I take exception to that comment. I am a regular Slashdot reader, and I am perfectly aware that the world isn't black and white. For example, there's a nasty green bar just above the box where I'm typing this, and some grey buttons underneath it.
It seems shortsighted to dismiss the service this company provides just because the camera can be hacked. Hackable==bad business model, end of story? The world isn't black and white like that.
The world isn't black and white? Someone ought to let/. readers in on that little secret.
Since it's closed source, you are FUCKED if there is no drivers
You know what... I think I'd be fucked anyway. You think I'm going to be able to write a device driver for Linux? Ummm maybe. I've never tried. But I'm pretty sure it would take longer and cost more than going to the store and buying a different sound/video card that does work out of the box.
My dad (a technophobe) spent weeks trying to get an old Brother printer to work with Windows XP... hacking the registry, e-mailing tech support, paying a consultant, installing and reinstalling. I even got roped in via VNC. The thing is, my dad makes good money. He would have been much better off just buying a new printer (which he eventually did anyway).
I disagree. I'm not saying it's *correct* or anything, but the ideas behind free software are incomprehensible to non-programmers, and are therefore easily lumped together with piracy.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I have seen free software being compared to Communism, but I have never heard of it being equated with piracy.
All analogies are bad analogies unless you have a good audience.
80% of the analogies you read on/. are dumb. And when it comes to the ones that are reasonable (such as the parent post), someone always posts some asinine rebuttal. Unfortunately, you can't defend analogies with logic.
From what I remember (and I don't remember all the details), the man-in-the-middle attack can be ruled out, because Bob and Alice can compare polarization patterns over an independent channel without actually sending the data. If Bob's received polarization doesn't match what Alice sent, then the stream isn't authentic.
Sure they can, but doesn't that defeat the whole point? "We're going to sell you this ultra-high-tech device that gives you a 'quantumly secure' channel and all you have do is maintain a different secure channel to verify that this one hasn't been tampered with!"
If the pair of boxes has to be in the same building, that isn't going to be a big seller. Bob would just walk down and HAND Alice the data. Nice PR stunt, though.
It's worse than that... it's complete FUD even if the boxes are in different buildings.
- This only works for individual point-to-point links, where the burden of managing pre-shared keys is not that high. - Quantum cryptography replaces Diffie-Hellman, but it doesn't replace authentication. So you still have to have a pre-shared key or else the attacker can just splice the fiber and do a man-in-the-middle attack. - They're using this ultra-secure technology for key exchange, but then they still send the rest of the data using AES or 3DES. If someone invents a quantum computer powerful enough to crack 2048 bit DH, they could use it to crack AES instead.
Criminals & Terrorists? If only we were so lucky! Heh... I imagine that this technology requires dedicated fiber, so you can only communicate from point A to point B. Remember that we were trying to track Osama Bin Laden by his cell phone. If he had to go to a specific, fixed location every time he wanted to make a phone call, we'd have got him by now.
I thought that it was figured out a long time ago that relying on ads was a stupid way to generate revenue.
Actually, relying on ads has been pretty heavily advocated as a business model on/. It's all part of the "everyone except me" theory of economics.
I.e.: - Give away your content and make money selling ads. Sure I know how to filter them out, but the average Joe doesn't know the difference between a browser and an operating system.
- Give away your software but not the easy install program. Sure I know how to configure and install it, but the average Joe can barely turn on his computer.
- etc.
Oh wait, you mean you can automate it? We got suckered...
Keyword being "infamous". And look at the title of the article: "New Wireless Security Standard Has Old Problem?" In other words, this ain't exactly front page news.
The word "fruit" dates from the 12th century. For some reason, scientists think they can take a word that has been in usage for hundreds of years and then redefine it for their own insidious purposes.
There is no room for a cheap commercial competitor to MS Office. People who don't want to pay for MS are going to use the free alternative, not StarOffice, not AgilityOffice, etc.
Linus also refutes the old OSS business case from 1999 (give away your software to sell your custom hardware), so that's not really going to help out with corporate support and the device driver situation he was complaining about: The bad news is, small companies go out of business and can't make hardware. It's just not economically viable any more.
I was also quite shocked to learn that Linus doesn't know what quantum computing is!
