"Under Blockbuster's (Research) new policy, put into effect on Jan. 1, customers can keep a rental for one week past the due date at no additional charge. After that, they are charged a restocking fee of $1.25. And if the overdue item is kept for more than 30 days, Blockbuster will charge the customer the retail value of the item."
In order to take advantage of it, you need a monthly subscription to Blockbuster, a la Netflix. So if you're paying $30/month to them there's no reason why they shouldn't let you keep it as long as you want, providing that you keep paying them every month.
Uh, you have that 100% wrong. If you keep the item out for more than a week past the due date, you are charged a $1.25 restocking fee. If you keep the movie for more than a month, you are charged the full price of the movie.
But why does this a freedom of speech issue? Think Secret and the other sites are free to say whatever they want. Nothing wrong with that. What if Apple simply wants to know who told it to them? In other words, "Keep on publishing whatever you want, we don't care... just tell us who told it to you because that person violated a contract and we'd like to pursue that matter with that particular individual."
The formula for Coke, for example is (famously) a trade secret rather than a patent.
It's a trade secret because you generally can't patent recipes. Coca Cola could try and patent the method for preparing the ingredients, etc. but that would still reveal the ingredients and someone would find a non-infringing way of duplicating the methods. Plus, after a few decades the patent would expire and we'd see a rush of Coke-a-like products on the market.
Trademark law? How did you get that from the AC's post? I think what the GP was saying is that if the court rules that Apple is legally unable to subpoena a reporter for his/her sources, then that gives reporters carte blanche in the future to report any and all leaked information, even if they know it violates the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. After all, Apple can't do anything about it as a precedent has been set.
You realize that the 2^n - 1 form is a mersenne prime only when the resulting number is also prime, right? In other words, mersenne primes are prime numbers which can be expressed as 2^n - 1 for some integer value n.
And when that day comes, I will be amazed at the greatness of the hackers. Given the complexity required just to find a trivial collision in MD5, the Earth will likely be destroyed in WWIII long before someone managed to get a complex trojan to generate the same hash value. But even still, it's easy to work around that -- just calculate hash values using several different hash algorithms. Given the odds of successfully finding a collision which matches, say, both MD5 and SHA-1, the universe will have long imploded by then.
Not likely, as you and I may have XP Developer Edition, but where are you in your patches? Hmm?
And what's hard about that? It's exceedingly unlikely that any particular version of any Windows system file will have the same MD5 checksum as a trojaned version. Plus, if you know that patch X contains this list of files with this list of checksums, you can determine what patchlevel it has. It's not easy to do as it takes some intelligent coding, but it's far from impossible. Or just go the lazy way -- based on the different versions of each file Microsoft has released, you will know that the file is either good (because of all the patched versions Microsoft has released, its MD5 checksum matches one) or the file is bad (because its checksum doesn't match one released by Microsoft).
What about all those phreaking tools such as the blue box, black box, [insert pretty much any color you can think of here] box? Those are essentially hacker tools which are now extinct and endangered only in countries with primitive telcos. Much in the same way that Napster 1.0 allowed you to use music which you wouldn't otherwise pay for, the various phreaking boxes allowed you to place long distance calls which you wouldn't have otherwise paid for.
At the very yeast, he's not loafing around thinking up some clever lines he can recite with a bread-pan expression. Some peoples' jokes are so stale and crusty, it's a wonder someone doesn't toast them when they try and jam as many puns into a single post as possible. I mean, heck... it's not as if being funny on slashdot can be your bread and butter or anything. Man, I've been sandwiched between the chair and keyboard too long... I knead to get out and smell the flours or something.
Depends on what you're simulating. If you know that vehicle A was heading westbound and vehicle B was heading northbound, and that A and B collided in the intersection and ended up at positions X and Y, you could use physics to get a broad idea of what happened in the crash. Police do this all the time to reconstruct the scene by measuring length of skid marks, the ending positions, etc. and then work out the respective velocities of each car.
And you're correct that jurors should never trust a computer simulation. If they did, you would't need a jury as the simulation would then be all the evidence you'd need. However, it is one piece of evidence which must be factored into a decision.
Ah, my bad. I read that the trademark was registered and I concluded that it had been granted. Looks like I missed the memo, so moderators: mod my original post to shit!
(But still, what irony it would have been! Open Source(TM), now a closed trademark.)
Just like UNIX(tm). Then they can restrict unauthorized use of the term Open Source(tm).
Just kidding, for now...
No, you're not kidding. They have trademarked it. It's now intellectual property and they can choose to restrict its use to only authorized people. Maybe it'll become a paid certification eventually, who knows? Google for (bruce perens open source trademark) for more info.
What are they going to do. Claim it is not "Open Source" by changing the definition of Open Source.
That's exactly what they *have* done. But nothing says that OSI has to be the one and only place to find open source licenses. They're making a big push to build a lot of intellectual property concerning their trademarked phrase "Open Source". In other words, you'll need permission of a corporation to call your software open source. Perhaps even purchase a license to use the phrase... and will it cost $699?;-)
However, I think the phrase open source will eventually go the way of Aspirin, where it becomes so common that it loses its protected trademark status (at least in the US, generic brands can call their asa product aspirin). How heavily is OSI defending their trademark? Are sites calling their software "open source" (not "Open Source(TM)") receiving cease and desist notices? Also, the term open source was around before being trademarked, so it's debatable whether or not they'd be able to successfully defend the trademark should someone call their stuff open source without the permission of OSI.
