Okay, here is the deal. Been running linux since like what? Slackware betas? And since then till now, I've yet to take one standard distro and have it work with the softwares out there easily, smoothly, and as responsively as I could on say Windows or MacOSX.
It isn't because of Linux. It is because different teams started and decided that they wanted their version of graphical libraries to be the best and people built their GUI's atop of those libraries. Be it GTK or QT or X11 or whatever.
Then you have all of the interprocess communication going on different protocols and the cross-compatibility goes to hell.
Sure, now Gnome and KDE are gravitating towards a common interface, but GNOME is still too slow and KDE is too bogged down with endless menus to control the WM environment.
Add to this the fact that upgrading the libraries includes a risk that my existing apps may not work without a recompile/reinstall and that my WM's may suddnely not work right again.
Add to that the fact that the process could take anywhere from a few minutes(good case) to half a day or more if interdependancies crop up.
I wanted a laptop I could depend on while on the road and away from my server and my other backup computers. This is something I'm going to take on the road with me, keep in my backpack, or take on a plane.
If something doesn't work, I can't afford to spend half a day reconfiguring or rebuilding the system or worse yet, have to recompile the kernel and face a non-booting system.
I don't want to support MS. I also don't want a high maintenance operating system which would kill my usable work time. (Time spent "tweaking" and "fixing" my laptop/computer is not considered usable work time.) So I went with MacOSX. It IS Unix under the pretty interface. The applications WORK with one another.
I've owned mine for a year now and have no complaints about it save the DVD/iDVD issue with iBooks and other non-internal-superdrive systems.
I've compiled the GNU toolset on the system and have just about all the utilities I had on my Linux boxes. I even have an X11 setup and run Enlightenment as a WM.
The fact is this: You use the right tool for the job.
Linux is great for servers. To argue this point would be a waste of time.
Linux is not ready for prime time on the laptop/desktop. It is still too fragmented as far as interoperability of apps and there are too many graphical library dependancies that too many WM's depend on.
When I go to conventions, I can work with my digital photography work on the spot. I can instantly switch my location profile to match the wireless provider in the exhibition halls/hotel/etc. I plug in a printer and it works.
with MacOSX, I get work done. With Linux, my work IS the OS. And I just don't trust Window's security for desktop or server usage.
Do I feel guilty? No. I get work done now. Do I still use Linux? Yes. Where it makes sense to: the home file server/email server/firewall system.
Linux needs a desktop. Not necessarily a unified one, but at the very least, a common standard for which all other desktops can work together with. So Apps aren't failing to run because GTK+ isn't installed or that Glib-2.x isn't installed(in the right place), or that the program failed, core dumped, and needs to be recompiled with the latest version of another library set which I can't install because another program would break if I changed it. And if I put it in a different location, then the dependancy checking system fails.
*sigh* Long Rant? Yes. But after a decade of Linux at home, at school, and at work... I've decided that if I'm spending all of my time "making the OS work", then the OS isn't working for that task.
The problem is that this was a free trial and that the student was forced to submit or fail the class. A class which was NOT a free trial for the student.
Once the "free trial" is over, what are the costs then?
The responsibility is on the faculty to screen. If they choose to use a service, then so be it. The difference is that when the student has to do it, they are basically being openly treated as a criminal.
The turnitin site isn't a "online assignment repository", but a single minded service of finding cheaters. Period.
When you drive down the street and see cops patting down or searching someone on the side of the road, what is your initial impression about what is going on? What is your impression of the person being searched?
Now think about what people think of students who NEED to submit their works to be screened.
What would your initial impression of that student be and would you want to hire that student for your project or your business? Even if they come out "clean" in the end, there is still a stigma attached.
I would personally find it offensive and would be a serious determining factor of whether a school was worth going to or not.
Our airports are already like prisons, now our schools will be as well. What a great time we live in.
Students are subject to peer pressure. Everyone is subject to it. But if your classmate cheats, that doesn't mean that you will too. Granted, where one's view differs on this is dependant on one's belief/trust/faith in other humans.
I have nothing against the service itself. I have nothing against schools using it as a screening method to flag potentially problematic papers.
I have a problem with the institution making the students be the ones to submit their works to have it validated.
What does that teach a student? That they are not trusted. That their teachers have no faith in their character.
While this might catch a few cheaters, it stands a high chance of souring good students to do good work.
If a good student gets flagged, is that added to their record as a "risk factor"? How will that impact their academic and professional career?
Will there come a point where the service is trusted outright and positives aren't checked and students are penalized and/or expelled by default?
I agree, there is no easy solution which doesn't have a cost. Stuffing 100 students into a classroom is just wrong from a teaching standpoint. But so is subjecting students to a "academic cavity search".
I attended a state university and so know what you mean about 100 student classrooms. I currently attend a private university and pay quite a bit more. But there are only 15-20 students in the class and the learning quality is much much higher.
We depend so much on "services" that the higher ups think that "bodies" and "resources" like schools, classrooms, teachers, and books are expendable. That is WRONG.
I'm sorry to hear that you are burdened with so many students. However, burdening students' conscience with these screening services is the quick fix which will lead to a death spiral of educational quality.
It makes me sick to know that my children will have to go through this.
If the intent is to protect against cheaters, then the teachers should submit the papers to the service for verification. The student should not have to be the one who is being required to turn in their papers to a service.
It is a matter of being treated like a criminal first.
