With the new XFree86 policies and their general idiocy involving not accepting submitted patches/changes/extensions - what is happening with the major distros. I'm a Debian user, and a search for "x.org" or "xorg" packages yields no results (in both stable/unstable). I've heard rumor that the X.org packages are actually named as XFree86 in deb, but XFree86 -version still shows XFree86 4.3.
The question I have is: if they are nabbing data from somewhere between the register and elsewhere in the network, what's preventing them from nabbing Credit Card or Debit information.
My guess is that it depends on what you're doing in terms of audio processing though. The GPU is very optimized for graphics processing, but hardly so for general computing tasks.
While I can see the GPU doing much better at tasks that use those optimizations (i.e. audio-related tasks that use similar methods to video-related ones), stating that it would be superfast for all audio-processing related tasks might be overkill...
In example, it might kick ass for on-the-fly mp3 stream decompression, but suck heavily for adding some form of tonal transforms, etc.
Basically, from what I can glean of the article, it is basically making use of your video card's GPU as a co-processor. It doesn't state that the GPU is better at processing audio, just that in many instances it is mostly idle and thus available.
The GPU is of course heavily optimized (over a regular CPU) for video, and perhaps some of those optimizations would be passed on to audio as well. In the future, if such things pick up, one might well see more "multimedia" card which would incorporate a mixed GPU/SPU or perhaps dual processors?
Where's the grey line on this though. A lot of ISPs advertise downloading music at high speed as part of the upside... but don't mention that much music might be copyrighted, or that you have to pay for the others.
There is free (or at least freely distributable) music though, and paid services... so would this be clear?
Granted I'm a more experienced linux user, but I recently installed the ATI drivers on a machine and had very few problems. At the worst they're binary-only but not much worse than NVidia in that aspect. I'm using debian so I converted the RPM to a DEB (pet peeve there with the RPMs), dpkg --install'ed it, and in the end it actually handled more automagically than I would have needed/expected
I have for awhile been an NVidia fan, but not a fanboy as I expect some of the commenters here are. Certainly the machine I installed (not my own) with a Radeon 9200 performed beautifully in OpenGL/3d apps, even compared to my own NVidia-based ones.
My only annoyance is the older ATI cards, no official support and I haven't figured out what to use (binary, source, DRI or Utal-GLX drivers?) for them.
Yes, I would appreciate more open-source support from card manufacturers (and come on guys, NVidia ain't perfect here either). But I CAN appreciate some of the issues around releasing a full open-source driver that hints at card functionality. OS is wonderful, but perhaps we need to be more flexible as far as binary drivers, coming to a midpoint (partial-open-source? Open-source SDK?) with manufacturers in order to really get things to move into supporting linux better.
That ATI's driver download support page actively lists Linux nowadays to me is a big plus in itself...
Not quite the same scenario though. Connecting to an open WiFi is a bidirectional transfer. You're not just listening, but transmitting and requesting information as well. This might be more akin to flipping the channels on your radio through an open window than just listening to it... not quite the same though since using open WiFi is somewhat less disruption (and for the record, I think the cop was being an idiot anyhow).
I can't really say I duplicate or rip my discs for backup so much as convenience.
When I get a new disc, the first thing I do is rip it into Mp3 format. Subsequently, the Mp3 goes on my local network share which I can:
Stream to a remote machine of my choosing (icecast) when I'm not at home
Copy to a single DVD which has almost all the music I own and plays on my portable PC
Copy to an Mp3-CD for my car, until I buy an Mp3-DVD compatible deck
I think all those fall under fair use. I'm not distributing the song, nor am I using it in more than a given place at one time. My original stays pristine in case a copy is broken/stolen, and my music is readily available whenever I choose.
And thus do a lot of people take the stance that since a corporation is intended to be profitable, it will automatically assume an immoral stance to protect said profits.
However, corporations in a sense are not so different from most people. Most people exist for personal profit, whether monentary or otherwise. We live to better our own situation, often regardless of consequences to others. Look at how we treat the environment, or abuse "the system" to the detriment of others for personal benefit. By and large most people aren't mother Terasas, but neither are we completely immoral.
Corporations are ruled by profit yes, but that in itself is ruled by their customers. It's a balance of morality (or at least in public image) VS profit. Get caught doing too many immoral things, and the public image suffers, and profit goes down.
