Encryption is math - all math is solvable - some math solutions take resources most people don't have, this does not technically constitute a back door, but you can bet your sweet bippy if the (US) government allows you to transmit it, they have a way to decrypt it. Want to try an experiment - come up with really decent random number generator (not based on FIPS or built in functions) and send a fake encrypted message twice a day to someone in a foreign country. See how long before you are visited:)
It appears to me that all the gov is doing is trying to close some loopholes, not some evil scheme to take over the world as the post and most responses seem to believe. Currently the state taxes retail software (duh), they tax consultants when they write software (duh), but some people are bucking the system and not charging hourly consulting rates, only a license fee, and that is a tax loophole at the moment. So, unless you are against all taxes (and who isnt?) there is really no earth shattering meaning to this proposal.
Move along, nothing to see here. Interesting news must be getting scarce.
I've had an MSDN subscription for years and it has never been a pain in the ass. For temporary test farms you do not even need to activate windows, and that is clearly spelled out in your MSDN agreeement. I know I've activated permenant development machines probably 30-40 times, and again, it has never once been any effort at all. Quit blowing smoke.
1) "The more code you have the intractable security becomes" Agreed. Also related the more users you have the more likely you are to be targeted and the more likely you are to find users dumb enough to click on an.exe in an unsolicited email - No matter which OS is #1, this will always be the case.
2)I don't know about it being 90%, it certainly is %90 of the easy targets, but poor security designs are often not buffer overrun problems, they are, well, poor designs - ie random number generators that aren't. But yes, a 'safe' runtime environment, like Java or.Net is desirable. But wait...
3) 20 ways to do the same thing? what are you talking about? Everything new in computers is a new way to do the same thing. XWindows replaces NCurses, NCurses replaced line by line teletypes, which replace punch cards/tape. Or are you arguing that everyone should immediately jump to longhorn since.Net becomes the core and Win32 the legacy subsystem? Or are you arguing Java on a win32 or any other platform is bad? #3 is just dumb. In every OSS system I've seen there are 5000 ways of doing the same thing, so you're either bashing OSS or just mumbling.
Do you really understand NGSCB? There seems to be a lot of emphasis on how it will stop people from stealing music, and zero attention given to its good points (in concept if not implementation) - but what about my needs as a company to protect company's private documents? Is that not a valid need? How about my needs as a vendor to protect someone from spoofing patches to my product? Is that not valid? When was the last time someone actually validated their SAP patches? Silkscreen a CD send it out as SAP patches - and bingo - Trojan horses running the worlds top 5000 companies. Yes dear MS bashers, there is more to DRM than just stealing music. But I know, that's all the readership really cares about.
If a decent NGSCB implementation (from anyone) was installed on 90% of the desktops, the remaining 10% would be the ones with security nightmares. I don't see open source stepping up to the plate. If not MS, someone else proprietary will.
Windows success hinged soley on Bill Gates deciding not to take orders from IBM. They were and will again be if allowed, twice the monopolist nazi that Microsoft is.
I'm not a lawyer, but with the exception of being a bad thing, what legal difference does it make if Microsoft did finance the whole SCO v Linux deal? Is that specifically covered in monopoly law? Otherwise, it seems to me like a perfectly good thing to do for your stockholders. People buy patents for IP protection (and settle exisiting suits) all the time. What would be different here? I can't see how this could be consider abusing your market position. Yes, I know everyone is against Microsoft - but what the legal behind this being wrong?
I have over 25 years of programming experience. Self taught from COBOL to microcode to encryption math. Certified in programming. I have Managed, taught and been a plain old programmer. I would consider myself technically top 5% of all the people I've met.
I'm applying for a greeter position at wal-mart. And you bring what value to your employer?
Look at what happened to steel workers. Look what happened to auto manufacturers. Then find another career. Nothing short of govt intervention is going to stop the work going to the cheaper countries. You only chance is to work for Microsoft - they will last the longest, but I can assure you even they are already making plans to move out of this country. The only IT work that remain here is 1) work that requires on site hands on support or 2) secure/classified work. I assure you, there are too many developers for those positions already. It's a good time to become something else. Make a bet on the next big fad - my bet is on biotech, although nano-tech may beat it. Look for careers that have inroads to those fields.
