i attended the symposium, and here is what i learned:
quantum computers are powered by cold fusion reactors.
heh.
seriously, though, i came away believing that practical quantum computers of any appreciable scale will never be a reality, not in any lifetime. too many exponential terms to bury -- like the error terms, the multi-body interferences in large scale (n > 10) systems, the basic cost of building a quantum computer, etc.
this is good news for fans of church's thesis (which says that all models of computation are polynomially equivalent).
josephson (yes, that josephson) was there, but he didn't talk about his crackpot theories on the quantum mechanics of paranormal events. i was disappointed, but it seemed like a lot of people were relieved.
the coolest talk characterized consciousness in terms of the wave function of the universe projected in a funny way onto the wave function for a brain.
you have a peculiar -- shall we call it "european"? -- notion that security and privacy are something you get from the government. run that past an american and you're likely to get, at best, a confused look.
facts? you want facts? ok, factman, here's some facts. this is from the economist, may '01:
"According to 1999 figures collected by the European Central Bank, for every 1,000 card holders, only 20 made a virtual cash transaction on any day in Belgium, two in Finland, and just one in Germany."
so, like i said earlier, the e-wallet is a spectacular failure in europe, even in belgium.
Electronic wallets may not be too popular in the states - here in Belgium and the Netherlands electronic wallets do quite well
that is absoulutely not true. for example, in belgium, which is considered to have europe's most successful e-wallet deployment, while everyone has one, only half have ever had value stored on them. and of those, only half have had value re-loaded on them.
the truth of the matter is: e-wallet is a spectacular failure in europe.
it would be more accurate to say "smartcards are hard to copy." paul kocher showed how to infer the contents of a smartcard by watching its power or timing very carefully.
thomson is one of a handful of smartcard vendors, all of whom are beyond hope of a clue. they have been searching for a problem solved by smartcards for 20 years or more.
the electronic wallet has been their obsession but consumers everywhere hate the idea. (i see american express announced just this week that they are giving up on the electronic wallet for their blue card.) the gsm sim, which emerged in the last five years out of nowhere to become the largest smartcard application, completely took them by surprise.
so don't count on thompson or their cohort for much beyond a damn fine press release. they run this sort of thing up the flagpole regularly just to see who will salute.
stegdetect can detect "old" outguess embeddings, but outguess was improved since then, and stegdetect can not detect "new" outguess embeddings. it is not a coincidence that niels provos wrote both programs...
i don't think it's very nice to let the stench of profits make you reverse course after several years of cooperation with the open source community, and then sic your lawyers on the very open source developers cooperating with you.
> Theo is being an asshole
i don't think an asshole would have responded privately to tatu's legal threats saying, basically, "let's work this out privately because going public will make you look like an asshole." which is what theo said.
theo comes out of this looking like a hero, which is basically what he is.
> The guy made an effort NOT to bully an Open Source group.
tatu did exactly that: try to bully the openssh developers. apparently openssh is now so much better than tatu's product that it threatens tatu's profits. so he is trying to make the openssh developers stop what they are doing and respond to the threatening letters his lawyers sent out.
> He didn't send threatening lawyer letters. He asked people to be reasonable.
you are uninformed -- the threatening letters went out a couple weeks ago, before tatu went public instead of trying to find a reasonable accomodation. i'm surprised you don't know this.
> Quite frankly, you're going to lose BADLY in a court of law, because not only is there the possibility of confusion, but there is DOCUMENTED confusion.
the only documented confusion is tatu's -- and the source of the confusion is tatu himself. he apparently now regrets his openness of several years ago, now that the stench of money is in his nose. i don't think tatu has a legal leg to stand on. you can't blind yourself to the use of a trademark (allowing the openssh developers to build reputation for ssh) then reverse course. tatu did the right thing in allowing the open source developers to work on and improve ssh. it is a shame that he has now turned from that course, and chooses another one that is venal and craven.
Any of the following events can destroy trade secret rights:
discovery by independent invention; discovery by "reverse engineering,"...; discovery under a license...; observation of the item in public use or on display; or obtaining the trade secret from published literature.
the last two seem to apply here -- imho, microsoft has lost trade secret status.
personally, i prefer to put my code in the public domain, so that anybody can use it for any thing they like. i don't care if they sell it, i don't even care if they take my name off it. i am always happy when people use my code, and i am not interested in putting handcuffs on them that say how, when, where, or why they use it. i'm a programmer, not a politician.
