I'm sure this will work the same as most broad-band in-hotel services. A NAT will not pass your packets until your MAC address has been authorized to do so. Until then, only outbound port 80 traffic does anything -> It redirects to the "Authorize this computer" webpage.
Perhaps existing Verizon customers can log-in to their account and authorize a MAC address (I'm sure it will be made easy), or a quick credit-card transaction will activate service.
I highly doubt you would ever have to actually "touch" the phone-booth. Just get close, flip the lid on your powerbook, have Safari auto-fill your authorization and away you go.
Your point would be valid, in an alternate reality where this "white hat hacker (cough)" did not have his chat advertised on Slashdot.
But, alas, it was. And now, instead of 750,000 interested Slashdotters (as you claim), there are 750,000 * (boredom ratio) Slashdotters who will be planning some sort of cyber attack on the chat in question in order to show that they have stronger l33t fu than this sad "security guru" who, in his infinite wisdom, just bought a karma pass on the ride of hideous evil madness that is geek one-upedness.
Don't pay attention. The dude is just jealous. He has to post on/. anonymously and doesn't have a gf.
In the desperate attempt to be on-topic:
After reading about this potential "cure" yesterday, I have spent some time pondering the ethics of communicable cures. We are, after all, discussing what could be a communicable cure for cancer. That is an amazing thought - This line of research could not just cure cancer, but it could potentially cure everyone in the world's cancer by giving one guy in India a shot in his arse.
But who would profit?
If no one profits, what is the motivation for persuing this type of cure. In fact, if these modified cold viruses cannot be made to be non-communicable, is there a possibility that this "cure" could be tossed away because it will destroy billions of dollars of potential revenue for a more manageable cure?
These and other issues could fill tomes... I think this subject deserves some very serious brainpower devoted to it.
Someone moderated this comment up, and left the parent alone? Are you serious?
Okay, I'll bite... Earn that moderation, Mr. Anonymous - Why would this strategy prove utterly "stupid"?
Would people stop buying Solaris if it sported a new, fancy User Interface? Or perhaps people would stop buying OS-X if it got an injection of Sun operating system know-how?
Perhaps it is something more subtle, something that I didn't point out as an obvious risk (morale, work-force reductions [ e.g. costs ] )....
Honestly, this would probably work, if the substantial integration effort could be managed properly. After all, open-source "is" killing the software industry. Hardware commoditization is killing PC clone makers (except for the top few who have some serious economy-of-scale). The Apple/Sun strategy of high-octane (define your own calibration) hardware/software that adheres to open standards is the most likely business plan to succeed when the dust settles... Microsoft? will have to transition out of software Dell? will become more botique Linux? Rules.. Apple? Should thrive just fine... Sun? Needs a change, but should thrive just fine with the right differentiators... Apple+Sun? Methinks it will rule, so long as it is uber-friendly to Linux/Open-Source...
With $5 billion in cash, $12 billion in revenue (and market cap), SUN is a tasty acquisition for the right company.
Consider this scenario w/respect to Apple; Purchase SUN and immediately halt all new development on Solaris. Drastic work-force reductions in engineering and marketing (essentially fire all SUN marketing and PR that are not related to it's substantial existing sales channels) and shift all core-engineering at SUN to shipping a version of OS-X that runs on existing SUN hardware and contains the scalability enhancements that allow SUN to be so successful in the supercomputer marketplace.
Using the SUN $5billion warchest, go on a massive crusuade to convert existing SUN shops to OS-X on SPARC and PPC, citing all SUN "innovations" being introduced into the OS-X kernel and core libraries.
If Apple could capture even half of the existing $12 billion / year revenue stream that SUN has with a strategy like this, the acquisition would be very well worth it. The $5 billion in cash removes most of the risk.
The primary problems, of course, would be workforce-reductions, morale and trying to digest the behemouth that is Sun Microsystems.
But please remember, the SUN model is the same as the Apple model - Open Standards and Closed hardware. The companies ARE compatible.
For a short term solution, one could always write a Perl, C or *whatever* binding that talks to the Java libraries that are handling the database(s), therebye buying "procrastanation time" w/respect to a full re-implementation in other languages...