I'm in between moves now and the Java POS (Point of Sale, not Piece of Sheeet) proto project is archived on an external disk - ill hook it up this week and give you more details. But the one thing that comes to mind was having to use a decorator pattern to sort columns on the grid. The decorator decorated the list. I cant remember the exact specifics, but I remember having to buy a book to figure out to do it (handle the column header clicks etc). In.Net I thinks its 1 line of code.
One thing I really liked in Java was JDO but I never got to use it because all the 'free as in beer' versions were just complicated to use. I ended up buying something for.Net that was very similiar - XPO from developers express. I understand that this will be a part of the next SQL sever, I look forward to that. Until Java gets tight integration with better JDO support I think MS will be a leg up in that area as well.
fair enough. And I was specific in my belief that.Net is just a better GUI than Java, becuase it doesnt try to please everyone. It seems a tad more mature. As a lnaguage I think they are about even. This is from personal experience where I would find myself having to subclass java components and add functionality to them, and later discovering that that functionality was alread built in the.Net GUI components. Of course some things where in Java that was not in.Net, but overall.Net had allowed me to do what I wanted to do with less added code. The exact opposite is true when i go to do web sites. I tried to do what I feel is best practices with ASP and I end up going back to JSP becuase it just makes better sense. The.Net web app stuff is crap, and I have no hesitation saying that as someone who is certified in it. I do see where onghorn could change that, if it brings a richer UI to web apps. I have no idea where the Java camp will be in 2 years, but if they stick to HTML as we know it today they will be severily behind. MS infusing $$ into Sun reminds me of the Apple save a few years back. Every thing I read about Sun said it's days where numbered. In my mind, like them or hate them, this is the second time Microsoft may have saved a competitor by giving them $$$ (and no, Sun would have never won what it was asking). I think that's pretty honarable of them.
"I am not trying to be a jerk here, just to understand it. "
"Then people like yourself would say "We have to code to Microsoft's JVM... it is the defacto standard".
Which is it? You have no reason to attack me like that.
Java as a language and C# as a language are about on even par, IMHO. Java as a platform has a definite lead over.Net as a Web Server/Web App/Backend scripting language, but trails horribly in the GUI department. This is of course due to it's unsuccessful attempt to run every where. IBM and other have recognized this, and that part of it may change with Eclipse Windowing stuff (SWT), but it isn't there yet. Then again, ASP may steal some ideas from JSP and be as robust eventually as well. I personally think web apps are a hindrance, and so I place little priority on that. Why? When was the last time you saw an Excel, or Word, or Photoshop class application as a web app? Simple data entry is about all web apps are good for. Yes, I've used both Java and C#.Net. I loved the way I could separate layout from code with JSP/Tags - and I really missed it in.asp. But I also coded a prototype Point of Sale app in java, and chose to code the real one in.Net. I have yet to regret that decision..Net is simply a better desktop app environment. Back to original topic; I can't see Sun ever open sourcing Java. Sun is and has always been as proprietary as Microsoft. Java is there only remaining successful product. A cluster of cheap Linux PCs can provide serious competition to anything Sun makes UNIX hardware wise, and they know the writing is on the wall. Java is probably their only future revenue unless they make their CPUs a commodity to compete with Intel - and then they would have to run Windows on it. I think selling a Java CPU as a server would be a much better proposition. Since Java is stronger on the server side anyways, take advantage of the leverage.
What leading cryptographer do you know that would dispute that fact? So, you think that NSA cant read encypted PGP or DES or whatever, but that's OK? I mean, no one would use it for terrorism or anything. Ever heard of a term 'classified'? You think that because a fact is classified it isn't a fact? Here some simple research for you bub, find the original specifications for DES. Can't do it. Why not? It's classified. Now why would a ancient and superceded encryption scheme still be classified? Let's see, designed by IBM. Ever single stepped an IBM mainframe at the microcode level? Ever seen what those 'undefined' op-codes do? None of what I just said is classified, but if you can't reach an obvious conclusion that's not my problem.
fact: NSA places priorities on encrypted communications. Encryption is easy to detect. The more randome a stream, the more likely it is encrypted. A stream that is extremly randome is encrypted in a way better than public algorithms and will get a lot of attention.
fact: NSA can rip through all public encryptions like a hot knife in butter, all! Do you think that if they couldn't they would let any encrypted traffic pass?