This is/. I thought posting a pro-guns article was considered trolling.:-)
Anyway, guns are weapons. The classification is not inaccurate. As far as I know, Symantec is trying to cater to the needs of their customers, not make a political statement. They'll have an "evolution" category soon.
Modern encryption mehtods are pretty amazing, but they didn't just pop out of nowhere.
To tell you the truth, I don't find modern encryption methods all that amazing. RSA is elegant in its simplicity but ciphers like DES and AES are just bit bashing.
It's true that modern encryption methods developed over hundreds of years, but I credit that more to the lack of computers than anything. Decryption by hand is a pretty tedious process, so they had to keep the algorithms simple.
That was a joke semi-based in seriousness. Assuming you have the ability to exchange pads with someone, why not use a OTP? They aren't that hard at all to implement.
Because 90% of what I use my computer for isn't sending data "to" a person. The most important things I want to encrypt are things like SSL/SSH/IPsec sessions. Sure, I could encrypt my e-mail with a OTP, but it would be a big hassle. Besides my coworkers, I mainly e-mail people in other cities. So it would be difficult to securely exchange the OTP (and a huge waste of HD space).
Yeah but encryption will catch up just as fast. You can break codes from WW2 now with what? A 486DX and 15 seconds of CPU time? It's all relative. Besides, we should all be using OTPs anyway;)
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing... keyword here being "little". Allow me to correct a few points:
1. No, encryption won't catch up just as fast. Currently, encryption enjoys a Big-Oh advantage over brute force cracking. Encryption is O(1) and cracking is O(n). [n is keyspace, not key bits]. If quantum computers take away that advantage, encryptions will not "catch up just as fast".
2. No, you can't break codes from WW2 with 15 seconds of CPU time on a 486. Enigma was broken in WW2 due to a weakness in the cipher. The later Enigma machines had 67 key bits. That's a fair bit more than DES. No way could you crack that (by brute force) on a 486.
3. "Besides, we should all be using OTPs anyway." Not sure if this is ignorance or a weak attempt at a joke.
By your own definitions, if somebody pays me to produce something for them, that is capitalism.
I notice you skipped over the part of my last post where I explained what capitalism is. You seem to have misunderstood it. It's not the mere presence of money or the fact that you are paid for a service; it's the law of supply and demand. Anyway, in this case... close enough. It really matters not whether that thing is information which is GPL-free or public domain or under some restrictive license.
The GPL is anti-capitalist partly because it discourages this type of thing. That's not to say that it's inconceivable. As I said, capitalism is about mediating supply and demand. You've created a situation where both supply and demand exist, but there is no good way to match them. Aha.. so this was your whole point all along. "OSS is bad for our (mostly) capitalist economy."
No... my point all along was that the GPL is not capitalist. It is true that I also believe that it is bad for the economy. (BTW, I believe that pure laissez-faire capitalism is bad for the economy and the world as well.) If OSS eventually shrinks the software industry, companies will have more money to spend on non-software expenditures.
Unlikely. What is more likely is that it will cut costs for everyone equally, so prices will go down. On the other hand, a more likely scenario is that less wheel-reinventing will result in more people actually innovating -- which will drive new software needs and thereby more need for development and consulting labor.
Which will mostly be done for free as well. Or we will revert to a socialist society where most of the innovation is done in universities.
You know, in our society there are skilled labourers and unskilled labourers, and the first category generally gets paid twice as much as the second. You don't get to be in the first category if you give up all your leverage. For some reason you don't care if programming turns into sweatshop labour. Most other trades have professional organizations that regulate what their members do.
ofcourse the recording/film industries candy is protected under copyright and youre not allowed to make your own candy that tastes anything like theirs otherwise youre liable for copyright violation. Meanwhile a reimplementation of opensource software is highly unlikely to come under such an attack as long as the code is clearly from a different candy factory...
See that's exactly why I think analogies are dumb. Because people fixate on them and post relies that try to extend them in ridiculous ways. My analogy was only a parody of his analogy and yet your analogy actually tries to take it seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
I take exception to that comment. I am a regular Slashdot reader, and I am perfectly aware that the world isn't black and white. For example, there's a nasty green bar just above the box where I'm typing this, and some grey buttons underneath it.