The problem of image can be solved in several manners:
a) Don't get caught
b) Try to stay on the clean and narrow, or at least limit those that are aware of what you're doing when you do stray
c) Try and find a business model that satisfies the most people while still remaining profitable
Now, we all know that things that push the limit of morality (and often legality) can often be profitable. Drugs (illegal) are profitable, and many varieties of pornography while profitable and/or legal are often rather repugnant except to those that would pay large sums...
IBM is currently taking a stance that is satisfactory to customers as well as the generality of those in the technical/linux market. In the end, their morality is imposed by their customers and partners. And in this case, your typical slashdotter may embody both (if not directly the customer, then perhaps the technical personal for the customer company).
So you can't call a company moral or immoral, because we are in the end the ultimate arbitrators of morality. In the end, a company is often representative of both its customers and partners.
SO rather than hacking the device itself, make an artificial OBDII protocol port. No memory clears, and few disconnects.
Besides, unless they happen to have an internal battery, you could always claim that the single disconnected (from hacked personalized port to the proper one before inspection) was due to servicing or anything else that would disconnect the car battery.
Of course, radar detectors are illegal in most areas, so I'm sure these would be. At least it should hopefully bypass anti-circumvention/modification laws since no changes are being done to the logging device itself.
US gov't might not be able to do much to them out of country. However, if the spammers can be identified then they'll pay for it if they ever travel through the US.
How many non-geeky types used USENET though, as opposed to the regulars who use email, IM, etc.
The messenger server spam is a little different than email SPAM, as it's slightly easier to track as well. Email SPAM will likely be around for awhile, but eventually the profit levels should drop enough to make it dwindle - though this will probably take several years.
Would linking about a hundred ads on popular websites be considered a DDOS? I'd imagine that if you linked enough doublecrap ads on commonly viewed sites (such as slashdot), the resulting flood of "views" would overload doubleclick. It's not a virus-induced flood or anything along those lines, so would it qualify as a DDOS or legit traffic?
We've had some hot weather lately, which puts all sorts of funky particles into the air (more wet/cold weather they stay down more). This has caused my allergies to go berserk, leaving me tired on a regular basis. Some things I've found though, is that:
a) I get congested when I sleep, with fluids draining towards my chest which makes breathing laboured (bad sleep)
b) Sleepin on my side, and taking an allergy pill, relieves (a), better sleep.
Alternately, I can nap after work and feel 100% again, but then I can't sleep later at night and thus suffer from similar problems. Better to find why you're not sleeping well, rather than napping and throwing off your clock.
I had two machine which I use as servers, one a webserver (K62/400) and the other a fileserver/NAT machine (duron 1Ghz). Well, one day I got a UPS to plug 'em into, so I downed the webserver (but left the NAT server up as I had a.torrent downloading). As soon as I unplugged the webserver, the NAT machine died as well.
I figured that perhaps I'd unplugged the wrong cord, but when I traced it back, I had unplugged the right machine. Soooo, turn on the Duron again, everything spins up and the LEDs light up, but no POST. Fiddle with it a bit, and open the case. BIG freaking scorch mark where the power lead connects to the motherboard. Pins fried, motherboard browned, and the cable actually melted and black.
Duron mobo was toast, so I replaced it with another... for which all the components (drives, RAM, etc) worked happily.
What I wonder though is, is the manufacturer of the powerbar liable? The plug was still plugged in perfectly (no grounding), and it's one of those "warranteed against lightning" bars. If pulling another plug in the bar surged my Duron enough to frag the board right through the PSU, I'd say that I wouldn't trust the thing against lightning (and surely such an action should be covered as well).
Checked out an old 386 for a client. It seems that it had been on during a lightning storm, and shut down when a bolt hit the nearby transformer.
Must have been a fairly decent crack 'o' lightning, as it was enough to actually kill - of all things - their refrigerator.
Well, not having much faith in the 386, I nonetheless tried to start it up. It wouldn't detect the drives... and the CMOS had reset
Well, put a new CMOS battery in the sucker, took out the Sony CD drive (which was dead, wouldn't even eject the tray) and I'll be damned if the thing didn't work for quite awhile after.