The other problem would be false positives when people write with similar styles in two different parts of the nation/world. Given enough "samples" in their filter, the accuracey drops because you now have a much higher likelihood of turning up a match.
I Agree that plagiarizing work is wrong. But I do not agree that everyone should be treated like a cheater just because some in the student body are.
If the teacher is truly concerned about cheating and plaigerism, then the teacher/official should be the one paying the service and submitting the works to the 3rd party business, not the student.
The student's obligation is to do the work of the assignment and turn it in. Grading and detection of falsehoods/duplicity/cheating/etc are the responsibilities of the teachers, not the students.
What's next? Submit your work to a business which does the grading?
My site gets hit by turnitin and at first, I was amused. But if a teacher is forcing a student to go through this process, then that teacher is basically saying that their students are not trustworthy and is an assumption of guilt by default.
Shame on the teacher for requiring that of their student and attempting to fail the student. Shame on the school for letting it happen.
I'll be the first to admit I was hoping for a $100-$150 mini ipod. However, consider the following:
Samller form factor... just bigger than a stack of business cards.
Metal body... no more scratched up "crystal" surfaces.
4GB of storage with FW/USB2 access. A 2GB microdrive costs between $150-$200. A 4GB micro drive costs $300+
Similar processor function to large iPod
Similar controls to large iPod
I own a laptop. I paid about 3-5 times the price of an equivelent desktop for it. But at the time, it was a good price and the price difference continues to this day with laptops. Size counts for something to certain people. Period.
I've been looking for a replacement to my Usb Flash device for holding files and data. Something small. Guess what? iPod minis are what some are looing for. Execs who want their presentations in hand, literally. Artists and other folk who need to move files from place to place who don't want to carry several chips with them can carry this one.
The fact that it has some game/program functionality, music playback, and is FW/USB2.0 accessible are definitely cool. If it uses a microdrive inside, then when an 8GB or greater micro drive appears, what's to stop me from swapping drives?:)
For sure, 4GB seems small. But then again, compared to the competition, it is a good deal.
I for one would buy it since it will be light, easy to cary, and provide me with music, portable storage, and will work with my PC, MAC, and Linux systems at home.
Btw, I don't own an iPod. But with the mini, I might just get one.
From some of the posts online, you'd think some people have no idea how the law works and/or how a Tivo works.
Tivos) The images for series1 and series 2 tivos are essentially the same, allowing for differences in the hardware. The capabilities each Tivo has is dependant on what they are "allowed" for. Ie, home media option and such is enabled when the Tivo connects to the server and determines that it should be enabled.
Along that note, the things which a downloader of a Tivo image would be potentially "stealing":
Tivo's copyrighted and protected source code to their custom application.
Tivo's copyrighted and protected filesystem code.
Tivo's copyrighted and protected images/works/video clips for the menu systems, and sound effects.
The copyrighted video streams which are buffered on the hard drives, if the downloadable image contains such items.
The potential bypassing of the access enablers for their home media option services and/or their lifetime membership flags. But these are stored on Tivo's servers and would be cleared on the next download.
The GPL states that if you modify the kernel itself and distribute it, you will need to distribute the modified source code as well. Tivo HAS done this. They have placed the GPL related portions along with their own direct modifications to the kernel for download on their web site.
Kernel modules and other object linked source code is still being hotly debated, for better or for worse. The stance most companies take is to distribute binary modules.
The application which runs on top of Linux, however, is NOT gpl'd. Nor are all of the other control mechanisms which Tivo has written. Nor are the images and other creative works put into the Tivo system.
By offering an image of the drive for download, that Tivo user is offering both GPL'd(which is ok) and Copyrighted(which is not okay) works. And since just backing up the GPL portions of the Tivo system will not restore the system, the image that user is offering is in violation of Copyright laws and Tivo has the right to and needs to tell them to stop.
Just because you use a GPL base for an OS does NOT make your application GPL as well. Graphical libraries are another matter and hence the LGPL, the BSD license, and a few others.
People need to understand that it isn't about being against GPL. It is about protected the portion which ISN'T GPL. And people aren't seeing that distinction when they should.
I've been a user of a Series2 Tivo for 2 years now and love it. One of the first appliances I bought when I moved into my current place. I upgraded mine and have had no problems with it. Though I'm thinking I'll be doing some routine maintenance myself to make sure the drives are okay, but otherwise, I have no complaints about image quality or any other problem with the system. (Except maybe the USB1.1 port which limits me to 11mbps when I really want 100mbps...:)
Tivo has been a great company and has always been courteous when I had problems or questions of them. They see something wrong happening and they are doing what needs to be done to rectify the problem.
They should not be dinged when they try to protect something legitimately, unlike another company which comes to mind.
The typical workaround to that of the risk of a central server failure would be a NAS box where the box has redundant "heads" and redundant pathing through 2 switches.
That way, if the server dies, the 2nd takes its place immediately. If maintenance needs to be done, you do it on one before the other. If a switch is lost, you have the other path, etc.
If you're working on a production site where your customer's time means your money, you will have a robust setup. A single server with a single path is just asking for it.
I've worked at a unviversity with a setup like that. The ONLY justification they had was that of cost. When a server went down, so did the labs that depended on that server. It was pretty bad.
This whole thing has pissed me off to Belkin. I'm happy to say that my network is Belkin free.
Went to frys with some cash. Left with a Linksys wifi router. Very happy with it and no "misdirected" packets or inane advertisements.