You mean you're not using Lynx?
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It seems shortsighted to dismiss the service this company provides just because the camera can be hacked. Hackable==bad business model, end of story? The world isn't black and white like that.
The world isn't black and white? Someone ought to let
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Since it's closed source, you are FUCKED if there is no drivers
You know what... I think I'd be fucked anyway. You think I'm going to be able to write a device driver for Linux? Ummm maybe. I've never tried. But I'm pretty sure it would take longer and cost more than going to the store and buying a different sound/video card that does work out of the box.
My dad (a technophobe) spent weeks trying to get an old Brother printer to work with Windows XP... hacking the registry, e-mailing tech support, paying a consultant, installing and reinstalling. I even got roped in via VNC. The thing is, my dad makes good money. He would have been much better off just buying a new printer (which he eventually did anyway).
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I disagree. I'm not saying it's *correct* or anything, but the ideas behind free software are incomprehensible to non-programmers, and are therefore easily lumped together with piracy.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I have seen free software being compared to Communism, but I have never heard of it being equated with piracy.
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Thats a bad analogy.
All analogies are bad analogies unless you have a good audience.
80% of the analogies you read on
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Well said.
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From what I remember (and I don't remember all the details), the man-in-the-middle attack can be ruled out, because Bob and Alice can compare polarization patterns over an independent channel without actually sending the data. If Bob's received polarization doesn't match what Alice sent, then the stream isn't authentic.
Sure they can, but doesn't that defeat the whole point? "We're going to sell you this ultra-high-tech device that gives you a 'quantumly secure' channel and all you have do is maintain a different secure channel to verify that this one hasn't been tampered with!"
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If the pair of boxes has to be in the same building, that isn't going to be a big seller. Bob would just walk down and HAND Alice the data.
Nice PR stunt, though.
It's worse than that... it's complete FUD even if the boxes are in different buildings.
- This only works for individual point-to-point links, where the burden of managing pre-shared keys is not that high.
- Quantum cryptography replaces Diffie-Hellman, but it doesn't replace authentication. So you still have to have a pre-shared key or else the attacker can just splice the fiber and do a man-in-the-middle attack.
- They're using this ultra-secure technology for key exchange, but then they still send the rest of the data using AES or 3DES. If someone invents a quantum computer powerful enough to crack 2048 bit DH, they could use it to crack AES instead.
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Criminals & Terrorists? If only we were so lucky! Heh... I imagine that this technology requires dedicated fiber, so you can only communicate from point A to point B. Remember that we were trying to track Osama Bin Laden by his cell phone. If he had to go to a specific, fixed location every time he wanted to make a phone call, we'd have got him by now.
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I thought that it was figured out a long time ago that relying on ads was a stupid way to generate revenue.
Actually, relying on ads has been pretty heavily advocated as a business model on
I.e.:
- Give away your content and make money selling ads. Sure I know how to filter them out, but the average Joe doesn't know the difference between a browser and an operating system.
- Give away your software but not the easy install program. Sure I know how to configure and install it, but the average Joe can barely turn on his computer.
- etc.
Oh wait, you mean you can automate it? We got suckered...
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Or, of course, the infamous "password."
Keyword being "infamous". And look at the title of the article: "New Wireless Security Standard Has Old Problem?" In other words, this ain't exactly front page news.
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He laughed and said, "Yeah, but who would think that the administrator account wouldn't have a password?"
Maybe it sets off alarm bells if you type it in wrong the first time...
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Information wants to be free, etc.
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The word "fruit" dates from the 12th century. For some reason, scientists think they can take a word that has been in usage for hundreds of years and then redefine it for their own insidious purposes.
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There is no room for a cheap commercial competitor to MS Office. People who don't want to pay for MS are going to use the free alternative, not StarOffice, not AgilityOffice, etc.
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Linus also refutes the old OSS business case from 1999 (give away your software to sell your custom hardware), so that's not really going to help out with corporate support and the device driver situation he was complaining about:
The bad news is, small companies go out of business and can't make hardware. It's just not economically viable any more.
I was also quite shocked to learn that Linus doesn't know what quantum computing is!
