Funny you mention that. Convergence, a German software startup for Linux TV applications once had t-shirts with that quote printed on the back. That company was also actively involved in promoting open standards for multimedia platforms based on digital TV.
Which brings me to the point: A proprietary standard for digital TV will severely affect its innovative development. US companies will shut themselves out from the rest of the world in terms of development, because they control the local market. The really exciting developments will not be done in proprietary standards and in a couple of years Europe and Asia will have some really cool stuff. Whereas the US pays extortion money to cable monopolies. Not smart in the long run.
It does. This e-mail comes from a consultant to SCO who discusses his commission for referring Microsoft as an investor to SCO by ways of Baystar Capital.
" They bought the license based on the fact that they have the Services for Unix system available for use, and they have a number of Unix, MacOSX and Linux boxes within their research departments."
What kind of a license would you need in the extreme? Even if you want to cover all possible odds and ends of its legal use and the largest possible scope of deployment.
30 Million USD? You must be kidding.
I accept that the corporate world must be stupid. However, I refuse to believe that Microsoft is willing to spend 30 Million USD on a UNIX license that is basically worth nil these days. No one in the corporate world spends this much hard cash money without a long term strategy in mind. And there must be a lot more persons involved in getting thumbs up for freeing the actual funds to be transferred.
This issue is not about ham radio, it is about worldwide communication. Let me point out just some of the services that depend on shortwave communication and let me also give you some background on shortwave propagation itself:
Shortwave propagation is not line of sight communication, it is global. An RF signal transmitted in Cincinnati can easily be picked anywhere. Shortwave signals are reflected on the ionosphere and they are propagated on different paths, depending on season, time of day, frequency and direction of RF energy.
That makes it a global issue, not a local issue.
Ham Radio only uses a tiny portion of the entire shortwave spectrum. Other radio services use the spectrum as well and some of them are exclusively depending on it:
- Military - Broadcast stations - Emergency communications - Embassies all over the world - Offshore oil rigs, ships - Aviation - Time Synchronization - Scientific Observation (Magnetic field of the earth, Sunspots, Atmosphere etc.) - Intelligence Agencies - Satellite communication (Yes, there are shortwave satellites) - Digital broadcasting
Contrary to widesp^WSlashdot belief, commercial satellites are not the solution to every communication problem. One of the issues is independence. While shortwave communication is point-to-point, a satellite adds an unwanted layer of dependency on communications and terms of use of a commercial entity.
Please, please, please understand that a shortwave radio signal does not stop at some man made border. It travels all over the planet, affects *billions* of people (No, I am not exaggerating) and their access to information and in many cases is the only way to communicate with remote places on earth.
A ship in a storm cannot use a satellite, neither can an Antarctic research station amidst a storm. Satellite antennas need to be calibrated very, very precisely and that is impossible in rough weather conditions. People can *DIE* when they cannot communicate and while it may be nice to have broadband access everywhere, there are other solutions to provide that and these solutions may even do a lot less harm to people's live than a technology that effectively can kill worldwide shortwave communication.
OK, I misread that statement. However, ham radio has a long history of interfering with local broadcast and TV reception when receivers are badly designed. When hams interfere with BPL they will be blamed and shutdown so that the system can be successful after all.
"The problem is that's not what I was referring to. What I was trying to say is that radio waves DO travel in a linear pattern and the only limiting factor IS the weather (or the sun)."
You really don't know what you are talking about, because that exactly is what shortwave propagation is about. With my ridiculously small ham setup I can talk to my buddies all over the planet - my bandwidth being some hundred Hz and my output power not even reaching 100 Watts.
BPL setup radiate with HUGE antennas (power lines ARE antennas) and with lots more power and the entire bandwidth of the shortwave spectrum. Please do some background reading before you go on a wild assumption ride.
" In this situation, the "said organization" only benefits if the service is successful. It'll only be successful if interference is not a major problem. Knee-jerk anti-corporate thoughts aside, I think we're still squarely in "Rational Land.""
Who modded this "Insightful"?