The fact that they are correcting their mistake, after hundreds of unhappy emails noting that they will never buy their products again, is a good start for them.
But as far as I'm concerned, I'll never buy from them again. They have broken the link of trust. It isn't a matter of it being potentially annoying or that it is "just an ad" as some have put it. It is the fact that they have done it to begin with. Without regard for the quality of traffic of the people who are buying and using these devices. Or perhaps more accurately, with a weighed regard for their chance for profits vs the consumer's rights.
I own netgear switches and build my own secured wired and wireless networks. I need something I can trust to work with everything else in a predictable way. Them having done this once opens the door for them to do it again "once the complaining has died down". I can't depend on that and so I go with another vender.
In this case, I got a Linksys router.
Consumers who are not technically oriented have enough issues dealing with their ISPs and the telco providers. Having their routers screw with them just makes things that much worse, imho.
In all likelihood, they'de be causing some serious headaches and countless hours of lost productivity as people are wondering why their application now isn't working.
I can only wonder what happens to the programs that are tunnelling through HTTP ports to create VPN's.
This is enough. First the crappy card reader, which I got a nice email saying that it is meant to only hold "a few" pics. BS. If I wanted to hold "a few" pics, I'll spend my money on a cheap replacement memory chip and USB reader for a fraction of that price. $99 for "a few" pics? What? Want me to bend over now or later? Sheesh!
Now this BS. Have they been under a rock for the past year? People want less ad-crap and more secure boxes, not a box that is insecured as a function of marketing! What's the point of making some sales buy losing the market because now people can't trust your compromised routers' firmwares? Now that you've made it work with one, what's to prevent it from happening to other ports? To my credit card numers? My secure certificates? My domain renewals? etc?
By introducing BS like this into your firmware, you've basically pissed on your own product's credibility. Why would any else respecting person buy your product if you knowingly built a means to hijack web connections?
As far as I'm concerned I will NEVER buy another Belkin product and will recommend non-belkin solutions as well as urge friends and associates to use non-belkin solutions/hardware.
If I wanted to get hacked, I'll drop my firewall. I don't need to drop a few hundred dollars on a router that'll do who knows what to my network.
Belkin, get your ASS in gear and figure out how to get your head out of it.
Honestly, I hope whoever is behind these braindead ideas gets the axe. But I hope more that the company that sponsored the idea gets reamed.
don't get me wrong, I love tech, but what prevents someone from DDOS's our soldiers?
This network performs intel in both directions. What prevents the soldiers from either having their signal blocked or worse, having their communication systems overwhelmed by data flooding and/or debilitating noise from their headsets?
[joke]Or worse yet... be distracted by streaming music and live porn video feeds..[/joke]
As big a supported as I am of non-MS systems, I have to say that I'm getting "bounces" for email addresses to my domain that no longer exist and have never used windows. The problem being that the virus uses peoples' address books to find new targets. Because of this, even if you aren't infected, you get affected.
I have emails from around the world telling me that "my email" failed to arrive because it was a virus and the bounce contains the freaking virus itself!
Admins should be setting their systems to prevent bouncing for the time being to starve the worm to death or at least remove the virus from the bounce!
How exactly does this give the user any more protection than what a well policied and well equiped site doesn't already have?
DRM doesn't prevent, as the article would suggest, source code and document leaks. That is a human factor, not a software factor.
What prevents someone from copy-paste-email? Or from save-as-unprotected? Or from just printing it out and scanning it back in?
DRM doesn't protect the documents anymore than zipping the file up with a hard to guess password. Except in this case, you need permission from a central server to open your file.
What this DOES do is keep competing products from being compatible with MS's product. It does introduce the idea that: "Hmm.. I'm using OpenOffice and my customers and clients might be using MS's DRM... how oh how will we communicate, would we need to abandon OO and go with MS's software?"
It introduces fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It is FUD in product form. And it is another attempt to reinforce, or rather, shore up the walls of their monopolistic fortress.
What's that? You need a Win2003 server and a DRM server to handle those files? What if the server crashes? Does that mean that your entire business is now stuck and no work can get done?
Tell me why it is again that this feature is a benefit to the end user? Oh wait.. it isn't.
Clue to MS: Don't know where you get your customer panel from, but it needs some work.
It is arguable that being in a "business mode" is what will cause compatibility problems and reinforce the monopoly. Business mode is thinking that you need whatever it is that is compatible with everyone else. Since business mode implies that you "think smart" and try to antiipate what technologies will be used, you go with what's new and what looks good, from a business point of view.
In the current climate of security sensitivity, not necessarily security awareness, business minded folk are going for what will "protect their IP".
The herd will lumber towards "DRM" as a means of "potecting themselves" and get landlocked. Or in this case, locked in one application.
This isn't new. MS has done this before with Word by repeatedly changing the format of the documents to make it as incompatible with other word processors as possible.
It looks like they are going to try it again, just under a different guise, with a different business case.
For those who are completely ignorant of computer security and never update their systems, they are akin to someone buying a power tool, not knowing how to use it, then trying to sue when they lop off a body part. You don't blame the manufacturer for those problems, you chalk it up to natural selection.
For those who are a bit more knowledgable, there is the issue of trust. After having used Microsoft's products for roughly 2 decades(since msdos), I feel I can't trust them to do something right anymore.
I know of people who got burned by the auto-update feature and their system was rendered unusable until they either restored or went into safemode to undo whatever "fix" was applied. Granted this is better than the "good old days" when a patch might require a clean re-install. Lots of good weekends gone to waste because of MS's "fixes".