Guess: I suspect 'aiding terrosism' means this dude sold some known terrorist non-public encryption and it took NSA an extra hour or two to break it.
fact: NSA is probably spending extra manual time looking through this slashdot story:) Say hello to Mr. Analyst.
Sounds great! We bust up a monopoly and things will get much better! Just like it did with the phone company! Oh wait, my local and long distance phone bill is now huge compared to what is used to be, and service is the worse it has ever been. I guess some consider that progress.
And why is SD always pumping up Speakeasy? My personal experience with them was that anything that goes wrong is the customers fault, followed by collection agencies. They're crooked unhelpful slobs like everyone else. I had a router go bad, I replaced it. Speakeasy refused to provide configuration information (Customer installed equipment) and insisted I buy an unwarranted router from them at 4 times the going price. Yeah, great service.
well again, thats like saying cause of death was his heart stopped and not the bullet that went through it. It may not be stealing by a legal definition, but it certainly is by any moral definition. I suspect that even if you look at the legal definition you will come across a phrase such as 'preventing intellectual/artistic theft'. So theft may be a presumed clause.
reminds me of the 'right to live' v 'pro-choice' labels - you are just picking words that sound beter. In the words of a previous post, repeat after me 'taking anything physical or not, that was intended to be bought, without paying for it is THEFT'.
"Stealing requires the PHYSICAL depriving of the object in question"
So, if you came up with a brillant idea, that eventually made a billion dollars, but i heard about and did it first, and it was I who made the millions, ou would agree I didn't steal the idea, since its not physical?
"(repeat after me - it is not theft, it's a copyright violation)"
Yeah, right "I didnt kill you I just fired the gun". It is stealing you moron - what other reason would there be for laws against it?
And you need to learn about laws - entrapment requires that the crime would not have been commited unless the trap was set. You would be on the losing side of an argument if you think the crook wouldnt have tried to download from somewhere else. Your argument is that if there are groceries on the shelf at the supermarket, it's ok to take them. I get moderated down, you get moderated up. Thanks for helping make my point about the bias of this site. If your against stealing you're a troll, if you're for it you are insightful. Let me know where you live, i want to be insightful with some of your personal property.
I like your domain name, tomhudson@fuckmicrosoft.com , no bias there. Highly insightful.
You are seriously going to defend a position of charging someone with fraud because he tricked someone into downloading something other than what they thought they were stealing? Get real.
I personally wish it was the FBI running this sting and that there was enough jails in the world to lock up every thief out there that fell for it. Thats the worst kind, a stupid theif. Escape from New York anyone?
I wonder how Slashdot's readership numbers would be affected?
OK guys, a lot of you seemed to miss how the patent system works, so here is the play by play for the future. Microsoft is now spending millions in search of a patent that Eolas is violating or pre-dates and invalidates their patent. I know of at least 2 they are talking to and both are just as ridiculous as the Eolas patent, but very relevant. It might take 3 months it might take a year, but they will find something. When they do this all goes away. Snore.
your obviously not thinking very far out of the box. First off, it takes 0 latency for a hardware scanner to detect a given stream at any bitrate, its not an issue, period. There is no overhead at all. And lets expand the though a little further - ever listen to an AM radio next to your computer? The simple fact is a hardware scanner could (can?) detect these streams 1 miles away if you just loaded a particular picture on your screen without any physical connection. Tap into the earth ground going into every home and you easily extend the range to 30 miles. These smoke screens in the public eyes about personal privacy hide technologies that are 25 years ahead of where we think they are. Don't be so naive.
They insert a 'special' serial binary stream - one that can be imbedded in pictures (child porn), email, Warez, illegal MP3s - you name it. They then have a special listener installed at the majority of all ISPs - whenever this special stream comes through a (logical) wire it logs the IPs, logon info etc. Very efficient, very secure, very accurate.
Actually, I just made all this up, but now that I mention it, does anyone think they're are getting away with anything anymore?
