and soak up other people's contributions. There are more software users than software sellers. Oops!
3. On consumer side, intellectual property that has similar costs to software - TV shows and newspapers - has long been free and makes money on advertisement or convenient delivery (cable or newspaper subscriptions). There are all signs Google is trying to get into both models.
Microsoft and music record companies are seemingly beating this trend by selling IP which is relatively cheap to produce at increasing prices. I say it's because they operate under corpitalism - government rules that favor otherwise unsustainable business models of big corporations - rather than true capitalist open market.
For one thing, piracy is impossible to control without unreasonable laws like DMCA that prohibit studying mathematics and allows invasive snooping of Internet by private entities. In a normal society, content produces would have to come up with reasonable prices and attractive distribution channels to encourage honesty. Also, control of limited distribution channels - like buying all radio stations so that independent music can not be heard - would be illegal in a society that promotes free competition. So would be patent lock-in of trivial ideas, like Amazon's 1-click.
The most extreme case of corpitalism is bankrupt airlines that continue to operate as usual while being allowed to break any contracts that they voluntarily accepted (like employee pension plans). You would think if government gets into social protection, the target would be poor individuals rather than huge companies. PanAm ran out of money and folded and air travel is generally better/cheaper because of that.
Fortunately, it just takes one country in the world to switch to true capitalism instead of corpitalism. After a short time, everyone else would leach their software and domestic companies would have to switch to better business models to compete.
Free Linux software runs just fine OSX. However, if you want more quality than people are willing to provide as a hobby, you are stuck without any solution on Linux. Maybe there is a commercial office suite, but good luck with news readers, utilities, tax prep, education software...
I expect this situation to persist until Linux guarantees long-term binary compatibility for libc,/dev,/proc, C++ ABI, kernel modules and filesystem structure. OSX Tiger broke some kernel extensions (Cisco VPN) for the first time in many years and people are not happy. With Linux it's more like once a month.
Ouch! I understand it would be kind of tough for 4 people to manage 2 Linux servers with KVM switches. You might want to invest in several Mac Minis for use as X terminals and non-server tasks like writing reports.
I hope they don't give out iPod photo for eating only grains and vegetables, because then many children will eat diet unhealthy for them just to get a shiny toy. Low carb diet is over-hyped, but it sure worked for some people. And if you are an athlete or have an iron deficiency, you don't want to skip red meat. I would never be in reasonable shape or have a good energy level if I followed the stupid food pyramid. Better to reward exercise and knowledge of health issues rather than specific food.
I beseech you to move to a free country. Academic freedom is the last barrier to universal oppression. If professors are fired for expressing non-mainstream opinions on law, war or religion, young people will not even be aware that alternative opinions exist or that thinking for yourself is not/shouldn't be a crime. Read up on Tiananmen square and Vietnam anti-war protests and think of how different the world would be if outcomes of student protests were reversed.
I didn't know it was possible to time anything as (ostensibly) quick as strcmp.
strcmp may be fast, virtual memory is not. You just make sure that your password ends up split between two pages in the comparing program - for example by padding the previous thing you send over network with spaces. Then generate some activity to make sure most of the things are paged out. Now if the part of the password on the first page is correct, the program will take longer to return failure and an extra page should be visible through vmstat. By repeating this with different alignment, someone can guess your password character-by-character.
I am afraid multi-user systems are there to keep students from stealing each other's homework, not for protecting military secrets. Over the Internet, such small variations in timing should be impossible to measure. You can insert a random delay every time your program processes an incorrect password for good measure.
If a company is above board and decent dealing with employees, it will seldom encounter insider attacks and will be fully justified prosecuting them. Notify an employee of an impending layoff when the decision is made. Don't give bogus performance reviews just so that you can fire someone without giving them the severance package. Don't expect people to work overtime training their overseas replacements.
On the other hand, companies that use underhanded tactics should be barred from suing ex-employees that are doing things just comparable in sleaziness. Don't expect to get back those nice gadgets that he took home:-)
They'll just have a hardware decoder chip to watch 5 HD movies that you decided to take on your 60GB iPod. Remember that you can get an $20 DVD dedicated DVD player while a general-purpose computer capable of playing DVDs fullscreen costs at least 20 times more. A big hint on how future computers will keep up with Moore's law if you ask me.