Just this past week, I installed a update and suddenly, I couldn't make backups of my system because Autoupdate dinked with the drive access dll's. Thankfully, this only required the re-installation of the backup software to restore the DLLs to a working condition, but at what cost to the other parts of the system?
I have auto-update's download feature enabled, but I review the updates before installing them. I didn't get hit by the worm since I patched my system almost immediately after the fix came out.
The problem can't be completely attributed to users or to the producer of the software. But when the design of the software is so buggy that after literally tens of thousands of fixes, it is still riddled with security holes, you have to wonder if they are truly serious about security and about delivering a quality product to the end-user or if they are trying to do just enough.
It is understandable that MS is saying that they are doing the best that they can. That is all well and fine. But there is such a thing as their best not being good enough. Especially when there is so much slack to be made up for.
There is also the issue of this "got to be secure" attitude is recent. If it hadn't been for Linux arising quickly in the server and business markets both domestically and globally and if it hadn't been for the recent DOD government contract renewal, do you think MS would be so hot to trot to respond to problems like this?
Having watched and used MS's products for as long as I have, my personal opinion is that they've got a long way to go still and they aren't breaking even.
One of the interesting aspects of MD5 hashes was that they were an improvement over CRC hashes. This was due to the fact that you could actually generate a file which had the same CRC hash, but had completely different content.
Wonder if there is a utility for generating files with random content, but with the same hashes as another file?
Perhaps a reverse md5 hash generator which takes a hash and generates a file.
Hmm... it seems that SCO is in dire need of a checkup from the neck up.
Personally, I would be concerned about a company like SCO which thinks that just because they made a product they thought was good and that the market gave up on, that they deserve something. In this case, they think they deserve alot.
I think people should call in and ask just what it is that SCO is offering and/or has offered or contributed which makes them deserving of any money.
I think people should call, nicely, and ask what IP they think they own.
I think people should call, once again nicely, and ask why they would want to FORCE people to infringe on their rights.
I would urge people to call SCO and maybe.. just maybe... SOMEONE will get to talk to someone there who knows what is going on.
What can be seen:
Someone asks for information and is directed to the "website".
The website doesn't contain any information.
The company is selling licenses to a product which they do not own, only contend that they own some piece of code which that product uses. 99% of the rest of that product was produced by someone else.
Any rational company would have brought up the issue in a forum and asked that people remove the code which is violating their IP.
Instead, they have launched a lawsuit and announced that they own IP and people owes them money.
Very quickly, SCO is becoming a household word. A four letter word.
When Unisys went on a "pay us" tour, I seem to remember the OS community producing the following:
Ungif libraries
Rapidly improving PNG and PNG support
Likewise, when SCO finally pulls whatever "files" and/or "code" which is in violation, the OS community will remove the offending code and replace it with clean code which doesn't "violate" any of SCO's "rights" and people will get on with life and let SCO wither.
This is probably the ONLY reason SCO hasn't shone the code as they know that once shown and proven one way or another, the codebase will change to be legally correct and that's not what they want because they doesn't give them a leg to stand on.
In that particular view, they are, in a sense, impeding justice and preventing what they view to be offenders from "fixing their mistakes" as that would pull the soapbox right out from under them.
$699 for a single cpu license and the price just keeps going up from there?
WTF!?
If I was a business using Linux and I got one an "offer" like that, my initial gut response would be to tell them to suck a fat one.
My second response would be to ask them what they were smoking and when they were thinking of packaging the goods for sale.
What are they thinking?
And what do they consider to be their "IP"?
SCO is screaming and hollering from a very very shakey ledge and when their message is finally heard, what will happen is that everything "SCO" will be removed from future distributions in the next "revision" and SCO will be left to suck hard vacuum. Hopefully from the same orafice they continually insist on "resting" their collective head in.
More ranting deleted to save space
Seriously, this is the make-it-or-break-it moment for SCO and I for one hope they get ground into dust and turned into one of those somewhat tasteful sculptures sold at old junk shops.
Why the fsck would I want a patch from MS for my secure and stable Linux box!?
Seems more like them trying to figure out how to make use of Linux/Opensource to figure out a way to break it or to take code from it to bolster their own system.
I have NEVER seen MS doing anything in the market or with technology which doesn't end up hurting the consumer, the group they are "getting to know", and/or their own PR.
If MS puts out a Linux product, I would NEVER use it.
I look at their security track record, their stability track record, and their support track record and I wonder why ANYONE continues to buy or use their "products".
But then again, that's just me and I've done my fair share of "growing up with MS" since MS DOS 3.01 through XP Pro. And quite frankly, I think I learned alot more from my life experiences than MS ever will.
I'd almost bet that down the road, MS will pull a SCO.
However, in the case of spammers, I really don't think there really is a limit to what is "just".
Some suggestions:
Use tranquilizers. You don't want to damage any sensitive nerve bundles.
I would recommend either bamboo slits or rusty nails underneath their finger and toe nails.
Keep everything disinfected. Rotting flesh is dead, unfeeling, flesh.
I get, when I take into account the amount of email per box, something like 2000 emails a day after all is said and done. It doesn't come out to $1 per spam, but I find myself constantly having to deal with it throughout the day.
I'm reminded of this one tommy gun scene where the guy firing loads of lead comments: Keep the change, you dirty rat.
