If the lawsuit had succeeded, the effects would have been so widespread and so damaging. With so many powerful corporations affected, perhaps the government would finally be forced to promulgate some authentic patent reform. (In other words, this lawsuit was so crazy, it just might have worked!)
At this point, it's a lot like buying an electric car when your power comes from a coal plant. It may make you feel better about yourself but nobody actually gains anything.
Well, with an electric car, you move the emissions to the industrial area that hosts your local coal plant, and so hopefully make the neighborhoods you drive in healthier places to live. Similarly, the uh, network ecosystem of the, uh kernel environment... Ugh. This is the one time when a car metaphor won't work!
You've made clear the problem that Boston's subway stations tend to be within walking distance of each other. But there's no such problem in DC, where you usually have to drive a long way between stations. And only some kind of homicidal maniac would want to drive in DC traffic!
As I understand it, that kind of problem is exactly what motivated the kernel change that Phoronix called a regression. All hell would break loose on some systems if ASPM was enabled, so the kernel developers disabled it by default. That change led to increased stability at the cost of decreased energy efficiency. If the regression is fixed, it should mean systems like yours can use ASPM safely now.
For whole disk encryption, TrueCrypt installs a driver between Windows and BIOS that provides transparent crypto service to Windows. And it's only for Windows. For Linux whole disk encryption, something like LUKS is needed.
FTFA: ...and the reporters have filed their stories in Googled Docs instead of Microsoft Word.
I guess they meant they used free-as-in-beer software for that edition -- or whatever Googled Docs are. (Perhaps you get them when you type TheGoogle into a Word document?)
Ray, these lawyers are mimicking the mode of operation of the RIAA gang. Thanks in part to your reporting, we know of some possible attack vectors against it. We know they are using illegal joinder. We know they can't profit unless most of defendants settle. And we know they depend on each defendant's isolation, so they won't know what the weaknesses are and they won't fight.
Knowing what we do now, how can the community come together to help? How can we inform the defendants of their options, and how can we fight the plaintiffs directly?
Science fiction may inspire inventors. The technology it depicts, whether or not the author intended it as prediction, may ultimately be invented in the reader's lifetime. One gets a profound feeling when it happens that way!
But good science fiction imagines the effects of advanced technology on the human condition. The inventions it depicts should be theoretically feasible, and the year in which it is set should be appropriate to the level of scientific advancement that would be needed. But verisimilitude is only a tool for telling a good story about people, which is the true metric of any fiction, science- or otherwise.
If the advancements depicted in a sci-fi work never take place, should that disqualify it from greatness? Is Star Trek TNG only any good if the advancements it portrays occur in real life, along the same timeline?
And if a work inspires no one to invent, then so what? What of dystopic sci-fi? Heaven forbid a great science-fiction novel like 1984 inspired anyone to develop the technology it portrays! (Although, in that case, the author was definitely making technological predictions, which happened to come true.)
Now that Chavez has got his way in Venezuela he will be a pain for generations just as Castro was.
Unlike Castro, Chavez has been elected and re-elected in fair elections. Chavez did propose the elimination of term limits, but the public rejected it in a referendum he has agreed to honor.
So by "got his way" you mean "got elected and democratically pursued reforms"? The tyrant!
Muni probably owns the raw data, and NextBus probably owns the predictions.
NextBus is the developer, but the litigious company in this case is called NextBus Information Systems (NBIS). NBIS claims to own rights to the data NextBus's apps produce. It's unclear whether the two companies have any other financial relationship -- if they have any at all. As far as we know, NBIS may be a rogue, an SCO of the transit info business.
Thanks for that link, which I found both shocking (it actually happened!) and reassuring (someone else thinks it's crazy!).
I know of no announcement of change; my e-mails from them no longer use the SSN scheme I described, and I assumed it was the same for everyone. Here is an excerpt from a recent electronic statement.
Updates to your account are also included in the attached PDF document.
To protect the security of your personal information, the file is
encrypted. To de-encrypt and open the attached file, enter the password
in the following format:
xxxxxxxxxxYzzzz
The password is a combination of the following:
- xxxxxxxxxx - Your 10-digit account number.
- Y - The capitalized first letter of the state in which you reside (if
you reside in a foreign country, please use F).
- zzzz - The last four digits of your Social Security Number
I shoulda said, it could have been cracked in minutes because the key space was small and known: the set of all nine-digit integers. Hope I got that right now.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Deluge is available for Windows.
Stick an e- in front of it. Magic!
If the lawsuit had succeeded, the effects would have been so widespread and so damaging. With so many powerful corporations affected, perhaps the government would finally be forced to promulgate some authentic patent reform. (In other words, this lawsuit was so crazy, it just might have worked!)
Or, just press ESC before it forwards you to the blackout page.
