This must be the day of the week that scams are announced.
First we have software that cannot be reverse engineered and guarantees the free speech rights of Americans.
It comes attached to the Brooklyn Bridge and some Florida swamp land.
Now we have this crap: "By limiting the domain, the system can make assumptions or inferences about what the user would like to accomplish, he said."
This is not exactly "superhuman" speech recognition.
None of this is feasible absent conceptual processing technology. Period.
I don't know why I don't clean up at the public trough by simply announcing I have "true artificial intelligence" and wait for the checks to roll in before leaving for Brazil.
"Because the code cannot be analyzed, terrorists using the Internet to communicate will never know if the filter has pinpointed their data or not."
Uhm, excuse me, but this is exactly the situation right now. Since when do terrorists ever KNOW that security is on to them until they're caught? Terrorists take precautions against being detected by ANYTHING. Terrorists with the slightest brains do not talk about operations in the clear at any time. What then is this software supposed to detect? Where is the benefit?
Supposedly the benefit is that "harmless" communication is never seen by the Fed. Bullcrap. The parameters of the software are SET by the Fed - they can see anything they want. That's obvious from the article as it glosses entirely over the matter of "criteria" in the first place.
This software would only be safe in the hands of someone who IS safe. In the words of the DRM enthusiasts, it only "keeps honest people honest." And since the criteria is changeable - as well as the appointment (or election) of the people who set the criteria - this is no security at all.
In the hands of George Bush, Dick Cheney and General Hayden, you're screwed, blued and tattooed.
This is nothing more than a propaganda piece put out at this time because Bush is in danger of being impeached over the spying issue. That's the bottom line.
"although in dispensing with dark matter, they've had to utilize the theoretical particle, called a graviton, which appears from the vacuum of space wherever stars are densely packed, making gravity stronger."
This is called "Ignotium per ignotious" - "explaining the unknown through the still more unknown."
And these guys get paid for this stuff. Where do I sign up?
Actually I was "lowered" to that level years ago - using the $120 million for legit things would be a atep up for me.
And I could do a lot with $120 million - that's just the seed capital for some R&D. Once I had the products I wanted, it would be easy to find investors to put up enough to bury Microsoft - especially since I'd use software patents to make sure Microsoft couldn't reverse engineer the product - "hoist them with their own petard", as it were. After MS (and a couple other outfits like Oracle) dropped, I'd open source the whole thing.
"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome." --George W. Bush, defending Vice President Dick Cheney's pre-war assertion that the United States would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators, NBC Nightly News interview, Dec. 12, 2005
"Those who enter the country illegally violate the law." --George W. Bush, Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005
"The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it." --George W. Bush, on the probe into how CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity was leaked, Washington D.C., July 18, 2005
"I was going to say he's a piece of work, but that might not translate too well. Is that all right, if I call you a 'piece of work'?" --George W. Bush to Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, Washington, D.C., June 20, 2005
"The relations with, uhh -- Europe are important relations, and they've, uhh -- because, we do share values. And, they're universal values, they're not American values or, you know -- European values, they're universal values. And those values -- uhh -- being universal, ought to be applied everywhere." --George W. Bush, at a press conference with European Union dignitaries, Washington, D.C., June 20, 2005
"You see, not only did the attacks help accelerate a recession, the attacks reminded us that we are at war." --George W. Bush, on the Sept. 11 attacks, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2005
"It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth." --George W. Bush, on an Amnesty International report on prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Washington, D.C., May 31, 2005
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005
"We discussed the way forward in Iraq, discussed the importance of a democracy in the greater Middle East in order to leave behind a peaceful tomorrow." --George W. Bush, Tbilisi, Georgia, May 10, 2005
"I can only speak to myself." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
"We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives -- like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write." --George W. Bush, on federal education requirements, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
"I want to thank you for the importance that you've shown for education and literacy." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2005
"I appreciate my love for Laura." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 20, 2005
"We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make -- it would hope -- put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 14, 2005
[I'm] occasionally reading, I want you to know, in the second term." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005
"I understand there's a suspicion that we--we're too security-conscience." --George W. Bush, Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table." --George W. Bush, Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005
"Because he's hiding." --George W. Bush, responding to a reporter who asked why Osama bin Laden had not been caught, aboard Air Force One, Jan. 14, 2005
"Who could have possibly envisioned an erection -- an election in Iraq at this point in history?" --George W. Bush, at the white House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 10, 2005
"We need to apply 21st-century information technology to the health care field. We need to have ou
I sent this to Bob and he replied that Fiducianet was now more important - a company founded by an ex-FBI agent, then purchased by Neustar, the company that does number portability and handles some high-level Net domains as well. Bob claimed that made Neustar the "Big Kahuna" in wiretapping now.
I did some more research and discovered that Fiducianet was purchased for about $2.6 million, whereas Verint, the company spun off by Comverse after they came under suspicion, did $78 million in business as of last year. This hardly makes Fiducianet the "Big Kahuna".
Also I discovered an article that indicates the Dutch government ALSO was concerned about Comverse's leaking info to the Israelis.
AND guess what? Comverse and Verint sells video surveillance technology to mass transit systems worlwide - that happens to be used in the London Underground = which gives them unrestricted access to the Underground and the video surveillance cameras that DIDN'T see what went down before the London bombings...