I'm not quite sure how to reply, so I'll start by apologizing.
You have my apologies for my making any flawed assumptions about you and for not focusing on the topic itself. I apologize for letting my emotions lead my thinking in my responses.
Yes, the topic is about people peddling kiddie porn.
I'll be glad when all purveyers and creators of kiddie porn are behind bars.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, here is the deal. Been running linux since like what? Slackware betas? And since then till now, I've yet to take one standard distro and have it work with the softwares out there easily, smoothly, and as responsively as I could on say Windows or MacOSX.
It isn't because of Linux. It is because different teams started and decided that they wanted their version of graphical libraries to be the best and people built their GUI's atop of those libraries. Be it GTK or QT or X11 or whatever.
Then you have all of the interprocess communication going on different protocols and the cross-compatibility goes to hell.
Sure, now Gnome and KDE are gravitating towards a common interface, but GNOME is still too slow and KDE is too bogged down with endless menus to control the WM environment.
Add to this the fact that upgrading the libraries includes a risk that my existing apps may not work without a recompile/reinstall and that my WM's may suddnely not work right again.
Add to that the fact that the process could take anywhere from a few minutes(good case) to half a day or more if interdependancies crop up.
I wanted a laptop I could depend on while on the road and away from my server and my other backup computers. This is something I'm going to take on the road with me, keep in my backpack, or take on a plane.
If something doesn't work, I can't afford to spend half a day reconfiguring or rebuilding the system or worse yet, have to recompile the kernel and face a non-booting system.
I don't want to support MS. I also don't want a high maintenance operating system which would kill my usable work time. (Time spent "tweaking" and "fixing" my laptop/computer is not considered usable work time.) So I went with MacOSX. It IS Unix under the pretty interface. The applications WORK with one another.
I've owned mine for a year now and have no complaints about it save the DVD/iDVD issue with iBooks and other non-internal-superdrive systems.
I've compiled the GNU toolset on the system and have just about all the utilities I had on my Linux boxes. I even have an X11 setup and run Enlightenment as a WM.
The fact is this: You use the right tool for the job.
Linux is great for servers. To argue this point would be a waste of time.
Linux is not ready for prime time on the laptop/desktop. It is still too fragmented as far as interoperability of apps and there are too many graphical library dependancies that too many WM's depend on.
When I go to conventions, I can work with my digital photography work on the spot. I can instantly switch my location profile to match the wireless provider in the exhibition halls/hotel/etc. I plug in a printer and it works.
with MacOSX, I get work done. With Linux, my work IS the OS. And I just don't trust Window's security for desktop or server usage.
Do I feel guilty? No. I get work done now. Do I still use Linux? Yes. Where it makes sense to: the home file server/email server/firewall system.
Linux needs a desktop. Not necessarily a unified one, but at the very least, a common standard for which all other desktops can work together with. So Apps aren't failing to run because GTK+ isn't installed or that Glib-2.x isn't installed(in the right place), or that the program failed, core dumped, and needs to be recompiled with the latest version of another library set which I can't install because another program would break if I changed it. And if I put it in a different location, then the dependancy checking system fails.
*sigh* Long Rant? Yes. But after a decade of Linux at home, at school, and at work... I've decided that if I'm spending all of my time "making the OS work", then the OS isn't working for that task.
The problem is that this was a free trial and that the student was forced to submit or fail the class. A class which was NOT a free trial for the student.
Once the "free trial" is over, what are the costs then?
The responsibility is on the faculty to screen. If they choose to use a service, then so be it. The difference is that when the student has to do it, they are basically being openly treated as a criminal.
The turnitin site isn't a "online assignment repository", but a single minded service of finding cheaters. Period.
When you drive down the street and see cops patting down or searching someone on the side of the road, what is your initial impression about what is going on? What is your impression of the person being searched?
Now think about what people think of students who NEED to submit their works to be screened.
What would your initial impression of that student be and would you want to hire that student for your project or your business? Even if they come out "clean" in the end, there is still a stigma attached.
I would personally find it offensive and would be a serious determining factor of whether a school was worth going to or not.
Our airports are already like prisons, now our schools will be as well. What a great time we live in.
Students are subject to peer pressure. Everyone is subject to it. But if your classmate cheats, that doesn't mean that you will too. Granted, where one's view differs on this is dependant on one's belief/trust/faith in other humans.
I have nothing against the service itself. I have nothing against schools using it as a screening method to flag potentially problematic papers.
I have a problem with the institution making the students be the ones to submit their works to have it validated.
What does that teach a student? That they are not trusted. That their teachers have no faith in their character.
While this might catch a few cheaters, it stands a high chance of souring good students to do good work.
If a good student gets flagged, is that added to their record as a "risk factor"? How will that impact their academic and professional career?
Will there come a point where the service is trusted outright and positives aren't checked and students are penalized and/or expelled by default?
I agree, there is no easy solution which doesn't have a cost. Stuffing 100 students into a classroom is just wrong from a teaching standpoint. But so is subjecting students to a "academic cavity search".
I attended a state university and so know what you mean about 100 student classrooms. I currently attend a private university and pay quite a bit more. But there are only 15-20 students in the class and the learning quality is much much higher.
We depend so much on "services" that the higher ups think that "bodies" and "resources" like schools, classrooms, teachers, and books are expendable. That is WRONG.
I'm sorry to hear that you are burdened with so many students. However, burdening students' conscience with these screening services is the quick fix which will lead to a death spiral of educational quality.
