It was broken over 6 months ago.
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HDCP Break Proven
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· Score: 5, Informative
I broke it over 6 months ago, go look at the cryptome archives, where its been sitting since May 9th.
I know of at least 4 researchers who have independently discovered the flaws. (See my other slashdot post).
After Skylarov and Ferguson, I was reluctant to point out that my work had been sitting around on cryptome since May. I suspect Keith Irwin felt similarily.
Neils wasn't the first to go public or even second, though he did raise a wonderful stink.:)
As the person who was first.....
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HDCP Break Proven
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· Score: 4, Informative
There were two versions posted on cryptome, the second (latex2html, much easier to read) omitted this statement the first version had:
`` The attacks on HDCP are neither complicated nor difficult. They are basic linear algebra. Thus, there have been at least 4 independent discoveries of these flaws. The four I know of are my co-authors, Neils Ferguson, Keith Irwin (http://www.angelfire.com/realm/keithirwin/HDCPAth acks.html), and myself (www.cryptome.org/hdcp-weakness.htm). The last two have been available publically for 3 months and 3 weeks prior to Neils Ferguson's declaration. Neils declaration and the skylarov case were an eye-openeer for me and made fully realize what I had done, and what negative consequences I was in danger of experiencing.
What wrathful gods one risks angering by a 20 minute straightforward application of 40 year old math. This was an accident, not a habit. Like other researchers, I do not want to be smited and thus do not expect to analyze any more such schemes as long as the DMCA exists in its current form.
(This statement is my own and does not represent the opinions of my co-authors.)''
So, for those of you who watch cryptome, I broke it there about 3 days after it was leaked, 6 months ago. Keith Irwin also put his observations up 3 months ago. All of this predates skylarov and ferguson.
So, this is only the official version of the break, the slides I presented 2 weeks ago.
From the indications I know of.
on
HDCP Break Proven
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· Score: 5, Informative
(This is the author of the slides, BTW)
Intel wanted a scheme that could be implemented in under 10,000 gates. IMHO, the designers were aware of the flaw, though not necessarily of the full impact of the flaw. Some of the attacks are subtle.
Rule #1: NEVER be lazy. There's too much crap (like what I just trashed) spounted as gospel for you to automatically trust anything an environmental nut says at face value; at least estimate its reasonableness first.
You're right, if I was building a plant, I'd probably use the solar-collector technique too, but you can't easily use that trick on roofs, parking lots, etc, like the nuts gleefully try to point out.
Maybe, maybe not, remember, a power plant producing twice the power will tend to cost less than twice as much, and use less than twice the fuel, because it can operate more effeciently, so centralization is a good thing.
This same thing happens in the case of, for example, bottling like you describe. If you have 3 plants one third the size, you are probably going to need 30% more employees, 30% more electricity, etc. to run the plants. Plus, if its a food-processing plant, centralizing it may mean the difference between taking food-wastes and having them hauled away for trash, or collecting enough of them in one place to use them as fuel or feedstock for something else.
A *massive* example of this is orange juice; in mexico, people press their own orange juice themselves, that means that first, a fair amount of juice never gets squeazed out (about 30%), and is wasted, second, the orange peals end up at the local dump. While, my carton uses orange juice squeazed industrially, which means 30% fewer oranges for the same amount of juice, and the peels may be reused as fertalizeer and do not end up in a dump. Yeah, I have that carton to toss, but looking at the whole wastestream, I saved 30% more diesal fuel, 30% more fertalizer, 30% less land, 30% less refrigeration, and about 30 pounds/year of landfill waste. So, superficially, it may look wasteful, but it certainly isn't. [Please read http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel021601.sh tml ]
Furthermore, it doesn't always make sense to take one big plant and split it in two (one on each coast) to reduce shipping overhead, if you can't get the workers in both locations.
Though I will certainly admit that electricity transmission is fairly stupid, but it seems to mostly be either in massive cities like NY without much room to spare, or out in california, where they haven't been building new plants of their own in decades. Rather than be a backup mechanism incase the local plant goes down, many places have become dependant on the transmisison infrastructure. Stupid, and they should get what they get coming to them. IMHO, its just a political gesture 'out of sight, out of mind', and the waste of being 'out of mind' be damned.
But, in some cases, it is necessary, for example, around hydroelectric.
Got any online-available references I can read? I don't get to the library much.
Sure, you can tell what europeans think of nuclear power; many of them use a far higher percentage of it than the US does. Look at the numbers, my friend. Nuclear power is the one area where Europe does have more sense than the US.
(Percent electricity production from nuclear sources)
Sweeden: 49%
France: 75%
Germany: 29%
Spain: 31%
US: 18%
Russia: 12%
Ukraine: 42%
Numbers all taken from: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/inde xgeo.html
And, I challenge you, my friend, to see how many european countries with nuclear energy that use less of it than the US.