Slashdot Mirror
Encryption is math - all math is solvable - some math solutions take resources most people don't have, this does not technically constitute a back door, but you can bet your sweet bippy if the (US) government allows you to transmit it, they have a way to decrypt it. :)
Want to try an experiment - come up with really decent random number generator (not based on FIPS or built in functions) and send a fake encrypted message twice a day to someone in a foreign country. See how long before you are visited
It appears to me that all the gov is doing is trying to close some loopholes, not some evil scheme to take over the world as the post and most responses seem to believe. Currently the state taxes retail software (duh), they tax consultants when they write software (duh), but some people are bucking the system and not charging hourly consulting rates, only a license fee, and that is a tax loophole at the moment. So, unless you are against all taxes (and who isnt?) there is really no earth shattering meaning to this proposal.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Interesting news must be getting scarce.
Great reason to trust it. Use any clipper chips lately?
I've had an MSDN subscription for years and it has never been a pain in the ass. For temporary test farms you do not even need to activate windows, and that is clearly spelled out in your MSDN agreeement. I know I've activated permenant development machines probably 30-40 times, and again, it has never once been any effort at all. Quit blowing smoke.
1) "The more code you have the intractable security becomes" Agreed. Also related the more users you have the more likely you are to be targeted and the more likely you are to find users dumb enough to click on an .exe in an unsolicited email - No matter which OS is #1, this will always be the case. .Net is desirable. But wait ... .Net becomes the core and Win32 the legacy subsystem? Or are you arguing Java on a win32 or any other platform is bad? #3 is just dumb. In every OSS system I've seen there are 5000 ways of doing the same thing, so you're either bashing OSS or just mumbling.
2)I don't know about it being 90%, it certainly is %90 of the easy targets, but poor security designs are often not buffer overrun problems, they are, well, poor designs - ie random number generators that aren't. But yes, a 'safe' runtime environment, like Java or
3) 20 ways to do the same thing? what are you talking about? Everything new in computers is a new way to do the same thing. XWindows replaces NCurses, NCurses replaced line by line teletypes, which replace punch cards/tape. Or are you arguing that everyone should immediately jump to longhorn since
Do you really understand NGSCB? There seems to be a lot of emphasis on how it will stop people from stealing music, and zero attention given to its good points (in concept if not implementation) - but what about my needs as a company to protect company's private documents? Is that not a valid need? How about my needs as a vendor to protect someone from spoofing patches to my product? Is that not valid? When was the last time someone actually validated their SAP patches? Silkscreen a CD send it out as SAP patches - and bingo - Trojan horses running the worlds top 5000 companies. Yes dear MS bashers, there is more to DRM than just stealing music. But I know, that's all the readership really cares about.
If a decent NGSCB implementation (from anyone) was installed on 90% of the desktops, the remaining 10% would be the ones with security nightmares. I don't see open source stepping up to the plate. If not MS, someone else proprietary will.
and no one mods this as insightful. but you are dead on!
Windows success hinged soley on Bill Gates deciding not to take orders from IBM. They were and will again be if allowed, twice the monopolist nazi that Microsoft is.
I'm not a lawyer, but with the exception of being a bad thing, what legal difference does it make if Microsoft did finance the whole SCO v Linux deal? Is that specifically covered in monopoly law? Otherwise, it seems to me like a perfectly good thing to do for your stockholders. People buy patents for IP protection (and settle exisiting suits) all the time. What would be different here? I can't see how this could be consider abusing your market position. Yes, I know everyone is against Microsoft - but what the legal behind this being wrong?
I have over 25 years of programming experience. Self taught from COBOL to microcode to encryption math. Certified in programming. I have Managed, taught and been a plain old programmer. I would consider myself technically top 5% of all the people I've met.
I'm applying for a greeter position at wal-mart.
And you bring what value to your employer?
Look at what happened to steel workers. Look what happened to auto manufacturers. Then find another career. Nothing short of govt intervention is going to stop the work going to the cheaper countries. You only chance is to work for Microsoft - they will last the longest, but I can assure you even they are already making plans to move out of this country. The only IT work that remain here is 1) work that requires on site hands on support or 2) secure/classified work. I assure you, there are too many developers for those positions already.
It's a good time to become something else. Make a bet on the next big fad - my bet is on biotech, although nano-tech may beat it. Look for careers that have inroads to those fields.