If there is indeed a flaw in DoD system that endangers the public, I absolutely want someone to prove it by releasing some unclassified data that couldn't have been obtained elsewhere. People responsible for these computers would be risking jail time. I wouldn't trust them to own up to their mistake. If someone contacts them privately, they might lock up that person in jail as a "national security risk" and add some security-through-obscurity rather than a fundamental fix.
Do you think either Microsoft or Apple will take me on my bet? Will their customers be any safer because they refuse? When people are negligent about security and are putting others in danger (say, by exposing employees' private info or participating in a zombie net), someone bringing it to attention of everyone affected in a convincing manner is a good samaritan. Court made a mistake in Randall Schwartz's case, and we should fight it rather than cower. So far most people who publicized security weaknesses as a public service or even for personal fame haven't been bothered.
Breaking into a system is not much different than breaking into my house
Ok, lets make a deal then. Me and a few of my friends will give you access to all of our computers and accounts and in exchange you give us your house. Sounds good? Uh, didn't think so. Obviously you don't think "computer systems" are as valuable as real-life stuff. Why should people be punished in the same way then?
Besides, breaking into systems without permission just to show they are insecure isn't necessary.
Oh, sure it is. Back in university, I read a newsgroup post by a system administrator that insisted that Sun's Yellow Pages were a secure way to manage passwords. I sent him a copy of his password file and his ypserv went down in a blink. If instead I gave a long technical explanation, he would likely just ignore it.
And today companies like Microsoft and Apple ignore critical security flaws until someone provides an obvious exploit on a public web page. What is not necessary is causing damage or using any information obtained for personal gain.
My parents would definitely do a better job teaching me than my school did (this is "in Soviet Russia", but I heard American schools are similar). They would know which subjects I am most able to learn and use in my future life and what to keep to absolute minimum. More importantly, I would get to hang around with decent children, not drug-addicated bullies.
On the other hand, only about 10% of population really has jobs that require any scientific knowledge. Even programmers only need a rudimentary knowledge of math. The rest would do just as well by just learning to read and looking at a few popular books to cover basic issues in health, money management, social interaction and politics.
I recall that public education was introduced to combat unemployment by keeping children out of job market. And nowadays it's mostly promoted to keep teenagers out of gangs and other trouble. Still, there is got to be a better way than making them do meaningless drivel.
Slashdot Mirror
Relax now, new software will be shipped as fat binaries, ready to run on Intel natively. Hardware is more of an issue for people who want to hold on to it for long time, because at some point PPC version will be dropped or get less testing. Apple should release x86 emulator for PPC to encourage people to buy current hardware and developers to test their apps without buying a special kit.
It's ridiculous to pass ultra-strict laws and not make it easy for an average citizen to be obedient. Nobody can drive safely all the time or accurately predict when they are unsafe. Are you going to lock up the whole population in jail? Most people can not afford taxi rides or walk the distances involved. But give them a decent bus or subway service like what the rest of world has and they will gladly ditch risks and financial burdens of driving.
Driving is dangerous under the best of circumstances, and you have been a more dangerous driver than a drunk more than twice in your lifetime by being sleepy, lost, distracted or inexperienced. Rather than passing more laws for what's already illegal, lets give people an option. Change zoning laws so that every place of living or drinking is accessible by realistic public transportation. Coincidentally, we'll also stop destroying undeveloped or farming lands by building suburbs in crazy places. And kick dependence on oil big time.
You should try to degauss your blury monitor from the onscreen menus. Works wonders for many bumped/transported CRTs
Just use some tool like automatic screwdriver to wind the tape in front of a webcam, then write a program to find different brightness of the holes. I am sure this guy will do it for a reasonable reward. But in any case, the analyzes part can be delayed for any amount of time after the video is made and archived.
But why would you want to rely on the government to protect you when you can just go to a shop next door and reward them for decency? Just buy a Linux PDA for games and let Sony's closed platform be as "successful" as their non-MP3 music players.