Reference for this assertion please, cause basic math says you're wrong.
I was running some math a while ago, letting 100 sq miles be ~250 sq km, while there is a bit under 1000W/sq meter, coming out to 250*10^9W. The US consumes 3.6 trillion kWh/year, or about 410*10^9 W continiously.
IE, assuming perfect summer-noon brightness, no cloudy days, and 100% effeciency, 100sq miles is barely 60% of what would be necessary. Now, lets throw in ineffeciency, say, 200x (10x because solar cells are usually under 10% effecient, 5x because the sun is only really bright 1/3 of the day and clouds exist and winter doesn't have much sunlight. And another 4x from ineffeciencies in storage&transport during nighttime and cloudy weeks.
Yes, the above are guestimates, so, lets say its only 25x, to be kind to you. In that case, you'd need about 75x75 kilometers, not the 15x15 you were claiming. Being two orders of magnitude off isn't too fun.
Now, if I'm in error, our you have an actual reference for those numbers, please correct me.
(electricity numbers taken from www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.htm l)
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And, I'd love to see your numbers on how we can magically reduce our electricity usage by 70-90%, without switching to a poorer and more destitute lifestyle. Much of the low-hanging fruit has already been grabbed.
Where paragraph has one required argument, the data in the paragraph, and one or more optional keyword arguments containing the style, formatting, etc.
Yes, if your reasoning is twisted enough, the US is the number one cause of terrorism, and no matter what it does, it cannot escape that position.
As the worlds most powerful nation, it can be blamed for anything and everything, for doing actions, for not doing actions, for each and every action of commerce or trade it does or doesn't do.
Those who do no such trade, those who have no power are few lucky people who cannot be blamed for being terrorists. Because of their powerlessness.
IE, those with power are also the ones with the greatest percentage of international interactions, even if they have a lower percentage of 'evil interactions', they may still end up responsible for a great share of international strife. Not because of their innate evilness but just because they are involved in so many places and so many ways.
As for random other statistics, a couple of thousand Afghan *infants* die a week, even before this recent hell. (Computed from population, birth rate and infant mortality rate statistics taken from CIA world factbook.)
Are we terrorists for not helping to save the poor children. Do keep in mind that we've been sending enough aid to account for.5-2% of their GDP *yearly*.
The US sucks, and screws up, but don't fall into the trap of automatically blaming the powerful for all deeds by confusing the 'rate of misdeeds' (#misdeeds/#interactions) with the 'absolute number of misdeeds'. For example, there are more airplane crashes a year, even though the accident rate is slowly falling, based soley on the number of flights increasing.
If you argue that the US is responsible for a the largest share of misdeeds, I could believe it.
I won't believe without more evidence a claim that we have a high rate of misdeeds. There are too many petty dictators destroying their populations, or their neighbors populations for me to believe that the US is anywhere near the top of that list.
It is fallacious reasoning to blame the US for everything just because it is involved in everything. A big fish makes a lot more eddies swimming gently than a sperm swimming frantically.:)
Scott
PS: got a reference on the statistic of only being 2500 deaths?
Its usually pretty easy to detect errors like this, for example, the program dies with a SEGV. The trick with errors is not in detecting the error, but rather in figuring out what to do when you detect it.
Is this error correctable, ignorable, or fatal.
If it is correctable, what is the correct action that corrects it. This can be more subtle than you think. And this correction code adds complexity and needs to be tested.
Which errors are minor and ignorable? IE, that are actually conditional status messages not actual errors?
What to do in a fatal error? What is the definition of a fatal error? A lot of code does not deal with resource starvation and treats running out of RAM as a fatal error. Should it? It doesn't have to, but htat would make the program orders of magnitude more complicated, it would turn every allocation into a potential exception-causing step.
By avoiding these problems and making more things into fatal errors, we make software cheaper and more plentiful. Would you rather have a netscape that crashes a couple times a month, or no netscape at all?
To respond to the article, IMHO, I'd treat the complaints that those applications print out as being debugging notifications. The computer warning about possible situations that might cause problems. By the same token, that code may not be robust, but making it robust introduces complexity and thus more risk for errors.
You forget the anti-spam nazi's have blocked this.
on
MSN Forces Outlook POP
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· Score: 2
Because they'll restrict outgoing SMTP to any other mail server, and their own mail server will enforce a From: address to be their own domain.
Now, you could use Reply-To: as a workaround for this annoying pettiness, except that:
1. Many mailing lists munge and/or remove/replace reply-to headers.
2. Not all email software makes it clear what the purpose for Reply-To: is.
IE, all outgoing email must be marked as being from their domain, so if you switch ISP's, anyone who replys to any past message will still send their response to your old email address.
Sorry dude, the anti-spam nazi's have made sure that your workaround is nonfunctional. (Which is why I despise their vigilante group.)
Yes, its true that Japan had lost the war; that it was only a matter of time.