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This is /. I thought posting a pro-guns article was considered trolling. :-)
Anyway, guns are weapons. The classification is not inaccurate. As far as I know, Symantec is trying to cater to the needs of their customers, not make a political statement. They'll have an "evolution" category soon.
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Releasing 5 of your songs as free mp3s in order to get some publicity is probably smart. Releasing all your songs for free forever is probably dumb.
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Modern encryption mehtods are pretty amazing, but they didn't just pop out of nowhere.
To tell you the truth, I don't find modern encryption methods all that amazing. RSA is elegant in its simplicity but ciphers like DES and AES are just bit bashing.
It's true that modern encryption methods developed over hundreds of years, but I credit that more to the lack of computers than anything. Decryption by hand is a pretty tedious process, so they had to keep the algorithms simple.
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I agree... huh?!?
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That was a joke semi-based in seriousness. Assuming you have the ability to exchange pads with someone, why not use a OTP? They aren't that hard at all to implement.
Because 90% of what I use my computer for isn't sending data "to" a person. The most important things I want to encrypt are things like SSL/SSH/IPsec sessions. Sure, I could encrypt my e-mail with a OTP, but it would be a big hassle. Besides my coworkers, I mainly e-mail people in other cities. So it would be difficult to securely exchange the OTP (and a huge waste of HD space).
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Sorry Uncle Rage, The ironing _is_ delicious.
And dinner is snuggly fresh?
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Yeah but encryption will catch up just as fast. You can break codes from WW2 now with what? A 486DX and 15 seconds of CPU time? It's all relative. Besides, we should all be using OTPs anyway
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing... keyword here being "little". Allow me to correct a few points:
1. No, encryption won't catch up just as fast. Currently, encryption enjoys a Big-Oh advantage over brute force cracking. Encryption is O(1) and cracking is O(n). [n is keyspace, not key bits]. If quantum computers take away that advantage, encryptions will not "catch up just as fast".
2. No, you can't break codes from WW2 with 15 seconds of CPU time on a 486. Enigma was broken in WW2 due to a weakness in the cipher. The later Enigma machines had 67 key bits. That's a fair bit more than DES. No way could you crack that (by brute force) on a 486.
3. "Besides, we should all be using OTPs anyway." Not sure if this is ignorance or a weak attempt at a joke.
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By your own definitions, if somebody pays me to produce something for them, that is capitalism.
I notice you skipped over the part of my last post where I explained what capitalism is. You seem to have misunderstood it. It's not the mere presence of money or the fact that you are paid for a service; it's the law of supply and demand. Anyway, in this case... close enough.
It really matters not whether that thing is information which is GPL-free or public domain or under some restrictive license.
The GPL is anti-capitalist partly because it discourages this type of thing. That's not to say that it's inconceivable. As I said, capitalism is about mediating supply and demand. You've created a situation where both supply and demand exist, but there is no good way to match them.
Aha.. so this was your whole point all along. "OSS is bad for our (mostly) capitalist economy."
No... my point all along was that the GPL is not capitalist. It is true that I also believe that it is bad for the economy. (BTW, I believe that pure laissez-faire capitalism is bad for the economy and the world as well.)
If OSS eventually shrinks the software industry, companies will have more money to spend on non-software expenditures.
Unlikely. What is more likely is that it will cut costs for everyone equally, so prices will go down.
On the other hand, a more likely scenario is that less wheel-reinventing will result in more people actually innovating -- which will drive new software needs and thereby more need for development and consulting labor.
Which will mostly be done for free as well. Or we will revert to a socialist society where most of the innovation is done in universities.
You know, in our society there are skilled labourers and unskilled labourers, and the first category generally gets paid twice as much as the second. You don't get to be in the first category if you give up all your leverage. For some reason you don't care if programming turns into sweatshop labour. Most other trades have professional organizations that regulate what their members do.
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ofcourse the recording/film industries candy is protected under copyright and youre not allowed to make your own candy that tastes anything like theirs otherwise youre liable for copyright violation. Meanwhile a reimplementation of opensource software is highly unlikely to come under such an attack as long as the code is clearly from a different candy factory...
See that's exactly why I think analogies are dumb. Because people fixate on them and post relies that try to extend them in ridiculous ways. My analogy was only a parody of his analogy and yet your analogy actually tries to take it seriously.
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