Funny, I don't recall anybody characterizing the majority as tyrannical when it tried to enact the platform upon which it ran during the elections when that majority was the Democratic party.
If you were forced to have an abortion, enter a gay marriage or undergo stem cell-based therapy when Democrats were in power, by all means come forward and complain about tyranny. Otherwise, the word you are looking for is freedom.
I don't understand why is it a "thin line". If you see someone getting mugged, you have the physical strength and there is no police around, why shouldn't you intervene?
Those sites are stealing more money from each person than someone taking your wallet on the street and can keep misusing one's identity for many years afterwards. They often reside in jurisdiction where police would rather combat massive real-world violence than bother with some web sites (as well they should!). If you have the skills, you should go and wipe out then next phishing link that shows up in your inbox.
A thin line would be DDoSing Gator. As much as it's tempting to beat up the bastards trying to sell a 100 magazine subscriptions to an old lady who dreams of winning some sweapstakes...
Do you mean there will be a huge number of Netscape downloads from Korea??
In a free market, the price of most software will be zero:
1. It's free to make lots of copies of software and production cost is less than say writing a book or making an episode of Simpsons. In fact, people are willing to program as a hobby or, in 3rd world countries, for very low pay by our standards.
2. As McVoy pointed out, users of the software - big companies like Apple (hardware maker) or IBM (making money on service and support) - have interest in open source to free customer's money for themselves and soak up other people's contributions. There are more software users than software sellers. Oops!
3. On consumer side, intellectual property that has similar costs to software - TV shows and newspapers - has long been free and makes money on advertisement or convenient delivery (cable or newspaper subscriptions). There are all signs Google is trying to get into both models.
Microsoft and music record companies are seemingly beating this trend by selling IP which is relatively cheap to produce at increasing prices. I say it's because they operate under corpitalism - government rules that favor otherwise unsustainable business models of big corporations - rather than true capitalist open market.
For one thing, piracy is impossible to control without unreasonable laws like DMCA that prohibit studying mathematics and allows invasive snooping of Internet by private entities. In a normal society, content produces would have to come up with reasonable prices and attractive distribution channels to encourage honesty. Also, control of limited distribution channels - like buying all radio stations so that independent music can not be heard - would be illegal in a society that promotes free competition. So would be patent lock-in of trivial ideas, like Amazon's 1-click.
The most extreme case of corpitalism is bankrupt airlines that continue to operate as usual while being allowed to break any contracts that they voluntarily accepted (like employee pension plans). You would think if government gets into social protection, the target would be poor individuals rather than huge companies. PanAm ran out of money and folded and air travel is generally better/cheaper because of that.
Fortunately, it just takes one country in the world to switch to true capitalism instead of corpitalism. After a short time, everyone else would leach their software and domestic companies would have to switch to better business models to compete.
Free Linux software runs just fine OSX. However, if you want more quality than people are willing to provide as a hobby, you are stuck without any solution on Linux. Maybe there is a commercial office suite, but good luck with news readers, utilities, tax prep, education software...
/dev, /proc, C++ ABI, kernel modules and filesystem structure. OSX Tiger broke some kernel extensions (Cisco VPN) for the first time in many years and people are not happy. With Linux it's more like once a month.
I expect this situation to persist until Linux guarantees long-term binary compatibility for libc,
you still need a keyboard, screen, mouse, cables, etc.
Do you really need them every time you buy a computer? I would divide the price difference by two for realistic use.
Ouch! I understand it would be kind of tough for 4 people to manage 2 Linux servers with KVM switches. You might want to invest in several Mac Minis for use as X terminals and non-server tasks like writing reports.
I hope they don't give out iPod photo for eating only grains and vegetables, because then many children will eat diet unhealthy for them just to get a shiny toy. Low carb diet is over-hyped, but it sure worked for some people. And if you are an athlete or have an iron deficiency, you don't want to skip red meat. I would never be in reasonable shape or have a good energy level if I followed the stupid food pyramid. Better to reward exercise and knowledge of health issues rather than specific food.
If you bought a book using my tax dollars, you better believe I will have a say in borrowing terms.