But, the author elides out the fact that to effect that surrender without the nuclear device would have caused hundreds of thousands of lives.
What is the barbarous act? The use of a new weapon, or the killing of hundreds of thousands? If it is the killing, didn't the firebombing of Tokyo kill far more people? The US had already far demonstrated its abilities to firebomb cities, and firebomb many cities.
So, while they're accurate, the war would have ended eventually had there been no Manhattan project, they're naive.
I'll be the first to admit that the US is imperfect, but it is an entity that is run by humans, and humans are imperfect creatures.
But, there is a distance between being imperfect and being wrong. The reasons why the US is disliked are many and varied, a lot has to do with having a different mindset and worldview... and manipulation.
Apart from anything else, the US is the only superpower left. Thus, we can be 'blamed' for everything, both our actions, and our inactions. 'We didn't stop XYZ' 'We did help XYZ'.
That doesn't mean that we're wrong, that doesn't mean that we are perfect.
The first amendment codify's every human being's right to free speech.
The copyright law, by claiming that some speech cannot be said, contradicts the first amendment completely, and thus *IS* unconstitutional.
As a workaround, to preserve the constitutionality of the act, the copyright act is to restrict speech the minimum possible.
Fair use is not something that is granted, it is just a codification of some of the things that the first amendment guarentees. If the copyright law infringes on the first amendment more than the minimal amount, it should be declared unconstitutional. (But, regrettably, hasn't.)
This is a digital control technology, in that its primary
purpose is to control how a device is used and can use
digital works. Although these technologies can be used
for copyright enforcement, their control extends far
beyond that mandate.
-- Scott A Crosby
And I have to say that I don't think I ever use lists... Usually, I use arrays, structures, objects and hash tables. Lisp has support for multidimensional arrays and you can define your own structures or classes.
And, I'll say that with CMUCL, it compiles down to the same assembly as C does.
Try a modern lisp, say, one written in the last 10 years.. Or, read `Common Lisp the Language', which dates back to the early 80's.
It is a fact that there is no way constructive logic an prove a negative. Thus, there is no way to 'prove that X is not harmful'.
Where X can be everything from seat belts to parts-per-trillion of arsenic in drinking water. The most that can be said is that it has no known negative effects. (but, a any imaginable number of potential effects.)
Such questions are asked to make a statement, to push forward a point of view. They cannot be answered.
By that same token, there is not and can be no proof that playing quake is safe, or even that reading is safe.
Whether or not it was done on purpose, your request ``So either present compelling evidence that ten-year-olds seeing... isn't damaging his/her attitudes...'' can never be answered; what you want can not be proven.
What can be proven is the opposite, that it is harmful. Take a bunch of kids and show them those images and see what they say and do.
Amusingly enough, I'd claim that there's far more evidence about the harmful effects of religion than porn. I know personally and have heard of many people who have had religion destroy their lives, from Heavens Gate, to destruction of their self esteem.
Given that there's no way to show that either of them is safe, IE, not harmful. Well, we have our culture curbing porn, but allowing religions, when the evidence shows that the reverse would be better.
I'll let you have the job of convincing suburbian parents that they have to look at the problem logically, not emotionally, and realize that some things can never be known for certain.
I almost never go directly to the Network SOlutions servers. Local servers act like a cache. But, that doesn't mean that they aren't critical.
The interesting question is can I do a hailstorm transaction without touching an MS server, and also not touching any server that requires authorization (at any level) from Microsoft.
It does not count as decentralized if I can only use servers that have had their public key signed by Microsoft, or by a Microsoft partner, or by a server that itself is signed by Microsoft, at any level. IE, if all Microsoft servers and all Microsoft-signed keys went away, would it still work?
If not, then it is obviously.centralized, microsoft is a critical component of it. Remember, just because a packet never touches Redmond doesn't mean that its travel can't be critically dependent on Redmond.
In fact, this is ideal. THey get to siphon off money from every transaction, and they don't even need to buy the servers. Its a lot like the rants about what digital-cert companies actually sell, and why you shouldn't just make&sign your own certs.
I have some filtering in it to remove 'crap sites', but for the most part, I just filter based on directory name or hostname. (so I filter off things with banner/clickme in the path, or in a directory called 'ads' or 'adverts'. etc.
It works well, Alost 25% of the HTTP queries made by netscape are blocked, with another 25% or so satisfied from the cache.
As I use a modem frequently enough, this makes my web-browsing experience much better.
If you have to purchase power producing equipment on the international market, because you can't produce it domestically, the problem is a shortage of money. (Or rather, the money that is available has to be spent on more critical needs. (Probably military spending, unfortunately))
And, don't discount the fact that electricity usage varies. One of the greatest advantages of the united states is the widespread, electrified infrastructure. Energy use does not tend to increase as much as transform itself. From gas-lamps to the light bulb. From oil-heating to electrical heating. Which is more effecient, a million small coal-fired steam plants running steam turbines in factories, or a few centralized powerplants that run far more effeciently and clean up the pollution emissions.
