Slashdot has journalistic standards, and this meets at least one of the criteria!
1. News for nerds. 2. Stuff that matters. 3. Makes Micro$oft look bad.
See?
The disconnect here is that you're used to other news sources that have standards like accuracy, verifiability, truthfulness, reliability of sources, multiple sources, etc. Those are not part of the/. social contract.:)
Microsoft already has an open packaging format for installers, it's called Windows Installer (formerly Microsoft Installer), or MSI for short. MSI 3.1 supports Windows 2000+. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372866. aspx
Why re-invent the wheel? This is open to everyone and well documented on MSDN and countless forums all over the web.
>> Open Source then means that you can rely on the software working in the future, for as long as you need it to
Ummm. Not really. Unless you also accept the implication that in addition to your core business and IT, that you also must be in the software development business.
This the the problem with open source- everyone who has drunk that koolaid thinks that everyone can be a developer or have a developer on staff or hire one at need. This isn't practical in the real world. It may work for enterprise-scale businesses but not for many customer segments, especially mid-market.
This guy was being clever disabling the security software, nothing more. He got caught and now he's whining.
It may be unpopular, but when you connect your computer to some networks you do so under agreement which may limit what you can do, may require you to consent to monitoring, and may require you to install software to enforce the terms of that agreement. Tampering with the software may be a violation of that agreement, it doesn't matter if it's "your" computer, we're talking contracts here.
There's nothing extraordinary about someone with physical access and superuser/administrative access rights being able to modify the software on their own machine. And if you can debug a client app, then you can write your own app that can pretend to be that client when talking to the corresponding server.
If he was a security professional then he would have done this in a lab, not on his own machine, and would have reported the results in a timely fashion, not "I was going to get around to it", and would not have distributed exploit code to his friends.
This guy's behavior violated pretty much any acceptable use policy I've ever seen or written, and he got a punishment probably on the stiffer end of the scale because his behavior doesn't appear to show any mitigating circumstance.
> The idea that there was a better case against Clinton is ludicrous.
WFT?
Clinton was impeached for perjury, among other things. A crime. He was subsequently disbarred for the same crime by a federal court. Of course there was a better case.
The problem the the Clinton impeachment is not that the impeachment was unjustified, it was that the INVESTIGATION was unjustified. For that you have Ken Starr to blame, but he was not ultimately the decision maker there- Janet Reno, Clinton's own appointee, made the decision to allow the Lewinsky line of investigation. The whole special prosecutor system is just a way to instigate witch hunts.
Mr. Johnson you are about as partisan and biased as they come. When it comes to accusing Bush of "high crimes and misdemeanors" you're completely willing to overlook Democrat operatives like Joe Wilson who was completely discredited by the bipartisan 9/11 commission. But when it comes to Clinton, your man, it's all "professional political operatives".
There's plenty of fault, incompetence, and deceit on both sides. Neither side of the aisle has an inkling of my respect right now but ultra-partisans on either side that distort facts and overlook the inconvenient ones really get my goat.
By requiring that the entire platform be open source, the well-intentioned legislators just killed the bill. Do you think Microsoft and Sun are going to sit by and watch a market opportunity vanish? Do you think Linux advocate lobbyists are going to show up at Congressmens' doors with campaign checks?
This is a case of sacrificing the good by demanding the perfect. If the bill had instead required that only the voting software installed on the voting machines be open source, then the bill would not have alienated so many parties with enough money to kill it.
Yes, I did RTFA and I read the relevant text of the bill (section 247(C)9). The languange doesn't differentiate between platform software and software specific to the e-voting task.
I agree with you about Macintosh, but Linux more consistent than Windows? Give me a break. Let's get past the/. mind-numbed-robot FOSS advocacy and anything-but-Micro$oft FUD for a second.
If there is one thing that Windows does well, it's consistency. Cut, copy and paste work the same in 99% of Windows programs. They do NOT work consistently across Linux programs that often use different underlying graphics toolkits, etc., and different shells, etc. Also every single one of the command-line utils in any flavor of *nix has a unique syntax. That's not consistency.
