Humm...I find it painfully interesting that the legistlatures of states would try to enforce age restrictions on "M" rated games when fifteen year olds are freely walking into violent PG-13 and R rated movies. As it turns out the Gaming Industry was praised for the standards on how they rate video games, while the MPAA washes back and forth and allows some movies which should be R to be PG-13. At least with the Gaming Industry an M rating will be given with even the hint that it should be M rated, while the movie industry will tweak with a movie to take content out to sqeek it down to PG-13. So in my mind, I would like to see legislatures take on the MPAA and tighten the ratings before they get into games. Movies reach a larger audience than games do. If Government is going to get into legislating morals and games, then they should make it so minors can't get into R rated movies, rent them or buy them. I am tired of different standards being placed on different forms of media than others. The MPAA, RIAA and the Gaming Industry ought to get togther and develop a media neutral content rating system. That way a parent can reliably compare games to movies to music to print to whatever form the diffenet medias take. And if you compare M to the MPAA ratings, it turns out that M comes out to be the equivalent of a PG-13 rating. While Adults Only (AO) is closer to the mid-range R to NC-17.
The interesting thing is the line about the "detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software." It is more interesting to compare this new law in the light of yesterdays information about the MPAA/RIAA and their new http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/31/155 3231&tid=95&tid=97&tid=172&tid=17WMA's. The WMA's exploit a loop-hole that allows the spyware/adware to be installed on the offending computer system. So the question is then begged, does this new California law make it legal for Overpeer to use these news WMA's as a means of being an "information service" and "software provider" that is engaging in the prevention of "illegal activities"? At first I disagreed that you could drive a truck through that, but the more I think about it, I have to agree with you. The law is so vague -- RIAA/MPAA, et al, could claim that they are doing a "diagnosis" on the effect of file sharing and what the average file-sharer steals, all well trying to prevent unathorized and illegal activites. Heck, you could even install spyware for the purpouses of detecting whether or not someone is using your software illegally. What I can see is some spyware distributor releasing spyware and then claim that he was just trying to see how many "illegal copies" were being distributed. What I see it stopping is someone collecting information for the sake of collecting information and turning your computer into a spam bot, but anyone with even a shred of being legit has a nice rock to hide under. It is a good first step, but I think it'll go alone with the CAN-SPAM act. The problem is that we need computer scientist and information system analyists working on the laws.
Perhaps we ought to get together with Groklaw and send our own version to congress. Between the geek laywers, paralegals and legal-wannabes, and the general technical skills of the/. commuity, maybe we can come up with a law that would be both enforceable and strong enough to prevent any dork with an LLC from setting up shop.
In my college apt in Idaho (brr...South Eastern Idaho can get quite chilly) my room mate and I leave the heat off during the winter. My P4 and Athlon system do a great job of heating the bedroom. Through in his P4 laptop and it is comfortable. During the summer we need to put in an air conditioner, otherwise it gets unbearable in the room.
Actually the BSD's are Unix-variants. Per the FreeBSD homepage, "It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley."
All usefull UNIX,s have the UNIX hidden behind a user friendly mask.
Not to be a prick and disagree, but some of the most useful systems to me have been ones that don't even have X installed. Not having a GUI is a powerful security tool -- some numb nut can't screw around, and assuming they have the root password wouldn't be able to do anything if they don't know the commands. The statement should be more qualified -- "All usefull Unicies for XXXXXX have the the Unix user hidden behind a user friendly mask." Case in point, some users of firewall box don't want/need a GUI. The last server I build is very "user" friendly, but doesn't have a GUI.
Educating people about securing their systems is one thing, but expecting everyone to become a security expert is quite another.
Agreed. One of the things that the/. community needs to understand is that some people are incapable, unwilling or just don't have the time to worry about their computer. In general, the/. community is quite intolerant of people who are unaware of what is going on in their computers. I had a tech support friend who used to tell customers that the problem is a "ID-10-T" error. Even though we may know how to fix a computer, upgrade Windows to Linux or whatever FOSS OS that you choose, doesn't mean that we should be intolerant of people that don't know about computers. I am sure that there are many mechanics who feel the same. Case in point -- I would never, ever pay for someone to fix my computer. But I do know how to fix my brakes, change my oil and do just about any mantience on my car; it may take me a while to accomplish a task, but it isn't worth it to me. Some people that use computers are the exact same way. They don't want to fix a computer themselves or learn how to do it because it just isn't worth it to them. I made a $100 because a person didn't want to learn how to fix their computer. Fine by me. But when it comes to changing my oil, I'll happily fork out $35 because I don't want to bother with. The best that we can expect is to train people about basic maintence. The real burden for securing computer is for those of us that have the skills to do it. We're starting to see the nessesity for responsable programming and security in computer systems. Simply put, we need to stop complaining about the unaware computer users and implement systems, designs and policies to make it easier on the user to have a secure system, while protecting the computer and the internet at large. Let's drop the "I am a geek, and therefore superior attitude."
How do we know that was even true? I mean he _lied_ about the webcam? These days, you can pick up lights for about $1.49 at Wal-mart for 100 bulbs. So you need 170 packs, at a modest $253. Yeah, I don't have the dough either, but it still isn't that bad...especially if you run an extension cord from your neighbors house...