At this point, it's a lot like buying an electric car when your power comes from a coal plant. It may make you feel better about yourself but nobody actually gains anything.
Well, with an electric car, you move the emissions to the industrial area that hosts your local coal plant, and so hopefully make the neighborhoods you drive in healthier places to live. Similarly, the uh, network ecosystem of the, uh kernel environment... Ugh. This is the one time when a car metaphor won't work!
You've made clear the problem that Boston's subway stations tend to be within walking distance of each other. But there's no such problem in DC, where you usually have to drive a long way between stations. And only some kind of homicidal maniac would want to drive in DC traffic!
Wait a sec...
Gol-ly! Is there anything those Google engineers don't know?
As I understand it, that kind of problem is exactly what motivated the kernel change that Phoronix called a regression. All hell would break loose on some systems if ASPM was enabled, so the kernel developers disabled it by default. That change led to increased stability at the cost of decreased energy efficiency. If the regression is fixed, it should mean systems like yours can use ASPM safely now.
Phew! I had seriously doubted that Microsoft had a hand in this.
If that volume contains the root filesystem, then you won't be able to boot.
For whole disk encryption, TrueCrypt installs a driver between Windows and BIOS that provides transparent crypto service to Windows. And it's only for Windows. For Linux whole disk encryption, something like LUKS is needed.
You can't encrypt the Linux root filesystem with TrueCrypt. That's where the other tools come in.
Previous specialized search engines including Cuil, Hakia, Powerset, Clusty, and RedZ--each had a special trick, but they've all faded from memory
Indeed; I don't remember any of them existing.
FTFA:
...and the reporters have filed their stories in Googled Docs instead of Microsoft Word.
I guess they meant they used free-as-in-beer software for that edition -- or whatever Googled Docs are. (Perhaps you get them when you type TheGoogle into a Word document?)
Ray, these lawyers are mimicking the mode of operation of the RIAA gang. Thanks in part to your reporting, we know of some possible attack vectors against it. We know they are using illegal joinder. We know they can't profit unless most of defendants settle. And we know they depend on each defendant's isolation, so they won't know what the weaknesses are and they won't fight. Knowing what we do now, how can the community come together to help? How can we inform the defendants of their options, and how can we fight the plaintiffs directly?
Taking something without paying is stealing.
Then hollywood and all the other publishers are the biggest thieves in the world.Why? Because of retroactive copyright extensions.
Nonsense. Hollywood paid good money to lobbyists and lawmakers for those copyright extensions!
Science fiction may inspire inventors. The technology it depicts, whether or not the author intended it as prediction, may ultimately be invented in the reader's lifetime. One gets a profound feeling when it happens that way!
But good science fiction imagines the effects of advanced technology on the human condition. The inventions it depicts should be theoretically feasible, and the year in which it is set should be appropriate to the level of scientific advancement that would be needed. But verisimilitude is only a tool for telling a good story about people, which is the true metric of any fiction, science- or otherwise.
If the advancements depicted in a sci-fi work never take place, should that disqualify it from greatness? Is Star Trek TNG only any good if the advancements it portrays occur in real life, along the same timeline?
And if a work inspires no one to invent, then so what? What of dystopic sci-fi? Heaven forbid a great science-fiction novel like 1984 inspired anyone to develop the technology it portrays! (Although, in that case, the author was definitely making technological predictions, which happened to come true.)
Citation? The major study I'm familiar with, performed by a consortium of major media outlets -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12623-2001Nov11.html -- found that a statewide recount of the votes would have Gore the winner.
Now that Chavez has got his way in Venezuela he will be a pain for generations just as Castro was.
Unlike Castro, Chavez has been elected and re-elected in fair elections. Chavez did propose the elimination of term limits, but the public rejected it in a referendum he has agreed to honor.
So by "got his way" you mean "got elected and democratically pursued reforms"? The tyrant!
Muni probably owns the raw data, and NextBus probably owns the predictions.
NextBus is the developer, but the litigious company in this case is called NextBus Information Systems (NBIS). NBIS claims to own rights to the data NextBus's apps produce. It's unclear whether the two companies have any other financial relationship -- if they have any at all. As far as we know, NBIS may be a rogue, an SCO of the transit info business.
...which withstood three years of design and testing by Australian and American security agencies
Anything that withstands three years of attempted government design must be robust indeed.
Conclusion? Non-story.
What if I want SecureSpot for its useful features? What if I didn't know SecureSpot redirects me like that?
Also should mention that you can now OPT OUT of the e-mails entirely. You couldn't before.
(Sorry to threadjack!)
I know of no announcement of change; my e-mails from them no longer use the SSN scheme I described, and I assumed it was the same for everyone. Here is an excerpt from a recent electronic statement.
A bit better, huh?
I shoulda said, it could have been cracked in minutes because the key space was small and known: the set of all nine-digit integers. Hope I got that right now. :)