Nae, better to do the versioning by user. If you don't want a particular daemon to do versioning, simply give it to a user with the noversion option. UID of an inode is already saved, so that makes it easier...
I'd want versioning off by default. Really it comes in most handy when I'm doing development, so in my case I'd just do dev as a user with versioning in case I make an "oops."
To take it a bit further, you could do both (enable versioning by user/file) or simply allow versioning on any file belonging to user/group X
I don't really see the bandwidth issues behind viruses that plug holes.
If your system is unsecure, then it's only a matter of time before you will get infected either by "bad worm" or "good worm"
Good worm should plug the hole, which prevents you from
a) Getting infected by bad worm
b) Infecting other people
So while the initial traffic rush may be bigger with both worms, goodworm should cause a decrease in overall traffic over time.
Of course, I wouldn't want to be caught as a writer of either, and I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for any downage caused by goodworm not doing what is expected, but bandwidth is really not much of a point (except the flurry to contact a patch server.... why not make it P2P from the host that sent the goodworm?)
I have to comment on this one, because it does apply to me (although I'm Canadian legal issues are similar).
I have a Mini-ITX PC which I made primarily for use in my car. It also has a 6" display. Use includes playing music, automotive functions, and playing DVD's.
This includes video DVD's, which I will use on the stipulation that:
a) Passengers watch I don't
b) Screen is turned away from me
c) Sound is through headphones
When I'm driving, the mp3 portion has some nice visualization plugins. I click the screen off or turn it upside-down so I don't see these either (flashing objects/colours=distraction).
People do stupid things. Having a DVD player within view of the driver is stupid. However, I'd hate to see DVD-capable devices banned. I plan on getting a touchscreen for my unit eventually, so then I can tap the screen to switch songs etc (which - in the same principle as my stereo - doesn't require eyes so much as a memorization of button location). Not much different from the LCD on a normal CD player
I forsee laws which may ban DVD-capable devices in vehicles. This is bad. As mentioned, laws exist to cover people who put themselves above the lives of others. But having a DVD player for my passengers (not driver visible/hearable) on long trips, or an Mp3-DVD with days worth of sweet, sweet music is not a danger, though it will likely be lumped with the rest.
Any patent owner that tries to assert its patents against open source software has many hurdles to leap before the royalty checks start to arrive.
Except much of the concern is not only paying out royalties, but being dragged through useless court proceeding after court proceeding by companies that find it much more to their benefit to drag OSS through the mud, and strike fear of legal action into the hearts of OS proponents.
There comes a point where it doesn't really matter if you win in court, particular if one hsa gone through a costly multi-year court battle just to be proclaimed "innocent" of any wrongdoing.
Often I do look for OSS free-as-in-cash projects as alternatives to CSS
However, often enough I'll also have piece of CSS software X, which does function Y but not Z (or not easily). Then, I go looking for a piece of software similar that X in the OSS world, that somebody else has written. And if I'm lucky, perhaps they'll see the same requirement, and have added the functionality I need to do Z.
Also, one cannot begin to overestimate how nice it is to use CLI tools with such wonderful scripting languages as Bash/PERL.
It's great even just to be able to CMD1 && CMD2 && CMD3, rather than me needing to return and click a button repeatedly, (long operations I often chain whilst I am away from the PC, or overnight).
If there is anything most GUI apps lack, it's good batch chaining. I think that that mentality has wandered into OSS programs like VirtualDub, where one has "Job Queues" for overnight activities, etc.
On one hand, it shows that the government is aware of the privacy risk. It also shows that they're willing to stand up the some of the US pressure on this issue and overrule the "terrorism" buzzword.
On the other hand, past shows that many such bills may be passed for good publicity, but when it comes to actually enforcing/using them it just doesn't happen.
So basically, it's going to be a case of wait-and-see... as to whether this law is strong enough to actually do something against the issue of sovereignty between mingled economies and local privacy... and as to whether or not the government is strong enough to actually enforce the laws if/when they're broken.
As a citizen of BC, Canada... I consider it at least a step in the right direction. I wish it would get more publicity so that at the least it could notify the Canadian people of the risks to our privacy due to US corporate co-mingling.