But in the end, you're right. There are a group of people who are currently in control of what is and isn't Open Source(TM). By changing the definition, they can attempt to legally compel other programmers from claiming the software they've developed is open source if the programmer doesn't release it under a license they've rubber stamped.
OS X, at least in its current incarnation, does X11 badly. Hopefully Jobs will find it not stylish enough and come up with a clever way to fully integrate it into Quartz. So they're basically cloning OS X. For example, run that Indiana Jones app and select to keep the icon in the dock. Quit the app, then drag the icon out from the dock. {POOF!} with a lovely cloud.
I understand that the GPS device would receive. What I meant by not having it transmit is that the device shouldn't get its GPS coordinates then automatically broadcast (via a wireless, cell phone, whatever module) those coordinates to police on a schedule. It should require the owner's explicit permission before it transmits any location information.
Why don't they make GPS manditory for all cars, incorporate it with the police, and then police can do a search for your car if its stolen?
Why not make it optional? And don't have it transmit constantly so the powers that be can locate you at any time. Rather, a good setup might be that it listens passively for a particular command, which you would need to have signed with your private key. So when you get the device, you tell it what your public key is via some easy method that the average Joe out there can use. In the event it gets stolen, you can login online to the manufacturer's website and send them the private key. They then transmit the signed command via satellite, your car picks it up, and sets off a transmission (via cell phone or other means) which would alert police. Once you get the car back, rekey the device with a new public key and you're private again. Basically, a secure privacy-assured version of OnStar.
Of course, if this were to become widespread thieves would just learn to disable this device first so there's a bit of security through obscurity going on. However, if they had to take the car apart to disable it then that might pose a significant enough deterrant to make it effective enough. Much in the same way that The Club won't stop a determined thief -- they'll either pick the lock, cut the steering wheel, or find a less secure car to steal.
After all, when I clicked to read more all I saw was "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
But seriously, this is a good thing. Prisoners already have lost their right to freedom when they were convicted of a crime so I don't see any privacy issues as it pertains to them.
Slashdot Mirror
Bah, you're right. I based it on TFA which said:
"Under Blockbuster's (Research) new policy, put into effect on Jan. 1, customers can keep a rental for one week past the due date at no additional charge. After that, they are charged a restocking fee of $1.25. And if the overdue item is kept for more than 30 days, Blockbuster will charge the customer the retail value of the item."
In order to take advantage of it, you need a monthly subscription to Blockbuster, a la Netflix. So if you're paying $30/month to them there's no reason why they shouldn't let you keep it as long as you want, providing that you keep paying them every month.
Uh, you have that 100% wrong. If you keep the item out for more than a week past the due date, you are charged a $1.25 restocking fee. If you keep the movie for more than a month, you are charged the full price of the movie.
But why does this a freedom of speech issue? Think Secret and the other sites are free to say whatever they want. Nothing wrong with that. What if Apple simply wants to know who told it to them? In other words, "Keep on publishing whatever you want, we don't care... just tell us who told it to you because that person violated a contract and we'd like to pursue that matter with that particular individual."
The formula for Coke, for example is (famously) a trade secret rather than a patent.
It's a trade secret because you generally can't patent recipes. Coca Cola could try and patent the method for preparing the ingredients, etc. but that would still reveal the ingredients and someone would find a non-infringing way of duplicating the methods. Plus, after a few decades the patent would expire and we'd see a rush of Coke-a-like products on the market.
Trademark law? How did you get that from the AC's post? I think what the GP was saying is that if the court rules that Apple is legally unable to subpoena a reporter for his/her sources, then that gives reporters carte blanche in the future to report any and all leaked information, even if they know it violates the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. After all, Apple can't do anything about it as a precedent has been set.
As such, it doesn't look like our universe will be imploding.
:)
Exactly.
You realize that the 2^n - 1 form is a mersenne prime only when the resulting number is also prime, right? In other words, mersenne primes are prime numbers which can be expressed as 2^n - 1 for some integer value n.
Ha ha, thanks. I think I'll bookmark it using a different name though!
And when that day comes, I will be amazed at the greatness of the hackers. Given the complexity required just to find a trivial collision in MD5, the Earth will likely be destroyed in WWIII long before someone managed to get a complex trojan to generate the same hash value. But even still, it's easy to work around that -- just calculate hash values using several different hash algorithms. Given the odds of successfully finding a collision which matches, say, both MD5 and SHA-1, the universe will have long imploded by then.
Got any docs on how to do that?
Not likely, as you and I may have XP Developer Edition, but where are you in your patches? Hmm?
