"What I don't get is what the article had to do with privacy. People, according to the poll, want the government to help stop spam, spyware, and viruses. I.e., they want them, to if anything, help protect their privacy.
Since when are federal attempts to track down and prosecute spammers, for example, a bad thing? I mean, unless you think that everything the government does is always bad..."
Accoring to your average/.er, this must be bad, because you need this to accomplish your goal. So what's more important, tracking down bad guys or insuring you're anonymous online? I ask this question honestly, not as flamebait.
"Of course that's what the poll said...most Americans who don't want the government involved didn't participate in the survey, for fear that the government would flag them as 'potential terrorists'. After all, if you don't want our fine government securing our internet, you must be a terrorist!"
What Theo said: ""I think our code quality is higher, just because that's really a big focus for us," De Raadt says. "Linux has never been about quality. There are so many parts of the system that are just these cheap little hacks, and it happens to run." As for Linus Torvalds, who created Linux and oversees development, De Raadt says, "I don't know what his focus is at all anymore, but it isn't quality.""
"They don't need to log everything in the beginning. The goal is not to take all our freedoms and privacies all at once. They just want to get the ball rolling."
From the article: "A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
They are basically extending the 90 day period to 6 months. Your comments as well as the/. front page write-up are just sensationalist bs. The phone company has been logging phone calls for decades. No court has claimed that was a violation of Constitutional freedoms.
" Apple doesn't have a high performance virus distribution mechanism yet. It's way too easy to turn off "open safe files after download" in Safari and then all you've got to work with is social engineering."
Yes, a high performance virus distribution system is known by it's other name: Marketshare
" Think that's bad? Wait for the word processor called "Alphabet". From what I hear, they'll get Sesame Street characters to perform the same function as Clippy."
Wouldn't "Letters" make more sense for a word processor if your spreadsheet is called "Numbers".
When was the last time Highwire Press, Scopus, or The Web of Science, got/. coverage? Have any of these ever? Why do we need a special catagory and daily coverager of every tool Google looks at?
" It's no secret that the reason for Apple's comeback was the iPod, who's popularity was primarily due to rampant music piracy. Come on, does anyone really think a college kid purchased 10,000 songs for their iPod at $0.99 each?"
Yes, and college kids can afford iPods because they don't buy cds anymore. So money that used to go to record labels now goes to Apple.
"Seriously though, this is a reasonable move for Apple to ensure that the look, feel and reliability of the MacOS does not become corrupted for some users who may want to install OS X on "lower quality hardware". Apple prides itself on a quality user experience that approaches a luxury product. Everything from the appearance of the fonts to the way consumers interact with the interface needs to remain consistently "high quality" and I am sure Apple will make efforts to preserve this experience. "
Yes, and RIAA members use DRM to insure you have a high quality song file for luxury listening instead of something some amateur ripped from a cd that skips. Also, Lexmark prevents 3rd party ink cartridges to insure luxury printing. Same old story, but it's Apple so it's ok now.
"Wifi has, IMO, been such a great success because it goes back to the P2P nature of the Internet. Rather than being a captive customer to (say) a cell phone company that owns all the cards, it's a technology for me to use for free for whatever I want.
Will WiMax be the same? Can I go to Circuit City, shell out $whatever for WiMax equipment, and check my email from a mile away from my apartment?"
No. You pay for either a fixed or mobile WiMAX service from a telcom provider. For the fixed service, you put an antennae on your roof or window, and get rid of your cable/DSL/dialup service. For mobile, you get cell phone like connectivity for roaming devices such as laptops, pdas, cell phones, etc.
Having end users broadcasting arbitrarily for miles isn't an efficient use of the spectrum, nor is it a good solution for roaming since your still limited to a couple of miles from home.
"Really it has little to do with software piracy. It has more to do with getting the power of LAW to help raise the cost of software, or atleast maintain it.
I'm still a firm beleiver that if Microsoft sold Office (the full version, bells whistles and all) for $50. Office would HARDLY ever be pirated. It would only perhaps be pirated by younger people such as teens."
I think it's immoral to force someone to lower their prices under threat of stealing (sorry copyright infringing) their product. How would you like it if you owned an Apple store, and the police were not very cooperative in prosecuting shoplifters, and the response you got was, well if you sold iPods for $50, instead of $300, you'd have less problems with shoplifting.
When Intel supposedly was going to include trusted computing support in their processors, there were a lot of comments to the effect of, Im never buying another Intel processor. So where are all the I'll never buy another Mac if this is true commnents? Where are all the Apple is using DRM to prop up their failing business model comments.