Slashdot Mirror
With the new XFree86 policies and their general idiocy involving not accepting submitted patches/changes/extensions - what is happening with the major distros. I'm a Debian user, and a search for "x.org" or "xorg" packages yields no results (in both stable/unstable). I've heard rumor that the X.org packages are actually named as XFree86 in deb, but XFree86 -version still shows XFree86 4.3.
It seems that other users are asking similar questions.
The question I have is: if they are nabbing data from somewhere between the register and elsewhere in the network, what's preventing them from nabbing Credit Card or Debit information.
My guess is that it depends on what you're doing in terms of audio processing though. The GPU is very optimized for graphics processing, but hardly so for general computing tasks.
While I can see the GPU doing much better at tasks that use those optimizations (i.e. audio-related tasks that use similar methods to video-related ones), stating that it would be superfast for all audio-processing related tasks might be overkill...
In example, it might kick ass for on-the-fly mp3 stream decompression, but suck heavily for adding some form of tonal transforms, etc.
Basically, from what I can glean of the article, it is basically making use of your video card's GPU as a co-processor. It doesn't state that the GPU is better at processing audio, just that in many instances it is mostly idle and thus available.
The GPU is of course heavily optimized (over a regular CPU) for video, and perhaps some of those optimizations would be passed on to audio as well. In the future, if such things pick up, one might well see more "multimedia" card which would incorporate a mixed GPU/SPU or perhaps dual processors?
Where's the grey line on this though. A lot of ISPs advertise downloading music at high speed as part of the upside... but don't mention that much music might be copyrighted, or that you have to pay for the others.
There is free (or at least freely distributable) music though, and paid services... so would this be clear?
Granted I'm a more experienced linux user, but I recently installed the ATI drivers on a machine and had very few problems. At the worst they're binary-only but not much worse than NVidia in that aspect. I'm using debian so I converted the RPM to a DEB (pet peeve there with the RPMs), dpkg --install'ed it, and in the end it actually handled more automagically than I would have needed/expected
I have for awhile been an NVidia fan, but not a fanboy as I expect some of the commenters here are. Certainly the machine I installed (not my own) with a Radeon 9200 performed beautifully in OpenGL/3d apps, even compared to my own NVidia-based ones.
My only annoyance is the older ATI cards, no official support and I haven't figured out what to use (binary, source, DRI or Utal-GLX drivers?) for them.
Yes, I would appreciate more open-source support from card manufacturers (and come on guys, NVidia ain't perfect here either). But I CAN appreciate some of the issues around releasing a full open-source driver that hints at card functionality. OS is wonderful, but perhaps we need to be more flexible as far as binary drivers, coming to a midpoint (partial-open-source? Open-source SDK?) with manufacturers in order to really get things to move into supporting linux better.
That ATI's driver download support page actively lists Linux nowadays to me is a big plus in itself...
Not quite the same scenario though. Connecting to an open WiFi is a bidirectional transfer. You're not just listening, but transmitting and requesting information as well. This might be more akin to flipping the channels on your radio through an open window than just listening to it... not quite the same though since using open WiFi is somewhat less disruption (and for the record, I think the cop was being an idiot anyhow).
When I get a new disc, the first thing I do is rip it into Mp3 format. Subsequently, the Mp3 goes on my local network share which I can:
I think all those fall under fair use. I'm not distributing the song, nor am I using it in more than a given place at one time. My original stays pristine in case a copy is broken/stolen, and my music is readily available whenever I choose.
It would just prove that they were smarter than the council, I wouldn't be surprised...
It's like a joke that some people don't get... and MS-funded studies showing MS software is cheaper is definately a joke to most of us...
And thus do a lot of people take the stance that since a corporation is intended to be profitable, it will automatically assume an immoral stance to protect said profits.
However, corporations in a sense are not so different from most people. Most people exist for personal profit, whether monentary or otherwise. We live to better our own situation, often regardless of consequences to others. Look at how we treat the environment, or abuse "the system" to the detriment of others for personal benefit. By and large most people aren't mother Terasas, but neither are we completely immoral.
Corporations are ruled by profit yes, but that in itself is ruled by their customers. It's a balance of morality (or at least in public image) VS profit. Get caught doing too many immoral things, and the public image suffers, and profit goes down.
