According to Slashdot in every piracy article, this isn't "theft," because you're not taking anything physical. So I'm confused about the headline. Help me out, Slashdot.
It's not about whether the thing is physical, it's about the difference between cp srcdst and mv srcdst.
Why can't the CPU contain a register which holds a random number which is updated with every clock cycle?
First, the cost of computing truly random numbers is way too high for that
Computers are deterministic. Truly random numbers cannot be computed, they can only be provided by special hardware (something that can measure shot noise or thermal noise, a camera pointed at a lava lamp, a movement detector in Schrodinger's cat's box).
Secondarily, if your PRNG algorithm is broken, you're stuck replacing the hardware.
That's why you don't do pseudo-random numbers, but real randomness from thermal noise or shot noise or some other quantum effect (cats and lava lamps don't fit on ICs).
That said, hardware PRNG is provided in many modern systems by a TPM.
And at some level, the randomness generator on the TPM almost certainly has an interface of "read this special register every X clock cycles" (because how else would you interface with your special hardware?).
It lacks the performance problems associated with your solution, since it only generates random numbers on demand.
If it's implemented in hardware (as it must be, to get true randomness), it's always running and there is no "on demand".
It still has the problem of a potential exploit being discovered leading to expensive hardware upgrades, but to my knowledge that has not been a problem to date.
That would be because it's a RNG instead of a PRNG.
the new provisions fo the gpl v3 would be violated by the app store code signing
Those new restrictions are conditional on the software being bundled with / part of the device. How do they apply to software that you have to buy separately?
If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information.
For this I would have to say that is a bit excessive. I can understand going 70-75 in a 65, but not a 55. I know quiet a few roads where I grew up that were 55 and none should have been driven that speed.
I'm specifically thinking of some of the Interstates (at least 2 lanes each way, usually 3 or more, and no sharp turns or intersections) here in Memphis TN (but it tends to be the same in other cities, too), where the limit drops from 65 (would be 70 or more in a more sane state) to 55 for no clear reason other than being in a city. And yeah, on some of the 55mph roads where I grew up you'd have been insane to go faster than 55-60, or to go faster than maybe about 45 if you weren't familiar with which curves had stuff hidden behind them.
"It is illegal to share copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. But even this isn't the criminal (jailtime) kind of illegal, it's the civil (lawsuit) kind of illegal."
This is a dangerous myth. The threshold for criminal infringement is scarily low -- distribute just a few copies of the Adobe suite, or just one copy of a high-end vertical application, and you can be in criminal infringement territory.
US law limits imprisonment for criminal infringement to five years for first offenses, but still -- five years is a long time.
Hmm, interesting. It's anything over $1000 retail in half a year (or anything pre-release, or to make money). So it probably covers anyone seeding "so-and-so discography" or "<genre> greatest hits" torrents... yeah, absurd and scary.
Hi. I am sure you meant to say that file sharing of copyrighted works is illegal. File sharing itself is NOT illegal (in spite of what the RIAA/MPAA want everyone to think). It IS illegal to share copyrighted material.
No, for example it's perfectly legal to share the Linux source code which is copyrighted.
It is illegal to share copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. But even this isn't the criminal (jailtime) kind of illegal, it's the civil (lawsuit) kind of illegal.
Copyright could probably be more accurately termed "censorship-right", the copyright holder has authority to censor people from communicating whatever it is they hold copyright to.
This "defense" cooked up by Neeson's retard students is absolute malarkey. The judge's ruling against fair use as a defense is spot-on.
So why not let the jury do the ruling as they are supposed to? The judge really shouldn't be ruling on much of anything at this stage.
I always though that juries were supposed to decide facts, and that the judge was supposed to take the facts (as determined by the jury or agreed to by both sides) and decide what the law says those facts mean. This sounds like everyone agrees on the facts, and the question is whether the law says those facts mean "fair use" or "copyright infringement".