Slashdot Mirror
that's how science works. you gotta solve all the problems, big and small.
nobody
i attended the symposium, and here is what i learned:
;-)
quantum computers are powered by cold fusion reactors.
heh.
seriously, though, i came away believing that practical quantum computers of any appreciable scale will never be a reality, not in any lifetime. too many exponential terms to bury -- like the error terms, the multi-body interferences in large scale (n > 10) systems, the basic cost of building a quantum computer, etc.
this is good news for fans of church's thesis (which says that all models of computation are polynomially equivalent).
josephson (yes, that josephson) was there, but he didn't talk about his crackpot theories on the quantum mechanics of paranormal events. i was disappointed, but it seemed like a lot of people were relieved.
the coolest talk characterized consciousness in terms of the wave function of the universe projected in a funny way onto the wave function for a brain.
or was it the other way around?
nobody
some are (mondex), some aren't (visacash).
nobody
oh and one more thing.
you have a peculiar -- shall we call it "european"? -- notion that security and privacy are something you get from the government. run that past an american and you're likely to get, at best, a confused look.
nobody
i didn't say it doesn't work. i said no one uses it. and i cited a current issue of the economist to back me up.
so there.
nobody
"According to 1999 figures collected by the European Central Bank, for every 1,000 card holders, only 20 made a virtual cash transaction on any day in Belgium, two in Finland, and just one in Germany."
so, like i said earlier, the e-wallet is a spectacular failure in europe, even in belgium.
nobody
you're pretty naive. smartcard authentication uses challenge/response protocols, not simple passwords.
peter
that is absoulutely not true. for example, in belgium, which is considered to have europe's most successful e-wallet deployment, while everyone has one, only half have ever had value stored on them. and of those, only half have had value re-loaded on them.
the truth of the matter is: e-wallet is a spectacular failure in europe.
nobody
it would be more accurate to say "smartcards are hard to copy." paul kocher showed how to infer the contents of a smartcard by watching its power or timing very carefully.
nobody
nobody
the electronic wallet has been their obsession but consumers everywhere hate the idea. (i see american express announced just this week that they are giving up on the electronic wallet for their blue card.) the gsm sim, which emerged in the last five years out of nowhere to become the largest smartcard application, completely took them by surprise.
so don't count on thompson or their cohort for much beyond a damn fine press release. they run this sort of thing up the flagpole regularly just to see who will salute.
nobody
it seems to me that google is doing the minimum possible to make sure that they have the right to publish your post. what's wrong with that?
nobody
wouldn't you say that interpreted rights and default rights and rights that are not spelled out are somewhat different from inalienable rights?
i think so, anyway.
peter
um ... you do? i don't see that in my copy of the constitution ...
nobody
nobody
i used to feel the same way ... then i tried opera. i'll never go back. and it's nice not feeling like i'm covered with scum every day.
nobody
stegdetect can detect "old" outguess embeddings, but outguess was improved since then, and stegdetect can not detect "new" outguess embeddings. it is not a coincidence that niels provos wrote both programs ...
nobody
i don't think it's very nice to let the stench of profits make you reverse course after several years of cooperation with the open source community, and then sic your lawyers on the very open source developers cooperating with you.
> Theo is being an asshole
i don't think an asshole would have responded privately to tatu's legal threats saying, basically, "let's work this out privately because going public will make you look like an asshole." which is what theo said.
theo comes out of this looking like a hero, which is basically what he is.
nobody
tatu did exactly that: try to bully the openssh developers. apparently openssh is now so much better than tatu's product that it threatens tatu's profits. so he is trying to make the openssh developers stop what they are doing and respond to the threatening letters his lawyers sent out.
> He didn't send threatening lawyer letters. He asked people to be reasonable.
you are uninformed -- the threatening letters went out a couple weeks ago, before tatu went public instead of trying to find a reasonable accomodation. i'm surprised you don't know this.
> Quite frankly, you're going to lose BADLY in a court of law, because not only is there the possibility of confusion, but there is DOCUMENTED confusion.
the only documented confusion is tatu's -- and the source of the confusion is tatu himself. he apparently now regrets his openness of several years ago, now that the stench of money is in his nose. i don't think tatu has a legal leg to stand on. you can't blind yourself to the use of a trademark (allowing the openssh developers to build reputation for ssh) then reverse course. tatu did the right thing in allowing the open source developers to work on and improve ssh. it is a shame that he has now turned from that course, and chooses another one that is venal and craven.
nobody
property is theft.
nobody
Michael S. Mahoney is a computer historian at Princeton University. http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/computing.html -- nobody
i went to the link and found this:
...; ...;
Any of the following events can destroy trade secret rights:
discovery by independent invention;
discovery by "reverse engineering,"
discovery under a license
observation of the item in public use or on display; or
obtaining the trade secret from published literature.
the last two seem to apply here -- imho, microsoft has lost trade secret status.
-- nobody@incogni.to
personally, i prefer to put my code in the public domain, so that anybody can use it for any thing they like. i don't care if they sell it, i don't even care if they take my name off it. i am always happy when people use my code, and i am not interested in putting handcuffs on them that say how, when, where, or why they use it. i'm a programmer, not a politician.
who dislikes seti enuf to commit this kind of fraud?
incognito
you were warned not to think about things like that!
nobody