What better way for Mossad to gain intelligence than to create companies selling security and surveillance technology to every other country in the world? Sheer genius - and it's working beautifully in the United States.
Guess who also uses Verint technology? Verisign - the guys who also sell CALEA services and who keep track of your domain...And Verint's technology that does wire tapping does ALL forms of wiretapping = including packet interception off the Net...
By the way, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority used Verint Video Solutions cameras on 326 busses in the area.
Here's a quote I found on the Net:
Greiper: I cover three companies in the (video) surveillance space. One is Verint Systems (NasdaqNM:VRNT - News), which provides digital surveillance systems and data-mining software that are being deployed in places like the New Jersey Turnpike, London's MetroNet rail system, Montreal's Metro system and Oregon's TriMet rail system.
Since the Madrid train bombings, there has been quite a mad rush to deploy video, not only in stations, but on trains and buses themselves.
IBD: How does the U.S. compare with other nations in adopting the technology?
Greiper: The U.S. is far behind the rest of the world in deploying video in trains and buses. About six weeks ago, the Homeland Security Department allocated about $150 million in grants, specifically for rail and bus security.
There are pilot projects, including one for the New York City subways and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in San Francisco. Verint may be one of the firms that benefits.
Nice, eh? Everybody in the world is buying surveillance and security technology from companies supported by the government of the ONE country KNOWN for spying on its allies.
"It feels a little creepy to me knowing that our telephone systems can be accessed at will by "rent-a-tap" outfits, and that the technology has advanced to the point where such intercepts can apparently be done from a properly-authorized PC."
If he knew that the entire wiretapping operation is run by an ISRAELI company (which of course is almost certainly a Mossad front), he would probably be even more creeped out.
Quote from an article from a couple years ago on the subject:
One company reported to be under investigation is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm. Comverse provides almost all the wiretapping equipment and software for U.S. law enforcement.
Custom computers and software made by Comverse are tied into the U.S. phone network in order to intercept, record and store wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators.
The penetration of Comverse reportedly allowed criminals to wiretap law enforcement communications in reverse and foil authorized wiretaps with advance warning. One major drug bust operation planned by the Los Angeles police was foiled by what now appear to be reverse wiretaps placed on law enforcement phones by the criminal spy ring.
Another article based on FOX News Carl Cameron's report on this issue:
AMDOCS
What Israel has done in return was to set up government subsidized telecommunications companies which operate here in the United States. One of these companies is Amdocs, which provides billing and directory assistance for 90% of the phone companies in the USA. Amdocs' main computer center for billing is actually in Israel and allows those with access to do what intelligence agencies call "traffic analysis"; a picture of someone's activities based on a pattern of who they are calling and when.
COMVERSE INFOSYS
Another Israeli telecom company is Comverse Infosys, which subcontracts the installation of the automatic tapping equipment now built into every phone system in America. Comverse maintains its own connections to all this phone tapping equipment, insisting that it is for maintenance purposes only.
PROTECTING ISRAELI DRUG RUNNING IN UNITED STATES THROUGH THIS NETWORK AS WELL
However, Converse has been named as the most likely source for leaked information regarding telephone calls by law enforcement that derailed several investigations into not only espionage, but drug running as well.
ODIGO, ANOTHER ISRAELI OWNED COMPANY
Yet another Israeli telecom company is Odigo, which provides the core message passing system for all the "Instant Message" services. Two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, Odigo employees received a warning. Odigo has an office 2 blocks from the former location of the World Trade Towers.
More:
Amdocs Ltd. "CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here's how the system works. Most directory assistance calls, and virtually all call records and billing in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based private elecommunications company. Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it. In recent years, the FBI and other government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly denied any security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox News that in 1999, the super secret national security agency, headquartered in northern Maryland, issued what's called a Top Secret sensitive compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI, warning that records of calls in the United States were getting into foreign hands - in Israel, in particular.
Investigators don't believe calls are being listened to, but the data about who is calling whom and when is plenty valuable in itself. An internal Amdoc
If I remember correctly, the first viruses were created by Dr. Fred Cohen (and on UNIX systems, by the way, back in the day when sys admins were trusting) back in the early '80's. He coined the term "virus" back in 1983 (or actually his research advisor did). He published his first paper in 1984.
Apparently this 20-year "anniversary" is for the first virus found "in the wild". Fair enough, but it is not the 20-year anniversary of the first computer virus.
I've said it a hundred times - people do NOT pay for music. They never have, except for the short period of time when music was only available on phonograph records and cheap cassette recorders were not available. Even then, hobbyists recorded music on reel-to-reel tape drives and exchanged them.
People pay for legal download services only because using the P2P systems is so difficult (search for the music, join a queue, wait for five hours to download the file, get a crappy file, etc., ad nauseum, not to mention configuring the software in the first place, a task some people find difficult.)
They used their connections with Bush (C'MON, guys, ever heard of "Preston Gates" and how many people connected with the Abramoff scandal used to work there?!) to have the DoJ come down on Google with this obviously nonsensical concept of defending their law by comparing it to filters.
It's a fucking fishing expedition and a cover story, nothing more.
Then Google defends itself, and Microsoft can spread rumors about "Google defending child porn".
This is totally fucking sleazy = and totally something Bill Gates would do.
Which is why it's virtually guaranteed that he's behind it. He might as well hang a sign on himself saying so.