I'm not trashing Linux or glorifying Windows, but let's give credit where it's due. Windows is remarkably consistent and that is probably one of the main reasons for its commercial success.
All the dissent to the "wireless backup" seems to be that loss of one control channel implies loss of all control channels, and therefore would lead to power loss of all the wireless equipment.
Just one word: UPS. If it's important enough to need redundancy, it's important enough to need battery backup, and it would not take much battery power (=weight) to power a wireless transceiver for a short period of time.
It is GOOD that you have to face the consequences of what you do and say. If you walk around all day spouting racist hate speech, then you should be shunned, labeled, and ridiculed. Societies are societies precisely because they share common values, and societies have feedback mechanisms to keep individual behavior within what that society considers "normal". In other words, people judge you by what you say and do, and that is good. If you care about what people think, then behave as they expect you to behave. If you don't want to follow the norms of the social groups that you belong to, then you would almost certainly be happier in another group.
Microsoft would never think of a no-charge license for *some* of the source with a non-disclosure agreement, and keep the national-security sensitive stuff to themselves?
As I said, the periods are arbitrary decisions. There will always be some group who can (and will) argue that whatever periods are selected are not long enough in their special case.
If the goal (as explicitly stated) of patent and copyright is to "promote the progress" of the arts, I fail to see how extending the length of time a limited monopoly is granted to the creator, will help.
Reducing the period of the limited monopoly will have the desired effect, because artists/creators/publishers/RIAA/whoever will have to continue to invent new things to sustain a steady income.
As has been stated in numerous posts every time the intellectual property issue comes up on slashdot, the framers of the Constitution were against "Intellectual Property". The idea of an idea being property is as silly now as it was then. Patent and copyright were [rightfully] deemed necessary for SHORT periods of time to help promote the arts. Our legislature has repeatedly failed to exercise due diligence in maintaining the balance between a limited monopoly to promote the arts, and between the rights of the citizenry. Everything is speeding up- books are routinely published overnight- yet for some reason the terms of patents and copyright are going the opposite direction.
We only need one reform: incredibly short terms for patents and copyright. Although any decision is arbitrary, I think that 3 years is more than generous enough in the case of copyright these days, and that 7-10 years is more than generous enough in the case of patent.
...that back in the early 70's research was done on cats that removed the motor nerve block usually in place while sleeping. Cats seem to dream of catlike things- hunting & chasing and so forth. Follow this link.
I would ***NEVER*** advocate use of the FREE system, for one reason- it does not PRINT a receipt of the ballot. Any voting solution (even internet) must have a method to print the ballots. Hell, we have electronic postage on the internet, ballots shouldn't be that hard.
Voting systems need to be multiply redundant.
Whatever voting system we end up with needs to (1) tally electronically to a central server in real time in a cryptographically-secure fashion, (2) tally a local electronic count (or even electrically, as in a physical counter), and (3) print a receipt that is human-readable and electronically-readable, with a crypto sig on it. Perhaps a plaintext-signed list of the candidates you voted for, with a barcode at the bottom so a machine could read it (the barcode should also include the digital signature).
Without completely rehashing an already-old debate, we need multiply redundant systems so that there is NEVER a need for hand counting. And we need paper receipts so that there is a final "proof" in case the central servers are hacked.
The broad goals are (1) avoid handcounts, which are subject to personal interpretation and bias, (2) avoid tampering with the electronic data by means of cryptographic signatures (3) avoid single-point-of-failure with multiple redundancy.
A write-caching disk controller combined with a journaling file system would give you the same benefit. You're just reinventing the wheel..
The only really new thing here seems to be the fact that the "TRAM" is file-system aware, which is just another way of saying that you are investing in hardware which will just tie you to tired old EFS.
Windows NT has had a journaled file system forever, and the journaling doesn't cause the major performance impact that everyone seems to think it does. Maybe someday Linus will get in the mood and allow a journaling FS into Linux.
On a side note, what does the OS do in case of some sort of TRAM failure?
I'm not at all suggesting that anyone's right to organize be restricted, only that any contributions, etc., cannot be funneled through an organization, which would drastically reduce the lobbying power of both corporations and unions.