Interference may not be a problem for YOU, it certainly is for the millions of listeners to shortwave broadcasts.
YOU are the minority. There are people on this planet OUTSIDE the USA, do you know that? There are BILLIONS of people who are not interested in your cheap broadBAND access, but they certainly are interested in broadCAST access.
BPL is RF pollution of the worst kind. It does NOT stop at your borders, quite on the contrary. It makes it impossible for millions of people all over the world to listen to a shortwave transistor radio, to get information, to be entertained and to connect with others.
BPL uses the entire shortwave spectrum and creates a noise floor that can be heard all over the world (Ever heard of shortwave propagation? Ever heard what BPL sound like? I guess not.). With your snotty narrowminded attitude you are in fact denying people their right to free access of information.
Cincinatti goes broadband with hundreds of watts of RF energy dissipated into the atmosphere and South America won't be able to listen to their AM radio stations anymore.
BTW, this is not about ham radio, even though I have had my ham radio license since 1979. No, this is about the millions of villages all over the planet, tuning into shortwave radio broadcasts as their only source of timely information. Hundreds of Millons of individuals will love Americans for denying them that.
Tyrrany of the minority, indeed. Since Americans barely represent 5% of this planet's population that statement fits the shoe perfectly, though I suspect it was made with a slightly different angle in mind in your case.
BTW, "I hope the hams can be given some other chunk of spectrum to operate with" is about as perfect a display of ignorance as I have seen, even here on/.
"Besides the option of a large poster, it seems to me it would be possible to have a system where the police can search for evidence with a warrant, but have to pay for any damages they cause if the victims turn out to be innocent."
It should be the other way round: Unless there is danger of life or other physical harm involved, any investigation should set its priority in such a way that no one should feel hassled by the investigation. It feels strange to see that no one seems to question the means necessary to conduct an investigation.
Was it necessary to do the raid on a Saturday? Was there an imminent threat that had to be averted now and then? Monday would have been to late?
Investigators in the US seem to have completely disconnected from the actual proportions of crimes. A suspected center of DDoS attacks does not warrant the same level of agency involvement as a murder case.
" Yeah, the more of the story is pretty well detailed in the WHT forums."
Why is this modded "informative"? Give us the thread starter with a full URL, but don't expect readers to wade through gazillions of posts on a high traffic forum.
"Lets face it, without viruses alot of the flaws in our operating systems would still be open today, then hackers would have free reign into your system without your knowledge."
The number of machines owned by third parties has risen exponentially to the numbers of computer in use worldwide.
There is no decline in the number of infections. The use of personal firewalls, virusscanners and other snake oil has not contributed to reducing that number.
I would even go as far as saying that 100% of the "Linux hacks" are third party software hacks unrelated to any vulnerabilities in the kernel itself. Looking the GNU/Linux hacks with vulnerabilities in the GNU part of the term, that's a different story altogether.
Looking around the company's website, I found a lot of reasons to take the "Executive Summary" of the study with pounds of salt.
"Okay it depends what you're considering a "server". We're not just talkling web servers, we're talking database servers, file servers, Active directory servers, Exchange servers (for virtually every office in north america). "
No need to hack an Exchange Server if 99% of its client run Outlook Express.
"Who deserves funding: the philosophy department or the business department? Governments are also having this discussion (although it isn't a major issue yet)"
You have no idea how wrong you are, so read this as a whole:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmer ic asDefenses.pdf
and you will find specific directions as to where the US government is heading in terms of education policy. In essence, the discussion you mention is over already.
A year ago, a customer asked us to come up with a concept for a high quality education project (in Asia). At that time I wrote these lines:
"Having analyzed various offers for computer security related courses in individual educational institutes, both state controlled and privately run, we have come to the conclusion that the requirements for an education in this field cannot be met by any of these institutes for a number of reasons.