And what's hard about that? It's exceedingly unlikely that any particular version of any Windows system file will have the same MD5 checksum as a trojaned version. Plus, if you know that patch X contains this list of files with this list of checksums, you can determine what patchlevel it has. It's not easy to do as it takes some intelligent coding, but it's far from impossible. Or just go the lazy way -- based on the different versions of each file Microsoft has released, you will know that the file is either good (because of all the patched versions Microsoft has released, its MD5 checksum matches one) or the file is bad (because its checksum doesn't match one released by Microsoft).
What about all those phreaking tools such as the blue box, black box, [insert pretty much any color you can think of here] box? Those are essentially hacker tools which are now extinct and endangered only in countries with primitive telcos. Much in the same way that Napster 1.0 allowed you to use music which you wouldn't otherwise pay for, the various phreaking boxes allowed you to place long distance calls which you wouldn't have otherwise paid for.
At the very yeast, he's not loafing around thinking up some clever lines he can recite with a bread-pan expression. Some peoples' jokes are so stale and crusty, it's a wonder someone doesn't toast them when they try and jam as many puns into a single post as possible. I mean, heck... it's not as if being funny on slashdot can be your bread and butter or anything. Man, I've been sandwiched between the chair and keyboard too long... I knead to get out and smell the flours or something.
Of course not! The next issue details constructing your own wind tunnel so that you can implement this issue's aerial kite photography project.
Depends on what you're simulating. If you know that vehicle A was heading westbound and vehicle B was heading northbound, and that A and B collided in the intersection and ended up at positions X and Y, you could use physics to get a broad idea of what happened in the crash. Police do this all the time to reconstruct the scene by measuring length of skid marks, the ending positions, etc. and then work out the respective velocities of each car.
And you're correct that jurors should never trust a computer simulation. If they did, you would't need a jury as the simulation would then be all the evidence you'd need. However, it is one piece of evidence which must be factored into a decision.
Ah, my bad. I read that the trademark was registered and I concluded that it had been granted. Looks like I missed the memo, so moderators: mod my original post to shit!
(But still, what irony it would have been! Open Source(TM), now a closed trademark.)
Just like UNIX(tm). Then they can restrict unauthorized use of the term Open Source(tm).
Just kidding, for now...
No, you're not kidding. They have trademarked it. It's now intellectual property and they can choose to restrict its use to only authorized people. Maybe it'll become a paid certification eventually, who knows? Google for (bruce perens open source trademark) for more info.
What are they going to do. Claim it is not "Open Source" by changing the definition of Open Source.
;-)
That's exactly what they *have* done. But nothing says that OSI has to be the one and only place to find open source licenses. They're making a big push to build a lot of intellectual property concerning their trademarked phrase "Open Source". In other words, you'll need permission of a corporation to call your software open source. Perhaps even purchase a license to use the phrase... and will it cost $699?
However, I think the phrase open source will eventually go the way of Aspirin, where it becomes so common that it loses its protected trademark status (at least in the US, generic brands can call their asa product aspirin). How heavily is OSI defending their trademark? Are sites calling their software "open source" (not "Open Source(TM)") receiving cease and desist notices? Also, the term open source was around before being trademarked, so it's debatable whether or not they'd be able to successfully defend the trademark should someone call their stuff open source without the permission of OSI.
But in the end, you're right. There are a group of people who are currently in control of what is and isn't Open Source(TM). By changing the definition, they can attempt to legally compel other programmers from claiming the software they've developed is open source if the programmer doesn't release it under a license they've rubber stamped.
And what about the Square Anus? Sounds like it hurts.
OS X, at least in its current incarnation, does X11 badly. Hopefully Jobs will find it not stylish enough and come up with a clever way to fully integrate it into Quartz. So they're basically cloning OS X. For example, run that Indiana Jones app and select to keep the icon in the dock. Quit the app, then drag the icon out from the dock. {POOF!} with a lovely cloud.
I understand that the GPS device would receive. What I meant by not having it transmit is that the device shouldn't get its GPS coordinates then automatically broadcast (via a wireless, cell phone, whatever module) those coordinates to police on a schedule. It should require the owner's explicit permission before it transmits any location information.
Read this if you don't get the joke!
Why don't they make GPS manditory for all cars, incorporate it with the police, and then police can do a search for your car if its stolen?
Why not make it optional? And don't have it transmit constantly so the powers that be can locate you at any time. Rather, a good setup might be that it listens passively for a particular command, which you would need to have signed with your private key. So when you get the device, you tell it what your public key is via some easy method that the average Joe out there can use. In the event it gets stolen, you can login online to the manufacturer's website and send them the private key. They then transmit the signed command via satellite, your car picks it up, and sets off a transmission (via cell phone or other means) which would alert police. Once you get the car back, rekey the device with a new public key and you're private again. Basically, a secure privacy-assured version of OnStar.
Of course, if this were to become widespread thieves would just learn to disable this device first so there's a bit of security through obscurity going on. However, if they had to take the car apart to disable it then that might pose a significant enough deterrant to make it effective enough. Much in the same way that The Club won't stop a determined thief -- they'll either pick the lock, cut the steering wheel, or find a less secure car to steal.
After all, when I clicked to read more all I saw was "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
But seriously, this is a good thing. Prisoners already have lost their right to freedom when they were convicted of a crime so I don't see any privacy issues as it pertains to them.