Except they can't sue for copyright infringement, since its under the GPLv2 just as the rest of the kernel, and while they theoretically could sue over patent infringement, that applies to any and all code more complex than "hello, world", and goes for all companies.
Actually they (probably) can't (successfully) sue over patents, because by distributing under GPLv2 they've already granted infinite-downstream permission to run/use/tweak what they distributed. Which logically must include permission to use any patents they might have that would cover what they distributed.
And I distinctly remember some nice level headed comments that Linus made about Bitkeeper. We know how that turned out.
Three years of massively higher productivity, followed by a bit less than 4 months to write a replacement (using knowledge and experience gained in the meantime, so just writing git in 2002 wouldn't have been possible). Almost certainly a significant net win.
It's also an example of why I think it's silly to focus only on whether a given system is "free"; better questions are, "is it the best right now, and by how much", "for how long will it probably stay the best", and "how hard (expensive) will it be to switch to something else later".
I think its quite healthy to dislike ( ok, hate ) an entity whose stated goal is to wipe you from the face of the earth. We arent talking about some bully in a school yard, we are talking about a well funded organized corporation that wants you eradicated..
Work to prevent them causing damage and reverse what damage they do cause, but don't hate them. Hating them clouds your judgment.
eg. If you're Doing It Right then it's impossible to get a "buffer overflow" in C++. Most of the exploits you see are down to buffer overflows so I leave you to draw your own conclusions about the programmers.
operator[] doesn't guarantee bounds checking, so overflows are still possible. Also, you can get much the same effect by not memorizing the iterator invalidation rules for the various containers.
Problems with C++ that will catch C programmers:
Lack of a standardized smart pointer. That would have made a huge difference.
std::shared_ptr<>, Coming Soon (tm).
Arrays. Arrays are evil. C++ should have skipped arrays and gone directly to std::vector.
Yes, and it should also have made it impossible to instantiate classes on the stack or as members of an other class/structure, so you always have to use pointers/references. But some people like not being forced to use the heap for everything.
Many studies in other countries have shown use of cell phone (even hands free) is the equivalent to driving with a mid range blood alcohol level or worse
Speaking of which, I seem to recall hearing somewhere that those effects have been exaggerated a bit by the transformation of anti-drunk groups into anti-alcohol groups. This was a while ago so I'm not sure where I got it from, trying to find a chart/table of driver BAC vs. number of crashes only turns up this site with their awesome title keywords.
Hmm, there's also this meta-analysis, which makes me think maybe what I saw was related to one of the studies that didn't show a meaningful relation.
Just a quick question. "Herschel can't see the stars that Hubble can see." Is a star DARKER than interstellar dust at these frequencies? Or is it just not bright enough to stand out? (Probably has something to do with black body radiation).
The stars are behind the dust, and the dust basically acts like a color filter. So it's transparent at some frequencies and you can see the stars, and it's opaque at other frequencies and you can't see the stars (but can see the dust).
I'm not sure why so many Slashdotters are so opposed to software patents as a concept. To my mind, the problem has been that the "non-obvious" requirement has been ignored or interpretted in such a way as to render it meaningless.
Patents are based on the idea that you have a person who is an Inventor, and needs to have special privileges to be able to invent new things. Historically what seems to happen is that lots of people will be experimenting in the same area and possibly sharing notes, and will all converge on an invention.
Patents are fundamentally based on the assumption that Inventors are uniquely special, and a particular Invention is unique to a particular Inventor. This is not correct.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of this ruling is that it could be appealed up to the SCOTUS.
Granted, this is risky for both sides. But perhaps if the SCOTUS gets enough appeal requests regarding software patents, it will finally address them.
I thought they already accepted an appeal of the Bilski case and were going to hear it next year?
As a practicing CS researcher and as a programmer, I sincerely feel that patent threats are the greatest limitation we face on software innovation. I can't begin to imagine that the benefits to our society are outweighing the costs.