Specifically, these institutes are prone to the following, grave disadvantages:
They have to cover a wide range of course contents for competitive reasons and can rarely concentrate on specialized subjects They do not have the personal connections to important experts in the field of computer security They cannot keep up with the stormy pace of technical developments They cannot afford to hire experts for budgetary reasons They do not offer a comprehensive, long-term strategy for their courses They cannot afford to act independent of industry affiliations and thus have to reduce course contents to vendor specific knowledge transfer They cannot afford to set up a technical environment specific to a course's needs They do not assist students with additional staff to offer continuous assistance in their learning progress
As a result, students attending a generic educational institution with any of these shortcomings will never be in a position to gain an in-depth view into highly sophisticated and complex systems and will therefore only be of limited use in a field that requires experts trained with motivation, skill and in-depth knowledge."
I had a nice deja vu reading the/. story. Maybe I should become an analyst.
" Scientists agendas are usually based on getting more free tax money for their projects."
Guess what: This is non-political money and therefore makes sure the taxpayer actually profits from this research. Scientific projects that serve no obvious economic reason are necessary and need to be sustained and funded. That's an agenda I can live with.
Can't quote for copyright reason. T The gist of it it that Microsoft will probably be fined roughly 100-125 Million USD in the EU according to an unnamed source within the administration.
"He might be surprised to find that Hollywood closes it ranks to rebels," said Kay, the IDC analyst. "By aspiring too high, too quickly, that could be his downfall. But that story's not told yet.''
Certainly not. People want to see Pixar movies and that is guaranteed money. I can see Hollywood closing its rank to rebels when it comes to cash. Right.
Slashdot Mirror
" So why are other companies able to provide their drivers as Open Source? "
In the graphics sector? Name one (No, a three year old Matrox doesn't cut it).
"The revolution will be televised..."
Funny you mention that. Convergence, a German software startup for Linux TV applications once had t-shirts with that quote printed on the back. That company was also actively involved in promoting open standards for multimedia platforms based on digital TV.
Which brings me to the point: A proprietary standard for digital TV will severely affect its innovative development. US companies will shut themselves out from the rest of the world in terms of development, because they control the local market. The really exciting developments will not be done in proprietary standards and in a couple of years Europe and Asia will have some really cool stuff. Whereas the US pays extortion money to cable monopolies. Not smart in the long run.
".. of MS funding."
It does. This e-mail comes from a consultant to SCO who discusses his commission for referring Microsoft as an investor to SCO by ways of Baystar Capital.
It *is* a smoking gun.
" They bought the license based on the fact that they have the Services for Unix system available for use, and they have a number of Unix, MacOSX and Linux boxes within their research departments."
What kind of a license would you need in the extreme? Even if you want to cover all possible odds and ends of its legal use and the largest possible scope of deployment.
30 Million USD? You must be kidding.
I accept that the corporate world must be stupid. However, I refuse to believe that Microsoft is willing to spend 30 Million USD on a UNIX license that is basically worth nil these days. No one in the corporate world spends this much hard cash money without a long term strategy in mind. And there must be a lot more persons involved in getting thumbs up for freeing the actual funds to be transferred.
Please mod this one up. One of the crucial points of the entire SCO saga.
This issue is not about ham radio, it is about worldwide communication. Let me point out just some of the services that depend on shortwave communication and let me also give you some background on shortwave propagation itself:
Shortwave propagation is not line of sight communication, it is global. An RF signal transmitted in Cincinnati can easily be picked anywhere. Shortwave signals are reflected on the ionosphere and they are propagated on different paths, depending on season, time of day, frequency and direction of RF energy.
That makes it a global issue, not a local issue.
Ham Radio only uses a tiny portion of the entire shortwave spectrum. Other radio services use the spectrum as well and some of them are exclusively depending on it:
- Military
- Broadcast stations
- Emergency communications
- Embassies all over the world
- Offshore oil rigs, ships
- Aviation
- Time Synchronization
- Scientific Observation (Magnetic field of the earth, Sunspots, Atmosphere etc.)
- Intelligence Agencies
- Satellite communication (Yes, there are shortwave satellites)
- Digital broadcasting
Contrary to widesp^WSlashdot belief, commercial satellites are not the solution to every communication problem. One of the issues is independence. While shortwave communication is point-to-point, a satellite adds an unwanted layer of dependency on communications and terms of use of a commercial entity.