Microsoft is a company that couldn't compete with a five-year-old without resorting to illegal and sleazy tactics.
Microsoft is on a par with Enron - it needs to be put completely out of business for the benefit of the IT industry, the advancement of computer science, and the entire world.
What part of "or anyone else's property who is cool with it" didn't you comprehend?
The issue is whether PUBLIC PROPERTY funded by taxpayer money should be used to promote a specific religion.
The Constitution says the government will not act to favor any specific religion. The Founders were people who for the most part were not denominational Christians and were well aware of the insidious nature of the Christian religion and its emphasis on joining state and religion for its own benefit. In fact, that's were Christianity began - first in Israel where Judaism was part and parcel of the state, and then in Rome when Paul, a Roman double agent, established his con game of a religion and then future Bishops managed to get it recognized by the state under Constantine, and then proceeded to try to dominate European politics for the next thousand years.
Evanglism is outlawed? You really are a moron, aren't you? Or perhaps another Christian Zionist who is perfectly well aware to the degree in which this country has been perverted into a near theocracy but continues to pull the old hoary "Christians are being persecuted by liberals" horseshit in order to make yourselves look like the underdogs.
You're gonna be underdogs, asshole. We Transhumans promise you that. As Aleister Crowley used to say, "The Christians to the lions."
You want to pray, better start praying we Transhumans don't get the tech we need to crush your asses in the next twenty, thirty years.
You want a Rapture? We're gonna give you a "Rupture" instead...
This must be why Mandriva 2006's interactive firewall tells me everytime I post to Slashdot that "A port scan attack has been attempted by Slashdot.org." Must be determining my current IP (since DSL people get dynamic IPs) - which implies that Slashdot remembers every IP address I've ever used. Ahah, now I know why - they want to be able to turn over EVERYTHING I've ever done on the Net with ALL my IPs to the Secret Service!
Really stupid policy.
Somebody says the wrong thing on/., the SS (catchy acronym, wot?) comes in and gets EVERYBODY's IP for EVERYTHING EVERY Slashdot user has EVER done on the Net all in one nice court order.
"No other country has a many people wanting to move there."
America: Since we stole everybody else's money, you have to come here to get it back.
Nice.
Also, since more people are leaving Israel than going there, I suppose you don't mind the same argument being used to prove that Israel is fucked up (which it is.) I didn't think so, Christian Zionist...
This is the usual "Gee, someone is making money that I don't have my hands on" reaction of a typical human primate who is literally KILLED to see anyone else in the world making a buck.
Now, I don't have a problem with someone trying to figure out how to make money off someone else's money. I DO have a problem with people who want to prevent those people from making money off someone else's money.
This has nothing to do with disliking rich people. I don't hate Bill Gates because he's rich. I hate him because he's an asshole and his company is slowing the computer revolution by putting out and locking people into CRAP.
If Neilsen is complaining that the effect of the current situation is that some Web sites with quality content will be cut off because they don't use ads and therefore the public will not find them because the public is using search engines, I find this to be a highly speculative concept. I see no evidence that the search engines are cutting anyone off.
I just put up a tiny site a couple months ago and have done NOTHING to promote it at all so far. It's just a couple pages of Microsoft Word HTML documents. Nonetheless my site was eventually found by Google and might actually turn up in the first fifty pages of results with the right key words. In fact, use the same four words in the right order as my Web site name and - likely because I'm on Craigslist - I come up as the THIRD result on the FIRST PAGE! With absolutely NO effort on my part to promote the page. Of course, whether anyone will happen to put those four words in that order on a regular basis is sufficiently unlikely that I will have to do a LOT more promotion in order to make the site useful.
But it does indicate that just because you have no ads on your page and the search engine is making some teeny tiny amount of money off my site by having it contribute to filling up their results page which is full of ads doesn't mean my site is going anywhere, up or down.
People need to be wary of "soundbite concepts" - like the notion of "intellectual property" or "the CIA CREATED bin Laden" (they didn't "create" him - they just used and helped him) or "siphoning value". These are phrases that SOUND like actual valid concepts - but they're really meaningless if you start to examine them in the light of facts based on reality. Invariably when you hear one of these soundbites, there's a hidden agenda that someone has that he doesn't want to reveal - and it usually has to do with restricting your freedom in order to enhance his.
Your arguments boil down to: I have to spend money to make money, therefore I should be able to use the state to prevent anyone else from making money from my product.
Bullshit.
There is NOTHING in economic theory or the theory of property to support this notion.
NOTHING.
You want to get rid of corporations robbing the little guy? Get rid of corporations - which didn't exist until a hundred fifty plus years ago and are creatures of the state. It has nothing to do with business models.
Your primary complaint is that artists are primarily "service" businesses. They make money solely on their personal output and cannot easily "productize" their personal time. Therefore, you claim, they should be allowed to productize their output and use the state to prevent anyone else from distributing copies of that product.
This argument breaks down in the face of the fact that EVERYBODY in ANY service business is in the same boat. They make money, anyway - or they don't. The free market demands that everybody figure out how to survive their own way, and the devil take the hindmost. This is the way human social and cultural evolution is maximized. You want to replace that with REAL socialism, not just "intellectual socialism" - or perhaps the proper term is "real fascism". It has nothing to do with "protecting the little guys." "Little guys" do not need to be "protected"; they will find a niche or starve. What is required is to prevent the state from enacting laws that are seized upon by the "big guys" to achieve an unfair advantage because they are using the power of the state to enhance their business model.