Patent threats are probably the greatest limitation we face on any kind of innovation. Historically they seem to either slow innovation (eg, sudden advancement of steam engines when the patents expired) or have no discernible effect.
Maybe we need to throw out all the words and replace them with alternatives like "listener" and "caller" for the programs and... "big machine" and "little machine" for the computers?:-)
So what happens when you have a horribly overpowered gaming desktop and one of those dinky embedded "home NAS" things?:-p
Just got fixed by this. To be honest, I don't know how they've done it, but I know this is a good thing. This will make X and linux more secure and I can only applaud that.
I think what is basically boils down to, is that instead of X talking to the hardware directly it now talks to a file under/dev/ just like everything else.
Linux's SUID X server problem has been kind of a "dirty little secret" for many years. Most modern distributions include a few crude workarounds, such as dimming the display and then freezing X whenever the user is asked to type in a root password. Getting rid of the SUID bit altogether ought to make netbooks powered by Moblin technology much more difficult to snoop on over the network.
This does not make sense. Graphical sudo wrappers have nothing to do with X being suid, and neither does anything to do with network traffic.
It seems likely that with NRX technology, you could run X apps over a network with much less risk to the app server (the system that runs the "X client" component, in the backwards terminology of X).
This is actually backwards, the only place there's less risk is for the system that the X server is running on.
Slashdot Mirror
According to Slashdot in every piracy article, this isn't "theft," because you're not taking anything physical. So I'm confused about the headline. Help me out, Slashdot.
It's not about whether the thing is physical, it's about the difference between cp src dst and mv src dst .
Why can't the CPU contain a register which holds a random number which is updated with every clock cycle?
First, the cost of computing truly random numbers is way too high for that
Computers are deterministic. Truly random numbers cannot be computed, they can only be provided by special hardware (something that can measure shot noise or thermal noise, a camera pointed at a lava lamp, a movement detector in Schrodinger's cat's box).
Secondarily, if your PRNG algorithm is broken, you're stuck replacing the hardware.
That's why you don't do pseudo-random numbers, but real randomness from thermal noise or shot noise or some other quantum effect (cats and lava lamps don't fit on ICs).
That said, hardware PRNG is provided in many modern systems by a TPM.
And at some level, the randomness generator on the TPM almost certainly has an interface of "read this special register every X clock cycles" (because how else would you interface with your special hardware?).
It lacks the performance problems associated with your solution, since it only generates random numbers on demand.
If it's implemented in hardware (as it must be, to get true randomness), it's always running and there is no "on demand".
It still has the problem of a potential exploit being discovered leading to expensive hardware upgrades, but to my knowledge that has not been a problem to date.
That would be because it's a RNG instead of a PRNG.
Why can't the CPU contain a register which holds a random number which is updated with every clock cycle?
Some do have something like that, although it's only about 800kbps instead of 4 bytes per cycle.
the new provisions fo the gpl v3 would be violated by the app store code signing
Those new restrictions are conditional on the software being bundled with / part of the device. How do they apply to software that you have to buy separately?
For this I would have to say that is a bit excessive. I can understand going 70-75 in a 65, but not a 55. I know quiet a few roads where I grew up that were 55 and none should have been driven that speed.
I'm specifically thinking of some of the Interstates (at least 2 lanes each way, usually 3 or more, and no sharp turns or intersections) here in Memphis TN (but it tends to be the same in other cities, too), where the limit drops from 65 (would be 70 or more in a more sane state) to 55 for no clear reason other than being in a city. And yeah, on some of the 55mph roads where I grew up you'd have been insane to go faster than 55-60, or to go faster than maybe about 45 if you weren't familiar with which curves had stuff hidden behind them.
I don't know how people justify speeding for any reason other than in a critical situation.
Because when the limit is 55 and everyone else is going 70-75, it probably isn't safe to not speed.
Every time there's a patent article on slashdot, the summary and comments all just ooze with thinly-veiled contempt for our free market system.