Please, please, please understand that a shortwave radio signal does not stop at some man made border. It travels all over the planet, affects *billions* of people (No, I am not exaggerating) and their access to information and in many cases is the only way to communicate with remote places on earth.
A ship in a storm cannot use a satellite, neither can an Antarctic research station amidst a storm. Satellite antennas need to be calibrated very, very precisely and that is impossible in rough weather conditions. People can *DIE* when they cannot communicate and while it may be nice to have broadband access everywhere, there are other solutions to provide that and these solutions may even do a lot less harm to people's live than a technology that effectively can kill worldwide shortwave communication.
As I said, it is NOT about ham radio.
"Are you saying that emissions from BPL on a power line in the USA will reach more than across the street? You better do some more homework."
I only see one of us in need of doing his homework and it certainly is not me.
OK, I misread that statement. However, ham radio has a long history of interfering with local broadcast and TV reception when receivers are badly designed. When hams interfere with BPL they will be blamed and shutdown so that the system can be successful after all.
"The problem is that's not what I was referring to. What I was trying to say is that radio waves DO travel in a linear pattern and the only limiting factor IS the weather (or the sun)."
You really don't know what you are talking about, because that exactly is what shortwave propagation is about. With my ridiculously small ham setup I can talk to my buddies all over the planet - my bandwidth being some hundred Hz and my output power not even reaching 100 Watts.
BPL setup radiate with HUGE antennas (power lines ARE antennas) and with lots more power and the entire bandwidth of the shortwave spectrum. Please do some background reading before you go on a wild assumption ride.
" In this situation, the "said organization" only benefits if the service is successful. It'll only be successful if interference is not a major problem. Knee-jerk anti-corporate thoughts aside, I think we're still squarely in "Rational Land.""
Who modded this "Insightful"?
Interference may not be a problem for YOU, it certainly is for the millions of listeners to shortwave broadcasts.
YOU are the minority. There are people on this planet OUTSIDE the USA, do you know that? There are BILLIONS of people who are not interested in your cheap broadBAND access, but they certainly are interested in broadCAST access.
/.
BPL is RF pollution of the worst kind. It does NOT stop at your borders, quite on the contrary. It makes it impossible for millions of people all over the world to listen to a shortwave transistor radio, to get information, to be entertained and to connect with others.
BPL uses the entire shortwave spectrum and creates a noise floor that can be heard all over the world (Ever heard of shortwave propagation? Ever heard what BPL sound like? I guess not.). With your snotty narrowminded attitude you are in fact denying people their right to free access of information.
Cincinatti goes broadband with hundreds of watts of RF energy dissipated into the atmosphere and South America won't be able to listen to their AM radio stations anymore.
BTW, this is not about ham radio, even though I have had my ham radio license since 1979. No, this is about the millions of villages all over the planet, tuning into shortwave radio broadcasts as their only source of timely information. Hundreds of Millons of individuals will love Americans for denying them that.
Tyrrany of the minority, indeed. Since Americans barely represent 5% of this planet's population that statement fits the shoe perfectly, though I suspect it was made with a slightly different angle in mind in your case.
BTW, "I hope the hams can be given some other chunk of spectrum to operate with" is about as perfect a display of ignorance as I have seen, even here on
"I've got about 50 Compaq Deskpro 4000's that are begging for something to do."
1. Build Beowulf Cluster from them
2. Compile Gentoo with all packages in under 1 hour in a parallel build
3. Mirror build x 50
4. Profit
"Besides the option of a large poster, it seems to me it would be possible to have a system where the police can search for evidence with a warrant, but have to pay for any damages they cause if the victims turn out to be innocent."
It should be the other way round: Unless there is danger of life or other physical harm involved, any investigation should set its priority in such a way that no one should feel hassled by the investigation. It feels strange to see that no one seems to question the means necessary to conduct an investigation.