The NRA and NEA would still be free to endorse whomever they wanted, but they couldn't buy a candidate with PAC money- the best they could do is ask their members to each contribute.
Why would having a prequalification screen out illiterates? The ballot is completely text based already- I assume that someone who cannot read currently just brings a friend or family member to read it to him or her, and would continue to do so. I have not proposed screening out anyone by any criteria other than basic knowledge required to make an informed decision.
I stand by my original assertion: if you have not educated yourself enough to know the candidates and the issues, and if you don't have a basic knowledge of the Constitution and U.S. Government (which is taught in U.S. History and/or Government, mandatory courses in the public education system), then you have no business voting.
Voter registration could require appearing in person, at which time you would be issued your smartcard containing your encrypted token, and set your pin. You would then be required to bring the smartcard with you to the poll, use it to sign your vote, and turn it in. Technology would definitely help, not to mention increase accuracy and speed of the count.
1) Our whole political system is arranged to make it convenient for the two-party system. Ever tried to run as a third-party or independent candidate? Good luck even getting your name on the ballot.
2) The solution is simple. Groups of people should NEVER have the same rights (speech, political contributions, etc.) as individuals. The corporation as a legal entity should be banned.
3) Voting over a whole weekend (two days) would be better.
The bigger problem here is a social one- ignorance and stupidity. If you can't figure out the ballot (and the Florida ballot was NOT hard) then quite frankly, I don't WANT your vote to count. I don't care how many voters turn out; I only care about the thoughtfulness that went into the decision of the person voting.
I'd like to see a two-part ballot- the first part would either be the citizenship test given to people who naturalize, or at the very least would be a "match-the-candidate-with-the-party". If you don't get above a minimum score (scored by the machine counting the votes) then it doesn't count your vote. The voter never has to know. Perhaps the citizenship test or equivalent (match the amendment with the right) should also be given to anyone running for office.
Finally, we need to remove all party affiliation from the ballot- people should vote for the person, not the party, in a representative government.
My point is, voting should NOT be easy. It should require thought and consideration, and yes, knowledge.
Slashdot Mirror
IEEE
ISC2, the organization that implements the CISSP certification
et al.
Slashdot has journalistic standards, and this meets at least one of the criteria!
/. social contract. :)
1. News for nerds.
2. Stuff that matters.
3. Makes Micro$oft look bad.
See?
The disconnect here is that you're used to other news sources that have standards like accuracy, verifiability, truthfulness, reliability of sources, multiple sources, etc. Those are not part of the
Insurance fraud is not a "moral crime".
Microsoft already has an open packaging format for installers, it's called Windows Installer (formerly Microsoft Installer), or MSI for short. MSI 3.1 supports Windows 2000+. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372866. aspx
Why re-invent the wheel? This is open to everyone and well documented on MSDN and countless forums all over the web.
>> Open Source then means that you can rely on the software working in the future, for as long as you need it to
Ummm. Not really. Unless you also accept the implication that in addition to your core business and IT, that you also must be in the software development business.
This the the problem with open source- everyone who has drunk that koolaid thinks that everyone can be a developer or have a developer on staff or hire one at need. This isn't practical in the real world. It may work for enterprise-scale businesses but not for many customer segments, especially mid-market.
This guy was being clever disabling the security software, nothing more. He got caught and now he's whining.
It may be unpopular, but when you connect your computer to some networks you do so under agreement which may limit what you can do, may require you to consent to monitoring, and may require you to install software to enforce the terms of that agreement. Tampering with the software may be a violation of that agreement, it doesn't matter if it's "your" computer, we're talking contracts here.
There's nothing extraordinary about someone with physical access and superuser/administrative access rights being able to modify the software on their own machine. And if you can debug a client app, then you can write your own app that can pretend to be that client when talking to the corresponding server.
If he was a security professional then he would have done this in a lab, not on his own machine, and would have reported the results in a timely fashion, not "I was going to get around to it", and would not have distributed exploit code to his friends.
This guy's behavior violated pretty much any acceptable use policy I've ever seen or written, and he got a punishment probably on the stiffer end of the scale because his behavior doesn't appear to show any mitigating circumstance.