In what way are government-granted monopolies considered a "free market"? It seems kinda like the opposite.
it's OK for people to want to make money off their ideas.
An if you're actually competent, you can do that without crippling all your potential competitors and causing net harm to the economy.
"It is illegal to share copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. But even this isn't the criminal (jailtime) kind of illegal, it's the civil (lawsuit) kind of illegal."
This is a dangerous myth. The threshold for criminal infringement is scarily low -- distribute just a few copies of the Adobe suite, or just one copy of a high-end vertical application, and you can be in criminal infringement territory.
US law limits imprisonment for criminal infringement to five years for first offenses, but still -- five years is a long time.
Hmm, interesting. It's anything over $1000 retail in half a year (or anything pre-release, or to make money). So it probably covers anyone seeding "so-and-so discography" or "<genre> greatest hits" torrents... yeah, absurd and scary.
Hi. I am sure you meant to say that file sharing of copyrighted works is illegal. File sharing itself is NOT illegal (in spite of what the RIAA/MPAA want everyone to think). It IS illegal to share copyrighted material.
No, for example it's perfectly legal to share the Linux source code which is copyrighted.
It is illegal to share copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. But even this isn't the criminal (jailtime) kind of illegal, it's the civil (lawsuit) kind of illegal.
Copyright could probably be more accurately termed "censorship-right", the copyright holder has authority to censor people from communicating whatever it is they hold copyright to.
This "defense" cooked up by Neeson's retard students is absolute malarkey. The judge's ruling against fair use as a defense is spot-on.
So why not let the jury do the ruling as they are supposed to? The judge really shouldn't be ruling on much of anything at this stage.
I always though that juries were supposed to decide facts, and that the judge was supposed to take the facts (as determined by the jury or agreed to by both sides) and decide what the law says those facts mean. This sounds like everyone agrees on the facts, and the question is whether the law says those facts mean "fair use" or "copyright infringement".
Except they can't sue for copyright infringement, since its under the GPLv2 just as the rest of the kernel, and while they theoretically could sue over patent infringement, that applies to any and all code more complex than "hello, world", and goes for all companies.
Actually they (probably) can't (successfully) sue over patents, because by distributing under GPLv2 they've already granted infinite-downstream permission to run/use/tweak what they distributed. Which logically must include permission to use any patents they might have that would cover what they distributed.
And I distinctly remember some nice level headed comments that Linus made about Bitkeeper. We know how that turned out.
Three years of massively higher productivity, followed by a bit less than 4 months to write a replacement (using knowledge and experience gained in the meantime, so just writing git in 2002 wouldn't have been possible). Almost certainly a significant net win.
It's also an example of why I think it's silly to focus only on whether a given system is "free"; better questions are, "is it the best right now, and by how much", "for how long will it probably stay the best", and "how hard (expensive) will it be to switch to something else later".
I think its quite healthy to dislike ( ok, hate ) an entity whose stated goal is to wipe you from the face of the earth. We arent talking about some bully in a school yard, we are talking about a well funded organized corporation that wants you eradicated..
Work to prevent them causing damage and reverse what damage they do cause, but don't hate them. Hating them clouds your judgment.
IIRC, Mercurial for instance existed back then and was considered, but rejected because performance wasn't good enough.
Mercurial came about because of the BitKeeper explosion, apparently "a few days after" Git did.
It looks like the only ones around in 2002 when BitKeeper was chosen were probably Aegis, DCVS, and Arch.
eg. If you're Doing It Right then it's impossible to get a "buffer overflow" in C++. Most of the exploits you see are down to buffer overflows so I leave you to draw your own conclusions about the programmers.
operator[] doesn't guarantee bounds checking, so overflows are still possible. Also, you can get much the same effect by not memorizing the iterator invalidation rules for the various containers.
Problems with C++ that will catch C programmers:
std::shared_ptr<>, Coming Soon (tm).
