I am almost certain that the LiftPort Group will desire some level of government involvement. If a stranger comes to my house and claims it as his property, I expect my government to defend my rights as property owner. Who will defend the LiftPort Group's rights to their platform?
If you actually read the article, you would know that they aren't actually offering patches early to their premium customers, they are only letting them know that patches are on the way. Everyone in the world gets the patches at the same time. Premium customers are at the same risk as we are.
Not true. To continue the vehicle manufacturer analogy, Ford motor company realizes their brakes may fail when the vehicle is operating +80mph. Engineers are working diligently to resolve the issue, but a fix will not be available for another week. Wouldn't you agree that a premium customer, who is notified of the issue would be at less risk than someone who believes their car to operate properly?
If there is a vulnerability in the Microsoft file system and an administrator is aware of it, he may take action to protect crucial information from the vulnerability (i.e. move it to a UNIX server or server running different version of windows).
"real security and ease of use"? That's a contradiction in terms. Any system thats easy to use is almost certainly easy to crack (hint, the crackers have as easy a time as the user).
I completely disagree. While the implementation of a secure system maybe incredibly complex, it does not necessarily follow that the system will be difficult to use.
The secure shell protocol maybe complex, and require a good understanding of communications and encryption algorithms to develop, but I have no problem using putty!
-- Grouper --
And what damage is that? Can they show the numbers? Actual, not estimates...
There is NO realistic method to calculate actual damages that result from piracy. You would have to calculate how many people downloaded a movie instead of purchasing a ticket or purchasing the DVD. You would then have to take into account how many people would not have purchased a movie ticket (or movie) had they not first seen a pirated copy.
One thing is for sure; the numbers we get from the MPAA, RIAA, or BSA are pure FUD!
I consider myself to be reasonably comfortable with technology. Still, I am not sure how comfortable I am with a robot that can assure medication compliance.
The situation that it could come back to "shoot them in the foot" is when they attempt to defend their customer against a patent infringement suit. The plaintiff's will point to their own in house documents that admin Linux is violating patents. Of course there is no risk if the insurance company knows it is BS!
I would argue there are two reasons broadband is more expensive in the US than in Canada. The first is the labor cost. This is not just the hourly rate of employees, it is also all the additional taxes and fees a business must pay for an employee. The total cost of a cable tech in the US (wages, benefits, taxes, insurance, etc) is much more than in Canada.
The second reason it is more expensive is the regulatory cost of doing business in the US. This is the same reason drugs are more expensive. For better or worse, a large companies must spend large sums of money to get plans approved to run line, plans approved to build offices, plans approved to maintain lines, etc.
What makes you think this would be abused anymore than simply being able to purchase the book and scan every page. I imagine it would atleast as easy to develop a scanner that automatically scanned every page of a book as it would to developed some bot to search for every page of the book.
Intresting story about Apple sticking with the single mouse button (although somewhat off topic)... When Apple initially decided to have a single mouse button they did some research to see what the "average" computer user preferred. Their own research showed that the majority of users preferred two or three buttons over the one button mouse. However, the marketing department wanted to sell the computer as "the only computer that allowed you to do everything with just one button". In anycase, I don't think it had anything to do with ease of use. story about Apple sticking with the single mouse button (although somwehat off topic). When Apple initially decided to have a single mouse button they did some research to see what the "average" computer user prefered. Their own research showed that the majority of users prefered two or three buttons over the one button mouse. However, the marketing department wanted to sell the computer as "the only computer that allowed you to do everything with just one button". In any case, I don't think it had anything to do with ease of use.
I have never seen any Open Source document claim that money is evil. In fact, the notion that Open Source has something to do with Communism, Socialism, or any other form of economic theory is a leap of reason no less mystifying to me than Cantor's dealings with infinity (as discussed on your web page).
A leap of reason? Principles of capitalism say what I build or develop is mine, and belongs to noone else. Principles of communism say what I build or develop belongs to the greater community. Open Source says what I develop belongs to the greater community. I have no problems with open source, but it is communism.