Our incredibly electrified country os something to be proud of,
True, as someone suggested. We won't be able to stop this CCTV future, but we can make it more equal.
Like, how about the first 5 cameras that are put up focus on the four largest police stations and the town hall. (Where footage is available to any citizen upon request.)
Maybe put another camera up on the street the mayor lives, and where the councilmen live. And where the chief of police lives. They're all public spaces aren't they?
Oh? This is an intrusion into privacy? Well, tough. Police aren't mythical creatures who deserve more rights than the general public. Nor are they entirely honest.
Oh, and the public gets the right to also see what ANY camera is seeing. Say, a couple of cable TV channels that flips between the cameras every 10 seconds.
I want accountability, and I want the people who think this future is a good idea to see it for themselves.. See it from the perspective of the 'sheep' they want to CCTV.
This future is coming, whether we like it or not. But that doesn't mean that it can't be made fair. I would accept cameras in public places as inevitable. But cameras watching police stations, town hall, and the streets where the city council, chief of police and mayor live is not so inevitable. It should be.
(Now I wish I remembered the URL of the guy who gave this view.. I think he was MIT.)
Someone whould put this line on bumper stickers, because its so true.... And its so easy to distort peoples understanding with anecdotes.
Do we remember all the anecdotes about ``how no company could find qualified technical employees''? has anyone forgotten that the reason these guys couldn't find qualifed technical employees was because they were offering 70% the salary that these skills were going for in the area!
And these cheap nuts testified before congress.
Things may have changed; two-bit hacks are being weeded out.
But, repeat after me: An anecdote is not proof.
Got any Department of Labor statistics for your area? Have you called the chamber of commerce organizations for nearby areas, or in other states? How have the unemployment numbers for your area changed in the last 4 months?
Maybe it is a problem, maybe it is something that I should worry about. But I'm not going to let a few anecdotes try to fool me into worrying needlessly. One can listen to heartfelt plees all day long about not having a job.... Even in the recent tech boom, one in fifty people could give an anecdote of how they lost their last job. (Unemployment of even 2% is incredibly low.)
We should never forget that research and development is always useful in the long term. Yeah, the military and government fund a lot of it, but that doesn't mean that its still not useful.
The military gave grants to the development of the IC 40 years ago, The 747 aircraft was a design for a military transport. The microwave is an application of radar technology. The list goes on and on. Even stealth technology has lead to better software and better simulations of radar and radar resonation cavities. Its also lead to funky new designs for aircraft. (Like that faceted one.)
Then, what is that jet that runs supersonically WITHOUT afterburners? Will we maybe be seeing designs inspired by it coming out into commercial production in another 10-20 years?
Actually, what led to the invention of the jet, perhaps decades before it would have othewise come into widespread use. Military aerospace research!
Any organization that funnels billions of dollars a year into research is doing humanity a long-term good, whether its medical research, biotechology, vacination, aerospace, computing, radar etc.
Research is research. The more thats done, the better humanity will find itself.
A contract is a document that two parties sign to agree on the terms. As it, at that level, is a private document, the government does not get involved. Thus, any 'contract' can say anything. You can sign yourself into slavery if you wish..
Now, the enforcability of a contract. That is subject to law. Courts have ruled many contracts invalid. For example, if you 'sign yourself into slavery', but later contest it, the contract will be ruled invalid.
In terms of copyright law, a wide body of deeds have been ruled legal. The aformentioned 'doctrine of first sale' was when a publisher of paperbacks put a 'license' on the book stating that the book could not be sold for less than a particular price. That was ruled unenforcable.
Remember, you are given certain rights. A license can grant you additional rights with no obligation to you. (For example, the GPL or BSD code license.) Or, it may be a contract, where you are granted additional rights and you fulfill certain obligations.
Thus, by copyright law, the doctrine of first sale and other court cases, there is no license needed to watch, export, resell, donate, loan, parady, or other noninfringing uses of a movie. They copyright holder may only take away these rights through a mutually agreed upon contract where they offer me something else as value (Money, other rights, etc)
Noting that I am under no obligation to accept any such offer, I cannot lose the above rights involuntarily.
--
(There also exists things like 'shrinkwrap' or 'clickwrap' contracts, like as distributed with commercial software. As there has not been a signifigant court case on the legality of them, their enforcability is in doubt. Though I find it highly unlikely that a court will reverse the 'doctrine of first sale' to rule such contracts enforcable.)
Slashdot Mirror
I broke it over 6 months ago, go look at the cryptome archives, where its been sitting since May 9th.
:)
I know of at least 4 researchers who have independently discovered the flaws. (See my other slashdot post).