It makes me sick to know that my children will have to go through this.
If the intent is to protect against cheaters, then the teachers should submit the papers to the service for verification. The student should not have to be the one who is being required to turn in their papers to a service.
It is a matter of being treated like a criminal first.
The other problem would be false positives when people write with similar styles in two different parts of the nation/world. Given enough "samples" in their filter, the accuracey drops because you now have a much higher likelihood of turning up a match.
I Agree that plagiarizing work is wrong. But I do not agree that everyone should be treated like a cheater just because some in the student body are.
If the teacher is truly concerned about cheating and plaigerism, then the teacher/official should be the one paying the service and submitting the works to the 3rd party business, not the student.
The student's obligation is to do the work of the assignment and turn it in. Grading and detection of falsehoods/duplicity/cheating/etc are the responsibilities of the teachers, not the students.
What's next? Submit your work to a business which does the grading?
My site gets hit by turnitin and at first, I was amused. But if a teacher is forcing a student to go through this process, then that teacher is basically saying that their students are not trustworthy and is an assumption of guilt by default.
Shame on the teacher for requiring that of their student and attempting to fail the student. Shame on the school for letting it happen.
I'll be the first to admit I was hoping for a $100-$150 mini ipod. However, consider the following:
I own a laptop. I paid about 3-5 times the price of an equivelent desktop for it. But at the time, it was a good price and the price difference continues to this day with laptops. Size counts for something to certain people. Period.
I've been looking for a replacement to my Usb Flash device for holding files and data. Something small. Guess what? iPod minis are what some are looing for. Execs who want their presentations in hand, literally. Artists and other folk who need to move files from place to place who don't want to carry several chips with them can carry this one.
The fact that it has some game/program functionality, music playback, and is FW/USB2.0 accessible are definitely cool. If it uses a microdrive inside, then when an 8GB or greater micro drive appears, what's to stop me from swapping drives? :)
For sure, 4GB seems small. But then again, compared to the competition, it is a good deal.
I for one would buy it since it will be light, easy to cary, and provide me with music, portable storage, and will work with my PC, MAC, and Linux systems at home.
Btw, I don't own an iPod. But with the mini, I might just get one.
From some of the posts online, you'd think some people have no idea how the law works and/or how a Tivo works.
Tivos) The images for series1 and series 2 tivos are essentially the same, allowing for differences in the hardware. The capabilities each Tivo has is dependant on what they are "allowed" for. Ie, home media option and such is enabled when the Tivo connects to the server and determines that it should be enabled.
Along that note, the things which a downloader of a Tivo image would be potentially "stealing":
The GPL states that if you modify the kernel itself and distribute it, you will need to distribute the modified source code as well. Tivo HAS done this. They have placed the GPL related portions along with their own direct modifications to the kernel for download on their web site.
Kernel modules and other object linked source code is still being hotly debated, for better or for worse. The stance most companies take is to distribute binary modules.
The application which runs on top of Linux, however, is NOT gpl'd. Nor are all of the other control mechanisms which Tivo has written. Nor are the images and other creative works put into the Tivo system.
By offering an image of the drive for download, that Tivo user is offering both GPL'd(which is ok) and Copyrighted(which is not okay) works. And since just backing up the GPL portions of the Tivo system will not restore the system, the image that user is offering is in violation of Copyright laws and Tivo has the right to and needs to tell them to stop.
Just because you use a GPL base for an OS does NOT make your application GPL as well. Graphical libraries are another matter and hence the LGPL, the BSD license, and a few others.
People need to understand that it isn't about being against GPL. It is about protected the portion which ISN'T GPL. And people aren't seeing that distinction when they should.
I've been a user of a Series2 Tivo for 2 years now and love it. One of the first appliances I bought when I moved into my current place. I upgraded mine and have had no problems with it. Though I'm thinking I'll be doing some routine maintenance myself to make sure the drives are okay, but otherwise, I have no complaints about image quality or any other problem with the system. (Except maybe the USB1.1 port which limits me to 11mbps when I really want 100mbps... :)
Tivo has been a great company and has always been courteous when I had problems or questions of them. They see something wrong happening and they are doing what needs to be done to rectify the problem.
They should not be dinged when they try to protect something legitimately, unlike another company which comes to mind.
...unless that software controls the confinement ring in your homemade fusion reactor....
The typical workaround to that of the risk of a central server failure would be a NAS box where the box has redundant "heads" and redundant pathing through 2 switches.
That way, if the server dies, the 2nd takes its place immediately. If maintenance needs to be done, you do it on one before the other. If a switch is lost, you have the other path, etc.
If you're working on a production site where your customer's time means your money, you will have a robust setup. A single server with a single path is just asking for it.
I've worked at a unviversity with a setup like that. The ONLY justification they had was that of cost. When a server went down, so did the labs that depended on that server. It was pretty bad.
This whole thing has pissed me off to Belkin. I'm happy to say that my network is Belkin free.
Went to frys with some cash. Left with a Linksys wifi router. Very happy with it and no "misdirected" packets or inane advertisements.
The fact that they are correcting their mistake, after hundreds of unhappy emails noting that they will never buy their products again, is a good start for them.
But as far as I'm concerned, I'll never buy from them again. They have broken the link of trust. It isn't a matter of it being potentially annoying or that it is "just an ad" as some have put it. It is the fact that they have done it to begin with. Without regard for the quality of traffic of the people who are buying and using these devices. Or perhaps more accurately, with a weighed regard for their chance for profits vs the consumer's rights.