What do you mean what problem he is offering to pay the same percentage? There isn't a movie theater in the world who wouldn't be willing to sell tickets for $0.50 and give 100% of it to the movie producer. The movie company only gets $.50 per ticket, instead of the usualy $7.75. So the local Nissan dealer says the same thing, I only want to charge my customers $4k for the Nissan truck. While dealers are normally charged around $9k for this truck that retails at $13k, I am only going to $3.2k, but it is the same percentage!
As far as think volume, if Nissan sold their trucks for $4k they would have a lot of volume, but still loose a lot of money.
I think the confusion, atleast for me, is the part about the theater being willing to pay the movie house the same rates other theaters pay. Most theaters, atleast here in the US, give almost all the ticket sales to the production company. That is say $8 a ticket, now if he is willing to sell his tickets for $1 and pay the production company say $7.75 then I don't see the problem. If what they mean by pay the same amount is pay the same percent, then I think we all can clearly see the problem.
You can't expect to see film's that have budgets over $100 million for $1!
Probabilities of 1 and 0 most certainly do exist. If you flip a coin once it has.5 probability of being heads, if you clip it twice it has.75 of being heads (atleast once), if you flip the coin infinite times then using basic Calculus you would say the probability is 1 of being heads atleast once. If you flip it 0 times then there is 0 probability it will come up heads atleast once.
This article really doesn't say anything more complex then this. They assume space is infinite and the matter is more or less evenly distributed throughout this infinite space. If that is the case then regardless of the odds of whatever series of events happened so that I am sitting here typing this letter, those same events must have happened somewhere else. The real rub is proving that space is infinite and matter is evenly distributed.
First let me say that the overwhelming percentage of security problems are a result of admins not patching their system. Virtually all machines today used a RISC (as opposed to CISC) design because we realized that 90% of execution time is spent on only 10% of code. I don't understand why this same realization has not been made about security holes.
That being said, I certainly do believe that software is less secure because programmers don't completly understand all aspects of all systems. I also believe highways are less safe because not all drivers understand the physics of a vehicle in motion.
"one, it doesn't cost the software companies a thing. you steal a car, it takes steel, rubber, plastic from somewhere. you make a DIGITAL copy, it costs software co. nothing. and many of the "pirates" wouldn't have bought the software."
This is by far the worst arguement any open-source promoter can make, "Software doesn't cost a company money". Do you think the major cost of producing a car is the rubber or steel? The number one cost of almost any business (atleast U.S. ones) is labor. I certainly do not support any efforts the BSA has made to enforce copyrights, but software cost money to develop. When a company intentionally pirates software they are making software more expensive for everyone else!
I think you are giving the average person more than enough credit. Still, this is the agruement against democracy, but until someone develops a better method, NASA must beg for its money from average citizens.
I would argue that you could extend your argument "You can't get to the best [science] decision if you let voters decide" to any field in the world. Economists can make much better decisions about economies than voters can. Engineers can make better decisions about what roads to build than voters can.
If you believe in democracy then you have to expect your experts to explain options in a way that the average person can understand and then trust the voters (or their elected representatives) to make the right choice for everyone.
Understanding that this is already a very old thread, I am responding really only to you.
First, there is no reason to be rude. I can express my point without calling you ignorant and rational people can disagree.
Second you never really got the point. The idea of open source programming is sharing development so that people don't continue to "reinvent the wheel". This is actually a wonderful idea and applies to everything not just the computer world. Toyota and Nissan could make a much better car if they put their development teams togather.
Ah but their in lies the problem with communism, at some point most people realize they can do nothing and still get the benifits of everyone elses work. I think their are some great open source projects and in some instances open source makes the most since.
In specific response to your statements:
1) The only reason their are copyrights in Open Source software is so non-opensource projects don't steal the work and then copyright it, box it, and sell it. If every piece of software was open-source their would be no real need for copyrights.
2) THe fact that OSS encourages people to profit from other aspects (besides development) really doesn't have anything to do with what I was saying. You think that because I compare it to communism I am saying it is a bad idea. You should read things with a more open mind!