After Skylarov and Ferguson, I was reluctant to point out that my work had been sitting around on cryptome since May. I suspect Keith Irwin felt similarily.
Neils wasn't the first to go public or even second, though he did raise a wonderful stink.
There were two versions posted on cryptome, the second (latex2html, much easier to read) omitted this statement the first version had:
h acks.html), and myself (www.cryptome.org/hdcp-weakness.htm). The last two have been available publically for 3 months and 3 weeks prior to Neils Ferguson's declaration. Neils declaration and the skylarov case were an eye-openeer for me and made fully realize what I had done, and what negative consequences I was in danger of experiencing.
`` The attacks on HDCP are neither complicated nor difficult. They are basic linear algebra. Thus, there have been at least 4 independent discoveries of these flaws. The four I know of are my co-authors, Neils Ferguson, Keith Irwin (http://www.angelfire.com/realm/keithirwin/HDCPAt
What wrathful gods one risks angering by a 20 minute straightforward application of 40 year old math. This was an accident, not a habit. Like other researchers, I do not want to be smited and thus do not expect to analyze any more such schemes as long as the DMCA exists in its current form.
(This statement is my own and does not represent the opinions of my co-authors.)''
So, for those of you who watch cryptome, I broke it there about 3 days after it was leaked, 6 months ago. Keith Irwin also put his observations up 3 months ago. All of this predates skylarov and ferguson.
So, this is only the official version of the break, the slides I presented 2 weeks ago.
(This is the author of the slides, BTW)
Intel wanted a scheme that could be implemented in under 10,000 gates. IMHO, the designers were aware of the flaw, though not necessarily of the full impact of the flaw. Some of the attacks are subtle.
Rule #1: NEVER be lazy. There's too much crap (like what I just trashed) spounted as gospel for you to automatically trust anything an environmental nut says at face value; at least estimate its reasonableness first.
h tml ]
You're right, if I was building a plant, I'd probably use the solar-collector technique too, but you can't easily use that trick on roofs, parking lots, etc, like the nuts gleefully try to point out.
Maybe, maybe not, remember, a power plant producing twice the power will tend to cost less than twice as much, and use less than twice the fuel, because it can operate more effeciently, so centralization is a good thing.
This same thing happens in the case of, for example, bottling like you describe. If you have 3 plants one third the size, you are probably going to need 30% more employees, 30% more electricity, etc. to run the plants. Plus, if its a food-processing plant, centralizing it may mean the difference between taking food-wastes and having them hauled away for trash, or collecting enough of them in one place to use them as fuel or feedstock for something else.
A *massive* example of this is orange juice; in mexico, people press their own orange juice themselves, that means that first, a fair amount of juice never gets squeazed out (about 30%), and is wasted, second, the orange peals end up at the local dump. While, my carton uses orange juice squeazed industrially, which means 30% fewer oranges for the same amount of juice, and the peels may be reused as fertalizeer and do not end up in a dump. Yeah, I have that carton to toss, but looking at the whole wastestream, I saved 30% more diesal fuel, 30% more fertalizer, 30% less land, 30% less refrigeration, and about 30 pounds/year of landfill waste. So, superficially, it may look wasteful, but it certainly isn't. [Please read http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel021601.s
Furthermore, it doesn't always make sense to take one big plant and split it in two (one on each coast) to reduce shipping overhead, if you can't get the workers in both locations.
Though I will certainly admit that electricity transmission is fairly stupid, but it seems to mostly be either in massive cities like NY without much room to spare, or out in california, where they haven't been building new plants of their own in decades. Rather than be a backup mechanism incase the local plant goes down, many places have become dependant on the transmisison infrastructure. Stupid, and they should get what they get coming to them. IMHO, its just a political gesture 'out of sight, out of mind', and the waste of being 'out of mind' be damned.
But, in some cases, it is necessary, for example, around hydroelectric.
Got any online-available references I can read? I don't get to the library much.
Sure, you can tell what europeans think of nuclear power; many of them use a far higher percentage of it than the US does. Look at the numbers, my friend. Nuclear power is the one area where Europe does have more sense than the US.
e xgeo.html
(Percent electricity production from nuclear sources)
Sweeden: 49%
France: 75%
Germany: 29%
Spain: 31%
US: 18%
Russia: 12%
Ukraine: 42%
Numbers all taken from: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ind
And, I challenge you, my friend, to see how many european countries with nuclear energy that use less of it than the US.
Reference for this assertion please, cause basic math says you're wrong.
m l)
I was running some math a while ago, letting 100 sq miles be ~250 sq km, while there is a bit under 1000W/sq meter, coming out to 250*10^9W. The US consumes 3.6 trillion kWh/year, or about 410*10^9 W continiously.