> The idea that there was a better case against Clinton is ludicrous.
WFT?
Clinton was impeached for perjury, among other things. A crime. He was subsequently disbarred for the same crime by a federal court. Of course there was a better case.
The problem the the Clinton impeachment is not that the impeachment was unjustified, it was that the INVESTIGATION was unjustified. For that you have Ken Starr to blame, but he was not ultimately the decision maker there- Janet Reno, Clinton's own appointee, made the decision to allow the Lewinsky line of investigation. The whole special prosecutor system is just a way to instigate witch hunts.
Mr. Johnson you are about as partisan and biased as they come. When it comes to accusing Bush of "high crimes and misdemeanors" you're completely willing to overlook Democrat operatives like Joe Wilson who was completely discredited by the bipartisan 9/11 commission. But when it comes to Clinton, your man, it's all "professional political operatives".
There's plenty of fault, incompetence, and deceit on both sides. Neither side of the aisle has an inkling of my respect right now but ultra-partisans on either side that distort facts and overlook the inconvenient ones really get my goat.
By requiring that the entire platform be open source, the well-intentioned legislators just killed the bill. Do you think Microsoft and Sun are going to sit by and watch a market opportunity vanish? Do you think Linux advocate lobbyists are going to show up at Congressmens' doors with campaign checks?
This is a case of sacrificing the good by demanding the perfect. If the bill had instead required that only the voting software installed on the voting machines be open source, then the bill would not have alienated so many parties with enough money to kill it.
Yes, I did RTFA and I read the relevant text of the bill (section 247(C)9). The languange doesn't differentiate between platform software and software specific to the e-voting task.
I agree with you about Macintosh, but Linux more consistent than Windows? Give me a break. Let's get past the /. mind-numbed-robot FOSS advocacy and anything-but-Micro$oft FUD for a second.
If there is one thing that Windows does well, it's consistency. Cut, copy and paste work the same in 99% of Windows programs. They do NOT work consistently across Linux programs that often use different underlying graphics toolkits, etc., and different shells, etc. Also every single one of the command-line utils in any flavor of *nix has a unique syntax. That's not consistency.
I'm not trashing Linux or glorifying Windows, but let's give credit where it's due. Windows is remarkably consistent and that is probably one of the main reasons for its commercial success.
Complete brainless robotic anti-M$FT FUD, and if you had spent even 60 seconds checking your facts, you would have found that your statement is a lie.
Windows 2000 Pro: 250+ security bulletins
Windows XP Pro: 187 security bulletins
Windows Server 2003 Std: 124 security bulletins
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security
So not only is your statement untrue, it's the opposite of reality.
Check your facts before you post.
Don't you mean 'BOOM' at mach 3?
All the dissent to the "wireless backup" seems to be that loss of one control channel implies loss of all control channels, and therefore would lead to power loss of all the wireless equipment.
Just one word: UPS. If it's important enough to need redundancy, it's important enough to need battery backup, and it would not take much battery power (=weight) to power a wireless transceiver for a short period of time.
Apples and oranges. Substitute the price tag of a 777 for that of a copy of Windows and set your expectations according. Troll.
It is GOOD that you have to face the consequences of what you do and say. If you walk around all day spouting racist hate speech, then you should be shunned, labeled, and ridiculed. Societies are societies precisely because they share common values, and societies have feedback mechanisms to keep individual behavior within what that society considers "normal". In other words, people judge you by what you say and do, and that is good. If you care about what people think, then behave as they expect you to behave. If you don't want to follow the norms of the social groups that you belong to, then you would almost certainly be happier in another group.
So either the source is "open" or "closed"?
Microsoft would never think of a no-charge license for *some* of the source with a non-disclosure agreement, and keep the national-security sensitive stuff to themselves?
Isn't that called "HyperTalk" :-)
As I said, the periods are arbitrary decisions. There will always be some group who can (and will) argue that whatever periods are selected are not long enough in their special case.
Reducing the period of the limited monopoly will have the desired effect, because artists/creators/publishers/RIAA/whoever will have to continue to invent new things to sustain a steady income.