The problem of image can be solved in several manners:
a) Don't get caught
b) Try to stay on the clean and narrow, or at least limit those that are aware of what you're doing when you do stray
c) Try and find a business model that satisfies the most people while still remaining profitable
Now, we all know that things that push the limit of morality (and often legality) can often be profitable. Drugs (illegal) are profitable, and many varieties of pornography while profitable and/or legal are often rather repugnant except to those that would pay large sums...
IBM is currently taking a stance that is satisfactory to customers as well as the generality of those in the technical/linux market. In the end, their morality is imposed by their customers and partners. And in this case, your typical slashdotter may embody both (if not directly the customer, then perhaps the technical personal for the customer company).
So you can't call a company moral or immoral, because we are in the end the ultimate arbitrators of morality. In the end, a company is often representative of both its customers and partners.
SO rather than hacking the device itself, make an artificial OBDII protocol port. No memory clears, and few disconnects.
Besides, unless they happen to have an internal battery, you could always claim that the single disconnected (from hacked personalized port to the proper one before inspection) was due to servicing or anything else that would disconnect the car battery.
Of course, radar detectors are illegal in most areas, so I'm sure these would be. At least it should hopefully bypass anti-circumvention/modification laws since no changes are being done to the logging device itself.
US gov't might not be able to do much to them out of country. However, if the spammers can be identified then they'll pay for it if they ever travel through the US.
How many non-geeky types used USENET though, as opposed to the regulars who use email, IM, etc.
The messenger server spam is a little different than email SPAM, as it's slightly easier to track as well. Email SPAM will likely be around for awhile, but eventually the profit levels should drop enough to make it dwindle - though this will probably take several years.
Would linking about a hundred ads on popular websites be considered a DDOS? I'd imagine that if you linked enough doublecrap ads on commonly viewed sites (such as slashdot), the resulting flood of "views" would overload doubleclick. It's not a virus-induced flood or anything along those lines, so would it qualify as a DDOS or legit traffic?
We've had some hot weather lately, which puts all sorts of funky particles into the air (more wet/cold weather they stay down more). This has caused my allergies to go berserk, leaving me tired on a regular basis. Some things I've found though, is that:
a) I get congested when I sleep, with fluids draining towards my chest which makes breathing laboured (bad sleep)
b) Sleepin on my side, and taking an allergy pill, relieves (a), better sleep.
Alternately, I can nap after work and feel 100% again, but then I can't sleep later at night and thus suffer from similar problems. Better to find why you're not sleeping well, rather than napping and throwing off your clock.
I had two machine which I use as servers, one a webserver (K62/400) and the other a fileserver/NAT machine (duron 1Ghz). Well, one day I got a UPS to plug 'em into, so I downed the webserver (but left the NAT server up as I had a .torrent downloading). As soon as I unplugged the webserver, the NAT machine died as well.
I figured that perhaps I'd unplugged the wrong cord, but when I traced it back, I had unplugged the right machine. Soooo, turn on the Duron again, everything spins up and the LEDs light up, but no POST. Fiddle with it a bit, and open the case. BIG freaking scorch mark where the power lead connects to the motherboard. Pins fried, motherboard browned, and the cable actually melted and black.
Duron mobo was toast, so I replaced it with another... for which all the components (drives, RAM, etc) worked happily.
What I wonder though is, is the manufacturer of the powerbar liable? The plug was still plugged in perfectly (no grounding), and it's one of those "warranteed against lightning" bars. If pulling another plug in the bar surged my Duron enough to frag the board right through the PSU, I'd say that I wouldn't trust the thing against lightning (and surely such an action should be covered as well).
Checked out an old 386 for a client. It seems that it had been on during a lightning storm, and shut down when a bolt hit the nearby transformer.
Must have been a fairly decent crack 'o' lightning, as it was enough to actually kill - of all things - their refrigerator.
Well, not having much faith in the 386, I nonetheless tried to start it up. It wouldn't detect the drives... and the CMOS had reset
Well, put a new CMOS battery in the sucker, took out the Sony CD drive (which was dead, wouldn't even eject the tray) and I'll be damned if the thing didn't work for quite awhile after.
Nae, better to do the versioning by user. If you don't want a particular daemon to do versioning, simply give it to a user with the noversion option. UID of an inode is already saved, so that makes it easier...