I own netgear switches and build my own secured wired and wireless networks. I need something I can trust to work with everything else in a predictable way. Them having done this once opens the door for them to do it again "once the complaining has died down". I can't depend on that and so I go with another vender.
In this case, I got a Linksys router.
Consumers who are not technically oriented have enough issues dealing with their ISPs and the telco providers. Having their routers screw with them just makes things that much worse, imho.
*LOL* I think you're underselling yourself. You'd get the book deal, the movie deal, and of course, the musical play...
Damn! Hand't even thought of that.
In all likelihood, they'de be causing some serious headaches and countless hours of lost productivity as people are wondering why their application now isn't working.
I can only wonder what happens to the programs that are tunnelling through HTTP ports to create VPN's.
This is enough. First the crappy card reader, which I got a nice email saying that it is meant to only hold "a few" pics. BS. If I wanted to hold "a few" pics, I'll spend my money on a cheap replacement memory chip and USB reader for a fraction of that price. $99 for "a few" pics? What? Want me to bend over now or later? Sheesh!
Now this BS. Have they been under a rock for the past year? People want less ad-crap and more secure boxes, not a box that is insecured as a function of marketing! What's the point of making some sales buy losing the market because now people can't trust your compromised routers' firmwares? Now that you've made it work with one, what's to prevent it from happening to other ports? To my credit card numers? My secure certificates? My domain renewals? etc?
By introducing BS like this into your firmware, you've basically pissed on your own product's credibility. Why would any else respecting person buy your product if you knowingly built a means to hijack web connections?
As far as I'm concerned I will NEVER buy another Belkin product and will recommend non-belkin solutions as well as urge friends and associates to use non-belkin solutions/hardware.
If I wanted to get hacked, I'll drop my firewall. I don't need to drop a few hundred dollars on a router that'll do who knows what to my network.
Belkin, get your ASS in gear and figure out how to get your head out of it.
Honestly, I hope whoever is behind these braindead ideas gets the axe. But I hope more that the company that sponsored the idea gets reamed.
*shakes head* MORONS!
don't get me wrong, I love tech, but what prevents someone from DDOS's our soldiers?
This network performs intel in both directions. What prevents the soldiers from either having their signal blocked or worse, having their communication systems overwhelmed by data flooding and/or debilitating noise from their headsets?
[joke]Or worse yet... be distracted by streaming music and live porn video feeds..[/joke]
As big a supported as I am of non-MS systems, I have to say that I'm getting "bounces" for email addresses to my domain that no longer exist and have never used windows. The problem being that the virus uses peoples' address books to find new targets. Because of this, even if you aren't infected, you get affected.
I have emails from around the world telling me that "my email" failed to arrive because it was a virus and the bounce contains the freaking virus itself!
Admins should be setting their systems to prevent bouncing for the time being to starve the worm to death or at least remove the virus from the bounce!
How exactly does this give the user any more protection than what a well policied and well equiped site doesn't already have?
DRM doesn't prevent, as the article would suggest, source code and document leaks. That is a human factor, not a software factor.
What prevents someone from copy-paste-email? Or from save-as-unprotected? Or from just printing it out and scanning it back in?
DRM doesn't protect the documents anymore than zipping the file up with a hard to guess password. Except in this case, you need permission from a central server to open your file.
What this DOES do is keep competing products from being compatible with MS's product. It does introduce the idea that: "Hmm.. I'm using OpenOffice and my customers and clients might be using MS's DRM... how oh how will we communicate, would we need to abandon OO and go with MS's software?"
It introduces fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It is FUD in product form. And it is another attempt to reinforce, or rather, shore up the walls of their monopolistic fortress.
What's that? You need a Win2003 server and a DRM server to handle those files? What if the server crashes? Does that mean that your entire business is now stuck and no work can get done?
Tell me why it is again that this feature is a benefit to the end user? Oh wait.. it isn't.
Clue to MS: Don't know where you get your customer panel from, but it needs some work.
It is arguable that being in a "business mode" is what will cause compatibility problems and reinforce the monopoly. Business mode is thinking that you need whatever it is that is compatible with everyone else. Since business mode implies that you "think smart" and try to antiipate what technologies will be used, you go with what's new and what looks good, from a business point of view.
In the current climate of security sensitivity, not necessarily security awareness, business minded folk are going for what will "protect their IP".
The herd will lumber towards "DRM" as a means of "potecting themselves" and get landlocked. Or in this case, locked in one application.
This isn't new. MS has done this before with Word by repeatedly changing the format of the documents to make it as incompatible with other word processors as possible.
It looks like they are going to try it again, just under a different guise, with a different business case.
For those who are completely ignorant of computer security and never update their systems, they are akin to someone buying a power tool, not knowing how to use it, then trying to sue when they lop off a body part. You don't blame the manufacturer for those problems, you chalk it up to natural selection.
For those who are a bit more knowledgable, there is the issue of trust. After having used Microsoft's products for roughly 2 decades(since msdos), I feel I can't trust them to do something right anymore.
I know of people who got burned by the auto-update feature and their system was rendered unusable until they either restored or went into safemode to undo whatever "fix" was applied. Granted this is better than the "good old days" when a patch might require a clean re-install. Lots of good weekends gone to waste because of MS's "fixes".