We only need one reform: incredibly short terms for patents and copyright. Although any decision is arbitrary, I think that 3 years is more than generous enough in the case of copyright these days, and that 7-10 years is more than generous enough in the case of patent.
...that back in the early 70's research was done on cats that removed the motor nerve block usually in place while sleeping. Cats seem to dream of catlike things- hunting & chasing and so forth. Follow this link.
I would ***NEVER*** advocate use of the FREE system, for one reason- it does not PRINT a receipt of the ballot. Any voting solution (even internet) must have a method to print the ballots. Hell, we have electronic postage on the internet, ballots shouldn't be that hard.
Voting systems need to be multiply redundant.
Whatever voting system we end up with needs to (1) tally electronically to a central server in real time in a cryptographically-secure fashion, (2) tally a local electronic count (or even electrically, as in a physical counter), and (3) print a receipt that is human-readable and electronically-readable, with a crypto sig on it. Perhaps a plaintext-signed list of the candidates you voted for, with a barcode at the bottom so a machine could read it (the barcode should also include the digital signature).
Without completely rehashing an already-old debate, we need multiply redundant systems so that there is NEVER a need for hand counting. And we need paper receipts so that there is a final "proof" in case the central servers are hacked.
The broad goals are (1) avoid handcounts, which are subject to personal interpretation and bias, (2) avoid tampering with the electronic data by means of cryptographic signatures (3) avoid single-point-of-failure with multiple redundancy.
A write-caching disk controller combined with a journaling file system would give you the same benefit. You're just reinventing the wheel..
The only really new thing here seems to be the fact that the "TRAM" is file-system aware, which is just another way of saying that you are investing in hardware which will just tie you to tired old EFS.
Windows NT has had a journaled file system forever, and the journaling doesn't cause the major performance impact that everyone seems to think it does. Maybe someday Linus will get in the mood and allow a journaling FS into Linux.
On a side note, what does the OS do in case of some sort of TRAM failure?
I'm not at all suggesting that anyone's right to organize be restricted, only that any contributions, etc., cannot be funneled through an organization, which would drastically reduce the lobbying power of both corporations and unions.
The NRA and NEA would still be free to endorse whomever they wanted, but they couldn't buy a candidate with PAC money- the best they could do is ask their members to each contribute.
Why would having a prequalification screen out illiterates? The ballot is completely text based already- I assume that someone who cannot read currently just brings a friend or family member to read it to him or her, and would continue to do so. I have not proposed screening out anyone by any criteria other than basic knowledge required to make an informed decision.
I stand by my original assertion: if you have not educated yourself enough to know the candidates and the issues, and if you don't have a basic knowledge of the Constitution and U.S. Government (which is taught in U.S. History and/or Government, mandatory courses in the public education system), then you have no business voting.
Voter registration could require appearing in person, at which time you would be issued your smartcard containing your encrypted token, and set your pin. You would then be required to bring the smartcard with you to the poll, use it to sign your vote, and turn it in. Technology would definitely help, not to mention increase accuracy and speed of the count.
1) Our whole political system is arranged to make it convenient for the two-party system. Ever tried to run as a third-party or independent candidate? Good luck even getting your name on the ballot.
2) The solution is simple. Groups of people should NEVER have the same rights (speech, political contributions, etc.) as individuals. The corporation as a legal entity should be banned.
3) Voting over a whole weekend (two days) would be better.
The bigger problem here is a social one- ignorance and stupidity. If you can't figure out the ballot (and the Florida ballot was NOT hard) then quite frankly, I don't WANT your vote to count. I don't care how many voters turn out; I only care about the thoughtfulness that went into the decision of the person voting.
I'd like to see a two-part ballot- the first part would either be the citizenship test given to people who naturalize, or at the very least would be a "match-the-candidate-with-the-party". If you don't get above a minimum score (scored by the machine counting the votes) then it doesn't count your vote. The voter never has to know. Perhaps the citizenship test or equivalent (match the amendment with the right) should also be given to anyone running for office.
Finally, we need to remove all party affiliation from the ballot- people should vote for the person, not the party, in a representative government.
My point is, voting should NOT be easy. It should require thought and consideration, and yes, knowledge.