Yes, and it should also have made it impossible to instantiate classes on the stack or as members of an other class/structure, so you always have to use pointers/references. But some people like not being forced to use the heap for everything.
It is approved by both the OSI and, obviously, the FSF. Are you trolling?
GFDL (with those "invariant sections") also came from the FSF, is that "Free" too?
It is perfectly reasonable to not agree with how the FSF chooses to define things.
The AGPL isn't a Free licence.
Sure it is. You can get it here, doesn't cost a thing except the time to read 33kB of text, and we all know (your) time is worthless.
Many studies in other countries have shown use of cell phone (even hands free) is the equivalent to driving with a mid range blood alcohol level or worse
Speaking of which, I seem to recall hearing somewhere that those effects have been exaggerated a bit by the transformation of anti-drunk groups into anti-alcohol groups. This was a while ago so I'm not sure where I got it from, trying to find a chart/table of driver BAC vs. number of crashes only turns up this site with their awesome title keywords.
Hmm, there's also this meta-analysis, which makes me think maybe what I saw was related to one of the studies that didn't show a meaningful relation.
Just a quick question. "Herschel can't see the stars that Hubble can see." Is a star DARKER than interstellar dust at these frequencies? Or is it just not bright enough to stand out? (Probably has something to do with black body radiation).
The stars are behind the dust, and the dust basically acts like a color filter. So it's transparent at some frequencies and you can see the stars, and it's opaque at other frequencies and you can't see the stars (but can see the dust).
I'm not sure why so many Slashdotters are so opposed to software patents as a concept. To my mind, the problem has been that the "non-obvious" requirement has been ignored or interpretted in such a way as to render it meaningless.
Patents are based on the idea that you have a person who is an Inventor, and needs to have special privileges to be able to invent new things. Historically what seems to happen is that lots of people will be experimenting in the same area and possibly sharing notes, and will all converge on an invention.
Patents are fundamentally based on the assumption that Inventors are uniquely special, and a particular Invention is unique to a particular Inventor. This is not correct.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of this ruling is that it could be appealed up to the SCOTUS.
Granted, this is risky for both sides. But perhaps if the SCOTUS gets enough appeal requests regarding software patents, it will finally address them.
I thought they already accepted an appeal of the Bilski case and were going to hear it next year?
As a practicing CS researcher and as a programmer, I sincerely feel that patent threats are the greatest limitation we face on software innovation. I can't begin to imagine that the benefits to our society are outweighing the costs.
Patent threats are probably the greatest limitation we face on any kind of innovation. Historically they seem to either slow innovation (eg, sudden advancement of steam engines when the patents expired) or have no discernible effect.
Maybe we need to throw out all the words and replace them with alternatives like "listener" and "caller" for the programs and... "big machine" and "little machine" for the computers? :-)
So what happens when you have a horribly overpowered gaming desktop and one of those dinky embedded "home NAS" things? :-p
All is clear if we understand what it is serving. X is serving the display to your eyes. Web-server is serving pages to your web-client/browser.
X is serving the display and keyboard (and your eyes) to your firefox and xterm.
Just got fixed by this. To be honest, I don't know how they've done it, but I know this is a good thing. This will make X and linux more secure and I can only applaud that.
I think what is basically boils down to, is that instead of X talking to the hardware directly it now talks to a file under /dev/ just like everything else.
Linux's SUID X server problem has been kind of a "dirty little secret" for many years. Most modern distributions include a few crude workarounds, such as dimming the display and then freezing X whenever the user is asked to type in a root password. Getting rid of the SUID bit altogether ought to make netbooks powered by Moblin technology much more difficult to snoop on over the network.
This does not make sense. Graphical sudo wrappers have nothing to do with X being suid, and neither does anything to do with network traffic.
It seems likely that with NRX technology, you could run X apps over a network with much less risk to the app server (the system that runs the "X client" component, in the backwards terminology of X).
This is actually backwards, the only place there's less risk is for the system that the X server is running on.