However, should SARS turn out to be constructed (by terrorists, for instance) then this activity (decoding SARS with a beowolf cluster) may consider be considered reverse engineering of copyrighted material under the DMCA and therefore all of us, having participated in a conversation and a link to this "copyright violation" may be facing some jail time.
I can't agree with this more. I have, on several occassions, run small companies - one of which I managed to sell during the.com boom [hurray!]..
I worked for years as a contract engineer and started running my own companies a few years back. I also have experience as senior management in a large corporation. If it can happen, I've seen it, probably from a few different angles...
It is my observation that happiness can be destroyed by bad management, but cannot be created by good management. Happiness, productivity and success are the creation of well-balanced, motivated people that are being treated well and cared for by their company.
It is also my observation that one bad apple can infect those around them quickly and must be removed with prejudice. When an employee gets a bug up his ass to start a campaign of complaints and bad attitude, that person needs immediate removal before he/she lays waste to established teams and well working systems within your company. Any employee that is willing to talk openly and poorly of his/her employer has already crossed a line and done damage that is not easily repaired. Time to cut your losses with that employee.
An employee that has real greivances can approach solving those greivances in many different positive ways. An inability to do this is perhaps the worst employment disability an employee could posses.
In short: Treat your people well and immediately fire anyone who's attitude turns against the company.
I would rather have happy idiots that work together well than unhappy geniuses that don't get along with those around them. In the end, the idiots will do better work through the power of collective emergence!
Not to be conspiracy minded or anything, but can't this work in reverse? Queries on the database can result in *new* records, yes? So perhaps this is also a bit of a trojan horse for the govt to track the movement of people... The possibility of assisting in the detection of Money laundering and Tax evasion would not be considered *negative* side effects by the govt...
Those of you with land and lawn-mowers near biotech laboratories, please be extra-cautious from this point forward.
Careful: Congress and it's position on TIA
on
Congress' Tech Agenda
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
A quote from the article:
"Government programs such as the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness Project, data-mining activities, biometric initiatives and various forms of tracking programs have already come under fire for privacy violations.
Congress, however, defunded TIA in the 2003 omnibus spending bill it passed Thursday night. In passing the rule, Congress said it wants a guarantee that the government's database program will not infringe on civil liberties before it approves its continuation." -----
So this is far from dead and the demand by Congress that they "want a guarantee that the government's database program will not infringe on civil liberties" does not sound, to me, like an effective counterbalance for our freedoms over the long-term. What we should be pushing, lobbying (and fighting) for is EXTREMELY STRICT oversight of any project that involves collection of personal data for ANY reason. But only if we fail to stop the damned projects in the first place.
Buy a Used Laptop. Someone else may already have consumed a MS license on that hardware, true, but you will not be consuming one yourself. None of your money will be heading to Redmond (unless you account for the effect of resale value of hardware that was originally sold with a MS license).
I have actually been thinking lately of this very idea (Google + Blogging ++) and am very impressed that Google is taking this step.
Amongst other things, I imagine users of Google being able to "gab" through Google blogs about anything on the Internet and have Google keep track of all of the references. Brilliant!
Search for: Cowboy Neal
Result 1: How does cowboy neal scrub his shoes.. Blogs associated with this topic: bla bla...
I don't think that "leasing CPU time" is what is important here. If you look at IBM's involvement in XML Web Services and think about their strategies around Web Services, this latest announcement may make more sense.
This announcement is about "billing". IBM is going to figure out how to bill customers for information services (e.g. invoking Web Services). This is a big deal, and if done correctly, will provide a commercial framework for Internet services that will finally make the net a profitable place to do business (for everyone, not just IBM).
The human brain is insanely massively parrallel and even more insanely massivelly interconnected
The human brain is an analog computational device
There is good reason to believe that quantum effects would manifest in processing in the human brain, which would cause any learned scientist to question the "determinsm" of such a computational device
Given these new datum, can we really say that we could simulate the human brain with binary transistors? How many transistors would you need to simulate hundreds of billions of neurons with trillions of interconnects all acting in parallel? How many would we need to simulate a single neuron if that neuron's activity were even slightly influenced by quantum effects?
How about free will? Certainly, a binary computer program exhibiting intelligent behavior could be "proven" to lack free will. But, as I pointed out, is that what we are talking about?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure this will work the same as most broad-band in-hotel services. A NAT will not pass your packets until your MAC address has been authorized to do so. Until then, only outbound port 80 traffic does anything -> It redirects to the "Authorize this computer" webpage.
