he technology for this has been available for years, to the general public, just not in quite this nice or unified a form.
Or this cheap. Or (presumably) this widely marketed. I guarantee, this will increase the incidence of such stalking a lot.
I'm sure the tech isn't far behind to scan for these little bugs, so why worry?
Two reasons. First, you don't check if you don't suspect - rear-view mirrors have been around for decades, but it's still easy to tail someone if they're not expecting you. Second, there are also problems for non-technophiles - are we to tell, say, a woman whose ex-husband tracks her down and attacks her that the technology was available and she should have had it? You'd have to have complete market penetration of the bug-scanners to counteract, combined with education, and that would never happen.
So I'd say this was inevitable, but it's still scary. I'm paranoid, and reasonably tech-savvy, but I'm still afraid I'd get tracked by someone I didn't want doing it.
You're also ignoring something here: We CONSENT to having these tags placed on something, and only what we want them placed on. No surprises here, and nothing's being tracked that we don't want tracked.
...that's obscenely naive. So what's stopping me from putting one on your car and knowing everywhere you go? What if your wife does it? What if your boss does it? See, there's nothing at all that implies consent here.
I'm sure Woz was trying to do something cool, and believe me I would love to know where my fscking keys and remote are like everyone else, but there are some more nefarious uses that will be among the first applications for the device.
For RICO to apply,the "protection" racket would have to involve some illegal act that they're going to do if you don't give them money. Like, if I'm the mob, you might take out "fire insurance" on your business so I don't burn it down. That's a protection racket.
However, if you do something illegal, it's not racketeering for me to grant you license to continue doing that (now formerly) illegal thing in exchange for money. The difference is that you put yourself in the squeeze by doing said illegal thing in the first place.
Obviously, the viability of that racket is contingent upon SCO being right, but they're effectively offering the "licenses" at dramatically reduced prices compared to any penalties - in other words, take your chances if you want, or act now and get a discount. So, assuming their IP claim has any merit at all (or if they genuinely think it does), what they're doing is *not* racketeering.
Of course, since they almost certainly have no case, this stinks like crap, but it's certainly not racketeering regardless. Now, if they've intentionally fabricated evidence of SysV being in linux, now *that* would be a protection racket. Or at least fraud.
Running VMWare under Linux, not under Windows, could provide a needed security blanket for those people that aren't used to sudden change. If they weren't serious about the move they wouldn't be doing this transitional thing; remember that these are mainly office paper pushers, not computer geeks.
I think that's a bit unfair - there are a variety of reasons that one might want to run vmware. I do, and I certainly consider myself a geek. Look at it this way - you can use windows in the safest environment possible, ie under linux. But saying that there is never any program available only for windows that you might want to use...well, I'm skeptical. I use whatever tool works best for what I'm trying to do, and occasionally that's only available for windows.
Saying things like "if they were serious about the move" makes it sound more ideological than practical. Personally, I didn't switch because of some belief in free software. I switched because windows had locked my box for the last time, so I picked up linux.
Bottom line is I would disagree with the statement that only less capable people would see the advantages of having a cross-platform machine, as I think there are a number of valid uses.
Are these the same experts that say that Depleted Uranium weapons do no leave any harmfull after effects after they are used?
You have any credible evidence that they do? All I've heard from is "Mother Jones" and Greenpeace types combined with studies that make the cell-phone/cancer research look rock-solid.
Are they the ones that say you can hide from an H-Bomb by crouching under your school desk?
Nobody ever said that was a good idea, but it was the only option in a freaking classroom, eh? Besides, I bet it wasn't the poor guy running this web site, regardless.
YOU trust them.
And YOU adjust your tinfoil hat. The world isn't a conspiracy. Who is "them," in this context, anyway?
As in "You may not distribute GPLed binaries without supplying the source code to those binaries to recipients who request them, and you may not distribute binaries that incorporate GPLed code under any license that does not guarantee the rights guaranteed by the GPL."
I think the issue here is more the LGPL. The GPL itself is pretty clear, as you mention. But the LGPL is less so. So I can use and LGPL library with my project, and it doesn't GPL my project. Unless it's early-linking. Or is it late-linking? Or what? A lot of people are confused by the conditions of the LGPL, and I'm not ashamed to number myself among them.
Could someone here tell me what's so hard to grasp about the GPL? or LGPL?
Did you miss the Java thing over the last few days? The assumption was that when developing java stuff, you could link to something that's LGPL'd without *GPL'ing your project. But the linking timeline is pretty convoluted, and it resulted in some people getting a bit of a surprise when they discovered the projects they're working on would be *GPL'd, which they had thought not the case.
That's true here too. You have to mail it in, though.