I'd want versioning off by default. Really it comes in most handy when I'm doing development, so in my case I'd just do dev as a user with versioning in case I make an "oops."
To take it a bit further, you could do both (enable versioning by user/file) or simply allow versioning on any file belonging to user/group X
I don't really see the bandwidth issues behind viruses that plug holes.
If your system is unsecure, then it's only a matter of time before you will get infected either by "bad worm" or "good worm"
Good worm should plug the hole, which prevents you from
a) Getting infected by bad worm
b) Infecting other people
So while the initial traffic rush may be bigger with both worms, goodworm should cause a decrease in overall traffic over time.
Of course, I wouldn't want to be caught as a writer of either, and I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for any downage caused by goodworm not doing what is expected, but bandwidth is really not much of a point (except the flurry to contact a patch server.... why not make it P2P from the host that sent the goodworm?)
I have to comment on this one, because it does apply to me (although I'm Canadian legal issues are similar).
I have a Mini-ITX PC which I made primarily for use in my car. It also has a 6" display. Use includes playing music, automotive functions, and playing DVD's.
This includes video DVD's, which I will use on the stipulation that:
a) Passengers watch I don't
b) Screen is turned away from me
c) Sound is through headphones
When I'm driving, the mp3 portion has some nice visualization plugins. I click the screen off or turn it upside-down so I don't see these either (flashing objects/colours=distraction).
People do stupid things. Having a DVD player within view of the driver is stupid. However, I'd hate to see DVD-capable devices banned. I plan on getting a touchscreen for my unit eventually, so then I can tap the screen to switch songs etc (which - in the same principle as my stereo - doesn't require eyes so much as a memorization of button location). Not much different from the LCD on a normal CD player
I forsee laws which may ban DVD-capable devices in vehicles. This is bad. As mentioned, laws exist to cover people who put themselves above the lives of others. But having a DVD player for my passengers (not driver visible/hearable) on long trips, or an Mp3-DVD with days worth of sweet, sweet music is not a danger, though it will likely be lumped with the rest.
Any patent owner that tries to assert its patents against open source software has many hurdles to leap before the royalty checks start to arrive.
Except much of the concern is not only paying out royalties, but being dragged through useless court proceeding after court proceeding by companies that find it much more to their benefit to drag OSS through the mud, and strike fear of legal action into the hearts of OS proponents.
There comes a point where it doesn't really matter if you win in court, particular if one hsa gone through a costly multi-year court battle just to be proclaimed "innocent" of any wrongdoing.
Often I do look for OSS free-as-in-cash projects as alternatives to CSS
However, often enough I'll also have piece of CSS software X, which does function Y but not Z (or not easily). Then, I go looking for a piece of software similar that X in the OSS world, that somebody else has written. And if I'm lucky, perhaps they'll see the same requirement, and have added the functionality I need to do Z.
Also, one cannot begin to overestimate how nice it is to use CLI tools with such wonderful scripting languages as Bash/PERL.
It's great even just to be able to CMD1 && CMD2 && CMD3, rather than me needing to return and click a button repeatedly, (long operations I often chain whilst I am away from the PC, or overnight).
If there is anything most GUI apps lack, it's good batch chaining. I think that that mentality has wandered into OSS programs like VirtualDub, where one has "Job Queues" for overnight activities, etc.
The same for procmail, but oddly also "postfix" at the time.
Yes, but people will become a bit worried when they hear you giggling on the can whilst reading a recent "+5 Funny" comment.
Heeeheehee *frrrrttt* hehehe *frappp*
Or you could be reading the YRO section and crying....
On one hand, it shows that the government is aware of the privacy risk. It also shows that they're willing to stand up the some of the US pressure on this issue and overrule the "terrorism" buzzword.
On the other hand, past shows that many such bills may be passed for good publicity, but when it comes to actually enforcing/using them it just doesn't happen.
So basically, it's going to be a case of wait-and-see... as to whether this law is strong enough to actually do something against the issue of sovereignty between mingled economies and local privacy... and as to whether or not the government is strong enough to actually enforce the laws if/when they're broken.
As a citizen of BC, Canada... I consider it at least a step in the right direction. I wish it would get more publicity so that at the least it could notify the Canadian people of the risks to our privacy due to US corporate co-mingling.