"Intellectual property" is an oxymoron. When everybody realizes this, the market will be leveled and people can figure out how to make money without trying to use an invalid concept as a hook to allow them to use coercion to extort money from everyone else.
Very interesting proposition. I suspect you will be successful IF you can hold your costs down.
Look into direct broadcast of concerts over the Net on a subscription basis as a revenue stream. I've been arguing that a LOT of fans of a band might want to see their favorite band do concerts on line once a week, rather than waiting a year for them to come back around on tour to their local area. It might not have the ambiance of attending a live show, but it could come close enough to be a revenue stream. I've had people come up with all sorts of reasons why they hate this idea, but none of them are convincing to me in view of the basic fact that fanatical fans want their band, and even more casual fans might watch if it was easy and cheap. If TV can broadcast concerts and get people to watch, I don't understand why bands can't do the same.
It seems to me a couple thousand fans paying $5-10/month for a subscription to watch a live (or "pre-recorded live") concert online would be profitable, if the bandwidth and infrastructure costs can be kept low enough.
I also have never understood why bands don't videotape and record every single one of their concerts and offer them for sale to fans (either on the spot, which is being done now by some bands, or later). Especially for bands like The Corrs who are primarily live, visual bands. I know I and many other Corrs fans obsessively download every concert video made by amateurs with camera-phones, so I would think there should be some way of monetizing this - or at least using it to enhance promotion even if they have to be given away. The recordings don't have to be professional, editied, DVD-quality either - just good enough to watch and hear. The Corrs have always been video oriented (playing on their looks) to the degree that they've had a cameraman following them around for the last ten years almost day to day which has resulted in several documentaries and now a documentary on DVD.
I read this piece because I thought there might be something in there of some tiny interest about how/. works.
There wasn't.
To me, this series of pieces looks like ego-boo or attempts to start flamewars on slow news days.
Why don't you put this stuff in a topic - "How Slashdot Works" - and let people check it in Preferences if they want to read this stuff? Read their posts if you think you'll learn something.
I really don't care that you don't bother to do a spell check on the synopses (although you should) or whether you add your comments to the end of a submission.
I believe there was some discussion on another site of whether WINE in fact ported the same bug. I think the conclusion was that they actually did a BETTER job of porting the feature than Microsoft. In any event, it's hardly the WINE Project's motivation to clean up Windows bugs. Their purpose is to let Windows apps run on Linux. They can hardly be expected to examine every ancient Windows "feature" for security holes.
"If you download WMF from suspicious source and run it, how is it better than running a suspicious EXE and urn it, especially tha you know your windows runs binary code from a WMF."
And how many Windows users even KNOW this is true? FYI people download and run stuff from Web sites all the time. Why shouldn't they - it's a "feature". And how do any of them what is a "suspicious" site? You think a "suspicious site" runs a banner tag or a metatag saying "suspicious site"? If I was actually running one, I'd make damn sure it DIDN'T look like a "suspicious site." You think porn sites are "suspicious"? Get serious.
See, this is why you haven't a clue - and why you get criticized for defending Microsoft - BECAUSE you are a "happy Windows user" who hasn't a clue.
"So why would Microsoft Research be wasting its time with Singularity if it wasn't going to be turned into a product some day?"
Reread my post. Is Bill still working there? Fergeddaboutit. Microsoft probably has tons of projects they play with that you'll never see - unless it makes more money for Bill.
Yes, Microsoft can "market security" - they lie well. But despite a lot of people wanting security, especially in Microsoft's main corporate market, Bill couldn't care less. Because he knows that that he stands to make more money hawking his existing stuff rather than spending development money REALLY bringing an advanced OS to market. Bringing a brand-new OS to market - especially one that would break existing apps and/or force all the Windows developers to rewrite their stuff - would open the door for Linux. He'll never do that. Worse, compete with other OS's on a security basis rather than features? No chance.
What he will do is hawk the security features of Vista - which the Windows shills are already doing.
As for lock-in, yes, you noticed that they built that in. The Microsoft developers know which side their bread is buttered on. If anything comes of Singularity, it will be that concept. The problem is, again, it would break existing apps. If Bill thinks he can take over more of the apps market by doing that, he will. Otherwise, he won't.
Yes, Microsoft is damned if they do and damned if they don't?
Why?
Because they fucked up - and then they fuck up again in correcting the mistake, that's why.
Then they fuck up a third time by introducing a NEW fucking mistake. Oh, wait, first they fuck up by lying about the first mistake - THEN they introduce another mistake.
And they do all this due to the deliberate corporate culture developed by the man in charge.
So, yes, Microsoft can do no right until Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and the rest of the Geek Moron(tm) drones who have bought into this shit are removed from the company.
Not while Bill Gates is alive...or anybody like Ballmer still has authority at the company.
Microsoft is NOT a software company - it is a MARKETING company and nothing but features - and the ability to lock in the customer - are allowed to significantly influence the system design. Period.
Slashdot Mirror
This must be the day of the week that scams are announced.
First we have software that cannot be reverse engineered and guarantees the free speech rights of Americans.
It comes attached to the Brooklyn Bridge and some Florida swamp land.
Now we have this crap: "By limiting the domain, the system can make assumptions or inferences about what the user would like to accomplish, he said."