A few comments on this entire idea that it is not possible to make a career strictily in IT:
1) Open source only makes it more difficult for IT guys to find work. The full blown idea of open source development is nothing new, it is essentially communism. Communism only works every everyone practices it. A programmer can't code for free but pay for health services.
2) That being said, virtually every employment report released says the hottest fields are in IT. I am not talking about reports 4 years ago, the department of labor report said 8 or the top 10 fields for job growth over the next 10 years where in IT.
3) The U.S. government does virtually nothing to protect jobs for IT professionals. We don't argue for this because most of us realize these jobs are going to people in countries that need them much worse then we do. The problem is that, like communism, this idea only works when it is applied to all professions.
Why are you so convinced that it is not a problem with the technology.
I mean dual-processor technology has been around for a very long time. The core problem has always been figuring out how to use both processors. It is virtually impossible to spin threads off from a single application that are independent of each other. This means semaphores and shared memory must be used to ensure that processes 'play nice togather'. While good programmers (those that read slashdot) can write their code to utilize this, it is very difficult to change an OS to utilize both processors. It is even more difficult to change compilers to recognize to split processes so that not very good programmers code will utilize dual-processor technology.
Summary -- I am suprised everyone thinks Intel is just holding back on technology cause they have no competition, perhaps they are holding back on the technology because it really isn't ready.
Man you covered a lot there. Let me just say that the bulk of your comments are common sense, people should take some responsibility and potentially even be accountable for their machines.
The real issue is that some people believe that what we need is a vigilanty approach to forcing users to secure their system. If your system attacks mine then I have the right to attack back. This is not the way any civilized society operates, nor should it.
Speaking of Mitnik's book, noone seems to point out the moral problem with a person profiting from their own crime. Noone would find this acceptable if Mitnick robbed people's homes and then wrote a book about how to prevent a thief from breaking into your house. I personally would not buy this book for that reason.
Slashdot Mirror
I only ride 20% of the rides at the local theme park, should I get an 80% discount?
I am almost certain that the LiftPort Group will desire some level of government involvement. If a stranger comes to my house and claims it as his property, I expect my government to defend my rights as property owner. Who will defend the LiftPort Group's rights to their platform?
If you actually read the article, you would know that they aren't actually offering patches early to their premium customers, they are only letting them know that patches are on the way. Everyone in the world gets the patches at the same time. Premium customers are at the same risk as we are.
Not true. To continue the vehicle manufacturer analogy, Ford motor company realizes their brakes may fail when the vehicle is operating +80mph. Engineers are working diligently to resolve the issue, but a fix will not be available for another week. Wouldn't you agree that a premium customer, who is notified of the issue would be at less risk than someone who believes their car to operate properly?
If there is a vulnerability in the Microsoft file system and an administrator is aware of it, he may take action to protect crucial information from the vulnerability (i.e. move it to a UNIX server or server running different version of windows).
"real security and ease of use"? That's a contradiction in terms. Any system thats easy to use is almost certainly easy to crack (hint, the crackers have as easy a time as the user).
I completely disagree. While the implementation of a secure system maybe incredibly complex, it does not necessarily follow that the system will be difficult to use.
The secure shell protocol maybe complex, and require a good understanding of communications and encryption algorithms to develop, but I have no problem using putty! -- Grouper --
And what damage is that? Can they show the numbers? Actual, not estimates...
There is NO realistic method to calculate actual damages that result from piracy. You would have to calculate how many people downloaded a movie instead of purchasing a ticket or purchasing the DVD. You would then have to take into account how many people would not have purchased a movie ticket (or movie) had they not first seen a pirated copy.
One thing is for sure; the numbers we get from the MPAA, RIAA, or BSA are pure FUD!
-- Grouper --
I consider myself to be reasonably comfortable with technology. Still, I am not sure how comfortable I am with a robot that can assure medication compliance .
The situation that it could come back to "shoot them in the foot" is when they attempt to defend their customer against a patent infringement suit. The plaintiff's will point to their own in house documents that admin Linux is violating patents. Of course there is no risk if the insurance company knows it is BS!