Was it necessary to do the raid on a Saturday? Was there an imminent threat that had to be averted now and then? Monday would have been to late?
Investigators in the US seem to have completely disconnected from the actual proportions of crimes. A suspected center of DDoS attacks does not warrant the same level of agency involvement as a murder case.
" Yeah, the more of the story is pretty well detailed in the WHT forums."
Why is this modded "informative"? Give us the thread starter with a full URL, but don't expect readers to wade through gazillions of posts on a high traffic forum.
Sheeesh.
"Lets face it, without viruses alot of the flaws in our operating systems would still be open today, then hackers would have free reign into your system without your knowledge."
The number of machines owned by third parties has risen exponentially to the numbers of computer in use worldwide.
There is no decline in the number of infections. The use of personal firewalls, virusscanners and other snake oil has not contributed to reducing that number.
Pal, you are barking at the wrong tree.
The study talked about Linux, not a distribution, or even GNU/Linux. Go bark at DK Matai, the Uebergott of security.
I would even go as far as saying that 100% of the "Linux hacks" are third party software hacks unrelated to any vulnerabilities in the kernel itself. Looking the GNU/Linux hacks with vulnerabilities in the GNU part of the term, that's a different story altogether.
Looking around the company's website, I found a lot of reasons to take the "Executive Summary" of the study with pounds of salt.
"Okay it depends what you're considering a "server". We're not just talkling web servers, we're talking database servers, file servers, Active directory servers, Exchange servers (for virtually every office in north america). "
No need to hack an Exchange Server if 99% of its client run Outlook Express.
"Who deserves funding: the philosophy department or the business department? Governments are also having this discussion (although it isn't a major issue yet)"
r ic asDefenses.pdf
You have no idea how wrong you are, so read this as a whole:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAme
and you will find specific directions as to where the US government is heading in terms of education policy. In essence, the discussion you mention is over already.
A year ago, a customer asked us to come up with a concept for a high quality education project (in Asia). At that time I wrote these lines:
/. story. Maybe I should become an analyst.
"Having analyzed various offers for computer security related courses in
individual educational institutes, both state controlled and privately run,
we have come to the conclusion that the requirements for an education in
this field cannot be met by any of these institutes for a number of reasons.
Specifically, these institutes are prone to the following, grave
disadvantages:
They have to cover a wide range of course contents for competitive reasons and can rarely concentrate on specialized subjects
They do not have the personal connections to important experts in the field of computer security
They cannot keep up with the stormy pace of technical developments
They cannot afford to hire experts for budgetary reasons
They do not offer a comprehensive, long-term strategy for their courses
They cannot afford to act independent of industry affiliations and thus
have to reduce course contents to vendor specific knowledge transfer
They cannot afford to set up a technical environment specific to a course's needs
They do not assist students with additional staff to offer continuous assistance in their learning progress
As a result, students attending a generic educational institution with any
of these shortcomings will never be in a position to gain an in-depth view
into highly sophisticated and complex systems and will therefore only be of
limited use in a field that requires experts trained with motivation, skill
and in-depth knowledge."
I had a nice deja vu reading the
" Scientists agendas are usually based on getting more free tax money for their projects."
Guess what: This is non-political money and therefore makes sure the taxpayer actually profits from this research. Scientific projects that serve no obvious economic reason are necessary and need to be sustained and funded. That's an agenda I can live with.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/RSI _final_fullreport.pdf
http://crn.channelsupersearch.com/news/crn/47630.a sp
Can't quote for copyright reason.
T
The gist of it it that Microsoft will probably be fined roughly 100-125 Million USD in the EU according to an unnamed source within the administration.
"He might be surprised to find that Hollywood closes it ranks to rebels," said Kay, the IDC analyst. "By aspiring too high, too quickly, that could be his downfall. But that story's not told yet.''
Certainly not. People want to see Pixar movies and that is guaranteed money. I can see Hollywood closing its rank to rebels when it comes to cash. Right.
"there have always been games for the Macintosh."
Like <whisper> Photoshop?