When a legislature decides that muni wireless is a good idea, and telcoms say that's not a good idea, your average/.er says the people have spoken through their elected representatives. When the Utah legislature passes laws mandating ISPs help participate in voluntary censorship for the benefit of the kids, the average/.er says, wait a minute, the people can't speak through their elected representatives. I wish the constitution protected my money a fraction of the degree to which it protects my free speech.
There are plenty of players that support MP3/WMA, have a screen, 1GB memoery, FM tuner, voice recording, and way cheaper than $180. Even the iPod shuffle is only $150, although it has no screen or FM tuner, or voice recording.
"The local council has set up this municipal Wi-Fi which they call the Technology Mile using cool-looking lampost-mounted access points [picture] at 200 metre intervals along the street, and the whole area is covered by free wireless internet, allowing users to sit in any of the area's numerous cafes or parks and access the internet."
WiMax has a range measured in kilometers, and they're setting up WiFi at 200 meter interval. Standard short-sighted, taxpayer money wasting solution that I have come to expect from govts.
If you do manage to hack the machine, while you're adding fake votes you can print out a fake paper trail too. Then even if cryptography is used to stamp the paper votes to determine validity, you can generate the correct paper votes. Since the paper votes are anonymous, the only clue that fraud has occurred is if you get carried away and have more votes than registered voters.
It's probably easier to stuff the paper ballot box with fake votes than hack the voting machine. After all, the paper votes can't correlate with specific people. Therefore, if you think you're losing, you can screw up the election results and cause a big legal mess.
"A surprising number of scientists engage in questionable research practices says a story at the Washington Post. According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study under pressure from a funding source."
Actually the number was only 2%, but the data was fudged to make the story more appealing.
that Apple is crippling their OS so it only runs on their x86 hardware? This seems like the biggest complaint of/.ers when any other company uses this type of strategy, e.g. Microsoft, Lexmark, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
"What I don't get is what the article had to do with privacy. People, according to the poll, want the government to help stop spam, spyware, and viruses. I.e., they want them, to if anything, help protect their privacy.
/.er, this must be bad, because you need this to accomplish your goal. So what's more important, tracking down bad guys or insuring you're anonymous online? I ask this question honestly, not as flamebait.
Since when are federal attempts to track down and prosecute spammers, for example, a bad thing? I mean, unless you think that everything the government does is always bad..."
Accoring to your average
"Of course that's what the poll said...most Americans who don't want the government involved didn't participate in the survey, for fear that the government would flag them as 'potential terrorists'.
After all, if you don't want our fine government securing our internet, you must be a terrorist!"
I think author meant this to be funny
What Theo said:
""I think our code quality is higher, just because that's really a big focus for us," De Raadt says. "Linux has never been about quality. There are so many parts of the system that are just these cheap little hacks, and it happens to run." As for Linus Torvalds, who created Linux and oversees development, De Raadt says, "I don't know what his focus is at all anymore, but it isn't quality.""
"They don't need to log everything in the beginning. The goal is not to take all our freedoms and privacies all at once. They just want to get the ball rolling."
/. front page write-up are just sensationalist bs. The phone company has been logging phone calls for decades. No court has claimed that was a violation of Constitutional freedoms.
From the article:
"A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
They are basically extending the 90 day period to 6 months. Your comments as well as the
" Why the hell don't they just replace the "too complex" original tax form with this new "simple" form?"
How would the govt. influence your life by rewarding you in tax breaks for things you do that they like if they simplify the tax code?
" Apple doesn't have a high performance virus distribution mechanism yet. It's way too easy to turn off "open safe files after download" in Safari and then all you've got to work with is social engineering."
Yes, a high performance virus distribution system is known by it's other name: Marketshare
" Think that's bad? Wait for the word processor called "Alphabet". From what I hear, they'll get Sesame Street characters to perform the same function as Clippy."
Wouldn't "Letters" make more sense for a word processor if your spreadsheet is called "Numbers".
pirated versions of MS Office became the most popular shared files.
" Benjamin Franklin said:
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.""
There is no such thing as liberty without security. It's an illusion.
"Having OS X would probably require a higher price point--this both Apple and Dell would probably like."
So the monopoly OS, Windows, which is supposed to cause price gouging, is actually cheaper than MacOS with identical hardware.
When was the last time Highwire Press, Scopus, or The Web of Science, got /. coverage? Have any of these ever? Why do we need a special catagory and daily coverager of every tool Google looks at?
" It's no secret that the reason for Apple's comeback was the iPod, who's popularity was primarily due to rampant music piracy. Come on, does anyone really think a college kid purchased 10,000 songs for their iPod at $0.99 each?"