Perhaps existing Verizon customers can log-in to their account and authorize a MAC address (I'm sure it will be made easy), or a quick credit-card transaction will activate service.
I highly doubt you would ever have to actually "touch" the phone-booth. Just get close, flip the lid on your powerbook, have Safari auto-fill your authorization and away you go.
Your point would be valid, in an alternate reality where this "white hat hacker (cough)" did not have his chat advertised on Slashdot.
But, alas, it was. And now, instead of 750,000 interested Slashdotters (as you claim), there are 750,000 * (boredom ratio) Slashdotters who will be planning some sort of cyber attack on the chat in question in order to show that they have stronger l33t fu than this sad "security guru" who, in his infinite wisdom, just bought a karma pass on the ride of hideous evil madness that is geek one-upedness.
Don't pay attention. The dude is just jealous. He has to post on /. anonymously and doesn't have a gf.
In the desperate attempt to be on-topic:
After reading about this potential "cure" yesterday, I have spent some time pondering the ethics of communicable cures. We are, after all, discussing what could be a communicable cure for cancer. That is an amazing thought - This line of research could not just cure cancer, but it could potentially cure everyone in the world's cancer by giving one guy in India a shot in his arse.
But who would profit?
If no one profits, what is the motivation for persuing this type of cure. In fact, if these modified cold viruses cannot be made to be non-communicable, is there a possibility that this "cure" could be tossed away because it will destroy billions of dollars of potential revenue for a more manageable cure?
These and other issues could fill tomes... I think this subject deserves some very serious brainpower devoted to it.
Someone moderated this comment up, and left the parent alone? Are you serious?
Okay, I'll bite... Earn that moderation, Mr. Anonymous - Why would this strategy prove utterly "stupid"?
Would people stop buying Solaris if it sported a new, fancy User Interface? Or perhaps people would stop buying OS-X if it got an injection of Sun operating system know-how?
Perhaps it is something more subtle, something that I didn't point out as an obvious risk (morale, work-force reductions [ e.g. costs ] )....
Honestly, this would probably work, if the substantial integration effort could be managed properly. After all, open-source "is" killing the software industry. Hardware commoditization is killing PC clone makers (except for the top few who have some serious economy-of-scale). The Apple/Sun strategy of high-octane (define your own calibration) hardware/software that adheres to open standards is the most likely business plan to succeed when the dust settles... Microsoft? will have to transition out of software Dell? will become more botique Linux? Rules.. Apple? Should thrive just fine... Sun? Needs a change, but should thrive just fine with the right differentiators... Apple+Sun? Methinks it will rule, so long as it is uber-friendly to Linux/Open-Source...
With $5 billion in cash, $12 billion in revenue (and market cap), SUN is a tasty acquisition for the right company.
Consider this scenario w/respect to Apple; Purchase SUN and immediately halt all new development on Solaris. Drastic work-force reductions in engineering and marketing (essentially fire all SUN marketing and PR that are not related to it's substantial existing sales channels) and shift all core-engineering at SUN to shipping a version of OS-X that runs on existing SUN hardware and contains the scalability enhancements that allow SUN to be so successful in the supercomputer marketplace.
Using the SUN $5billion warchest, go on a massive crusuade to convert existing SUN shops to OS-X on SPARC and PPC, citing all SUN "innovations" being introduced into the OS-X kernel and core libraries.
If Apple could capture even half of the existing $12 billion / year revenue stream that SUN has with a strategy like this, the acquisition would be very well worth it. The $5 billion in cash removes most of the risk.
The primary problems, of course, would be workforce-reductions, morale and trying to digest the behemouth that is Sun Microsystems.
But please remember, the SUN model is the same as the Apple model - Open Standards and Closed hardware. The companies ARE compatible.
For a short term solution, one could always write a Perl, C or *whatever* binding that talks to the Java libraries that are handling the database(s), therebye buying "procrastanation time" w/respect to a full re-implementation in other languages...
No, not in trouble as terrorists.
However, should SARS turn out to be constructed (by terrorists, for instance) then this activity (decoding SARS with a beowolf cluster) may consider be considered reverse engineering of copyrighted material under the DMCA and therefore all of us, having participated in a conversation and a link to this "copyright violation" may be facing some jail time.