IE, assuming perfect summer-noon brightness, no cloudy days, and 100% effeciency, 100sq miles is barely 60% of what would be necessary. Now, lets throw in ineffeciency, say, 200x (10x because solar cells are usually under 10% effecient, 5x because the sun is only really bright 1/3 of the day and clouds exist and winter doesn't have much sunlight. And another 4x from ineffeciencies in storage&transport during nighttime and cloudy weeks.
Yes, the above are guestimates, so, lets say its only 25x, to be kind to you. In that case, you'd need about 75x75 kilometers, not the 15x15 you were claiming. Being two orders of magnitude off isn't too fun.
Now, if I'm in error, our you have an actual reference for those numbers, please correct me.
(electricity numbers taken from www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.ht
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And, I'd love to see your numbers on how we can magically reduce our electricity usage by 70-90%, without switching to a poorer and more destitute lifestyle. Much of the low-hanging fruit has already been grabbed.
Your friendly skeptic
You can use sexp's:
:fontlist '((:new-york-12 "/lib/fonts/xxx" (serif xxx xxx xxx))
:metadata '( ..... )
:data
:space
:bold t)
:bold f))
:style ('serif 12 ....))))
Note that you can have zero or more required arguments, zero or more optional arguments, and zero or more named arguments.
(document
'(
(paragraph
(
"Hello"
(style
"World."
(style
Where paragraph has one required argument, the data in the paragraph, and one or more optional keyword arguments containing the style, formatting, etc.
Yes, if your reasoning is twisted enough, the US is the number one cause of terrorism, and no matter what it does, it cannot escape that position.
.5-2% of their GDP *yearly*.
:)
As the worlds most powerful nation, it can be blamed for anything and everything, for doing actions, for not doing actions, for each and every action of commerce or trade it does or doesn't do.
Those who do no such trade, those who have no power are few lucky people who cannot be blamed for being terrorists. Because of their powerlessness.
IE, those with power are also the ones with the greatest percentage of international interactions, even if they have a lower percentage of 'evil interactions', they may still end up responsible for a great share of international strife. Not because of their innate evilness but just because they are involved in so many places and so many ways.
As for random other statistics, a couple of thousand Afghan *infants* die a week, even before this recent hell. (Computed from population, birth rate and infant mortality rate statistics taken from CIA world factbook.)
Are we terrorists for not helping to save the poor children. Do keep in mind that we've been sending enough aid to account for
The US sucks, and screws up, but don't fall into the trap of automatically blaming the powerful for all deeds by confusing the 'rate of misdeeds' (#misdeeds/#interactions) with the 'absolute number of misdeeds'. For example, there are more airplane crashes a year, even though the accident rate is slowly falling, based soley on the number of flights increasing.
If you argue that the US is responsible for a the largest share of misdeeds, I could believe it.
I won't believe without more evidence a claim that we have a high rate of misdeeds. There are too many petty dictators destroying their populations, or their neighbors populations for me to believe that the US is anywhere near the top of that list.
It is fallacious reasoning to blame the US for everything just because it is involved in everything. A big fish makes a lot more eddies swimming gently than a sperm swimming frantically.
Scott
PS: got a reference on the statistic of only being 2500 deaths?
PPS: And, better take this to email.
Its usually pretty easy to detect errors like this, for example, the program dies with a SEGV. The trick with errors is not in detecting the error, but rather in figuring out what to do when you detect it.
Is this error correctable, ignorable, or fatal.
If it is correctable, what is the correct action that corrects it. This can be more subtle than you think. And this correction code adds complexity and needs to be tested.
Which errors are minor and ignorable? IE, that are actually conditional status messages not actual errors?
What to do in a fatal error? What is the definition of a fatal error? A lot of code does not deal with resource starvation and treats running out of RAM as a fatal error. Should it? It doesn't have to, but htat would make the program orders of magnitude more complicated, it would turn every allocation into a potential exception-causing step.
By avoiding these problems and making more things into fatal errors, we make software cheaper and more plentiful. Would you rather have a netscape that crashes a couple times a month, or no netscape at all?
To respond to the article, IMHO, I'd treat the complaints that those applications print out as being debugging notifications. The computer warning about possible situations that might cause problems. By the same token, that code may not be robust, but making it robust introduces complexity and thus more risk for errors.
Because they'll restrict outgoing SMTP to any other mail server, and their own mail server will enforce a From: address to be their own domain.
Now, you could use Reply-To: as a workaround for this annoying pettiness, except that:
1. Many mailing lists munge and/or remove/replace reply-to headers.
2. Not all email software makes it clear what the purpose for Reply-To: is.
IE, all outgoing email must be marked as being from their domain, so if you switch ISP's, anyone who replys to any past message will still send their response to your old email address.
Sorry dude, the anti-spam nazi's have made sure that your workaround is nonfunctional. (Which is why I despise their vigilante group.)
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~jmt26/firebomb.htm
Note the references to USSBS documents..
Yes, its true that Japan had lost the war; that it was only a matter of time.