The MS deal has to be possible, because Visa did a promo where random cardusers would win, and every transaction counted as an entry. I'm guessing if you read the fine print there's a mail-in entry address. Of course, those probably go to/dev/null, but have fun proving it.
I have been surprised at the lack of media attention of this issue, or how some of my technical colleges have treated it. They don't seem to understand how many Cisco routers are out there.
Your colleagues don't realize how many Cisco routers are out there? What, are your colleagues monkeys or something? That's like saying they didn't know how many copies of windows are running out there. Man, do I feel sorry for you. How many emails do *you* get a day that consist of "What's my password?" ?
That's true, I think my job's a bit easier - when you're dealing with chemical agents, *nothing* will look like sarin to 20 different sensors. On the other hand, you're right, there's no way to distinguish between a real radiation source hundreds of yeards away vs. a cancer patient sitting on the source. Maybe if you have a network you can triangulate? Still tough.
Well, gee. That sounds an awful lot like what the CIA tried during the vietnam war: they set up an extensive network of fairly sophisticated sensors designed to figure out VC troop movements through the jungle. What did the VC do? they went through the jungles hanging buckets of piss on trees. These buckets produced enough odour to trip the chemical sensors and the entire multi-million dollar network was rendered useless.
Good point, but I would say that the state-of-the-art is a damn sight better that 70's vintage stuff, though spoofing will always be a problem. Also, here we have the advantage of looking for truly foreign substances, like sarin. So people can put a bucket of piss next to the sensor all day, I can still smell sarin. And not many things smell like sarin.;)
The point is that distributed, coherent, reliable sensor networks are in practice a lot harder to implement than theory would suggest.
Trust me, I know - I'm not dealing with tehory, but with practice. It certainly isn't easy, but by training the thing effectively and using some clever signal-processing techniques, false positives can be greatly reduced. Also, using a variety of very different sensors means that someone would have to spoof all the sensors - meaning that every sensor would have to believe the spoofing agent smelled like the target. For that to occur, they'd have to be almost identical. And there are VERY few nonlethal compounds that smell like sarin, and none of them occur naturally.
Assuming you can do a UPS COD pickup without showing ID (i've never tried), the only think you have to fear is the security video tape at the UPS office.
Yeah, and I'm guessing they don't keep that stuff forever, eh? Looks like you're in the clear.
Ya know, it would have been more fun to use some asshat for a mail drop and get his ass in trouble, but I guess no one saw this sort of fun coming.
So what does your system make of mass food poisioning from a popular Taco Bell bad bean batch in Manhatan? Would airborn botulism trigger anything? It would be a bad day to ride the subway, but an evacuation might be overkill.
What are you talking about? I work on chemical, not bio, but botulism can be detected, I believe, and has a rather unique signature. If the concentration is high enough it might be dangerous. Either way it probably won't look like a cigarette.
If it was my system, all I could do is provide information and a rough risk estimate. Making policy decisions isn't my job.
I can see it now: thousands of people fleeing the subway when a sensor trips because someone lit up a cigarette underneath one. Now every ignores it when a real NBC attack comes around, just like the tsunami early warning systems in the pacific.
Two things - first, a decent sensor device made to detect specific things (like sarin, soman, etc, which are all chemically similar) won't be tripping on a cigarette. Pattern won't match.
Second, that's the advantage of having a network - in addition to spacial information, you get redundancy. If there are a few sensors in the area, they can back each other up.
Sensor networks like these are getting better all the time. Unfortunately, too often the scientists/engineers making them spend too much time creating the device and not enough time on the back-end signal processing that provides error correction and greater accuracy, not to mention false-positive protection.
Put it this way - if I made a sensor network, it would not confuse a cigarette for a threat. And hopefully, the people making this one work similarly.
Also, I was interested by something in the article:
The goal for all the government efforts, perhaps three to five years out, is to deploy a highly accurate yet low-cost network of sensors "that in a couple of minutes could tell you if an agent is present, in what concentration and something about the agent. But the technology for that doesn't really exist yet."
Yes it does. We can do it now.:P So it remains to be seen whether what is deployed is really state-of-the-art (or even state of 5 years ago, really).
No, it's a girl named Penn (must be a stage name or a model or something) and he's been poking her library (obviously a strange metaphor for labia).
See, that's even worse. This dork finally gets to poke around in Ms. Penn's "library," and he's thinking of statistics and the freaking RIAA. Unbelievable.
While exponentials are used for statistical growth models (and even excel and other basic spreadsheet programs can fit with it), I don't think there's a fundamental reason that copyright registrations should behave exponentially rather than quadratically.
Sure there is - assume that copyrights per capita is roughly constant, and the population grows exponentially. Thus, any model chosen should be a combination of an exponential and *something.* And whatever model you choose should definitely be monatonic overall.