This is not exactly "superhuman" speech recognition.
None of this is feasible absent conceptual processing technology. Period.
I don't know why I don't clean up at the public trough by simply announcing I have "true artificial intelligence" and wait for the checks to roll in before leaving for Brazil.
"Because the code cannot be analyzed, terrorists using the Internet to communicate will never know if the filter has pinpointed their data or not."
Uhm, excuse me, but this is exactly the situation right now. Since when do terrorists ever KNOW that security is on to them until they're caught? Terrorists take precautions against being detected by ANYTHING. Terrorists with the slightest brains do not talk about operations in the clear at any time. What then is this software supposed to detect? Where is the benefit?
Supposedly the benefit is that "harmless" communication is never seen by the Fed. Bullcrap. The parameters of the software are SET by the Fed - they can see anything they want. That's obvious from the article as it glosses entirely over the matter of "criteria" in the first place.
This software would only be safe in the hands of someone who IS safe. In the words of the DRM enthusiasts, it only "keeps honest people honest." And since the criteria is changeable - as well as the appointment (or election) of the people who set the criteria - this is no security at all.
In the hands of George Bush, Dick Cheney and General Hayden, you're screwed, blued and tattooed.
This is nothing more than a propaganda piece put out at this time because Bush is in danger of being impeached over the spying issue. That's the bottom line.
"although in dispensing with dark matter, they've had to utilize the theoretical particle, called a graviton, which appears from the vacuum of space wherever stars are densely packed, making gravity stronger."
This is called "Ignotium per ignotious" - "explaining the unknown through the still more unknown."
And these guys get paid for this stuff. Where do I sign up?
Actually I was "lowered" to that level years ago - using the $120 million for legit things would be a atep up for me.
And I could do a lot with $120 million - that's just the seed capital for some R&D. Once I had the products I wanted, it would be easy to find investors to put up enough to bury Microsoft - especially since I'd use software patents to make sure Microsoft couldn't reverse engineer the product - "hoist them with their own petard", as it were. After MS (and a couple other outfits like Oracle) dropped, I'd open source the whole thing.
And I'll make it a true statement that Microsoft is no longer a "huge" American company.
They'll be a LOT smaller when I get through with them.
Obviously the rightwingers are out in force on
Meanwhile, a bunch of insulted illiterate morons post over a THOUSAND posts on this article.
What's wrong with this picture?
The article obviously stands confirmed.
"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome." --George W. Bush, defending Vice President Dick Cheney's pre-war assertion that the United States would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators, NBC Nightly News interview, Dec. 12, 2005
"Those who enter the country illegally violate the law." --George W. Bush, Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005
"The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it." --George W. Bush, on the probe into how CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity was leaked, Washington D.C., July 18, 2005
"I was going to say he's a piece of work, but that might not translate too well. Is that all right, if I call you a 'piece of work'?" --George W. Bush to Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, Washington, D.C., June 20, 2005
"The relations with, uhh -- Europe are important relations, and they've, uhh -- because, we do share values. And, they're universal values, they're not American values or, you know -- European values, they're universal values. And those values -- uhh -- being universal, ought to be applied everywhere." --George W. Bush, at a press conference with European Union dignitaries, Washington, D.C., June 20, 2005
"You see, not only did the attacks help accelerate a recession, the attacks reminded us that we are at war." --George W. Bush, on the Sept. 11 attacks, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2005
"It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth." --George W. Bush, on an Amnesty International report on prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Washington, D.C., May 31, 2005
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005
"We discussed the way forward in Iraq, discussed the importance of a democracy in the greater Middle East in order to leave behind a peaceful tomorrow." --George W. Bush, Tbilisi, Georgia, May 10, 2005
"I can only speak to myself." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
"We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives -- like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write." --George W. Bush, on federal education requirements, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
"I want to thank you for the importance that you've shown for education and literacy." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2005
"I appreciate my love for Laura." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 20, 2005
"We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make -- it would hope -- put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 14, 2005
[I'm] occasionally reading, I want you to know, in the second term." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005
"I understand there's a suspicion that we--we're too security-conscience." --George W. Bush, Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table." --George W. Bush, Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005
"Because he's hiding." --George W. Bush, responding to a reporter who asked why Osama bin Laden had not been caught, aboard Air Force One, Jan. 14, 2005
"Who could have possibly envisioned an erection -- an election in Iraq at this point in history?" --George W. Bush, at the white House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 10, 2005
"We need to apply 21st-century information technology to the health care field. We need to have ou
I sent this to Bob and he replied that Fiducianet was now more important - a company founded by an ex-FBI agent, then purchased by Neustar, the company that does number portability and handles some high-level Net domains as well. Bob claimed that made Neustar the "Big Kahuna" in wiretapping now.
I did some more research and discovered that Fiducianet was purchased for about $2.6 million, whereas Verint, the company spun off by Comverse after they came under suspicion, did $78 million in business as of last year. This hardly makes Fiducianet the "Big Kahuna".
Also I discovered an article that indicates the Dutch government ALSO was concerned about Comverse's leaking info to the Israelis.
AND guess what? Comverse and Verint sells video surveillance technology to mass transit systems worlwide - that happens to be used in the London Underground = which gives them unrestricted access to the Underground and the video surveillance cameras that DIDN'T see what went down before the London bombings...