But, the author elides out the fact that to effect that surrender without the nuclear device would have caused hundreds of thousands of lives.
What is the barbarous act? The use of a new weapon, or the killing of hundreds of thousands? If it is the killing, didn't the firebombing of Tokyo kill far more people? The US had already far demonstrated its abilities to firebomb cities, and firebomb many cities.
So, while they're accurate, the war would have ended eventually had there been no Manhattan project, they're naive.
I'll be the first to admit that the US is imperfect, but it is an entity that is run by humans, and humans are imperfect creatures.
But, there is a distance between being imperfect and being wrong. The reasons why the US is disliked are many and varied, a lot has to do with having a different mindset and worldview... and manipulation.
Apart from anything else, the US is the only superpower left. Thus, we can be 'blamed' for everything, both our actions, and our inactions. 'We didn't stop XYZ' 'We did help XYZ'.
That doesn't mean that we're wrong, that doesn't mean that we are perfect.
The first amendment codify's every human being's right to free speech.
The copyright law, by claiming that some speech cannot be said, contradicts the first amendment completely, and thus *IS* unconstitutional.
As a workaround, to preserve the constitutionality of the act, the copyright act is to restrict speech the minimum possible.
Fair use is not something that is granted, it is just a codification of some of the things that the first amendment guarentees. If the copyright law infringes on the first amendment more than the minimal amount, it should be declared unconstitutional. (But, regrettably, hasn't.)
This is a digital control technology, in that its primary
purpose is to control how a device is used and can use
digital works. Although these technologies can be used
for copyright enforcement, their control extends far
beyond that mandate.
-- Scott A Crosby
And I have to say that I don't think I ever use lists... Usually, I use arrays, structures, objects and hash tables. Lisp has support for multidimensional arrays and you can define your own structures or classes.
And, I'll say that with CMUCL, it compiles down to the same assembly as C does.
Try a modern lisp, say, one written in the last 10 years.. Or, read `Common Lisp the Language', which dates back to the early 80's.
It is a fact that there is no way constructive logic an prove a negative. Thus, there is no way to 'prove that X is not harmful'.
... isn't damaging his/her attitudes ...'' can never be answered; what you want can not be proven.
Where X can be everything from seat belts to parts-per-trillion of arsenic in drinking water. The most that can be said is that it has no known negative effects. (but, a any imaginable number of potential effects.)
Such questions are asked to make a statement, to push forward a point of view. They cannot be answered.
By that same token, there is not and can be no proof that playing quake is safe, or even that reading is safe.
Whether or not it was done on purpose, your request ``So either present compelling evidence that ten-year-olds seeing
What can be proven is the opposite, that it is harmful. Take a bunch of kids and show them those images and see what they say and do.
Amusingly enough, I'd claim that there's far more evidence about the harmful effects of religion than porn. I know personally and have heard of many people who have had religion destroy their lives, from Heavens Gate, to destruction of their self esteem.
Given that there's no way to show that either of them is safe, IE, not harmful. Well, we have our culture curbing porn, but allowing religions, when the evidence shows that the reverse would be better.
I'll let you have the job of convincing suburbian parents that they have to look at the problem logically, not emotionally, and realize that some things can never be known for certain.
You may not have asked the right question.
I almost never go directly to the Network SOlutions servers. Local servers act like a cache. But, that doesn't mean that they aren't critical.
The interesting question is can I do a hailstorm transaction without touching an MS server, and also not touching any server that requires authorization (at any level) from Microsoft.
It does not count as decentralized if I can only use servers that have had their public key signed by Microsoft, or by a Microsoft partner, or by a server that itself is signed by Microsoft, at any level. IE, if all Microsoft servers and all Microsoft-signed keys went away, would it still work?
If not, then it is obviously.centralized, microsoft is a critical component of it. Remember, just because a packet never touches Redmond doesn't mean that its travel can't be critically dependent on Redmond.
In fact, this is ideal. THey get to siphon off money from every transaction, and they don't even need to buy the servers. Its a lot like the rants about what digital-cert companies actually sell, and why you shouldn't just make&sign your own certs.
I use squid, its a caching proxy.
I have some filtering in it to remove 'crap sites', but for the most part, I just filter based on directory name or hostname. (so I filter off things with banner/clickme in the path, or in a directory called 'ads' or 'adverts'. etc.
It works well, Alost 25% of the HTTP queries made by netscape are blocked, with another 25% or so satisfied from the cache.
As I use a modem frequently enough, this makes my web-browsing experience much better.
If you have to purchase power producing equipment on the international market, because you can't produce it domestically, the problem is a shortage of money. (Or rather, the money that is available has to be spent on more critical needs. (Probably military spending, unfortunately))
And, don't discount the fact that electricity usage varies. One of the greatest advantages of the united states is the widespread, electrified infrastructure. Energy use does not tend to increase as much as transform itself. From gas-lamps to the light bulb. From oil-heating to electrical heating. Which is more effecient, a million small coal-fired steam plants running steam turbines in factories, or a few centralized powerplants that run far more effeciently and clean up the pollution emissions.