I think there is greater burden on justifying the two endpoints. To throw data before 1950 was arbitrary. Why not 1949? Why not 1951?
I'll tell you why - because 1949 was about when the quadratic most similar to the actual exponential growth had its minimum. Once that thing hit its turning point his ability to fit tanks.
how the fork did he claim an r^2 of 0.99 or something? That other half of the parabola looked a bit off of that. Seriously, use an exponential fit, any decent software can do it.
Europe does have elections -- to the common parliament every five years, and indirectly to the EU council via local parliamentary elections.
Those are not elections by the people, those are elections by their representatives. Indirectly doesn't count. THere is no election, unless I missed something big, where the 380M-odd people of Europe participate in the same election. Doesn't happen. And since my original point was that American national elections are on such a scale that no one but the very rich *can* run, that's relevant.
Slashdot Mirror
Or this cheap. Or (presumably) this widely marketed. I guarantee, this will increase the incidence of such stalking a lot.
I'm sure the tech isn't far behind to scan for these little bugs, so why worry?
Two reasons. First, you don't check if you don't suspect - rear-view mirrors have been around for decades, but it's still easy to tail someone if they're not expecting you. Second, there are also problems for non-technophiles - are we to tell, say, a woman whose ex-husband tracks her down and attacks her that the technology was available and she should have had it? You'd have to have complete market penetration of the bug-scanners to counteract, combined with education, and that would never happen.
So I'd say this was inevitable, but it's still scary. I'm paranoid, and reasonably tech-savvy, but I'm still afraid I'd get tracked by someone I didn't want doing it.
Less than $25.
Btw, did you catch her getting rogered in a hotel room? ;)
You're right! I think I read a story about that on my watch while my car was driving itself.
...that's obscenely naive. So what's stopping me from putting one on your car and knowing everywhere you go? What if your wife does it? What if your boss does it? See, there's nothing at all that implies consent here.
I'm sure Woz was trying to do something cool, and believe me I would love to know where my fscking keys and remote are like everyone else, but there are some more nefarious uses that will be among the first applications for the device.
For RICO to apply,the "protection" racket would have to involve some illegal act that they're going to do if you don't give them money. Like, if I'm the mob, you might take out "fire insurance" on your business so I don't burn it down. That's a protection racket.
However, if you do something illegal, it's not racketeering for me to grant you license to continue doing that (now formerly) illegal thing in exchange for money. The difference is that you put yourself in the squeeze by doing said illegal thing in the first place.
Obviously, the viability of that racket is contingent upon SCO being right, but they're effectively offering the "licenses" at dramatically reduced prices compared to any penalties - in other words, take your chances if you want, or act now and get a discount. So, assuming their IP claim has any merit at all (or if they genuinely think it does), what they're doing is *not* racketeering.
Of course, since they almost certainly have no case, this stinks like crap, but it's certainly not racketeering regardless. Now, if they've intentionally fabricated evidence of SysV being in linux, now *that* would be a protection racket. Or at least fraud.
I think that's a bit unfair - there are a variety of reasons that one might want to run vmware. I do, and I certainly consider myself a geek. Look at it this way - you can use windows in the safest environment possible, ie under linux. But saying that there is never any program available only for windows that you might want to use...well, I'm skeptical. I use whatever tool works best for what I'm trying to do, and occasionally that's only available for windows.
Saying things like "if they were serious about the move" makes it sound more ideological than practical. Personally, I didn't switch because of some belief in free software. I switched because windows had locked my box for the last time, so I picked up linux.
Bottom line is I would disagree with the statement that only less capable people would see the advantages of having a cross-platform machine, as I think there are a number of valid uses.
...they both begin with "G." And as for VPC..yeah, it runs games great. And native support for games on Mac sucks. And I like macs.
You have any credible evidence that they do? All I've heard from is "Mother Jones" and Greenpeace types combined with studies that make the cell-phone/cancer research look rock-solid.
Are they the ones that say you can hide from an H-Bomb by crouching under your school desk?
Nobody ever said that was a good idea, but it was the only option in a freaking classroom, eh? Besides, I bet it wasn't the poor guy running this web site, regardless.
YOU trust them.
And YOU adjust your tinfoil hat. The world isn't a conspiracy. Who is "them," in this context, anyway?
I think the issue here is more the LGPL. The GPL itself is pretty clear, as you mention. But the LGPL is less so. So I can use and LGPL library with my project, and it doesn't GPL my project. Unless it's early-linking. Or is it late-linking? Or what? A lot of people are confused by the conditions of the LGPL, and I'm not ashamed to number myself among them.