What better way for Mossad to gain intelligence than to create companies selling security and surveillance technology to every other country in the world? Sheer genius - and it's working beautifully in the United States.
Guess who also uses Verint technology? Verisign - the guys who also sell CALEA services and who keep track of your domain...And Verint's technology that does wire tapping does ALL forms of wiretapping = including packet interception off the Net...
By the way, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority used Verint Video Solutions cameras on 326 busses in the area.
Here's a quote I found on the Net:
Greiper: I cover three companies in the (video) surveillance space. One is Verint Systems (NasdaqNM:VRNT - News), which provides digital surveillance systems and data-mining software that are being deployed in places like the New Jersey Turnpike, London's MetroNet rail system, Montreal's Metro system and Oregon's TriMet rail system.
Since the Madrid train bombings, there has been quite a mad rush to deploy video, not only in stations, but on trains and buses themselves.
IBD: How does the U.S. compare with other nations in adopting the technology?
Greiper: The U.S. is far behind the rest of the world in deploying video in trains and buses. About six weeks ago, the Homeland Security Department allocated about $150 million in grants, specifically for rail and bus security.
There are pilot projects, including one for the New York City subways and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in San Francisco. Verint may be one of the firms that benefits.
Nice, eh? Everybody in the world is buying surveillance and security technology from companies supported by the government of the ONE country KNOWN for spying on its allies.
Tin foil hat, my ass...
"It feels a little creepy to me knowing that our telephone systems can be accessed at will by "rent-a-tap" outfits, and that the technology has advanced to the point where such intercepts can apparently be done from a properly-authorized PC."
If he knew that the entire wiretapping operation is run by an ISRAELI company (which of course is almost certainly a Mossad front), he would probably be even more creeped out.
Quote from an article from a couple years ago on the subject:
One company reported to be under investigation is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm. Comverse provides almost all the wiretapping equipment and software for U.S. law enforcement.
Custom computers and software made by Comverse are tied into the U.S. phone network in order to intercept, record and store wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators.
The penetration of Comverse reportedly allowed criminals to wiretap law enforcement communications in reverse and foil authorized wiretaps with advance warning. One major drug bust operation planned by the Los Angeles police was foiled by what now appear to be reverse wiretaps placed on law enforcement phones by the criminal spy ring.
Another article based on FOX News Carl Cameron's report on this issue:
AMDOCS
What Israel has done in return was to set up government subsidized
telecommunications companies which operate here in the United States. One of these companies is Amdocs, which provides billing and directory assistance for 90% of the phone companies in the USA. Amdocs' main computer center for billing is actually in Israel and allows those with access to do what intelligence agencies call "traffic analysis"; a picture of someone's activities based on a pattern of who they are calling and when.
COMVERSE INFOSYS
Another Israeli telecom company is Comverse Infosys, which subcontracts the installation of the automatic tapping equipment now built into every phone system in America. Comverse maintains its own connections to all this phone tapping equipment, insisting that it is for maintenance purposes only.
PROTECTING ISRAELI DRUG RUNNING IN UNITED STATES THROUGH THIS NETWORK AS WELL
However, Converse has been named as the most likely source for leaked information regarding telephone calls by law enforcement that derailed several investigations into not only espionage, but drug running as well.
ODIGO, ANOTHER ISRAELI OWNED COMPANY
Yet another Israeli telecom company is Odigo, which provides the core message passing system for all the "Instant Message" services. Two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, Odigo employees received a warning. Odigo has an office 2 blocks from the former location of the World Trade Towers.
More:
Amdocs Ltd.
"CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here's how the system works. Most directory assistance calls, and virtually all call records and billing in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based private elecommunications company. Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it. In recent years, the FBI and other government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly denied any security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox News that in 1999, the super secret national security agency, headquartered in northern Maryland, issued what's called a Top Secret sensitive compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI, warning that records of calls in the United States were getting into foreign hands - in Israel, in particular.
Investigators don't believe calls are being listened to, but the data about who is calling whom and when is plenty valuable in itself. An internal Amdoc
If I remember correctly, the first viruses were created by Dr. Fred Cohen (and on UNIX systems, by the way, back in the day when sys admins were trusting) back in the early '80's. He coined the term "virus" back in 1983 (or actually his research advisor did). He published his first paper in 1984.
Apparently this 20-year "anniversary" is for the first virus found "in the wild". Fair enough, but it is not the 20-year anniversary of the first computer virus.
I've said it a hundred times - people do NOT pay for music. They never have, except for the short period of time when music was only available on phonograph records and cheap cassette recorders were not available. Even then, hobbyists recorded music on reel-to-reel tape drives and exchanged them.
People pay for legal download services only because using the P2P systems is so difficult (search for the music, join a queue, wait for five hours to download the file, get a crappy file, etc., ad nauseum, not to mention configuring the software in the first place, a task some people find difficult.)
They used their connections with Bush (C'MON, guys, ever heard of "Preston Gates" and how many people connected with the Abramoff scandal used to work there?!) to have the DoJ come down on Google with this obviously nonsensical concept of defending their law by comparing it to filters.
It's a fucking fishing expedition and a cover story, nothing more.
Then Google defends itself, and Microsoft can spread rumors about "Google defending child porn".
This is totally fucking sleazy = and totally something Bill Gates would do.
Which is why it's virtually guaranteed that he's behind it. He might as well hang a sign on himself saying so.