I beseech you to move to a free country. Academic freedom is the last barrier to universal oppression. If professors are fired for expressing non-mainstream opinions on law, war or religion, young people will not even be aware that alternative opinions exist or that thinking for yourself is not/shouldn't be a crime. Read up on Tiananmen square and Vietnam anti-war protests and think of how different the world would be if outcomes of student protests were reversed.
I didn't know it was possible to time anything as (ostensibly) quick as strcmp.
strcmp may be fast, virtual memory is not. You just make sure that your password ends up split between two pages in the comparing program - for example by padding the previous thing you send over network with spaces. Then generate some activity to make sure most of the things are paged out. Now if the part of the password on the first page is correct, the program will take longer to return failure and an extra page should be visible through vmstat. By repeating this with different alignment, someone can guess your password character-by-character.
I am afraid multi-user systems are there to keep students from stealing each other's homework, not for protecting military secrets. Over the Internet, such small variations in timing should be impossible to measure. You can insert a random delay every time your program processes an incorrect password for good measure.
If a company is above board and decent dealing with employees, it will seldom encounter insider attacks and will be fully justified prosecuting them. Notify an employee of an impending layoff when the decision is made. Don't give bogus performance reviews just so that you can fire someone without giving them the severance package. Don't expect people to work overtime training their overseas replacements.
:-)
On the other hand, companies that use underhanded tactics should be barred from suing ex-employees that are doing things just comparable in sleaziness. Don't expect to get back those nice gadgets that he took home
They'll just have a hardware decoder chip to watch 5 HD movies that you decided to take on your 60GB iPod. Remember that you can get an $20 DVD dedicated DVD player while a general-purpose computer capable of playing DVDs fullscreen costs at least 20 times more. A big hint on how future computers will keep up with Moore's law if you ask me.
Yes, in fact you can boot off an iPod with non-painful performance. That's a good way to test your app on an old or prerelease OS version.
If there is indeed a flaw in DoD system that endangers the public, I absolutely want someone to prove it by releasing some unclassified data that couldn't have been obtained elsewhere. People responsible for these computers would be risking jail time. I wouldn't trust them to own up to their mistake. If someone contacts them privately, they might lock up that person in jail as a "national security risk" and add some security-through-obscurity rather than a fundamental fix.
Do you think either Microsoft or Apple will take me on my bet? Will their customers be any safer because they refuse? When people are negligent about security and are putting others in danger (say, by exposing employees' private info or participating in a zombie net), someone bringing it to attention of everyone affected in a convincing manner is a good samaritan. Court made a mistake in Randall Schwartz's case, and we should fight it rather than cower. So far most people who publicized security weaknesses as a public service or even for personal fame haven't been bothered.
Breaking into a system is not much different than breaking into my house
Ok, lets make a deal then. Me and a few of my friends will give you access to all of our computers and accounts and in exchange you give us your house. Sounds good? Uh, didn't think so. Obviously you don't think "computer systems" are as valuable as real-life stuff. Why should people be punished in the same way then?
Besides, breaking into systems without permission just to show they are insecure isn't necessary.
Oh, sure it is. Back in university, I read a newsgroup post by a system administrator that insisted that Sun's Yellow Pages were a secure way to manage passwords. I sent him a copy of his password file and his ypserv went down in a blink. If instead I gave a long technical explanation, he would likely just ignore it.
And today companies like Microsoft and Apple ignore critical security flaws until someone provides an obvious exploit on a public web page. What is not necessary is causing damage or using any information obtained for personal gain.
My parents would definitely do a better job teaching me than my school did (this is "in Soviet Russia", but I heard American schools are similar). They would know which subjects I am most able to learn and use in my future life and what to keep to absolute minimum. More importantly, I would get to hang around with decent children, not drug-addicated bullies.
On the other hand, only about 10% of population really has jobs that require any scientific knowledge. Even programmers only need a rudimentary knowledge of math. The rest would do just as well by just learning to read and looking at a few popular books to cover basic issues in health, money management, social interaction and politics.
I recall that public education was introduced to combat unemployment by keeping children out of job market. And nowadays it's mostly promoted to keep teenagers out of gangs and other trouble. Still, there is got to be a better way than making them do meaningless drivel.