Did you miss the Java thing over the last few days? The assumption was that when developing java stuff, you could link to something that's LGPL'd without *GPL'ing your project. But the linking timeline is pretty convoluted, and it resulted in some people getting a bit of a surprise when they discovered the projects they're working on would be *GPL'd, which they had thought not the case.
So some clarification is a good thing.
The MS deal has to be possible, because Visa did a promo where random cardusers would win, and every transaction counted as an entry. I'm guessing if you read the fine print there's a mail-in entry address. Of course, those probably go to /dev/null, but have fun proving it.
What about those guys who see a dude with an enormous schlong in every blot? Don't they deserve consideration too? ;)
Your colleagues don't realize how many Cisco routers are out there? What, are your colleagues monkeys or something? That's like saying they didn't know how many copies of windows are running out there. Man, do I feel sorry for you. How many emails do *you* get a day that consist of "What's my password?" ?
That's true, I think my job's a bit easier - when you're dealing with chemical agents, *nothing* will look like sarin to 20 different sensors. On the other hand, you're right, there's no way to distinguish between a real radiation source hundreds of yeards away vs. a cancer patient sitting on the source. Maybe if you have a network you can triangulate? Still tough.
Good point, but I would say that the state-of-the-art is a damn sight better that 70's vintage stuff, though spoofing will always be a problem. Also, here we have the advantage of looking for truly foreign substances, like sarin. So people can put a bucket of piss next to the sensor all day, I can still smell sarin. And not many things smell like sarin. ;)
The point is that distributed, coherent, reliable sensor networks are in practice a lot harder to implement than theory would suggest.
Trust me, I know - I'm not dealing with tehory, but with practice. It certainly isn't easy, but by training the thing effectively and using some clever signal-processing techniques, false positives can be greatly reduced. Also, using a variety of very different sensors means that someone would have to spoof all the sensors - meaning that every sensor would have to believe the spoofing agent smelled like the target. For that to occur, they'd have to be almost identical. And there are VERY few nonlethal compounds that smell like sarin, and none of them occur naturally.
Yeah, and I'm guessing they don't keep that stuff forever, eh? Looks like you're in the clear.
Ya know, it would have been more fun to use some asshat for a mail drop and get his ass in trouble, but I guess no one saw this sort of fun coming.
What are you talking about? I work on chemical, not bio, but botulism can be detected, I believe, and has a rather unique signature. If the concentration is high enough it might be dangerous. Either way it probably won't look like a cigarette.
If it was my system, all I could do is provide information and a rough risk estimate. Making policy decisions isn't my job.
Go slackware!
Two things - first, a decent sensor device made to detect specific things (like sarin, soman, etc, which are all chemically similar) won't be tripping on a cigarette. Pattern won't match.
Second, that's the advantage of having a network - in addition to spacial information, you get redundancy. If there are a few sensors in the area, they can back each other up.
Sensor networks like these are getting better all the time. Unfortunately, too often the scientists/engineers making them spend too much time creating the device and not enough time on the back-end signal processing that provides error correction and greater accuracy, not to mention false-positive protection.
Put it this way - if I made a sensor network, it would not confuse a cigarette for a threat. And hopefully, the people making this one work similarly.
Also, I was interested by something in the article:
The goal for all the government efforts, perhaps three to five years out, is to deploy a highly accurate yet low-cost network of sensors "that in a couple of minutes could tell you if an agent is present, in what concentration and something about the agent. But the technology for that doesn't really exist yet."
Yes it does. We can do it now. :P So it remains to be seen whether what is deployed is really state-of-the-art (or even state of 5 years ago, really).
Ironically, lefties know how to save anything that's not. Personally, I don't think either stance makes much sense.
See, that's even worse. This dork finally gets to poke around in Ms. Penn's "library," and he's thinking of statistics and the freaking RIAA. Unbelievable.
Sure there is - assume that copyrights per capita is roughly constant, and the population grows exponentially. Thus, any model chosen should be a combination of an exponential and *something.* And whatever model you choose should definitely be monatonic overall.
I think there is greater burden on justifying the two endpoints. To throw data before 1950 was arbitrary. Why not 1949? Why not 1951?
I'll tell you why - because 1949 was about when the quadratic most similar to the actual exponential growth had its minimum. Once that thing hit its turning point his ability to fit tanks.
how the fork did he claim an r^2 of 0.99 or something? That other half of the parabola looked a bit off of that. Seriously, use an exponential fit, any decent software can do it.
I'm really hoping there's a girl at Penn named Library. But I think we actually need to shoot this kid.
Those are not elections by the people, those are elections by their representatives. Indirectly doesn't count. THere is no election, unless I missed something big, where the 380M-odd people of Europe participate in the same election. Doesn't happen. And since my original point was that American national elections are on such a scale that no one but the very rich *can* run, that's relevant.