Now, he knows his stuff, and is honest, so it's a good article. But what if he didn't and wasn't?
Then it is doubtful he would have been contacted. What you pay for w/ World Book or any other publisher is that initial screening.
I would argue there are two reasons broadband is more expensive in the US than in Canada. The first is the labor cost. This is not just the hourly rate of employees, it is also all the additional taxes and fees a business must pay for an employee. The total cost of a cable tech in the US (wages, benefits, taxes, insurance, etc) is much more than in Canada.
The second reason it is more expensive is the regulatory cost of doing business in the US. This is the same reason drugs are more expensive. For better or worse, a large companies must spend large sums of money to get plans approved to run line, plans approved to build offices, plans approved to maintain lines, etc.
What makes you think this would be abused anymore than simply being able to purchase the book and scan every page. I imagine it would atleast as easy to develop a scanner that automatically scanned every page of a book as it would to developed some bot to search for every page of the book.
Intresting story about Apple sticking with the single mouse button (although somewhat off topic)... When Apple initially decided to have a single mouse button they did some research to see what the "average" computer user preferred. Their own research showed that the majority of users preferred two or three buttons over the one button mouse. However, the marketing department wanted to sell the computer as "the only computer that allowed you to do everything with just one button". In anycase, I don't think it had anything to do with ease of use. story about Apple sticking with the single mouse button (although somwehat off topic). When Apple initially decided to have a single mouse button they did some research to see what the "average" computer user prefered. Their own research showed that the majority of users prefered two or three buttons over the one button mouse. However, the marketing department wanted to sell the computer as "the only computer that allowed you to do everything with just one button". In any case, I don't think it had anything to do with ease of use.
I have never seen any Open Source document claim that money is evil. In fact, the notion that Open Source has something to do with Communism, Socialism, or any other form of economic theory is a leap of reason no less mystifying to me than Cantor's dealings with infinity (as discussed on your web page).
A leap of reason? Principles of capitalism say what I build or develop is mine, and belongs to noone else. Principles of communism say what I build or develop belongs to the greater community. Open Source says what I develop belongs to the greater community. I have no problems with open source, but it is communism.
What do you mean what problem he is offering to pay the same percentage? There isn't a movie theater in the world who wouldn't be willing to sell tickets for $0.50 and give 100% of it to the movie producer. The movie company only gets $.50 per ticket, instead of the usualy $7.75. So the local Nissan dealer says the same thing, I only want to charge my customers $4k for the Nissan truck. While dealers are normally charged around $9k for this truck that retails at $13k, I am only going to $3.2k, but it is the same percentage!
As far as think volume, if Nissan sold their trucks for $4k they would have a lot of volume, but still loose a lot of money.
I think the confusion, atleast for me, is the part about the theater being willing to pay the movie house the same rates other theaters pay. Most theaters, atleast here in the US, give almost all the ticket sales to the production company. That is say $8 a ticket, now if he is willing to sell his tickets for $1 and pay the production company say $7.75 then I don't see the problem. If what they mean by pay the same amount is pay the same percent, then I think we all can clearly see the problem.
You can't expect to see film's that have budgets over $100 million for $1!
Probabilities of 1 and 0 most certainly do exist. If you flip a coin once it has .5 probability of being heads, if you clip it twice it has .75 of being heads (atleast once), if you flip the coin infinite times then using basic Calculus you would say the probability is 1 of being heads atleast once. If you flip it 0 times then there is 0 probability it will come up heads atleast once.
This article really doesn't say anything more complex then this. They assume space is infinite and the matter is more or less evenly distributed throughout this infinite space. If that is the case then regardless of the odds of whatever series of events happened so that I am sitting here typing this letter, those same events must have happened somewhere else. The real rub is proving that space is infinite and matter is evenly distributed.
First let me say that the overwhelming percentage of security problems are a result of admins not patching their system. Virtually all machines today used a RISC (as opposed to CISC) design because we realized that 90% of execution time is spent on only 10% of code. I don't understand why this same realization has not been made about security holes.