Who knew?
I can't agree with this more. I have, on several occassions, run small companies - one of which I managed to sell during the .com boom [hurray!]..
I worked for years as a contract engineer and started running my own companies a few years back. I also have experience as senior management in a large corporation. If it can happen, I've seen it, probably from a few different angles...
It is my observation that happiness can be destroyed by bad management, but cannot be created by good management. Happiness, productivity and success are the creation of well-balanced, motivated people that are being treated well and cared for by their company.
It is also my observation that one bad apple can infect those around them quickly and must be removed with prejudice. When an employee gets a bug up his ass to start a campaign of complaints and bad attitude, that person needs immediate removal before he/she lays waste to established teams and well working systems within your company. Any employee that is willing to talk openly and poorly of his/her employer has already crossed a line and done damage that is not easily repaired. Time to cut your losses with that employee.
An employee that has real greivances can approach solving those greivances in many different positive ways. An inability to do this is perhaps the worst employment disability an employee could posses.
In short: Treat your people well and immediately fire anyone who's attitude turns against the company.
I would rather have happy idiots that work together well than unhappy geniuses that don't get along with those around them. In the end, the idiots will do better work through the power of collective emergence!
-Corpus
Not to be conspiracy minded or anything, but can't this work in reverse? Queries on the database can result in *new* records, yes? So perhaps this is also a bit of a trojan horse for the govt to track the movement of people... The possibility of assisting in the detection of Money laundering and Tax evasion would not be considered *negative* side effects by the govt...
Is big brother trying to watch a little closer?
And you all just thought it was a cute story!
Those of you with land and lawn-mowers near biotech laboratories, please be extra-cautious from this point forward.
A quote from the article:
"Government programs such as the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness Project, data-mining activities, biometric initiatives and various forms of tracking programs have already come under fire for privacy violations.
Congress, however, defunded TIA in the 2003 omnibus spending bill it passed Thursday night. In passing the rule, Congress said it wants a guarantee that the government's database program will not infringe on civil liberties before it approves its continuation."
-----
So this is far from dead and the demand by Congress that they "want a guarantee that the government's database program will not infringe on civil liberties" does not sound, to me, like an effective counterbalance for our freedoms over the long-term. What we should be pushing, lobbying (and fighting) for is EXTREMELY STRICT oversight of any project that involves collection of personal data for ANY reason. But only if we fail to stop the damned projects in the first place.
Buy a Used Laptop. Someone else may already have consumed a MS license on that hardware, true, but you will not be consuming one yourself. None of your money will be heading to Redmond (unless you account for the effect of resale value of hardware that was originally sold with a MS license).
:-)
eBay is a great place to start looking
I have actually been thinking lately of this very idea (Google + Blogging ++) and am very impressed that Google is taking this step.
...
Amongst other things, I imagine users of Google being able to "gab" through Google blogs about anything on the Internet and have Google keep track of all of the references. Brilliant!
Search for: Cowboy Neal
Result 1: How does cowboy neal scrub his shoes..
Blogs associated with this topic: bla bla
Result 2: bla bla...
Could be very interesting...
I don't think that "leasing CPU time" is what is important here. If you look at IBM's involvement in XML Web Services and think about their strategies around Web Services, this latest announcement may make more sense.
This announcement is about "billing". IBM is going to figure out how to bill customers for information services (e.g. invoking Web Services). This is a big deal, and if done correctly, will provide a commercial framework for Internet services that will finally make the net a profitable place to do business (for everyone, not just IBM).
- The human brain is insanely massively parrallel and even more insanely massivelly interconnected
- The human brain is an analog computational device
- There is good reason to believe that quantum effects would manifest in processing in the human brain, which would cause any learned scientist to question the "determinsm" of such a computational device
Given these new datum, can we really say that we could simulate the human brain with binary transistors? How many transistors would you need to simulate hundreds of billions of neurons with trillions of interconnects all acting in parallel? How many would we need to simulate a single neuron if that neuron's activity were even slightly influenced by quantum effects?How about free will? Certainly, a binary computer program exhibiting intelligent behavior could be "proven" to lack free will. But, as I pointed out, is that what we are talking about?