Microsoft is a company that couldn't compete with a five-year-old without resorting to illegal and sleazy tactics.
Microsoft is on a par with Enron - it needs to be put completely out of business for the benefit of the IT industry, the advancement of computer science, and the entire world.
Dick porn?
I do NOT have any porn on the Net - yet...
And don't call me "Dick"!
What part of "or anyone else's property who is cool with it" didn't you comprehend?
The issue is whether PUBLIC PROPERTY funded by taxpayer money should be used to promote a specific religion.
The Constitution says the government will not act to favor any specific religion. The Founders were people who for the most part were not denominational Christians and were well aware of the insidious nature of the Christian religion and its emphasis on joining state and religion for its own benefit. In fact, that's were Christianity began - first in Israel where Judaism was part and parcel of the state, and then in Rome when Paul, a Roman double agent, established his con game of a religion and then future Bishops managed to get it recognized by the state under Constantine, and then proceeded to try to dominate European politics for the next thousand years.
Evanglism is outlawed? You really are a moron, aren't you? Or perhaps another Christian Zionist who is perfectly well aware to the degree in which this country has been perverted into a near theocracy but continues to pull the old hoary "Christians are being persecuted by liberals" horseshit in order to make yourselves look like the underdogs.
You're gonna be underdogs, asshole. We Transhumans promise you that. As Aleister Crowley used to say, "The Christians to the lions."
You want to pray, better start praying we Transhumans don't get the tech we need to crush your asses in the next twenty, thirty years.
You want a Rapture? We're gonna give you a "Rupture" instead...
Banning by IP, eh?
/., the SS (catchy acronym, wot?) comes in and gets EVERYBODY's IP for EVERYTHING EVERY Slashdot user has EVER done on the Net all in one nice court order.
/....
This must be why Mandriva 2006's interactive firewall tells me everytime I post to Slashdot that "A port scan attack has been attempted by Slashdot.org." Must be determining my current IP (since DSL people get dynamic IPs) - which implies that Slashdot remembers every IP address I've ever used. Ahah, now I know why - they want to be able to turn over EVERYTHING I've ever done on the Net with ALL my IPs to the Secret Service!
Really stupid policy.
Somebody says the wrong thing on
Smart, really smart,
Morons.
"No other country has a many people wanting to move there."
America: Since we stole everybody else's money, you have to come here to get it back.
Nice.
Also, since more people are leaving Israel than going there, I suppose you don't mind the same argument being used to prove that Israel is fucked up (which it is.) I didn't think so, Christian Zionist...
Moron.
This is the usual "Gee, someone is making money that I don't have my hands on" reaction of a typical human primate who is literally KILLED to see anyone else in the world making a buck.
Now, I don't have a problem with someone trying to figure out how to make money off someone else's money. I DO have a problem with people who want to prevent those people from making money off someone else's money.
This has nothing to do with disliking rich people. I don't hate Bill Gates because he's rich. I hate him because he's an asshole and his company is slowing the computer revolution by putting out and locking people into CRAP.
If Neilsen is complaining that the effect of the current situation is that some Web sites with quality content will be cut off because they don't use ads and therefore the public will not find them because the public is using search engines, I find this to be a highly speculative concept. I see no evidence that the search engines are cutting anyone off.
I just put up a tiny site a couple months ago and have done NOTHING to promote it at all so far. It's just a couple pages of Microsoft Word HTML documents. Nonetheless my site was eventually found by Google and might actually turn up in the first fifty pages of results with the right key words. In fact, use the same four words in the right order as my Web site name and - likely because I'm on Craigslist - I come up as the THIRD result on the FIRST PAGE! With absolutely NO effort on my part to promote the page. Of course, whether anyone will happen to put those four words in that order on a regular basis is sufficiently unlikely that I will have to do a LOT more promotion in order to make the site useful.
But it does indicate that just because you have no ads on your page and the search engine is making some teeny tiny amount of money off my site by having it contribute to filling up their results page which is full of ads doesn't mean my site is going anywhere, up or down.
People need to be wary of "soundbite concepts" - like the notion of "intellectual property" or "the CIA CREATED bin Laden" (they didn't "create" him - they just used and helped him) or "siphoning value". These are phrases that SOUND like actual valid concepts - but they're really meaningless if you start to examine them in the light of facts based on reality. Invariably when you hear one of these soundbites, there's a hidden agenda that someone has that he doesn't want to reveal - and it usually has to do with restricting your freedom in order to enhance his.
Your arguments boil down to: I have to spend money to make money, therefore I should be able to use the state to prevent anyone else from making money from my product.
Bullshit.
There is NOTHING in economic theory or the theory of property to support this notion.
NOTHING.
You want to get rid of corporations robbing the little guy? Get rid of corporations - which didn't exist until a hundred fifty plus years ago and are creatures of the state. It has nothing to do with business models.
Your primary complaint is that artists are primarily "service" businesses. They make money solely on their personal output and cannot easily "productize" their personal time. Therefore, you claim, they should be allowed to productize their output and use the state to prevent anyone else from distributing copies of that product.