Our incredibly electrified country os something to be proud of,
True, as someone suggested. We won't be able to stop this CCTV future, but we can make it more equal.
Like, how about the first 5 cameras that are put up focus on the four largest police stations and the town hall. (Where footage is available to any citizen upon request.)
Maybe put another camera up on the street the mayor lives, and where the councilmen live. And where the chief of police lives. They're all public spaces aren't they?
Oh? This is an intrusion into privacy? Well, tough. Police aren't mythical creatures who deserve more rights than the general public. Nor are they entirely honest.
Oh, and the public gets the right to also see what ANY camera is seeing. Say, a couple of cable TV channels that flips between the cameras every 10 seconds.
I want accountability, and I want the people who think this future is a good idea to see it for themselves.. See it from the perspective of the 'sheep' they want to CCTV.
This future is coming, whether we like it or not. But that doesn't mean that it can't be made fair. I would accept cameras in public places as inevitable. But cameras watching police stations, town hall, and the streets where the city council, chief of police and mayor live is not so inevitable. It should be.
(Now I wish I remembered the URL of the guy who gave this view.. I think he was MIT.)
Someone whould put this line on bumper stickers, because its so true.... And its so easy to distort peoples understanding with anecdotes.
Do we remember all the anecdotes about ``how no company could find qualified technical employees''? has anyone forgotten that the reason these guys couldn't find qualifed technical employees was because they were offering 70% the salary that these skills were going for in the area!
And these cheap nuts testified before congress.
Things may have changed; two-bit hacks are being weeded out.
But, repeat after me: An anecdote is not proof.
Got any Department of Labor statistics for your area? Have you called the chamber of commerce organizations for nearby areas, or in other states? How have the unemployment numbers for your area changed in the last 4 months?
Maybe it is a problem, maybe it is something that I should worry about. But I'm not going to let a few anecdotes try to fool me into worrying needlessly. One can listen to heartfelt plees all day long about not having a job.... Even in the recent tech boom, one in fifty people could give an anecdote of how they lost their last job. (Unemployment of even 2% is incredibly low.)
So, will you come back and convince me?
We should never forget that research and development is always useful in the long term. Yeah, the military and government fund a lot of it, but that doesn't mean that its still not useful.
The military gave grants to the development of the IC 40 years ago, The 747 aircraft was a design for a military transport. The microwave is an application of radar technology. The list goes on and on. Even stealth technology has lead to better software and better simulations of radar and radar resonation cavities. Its also lead to funky new designs for aircraft. (Like that faceted one.)
Then, what is that jet that runs supersonically WITHOUT afterburners? Will we maybe be seeing designs inspired by it coming out into commercial production in another 10-20 years?
Actually, what led to the invention of the jet, perhaps decades before it would have othewise come into widespread use. Military aerospace research!
Any organization that funnels billions of dollars a year into research is doing humanity a long-term good, whether its medical research, biotechology, vacination, aerospace, computing, radar etc.
Research is research. The more thats done, the better humanity will find itself.
If you're in eurpoe and you want to ship 50,000 CD's to the US, you don't ship them.
You contact a friendly CD duplicator in the US and pay them to manufacture and ship the CD's domestically.
A contract is a document that two parties sign to agree on the terms. As it, at that level, is a private document, the government does not get involved. Thus, any 'contract' can say anything. You can sign yourself into slavery if you wish..
Now, the enforcability of a contract. That is subject to law. Courts have ruled many contracts invalid. For example, if you 'sign yourself into slavery', but later contest it, the contract will be ruled invalid.
In terms of copyright law, a wide body of deeds have been ruled legal. The aformentioned 'doctrine of first sale' was when a publisher of paperbacks put a 'license' on the book stating that the book could not be sold for less than a particular price. That was ruled unenforcable.
Remember, you are given certain rights. A license can grant you additional rights with no obligation to you. (For example, the GPL or BSD code license.) Or, it may be a contract, where you are granted additional rights and you fulfill certain obligations.
Thus, by copyright law, the doctrine of first sale and other court cases, there is no license needed to watch, export, resell, donate, loan, parady, or other noninfringing uses of a movie. They copyright holder may only take away these rights through a mutually agreed upon contract where they offer me something else as value (Money, other rights, etc)
Noting that I am under no obligation to accept any such offer, I cannot lose the above rights involuntarily.
--
(There also exists things like 'shrinkwrap' or 'clickwrap' contracts, like as distributed with commercial software. As there has not been a signifigant court case on the legality of them, their enforcability is in doubt. Though I find it highly unlikely that a court will reverse the 'doctrine of first sale' to rule such contracts enforcable.)