Just this past week, I installed a update and suddenly, I couldn't make backups of my system because Autoupdate dinked with the drive access dll's. Thankfully, this only required the re-installation of the backup software to restore the DLLs to a working condition, but at what cost to the other parts of the system?
I have auto-update's download feature enabled, but I review the updates before installing them. I didn't get hit by the worm since I patched my system almost immediately after the fix came out.
The problem can't be completely attributed to users or to the producer of the software. But when the design of the software is so buggy that after literally tens of thousands of fixes, it is still riddled with security holes, you have to wonder if they are truly serious about security and about delivering a quality product to the end-user or if they are trying to do just enough.
It is understandable that MS is saying that they are doing the best that they can. That is all well and fine. But there is such a thing as their best not being good enough. Especially when there is so much slack to be made up for.
There is also the issue of this "got to be secure" attitude is recent. If it hadn't been for Linux arising quickly in the server and business markets both domestically and globally and if it hadn't been for the recent DOD government contract renewal, do you think MS would be so hot to trot to respond to problems like this?
Having watched and used MS's products for as long as I have, my personal opinion is that they've got a long way to go still and they aren't breaking even.
One of the interesting aspects of MD5 hashes was that they were an improvement over CRC hashes. This was due to the fact that you could actually generate a file which had the same CRC hash, but had completely different content.
Wonder if there is a utility for generating files with random content, but with the same hashes as another file?
Perhaps a reverse md5 hash generator which takes a hash and generates a file.
Hmm... it seems that SCO is in dire need of a checkup from the neck up.
Personally, I would be concerned about a company like SCO which thinks that just because they made a product they thought was good and that the market gave up on, that they deserve something. In this case, they think they deserve alot.
I think people should call in and ask just what it is that SCO is offering and/or has offered or contributed which makes them deserving of any money.
I think people should call, nicely, and ask what IP they think they own.
I think people should call, once again nicely, and ask why they would want to FORCE people to infringe on their rights.
I would urge people to call SCO and maybe.. just maybe... SOMEONE will get to talk to someone there who knows what is going on.
What can be seen:
Someone asks for information and is directed to the "website".
The website doesn't contain any information.
The company is selling licenses to a product which they do not own, only contend that they own some piece of code which that product uses. 99% of the rest of that product was produced by someone else.
Any rational company would have brought up the issue in a forum and asked that people remove the code which is violating their IP.
Instead, they have launched a lawsuit and announced that they own IP and people owes them money.
Very quickly, SCO is becoming a household word. A four letter word.
As far as I'm concerned, SCO can go SCO itself.
When Unisys went on a "pay us" tour, I seem to remember the OS community producing the following:
Likewise, when SCO finally pulls whatever "files" and/or "code" which is in violation, the OS community will remove the offending code and replace it with clean code which doesn't "violate" any of SCO's "rights" and people will get on with life and let SCO wither.
This is probably the ONLY reason SCO hasn't shone the code as they know that once shown and proven one way or another, the codebase will change to be legally correct and that's not what they want because they doesn't give them a leg to stand on.
In that particular view, they are, in a sense, impeding justice and preventing what they view to be offenders from "fixing their mistakes" as that would pull the soapbox right out from under them.
$699 for a single cpu license and the price just keeps going up from there?
WTF!?
If I was a business using Linux and I got one an "offer" like that, my initial gut response would be to tell them to suck a fat one.
My second response would be to ask them what they were smoking and when they were thinking of packaging the goods for sale.
What are they thinking?
And what do they consider to be their "IP"?
SCO is screaming and hollering from a very very shakey ledge and when their message is finally heard, what will happen is that everything "SCO" will be removed from future distributions in the next "revision" and SCO will be left to suck hard vacuum. Hopefully from the same orafice they continually insist on "resting" their collective head in.
More ranting deleted to save space
Seriously, this is the make-it-or-break-it moment for SCO and I for one hope they get ground into dust and turned into one of those somewhat tasteful sculptures sold at old junk shops.
Why the fsck would I want a patch from MS for my secure and stable Linux box!?
Seems more like them trying to figure out how to make use of Linux/Opensource to figure out a way to break it or to take code from it to bolster their own system.
I have NEVER seen MS doing anything in the market or with technology which doesn't end up hurting the consumer, the group they are "getting to know", and/or their own PR.
If MS puts out a Linux product, I would NEVER use it.
I look at their security track record, their stability track record, and their support track record and I wonder why ANYONE continues to buy or use their "products".
But then again, that's just me and I've done my fair share of "growing up with MS" since MS DOS 3.01 through XP Pro. And quite frankly, I think I learned alot more from my life experiences than MS ever will.
I'd almost bet that down the road, MS will pull a SCO.
Normally, I'm disturbed by violence.
However, in the case of spammers, I really don't think there really is a limit to what is "just".
Some suggestions:
I get, when I take into account the amount of email per box, something like 2000 emails a day after all is said and done. It doesn't come out to $1 per spam, but I find myself constantly having to deal with it throughout the day.
I'm reminded of this one tommy gun scene where the guy firing loads of lead comments: Keep the change, you dirty rat.
I'm not quite sure how to reply, so I'll start by apologizing.
You have my apologies for my making any flawed assumptions about you and for not focusing on the topic itself. I apologize for letting my emotions lead my thinking in my responses.
Yes, the topic is about people peddling kiddie porn.
I'll be glad when all purveyers and creators of kiddie porn are behind bars.