This argument breaks down in the face of the fact that EVERYBODY in ANY service business is in the same boat. They make money, anyway - or they don't. The free market demands that everybody figure out how to survive their own way, and the devil take the hindmost. This is the way human social and cultural evolution is maximized. You want to replace that with REAL socialism, not just "intellectual socialism" - or perhaps the proper term is "real fascism". It has nothing to do with "protecting the little guys." "Little guys" do not need to be "protected"; they will find a niche or starve. What is required is to prevent the state from enacting laws that are seized upon by the "big guys" to achieve an unfair advantage because they are using the power of the state to enhance their business model.
"Intellectual property" is an oxymoron. When everybody realizes this, the market will be leveled and people can figure out how to make money without trying to use an invalid concept as a hook to allow them to use coercion to extort money from everyone else.
Very interesting proposition. I suspect you will be successful IF you can hold your costs down.
Look into direct broadcast of concerts over the Net on a subscription basis as a revenue stream. I've been arguing that a LOT of fans of a band might want to see their favorite band do concerts on line once a week, rather than waiting a year for them to come back around on tour to their local area. It might not have the ambiance of attending a live show, but it could come close enough to be a revenue stream. I've had people come up with all sorts of reasons why they hate this idea, but none of them are convincing to me in view of the basic fact that fanatical fans want their band, and even more casual fans might watch if it was easy and cheap. If TV can broadcast concerts and get people to watch, I don't understand why bands can't do the same.
It seems to me a couple thousand fans paying $5-10/month for a subscription to watch a live (or "pre-recorded live") concert online would be profitable, if the bandwidth and infrastructure costs can be kept low enough.
I also have never understood why bands don't videotape and record every single one of their concerts and offer them for sale to fans (either on the spot, which is being done now by some bands, or later). Especially for bands like The Corrs who are primarily live, visual bands. I know I and many other Corrs fans obsessively download every concert video made by amateurs with camera-phones, so I would think there should be some way of monetizing this - or at least using it to enhance promotion even if they have to be given away. The recordings don't have to be professional, editied, DVD-quality either - just good enough to watch and hear. The Corrs have always been video oriented (playing on their looks) to the degree that they've had a cameraman following them around for the last ten years almost day to day which has resulted in several documentaries and now a documentary on DVD.
I read this piece because I thought there might be something in there of some tiny interest about how /. works.
There wasn't.
To me, this series of pieces looks like ego-boo or attempts to start flamewars on slow news days.
Why don't you put this stuff in a topic - "How Slashdot Works" - and let people check it in Preferences if they want to read this stuff? Read their posts if you think you'll learn something.
I really don't care that you don't bother to do a spell check on the synopses (although you should) or whether you add your comments to the end of a submission.
I believe there was some discussion on another site of whether WINE in fact ported the same bug. I think the conclusion was that they actually did a BETTER job of porting the feature than Microsoft. In any event, it's hardly the WINE Project's motivation to clean up Windows bugs. Their purpose is to let Windows apps run on Linux. They can hardly be expected to examine every ancient Windows "feature" for security holes.
"If you download WMF from suspicious source and run it, how is it better than running a suspicious EXE and urn it, especially tha you know your windows runs binary code from a WMF."
And how many Windows users even KNOW this is true? FYI people download and run stuff from Web sites all the time. Why shouldn't they - it's a "feature". And how do any of them what is a "suspicious" site? You think a "suspicious site" runs a banner tag or a metatag saying "suspicious site"? If I was actually running one, I'd make damn sure it DIDN'T look like a "suspicious site." You think porn sites are "suspicious"? Get serious.
See, this is why you haven't a clue - and why you get criticized for defending Microsoft - BECAUSE you are a "happy Windows user" who hasn't a clue.
"So why would Microsoft Research be wasting its time with Singularity if it wasn't going to be turned into a product some day?"
Reread my post. Is Bill still working there? Fergeddaboutit. Microsoft probably has tons of projects they play with that you'll never see - unless it makes more money for Bill.
Yes, Microsoft can "market security" - they lie well. But despite a lot of people wanting security, especially in Microsoft's main corporate market, Bill couldn't care less. Because he knows that that he stands to make more money hawking his existing stuff rather than spending development money REALLY bringing an advanced OS to market. Bringing a brand-new OS to market - especially one that would break existing apps and/or force all the Windows developers to rewrite their stuff - would open the door for Linux. He'll never do that. Worse, compete with other OS's on a security basis rather than features? No chance.
What he will do is hawk the security features of Vista - which the Windows shills are already doing.
As for lock-in, yes, you noticed that they built that in. The Microsoft developers know which side their bread is buttered on. If anything comes of Singularity, it will be that concept. The problem is, again, it would break existing apps. If Bill thinks he can take over more of the apps market by doing that, he will. Otherwise, he won't.
Yes, Microsoft is damned if they do and damned if they don't?
Why?
Because they fucked up - and then they fuck up again in correcting the mistake, that's why.
Then they fuck up a third time by introducing a NEW fucking mistake. Oh, wait, first they fuck up by lying about the first mistake - THEN they introduce another mistake.
And they do all this due to the deliberate corporate culture developed by the man in charge.
So, yes, Microsoft can do no right until Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and the rest of the Geek Moron(tm) drones who have bought into this shit are removed from the company.
So people never save and open WMFs? Gee, never knew that.
Any more apologia you want to write for Bill?
DREAM THE FUCK ON!
Not while Bill Gates is alive...or anybody like Ballmer still has authority at the company.
Microsoft is NOT a software company - it is a MARKETING company and nothing but features - and the ability to lock in the customer - are allowed to significantly influence the system design. Period.