Yes, and college kids can afford iPods because they don't buy cds anymore. So money that used to go to record labels now goes to Apple.
"Seriously though, this is a reasonable move for Apple to ensure that the look, feel and reliability of the MacOS does not become corrupted for some users who may want to install OS X on "lower quality hardware". Apple prides itself on a quality user experience that approaches a luxury product. Everything from the appearance of the fonts to the way consumers interact with the interface needs to remain consistently "high quality" and I am sure Apple will make efforts to preserve this experience.
"
Yes, and RIAA members use DRM to insure you have a high quality song file for luxury listening instead of something some amateur ripped from a cd that skips. Also, Lexmark prevents 3rd party ink cartridges to insure luxury printing. Same old story, but it's Apple so it's ok now.
"Wifi has, IMO, been such a great success because it goes back to the P2P nature of the Internet. Rather than being a captive customer to (say) a cell phone company that owns all the cards, it's a technology for me to use for free for whatever I want.
Will WiMax be the same? Can I go to Circuit City, shell out $whatever for WiMax equipment, and check my email from a mile away from my apartment?"
No. You pay for either a fixed or mobile WiMAX service from a telcom provider. For the fixed service, you put an antennae on your roof or window, and get rid of your cable/DSL/dialup service. For mobile, you get cell phone like connectivity for roaming devices such as laptops, pdas, cell phones, etc.
Having end users broadcasting arbitrarily for miles isn't an efficient use of the spectrum, nor is it a good solution for roaming since your still limited to a couple of miles from home.
"Really it has little to do with software piracy. It has more to do with getting the power of LAW to help raise the cost of software, or atleast maintain it.
I'm still a firm beleiver that if Microsoft sold Office (the full version, bells whistles and all) for $50. Office would HARDLY ever be pirated. It would only perhaps be pirated by younger people such as teens."
I think it's immoral to force someone to lower their prices under threat of stealing (sorry copyright infringing) their product. How would you like it if you owned an Apple store, and the police were not very cooperative in prosecuting shoplifters, and the response you got was, well if you sold iPods for $50, instead of $300, you'd have less problems with shoplifting.
You'll get a 10th the performance at 10 times the power if you try to put a modern processor on a bank of FPGAs.
When Intel supposedly was going to include trusted computing support in their processors, there were a lot of comments to the effect of, Im never buying another Intel processor. So where are all the I'll never buy another Mac if this is true commnents? Where are all the Apple is using DRM to prop up their failing business model comments.
When a legislature decides that muni wireless is a good idea, and telcoms say that's not a good idea, your average /.er says the people have spoken through their elected representatives. When the Utah legislature passes laws mandating ISPs help participate in voluntary censorship for the benefit of the kids, the average /.er says, wait a minute, the people can't speak through their elected representatives. I wish the constitution protected my money a fraction of the degree to which it protects my free speech.
There are plenty of players that support MP3/WMA, have a screen, 1GB memoery, FM tuner, voice recording, and way cheaper than $180. Even the iPod shuffle is only $150, although it has no screen or FM tuner, or voice recording.
"The local council has set up this municipal Wi-Fi which they call the Technology Mile using cool-looking lampost-mounted access points [picture] at 200 metre intervals along the street, and the whole area is covered by free wireless internet, allowing users to sit in any of the area's numerous cafes or parks and access the internet."
WiMax has a range measured in kilometers, and they're setting up WiFi at 200 meter interval. Standard short-sighted, taxpayer money wasting solution that I have come to expect from govts.
"Does that mean we can invade Microsoft now, cuz they must be hating freedum and stuff..."
That would be consistent with the Bush administration policies, i.e. invade Microsoft even though China is the real threat to democracy and freedom.
If you do manage to hack the machine, while you're adding fake votes you can print out a fake paper trail too. Then even if cryptography is used to stamp the paper votes to determine validity, you can generate the correct paper votes. Since the paper votes are anonymous, the only clue that fraud has occurred is if you get carried away and have more votes than registered voters.
It's probably easier to stuff the paper ballot box with fake votes than hack the voting machine. After all, the paper votes can't correlate with specific people. Therefore, if you think you're losing, you can screw up the election results and cause a big legal mess.
"A surprising number of scientists engage in questionable research practices says a story at the Washington Post. According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study under pressure from a funding source."
Actually the number was only 2%, but the data was fudged to make the story more appealing.
that Apple is crippling their OS so it only runs on their x86 hardware? This seems like the biggest complaint of /.ers when any other company uses this type of strategy, e.g. Microsoft, Lexmark, etc.