Doom of course.
I'm in between moves now and the Java POS (Point of Sale, not Piece of Sheeet) proto project is archived on an external disk - ill hook it up this week and give you more details. But the one thing that comes to mind was having to use a decorator pattern to sort columns on the grid. The decorator decorated the list. I cant remember the exact specifics, but I remember having to buy a book to figure out to do it (handle the column header clicks etc). In .Net I thinks its 1 line of code.
.Net that was very similiar - XPO from developers express. I understand that this will be a part of the next SQL sever, I look forward to that. Until Java gets tight integration with better JDO support I think MS will be a leg up in that area as well.
One thing I really liked in Java was JDO but I never got to use it because all the 'free as in beer' versions were just complicated to use. I ended up buying something for
fair enough. And I was specific in my belief that .Net is just a better GUI than Java, becuase it doesnt try to please everyone. It seems a tad more mature. As a lnaguage I think they are about even. .Net GUI components. Of course some things where in Java that was not in .Net, but overall .Net had allowed me to do what I wanted to do with less added code. .Net web app stuff is crap, and I have no hesitation saying that as someone who is certified in it. I do see where onghorn could change that, if it brings a richer UI to web apps. I have no idea where the Java camp will be in 2 years, but if they stick to HTML as we know it today they will be severily behind.
This is from personal experience where I would find myself having to subclass java components and add functionality to them, and later discovering that that functionality was alread built in the
The exact opposite is true when i go to do web sites. I tried to do what I feel is best practices with ASP and I end up going back to JSP becuase it just makes better sense. The
MS infusing $$ into Sun reminds me of the Apple save a few years back. Every thing I read about Sun said it's days where numbered. In my mind, like them or hate them, this is the second time Microsoft may have saved a competitor by giving them $$$ (and no, Sun would have never won what it was asking). I think that's pretty honarable of them.
"I am not trying to be a jerk here, just to understand it. "
"Then people like yourself would say "We have to code to Microsoft's JVM... it is the defacto standard".
Which is it? You have no reason to attack me like that.
Java as a language and C# as a language are about on even par, IMHO. Java as a platform has a definite lead over .Net as a Web Server/Web App/Backend scripting language, but trails horribly in the GUI department. This is of course due to it's unsuccessful attempt to run every where. IBM and other have recognized this, and that part of it may change with Eclipse Windowing stuff (SWT), but it isn't there yet. Then again, ASP may steal some ideas from JSP and be as robust eventually as well. .asp. But I also coded a prototype Point of Sale app in java, and chose to code the real one in .Net. I have yet to regret that decision. .Net is simply a better desktop app environment.
I personally think web apps are a hindrance, and so I place little priority on that. Why? When was the last time you saw an Excel, or Word, or Photoshop class application as a web app? Simple data entry is about all web apps are good for.
Yes, I've used both Java and C#.Net. I loved the way I could separate layout from code with JSP/Tags - and I really missed it in
Back to original topic; I can't see Sun ever open sourcing Java. Sun is and has always been as proprietary as Microsoft. Java is there only remaining successful product. A cluster of cheap Linux PCs can provide serious competition to anything Sun makes UNIX hardware wise, and they know the writing is on the wall. Java is probably their only future revenue unless they make their CPUs a commodity to compete with Intel - and then they would have to run Windows on it.
I think selling a Java CPU as a server would be a much better proposition. Since Java is stronger on the server side anyways, take advantage of the leverage.
What leading cryptographer do you know that would dispute that fact? So, you think that NSA cant read encypted PGP or DES or whatever, but that's OK? I mean, no one would use it for terrorism or anything.
Ever heard of a term 'classified'? You think that because a fact is classified it isn't a fact?
Here some simple research for you bub, find the original specifications for DES. Can't do it. Why not? It's classified. Now why would a ancient and superceded encryption scheme still be classified? Let's see, designed by IBM. Ever single stepped an IBM mainframe at the microcode level? Ever seen what those 'undefined' op-codes do?