That being said, I certainly do believe that software is less secure because programmers don't completly understand all aspects of all systems. I also believe highways are less safe because not all drivers understand the physics of a vehicle in motion.
"one, it doesn't cost the software companies a thing. you steal a car, it takes steel, rubber, plastic from somewhere. you make a DIGITAL copy, it costs software co. nothing. and many of the "pirates" wouldn't have bought the software."
This is by far the worst arguement any open-source promoter can make, "Software doesn't cost a company money". Do you think the major cost of producing a car is the rubber or steel? The number one cost of almost any business (atleast U.S. ones) is labor. I certainly do not support any efforts the BSA has made to enforce copyrights, but software cost money to develop. When a company intentionally pirates software they are making software more expensive for everyone else!
I think you are giving the average person more than enough credit. Still, this is the agruement against democracy, but until someone develops a better method, NASA must beg for its money from average citizens.
I would argue that you could extend your argument "You can't get to the best [science] decision if you let voters decide" to any field in the world. Economists can make much better decisions about economies than voters can. Engineers can make better decisions about what roads to build than voters can.
If you believe in democracy then you have to expect your experts to explain options in a way that the average person can understand and then trust the voters (or their elected representatives) to make the right choice for everyone.
Understanding that this is already a very old thread, I am responding really only to you. First, there is no reason to be rude. I can express my point without calling you ignorant and rational people can disagree. Second you never really got the point. The idea of open source programming is sharing development so that people don't continue to "reinvent the wheel". This is actually a wonderful idea and applies to everything not just the computer world. Toyota and Nissan could make a much better car if they put their development teams togather. Ah but their in lies the problem with communism, at some point most people realize they can do nothing and still get the benifits of everyone elses work. I think their are some great open source projects and in some instances open source makes the most since. In specific response to your statements: 1) The only reason their are copyrights in Open Source software is so non-opensource projects don't steal the work and then copyright it, box it, and sell it. If every piece of software was open-source their would be no real need for copyrights. 2) THe fact that OSS encourages people to profit from other aspects (besides development) really doesn't have anything to do with what I was saying. You think that because I compare it to communism I am saying it is a bad idea. You should read things with a more open mind!
A few comments on this entire idea that it is not possible to make a career strictily in IT: 1) Open source only makes it more difficult for IT guys to find work. The full blown idea of open source development is nothing new, it is essentially communism. Communism only works every everyone practices it. A programmer can't code for free but pay for health services. 2) That being said, virtually every employment report released says the hottest fields are in IT. I am not talking about reports 4 years ago, the department of labor report said 8 or the top 10 fields for job growth over the next 10 years where in IT. 3) The U.S. government does virtually nothing to protect jobs for IT professionals. We don't argue for this because most of us realize these jobs are going to people in countries that need them much worse then we do. The problem is that, like communism, this idea only works when it is applied to all professions.
Why are you so convinced that it is not a problem with the technology. I mean dual-processor technology has been around for a very long time. The core problem has always been figuring out how to use both processors. It is virtually impossible to spin threads off from a single application that are independent of each other. This means semaphores and shared memory must be used to ensure that processes 'play nice togather'. While good programmers (those that read slashdot) can write their code to utilize this, it is very difficult to change an OS to utilize both processors. It is even more difficult to change compilers to recognize to split processes so that not very good programmers code will utilize dual-processor technology. Summary -- I am suprised everyone thinks Intel is just holding back on technology cause they have no competition, perhaps they are holding back on the technology because it really isn't ready.
Man you covered a lot there. Let me just say that the bulk of your comments are common sense, people should take some responsibility and potentially even be accountable for their machines.
The real issue is that some people believe that what we need is a vigilanty approach to forcing users to secure their system. If your system attacks mine then I have the right to attack back. This is not the way any civilized society operates, nor should it.
Speaking of Mitnik's book, noone seems to point out the moral problem with a person profiting from their own crime. Noone would find this acceptable if Mitnick robbed people's homes and then wrote a book about how to prevent a thief from breaking into your house. I personally would not buy this book for that reason.
Hey! What about slashdot?