None of what I just said is classified, but if you can't reach an obvious conclusion that's not my problem.
fact: NSA places priorities on encrypted communications. Encryption is easy to detect. The more randome a stream, the more likely it is encrypted. A stream that is extremly randome is encrypted in a way better than public algorithms and will get a lot of attention. :) Say hello to Mr. Analyst.
fact: NSA can rip through all public encryptions like a hot knife in butter, all! Do you think that if they couldn't they would let any encrypted traffic pass?
Guess: I suspect 'aiding terrosism' means this dude sold some known terrorist non-public encryption and it took NSA an extra hour or two to break it.
fact: NSA is probably spending extra manual time looking through this slashdot story
Sounds great! We bust up a monopoly and things will get much better! Just like it did with the phone company! Oh wait, my local and long distance phone bill is now huge compared to what is used to be, and service is the worse it has ever been. I guess some consider that progress.
And why is SD always pumping up Speakeasy? My personal experience with them was that anything that goes wrong is the customers fault, followed by collection agencies. They're crooked unhelpful slobs like everyone else. I had a router go bad, I replaced it. Speakeasy refused to provide configuration information (Customer installed equipment) and insisted I buy an unwarranted router from them at 4 times the going price. Yeah, great service.
well again, thats like saying cause of death was his heart stopped and not the bullet that went through it. It may not be stealing by a legal definition, but it certainly is by any moral definition. I suspect that even if you look at the legal definition you will come across a phrase such as 'preventing intellectual/artistic theft'. So theft may be a presumed clause.
reminds me of the 'right to live' v 'pro-choice' labels - you are just picking words that sound beter.
In the words of a previous post, repeat after me 'taking anything physical or not, that was intended to be bought, without paying for it is THEFT'.
"Stealing requires the PHYSICAL depriving of the object in question"
So, if you came up with a brillant idea, that eventually made a billion dollars, but i heard about and did it first, and it was I who made the millions, ou would agree I didn't steal the idea, since its not physical?
BTW, fuckslashdot.com is available! And fucktomhudson.com was till just now.
"(repeat after me - it is not theft, it's a copyright violation)"
Yeah, right "I didnt kill you I just fired the gun". It is stealing you moron - what other reason would there be for laws against it?
And you need to learn about laws - entrapment requires that the crime would not have been commited unless the trap was set. You would be on the losing side of an argument if you think the crook wouldnt have tried to download from somewhere else.
Your argument is that if there are groceries on the shelf at the supermarket, it's ok to take them.
I get moderated down, you get moderated up. Thanks for helping make my point about the bias of this site. If your against stealing you're a troll, if you're for it you are insightful. Let me know where you live, i want to be insightful with some of your personal property.
I like your domain name, tomhudson@fuckmicrosoft.com , no bias there. Highly insightful.
You are seriously going to defend a position of charging someone with fraud because he tricked someone into downloading something other than what they thought they were stealing? Get real.
I personally wish it was the FBI running this sting and that there was enough jails in the world to lock up every thief out there that fell for it. Thats the worst kind, a stupid theif. Escape from New York anyone?
I wonder how Slashdot's readership numbers would be affected?
OK guys, a lot of you seemed to miss how the patent system works, so here is the play by play for the future. Microsoft is now spending millions in search of a patent that Eolas is violating or pre-dates and invalidates their patent. I know of at least 2 they are talking to and both are just as ridiculous as the Eolas patent, but very relevant. It might take 3 months it might take a year, but they will find something. When they do this all goes away. Snore.
your obviously not thinking very far out of the box. First off, it takes 0 latency for a hardware scanner to detect a given stream at any bitrate, its not an issue, period. There is no overhead at all.
And lets expand the though a little further - ever listen to an AM radio next to your computer? The simple fact is a hardware scanner could (can?) detect these streams 1 miles away if you just loaded a particular picture on your screen without any physical connection. Tap into the earth ground going into every home and you easily extend the range to 30 miles.
These smoke screens in the public eyes about personal privacy hide technologies that are 25 years ahead of where we think they are. Don't be so naive.
They insert a 'special' serial binary stream - one that can be imbedded in pictures (child porn), email, Warez, illegal MP3s - you name it. They then have a special listener installed at the majority of all ISPs - whenever this special stream comes through a (logical) wire it logs the IPs, logon info etc. Very efficient, very secure, very accurate.
Actually, I just made all this up, but now that I mention it, does anyone think they're are getting away with anything anymore?