The BSD Daemon in me wants to code up a little project to do what his sight was supposed to do. Sure the neighbors would be annoyed. But something about really doing it and being able to prove it would be a little satisfying. Pride -- yup. Oh well. Maybe we'll see the Christmas Light project on Source Forge soon....
At college, I had to bring down the number of computers that I fix. Otherwise I would have no time. So I started charging 3 dozen oatmeal raisen cookies for each repair. Had a lot of cookies. But the best part was that I wasn't fixing 15 computers a week, only five, and got 15 dozen cookies out of it.
Re:SCO Looking for Foreign Funds To Wage Legal War
on
SCO Targets UK Firms
·
· Score: 1
Actually, let's send them over to the UK. SCO is operating on USD not on the British Pound. The current exchange rate is pathetic: 1USD to 0.52BP. So at that rate, SCO can be pounded broke faster. Now if they win, then they stand to gain more. But let's be honest, there going to lose...faster now.
Should we call/. Scrouge Dot? Wow! This years Christmas isn't all that because important people are missing, but man alive, people are certainly bitter about it.
Circular arguments, hasty generalizations, straw-man arguments....it's a logical fallacy cornocopia!
Wow. Who would have thought trying to prove that Santa can do all that he is proported to do could rest on logical fallacies. The article looks like something that you would have found in the 1980's Pravda. But I guess this is what you get when you have to prove something. Oh well.
And why didn't Apple hire the guy after this dedication? I mean he proved that he not only had the dedication, but he also proved effective inter-department communication, team managment, "hiring" skills, and the ability to produce quality. If I were Apple I would have begged him to stay and given him a nice job -- if I didn't reward him financially for the project.
Have you installed the latest version of the Open Office or Star Office? You have to read the EULA first, or at least scroll down to the bottom of the EULA. At least then you skim it. And it is quite true that as consumers we are lousy consumers. What I think we need are required courses in school called Consumer Economics or something that addresses issues like knowing what your getting yourself into how to be a good consumer. But to the defense of the countless masses, there are many things that are on the minds of people, and the EULA is one thing most don't want to worry about. The fact remains that the/. community is the minority when it comes to EULA's -- even software patents and copyrights are a non-issue for many. Too many are worried about soccer practice and the PTA and Social Security. We have to cut the average PC user a little slack here.
So wait -- Microsoft == Trust, therefore !Microsoft != Trust? False premise? Yup.
Forgive my cynism, but he is ass|u|me|ing that people trust Microsoft in the first place? Does the guy not live in the real world? The reason that I trust Firefox is because I don't have any of the problems that I have with Internet Explorer. I liked IE until my computer became overran with spyware and trojans. Code signing would be nice. But didn't the guy find the feature that only allows software installations from certain sites. I am very trusting of Mozdev, and Mozilla.org. But I am quite glad that www.hijackyourbrowser.com isn't allowed to install software. Code signing is a nice idea, but I trust a whole lot of software that isn't signed. And Microsoft should know that code signing is often ignored. I ignored the driver signing last time I updated my NVidia drivers. Just because something is digitally signed doesn't mean that I should trust it. Heck, according to Microsoft's arguments I should get a new anti-virus (even though I am running Norton Antivirus Corparate Edition) because it doesn't report itself to the OS. And what is to prevent someone from cracking the way things are digitally signed? Again, I get back to the logical fallacy -- he is assuming that people inherently trust Microsoft.
As the global economy relies more and more on computers to conduct comerce, I for one am glad that computer crimes are being treated quite seriously. Just because it is a computer, and just because there was no physical harm to someone, doesn't mean that the crime is not a damaging crime. And with the concerns running about for identity theft, the sentence seems appropriate. It should go out for a warning: if you want to hack others computers, then you should set up your own LAN and only hack computers that you have permission to hack. And to the arguments that they just trying to collect passwords: what good is a password if you don't plan on doing anything with it. Snooping around someone elses computer is the electronic equivalent to voyeurism. It constitutes an invasion of privacy. Those with the know-how to hack have an ethical responsability to refrain from hacking, and those that hack should be held to the same standard of other white-collar crimes. Severe economic consquences can follow unauthorized hacking. Now if there is permission for the hacking to take place, that is one story. But to hack some computer system for kicks and giggles is wrong.
But here is an interesting question -- what would happen if, and when the TLD was approved for porn that several people/organizations bought famous SLD's in the TLD for porn? Somehow I can see some Family Group picking up Sex.xxx and Playboy.xxx, etc., and then putting up some sort of anti-porn message. The only way for a porn TLD to work is for people to respect the transition -- that means no cyber squatting to make a buck. In this case, I think what should happen is that all domain name owners in the.COM, then in the.NET name space should be given a one-year, automatic registration. So Slashdot would be given Slashdot.xxx, just off hat. Then those who have been given registration, can elect to keep the domain name or can elect to surrender the domain name back. This would prevent playboy.xxx from being squatted by someone and would allow the transition over the.xxx domain without to many problems. Obviously Sex.com is not going to surrender their.com space. But what they can do is place a front on the.com space that links to the.xxx space (with out the porn of course). We have to recognise that sex.com and many other porn domain names will never have much value to many people as anything other than a porn site. However, if the content is stored and displayed on a.xxx page instead of another TLD, then the enforcement of net nanny's and parents can happen. But I guess the porn industry doesn't want people to _have_ to go out and look for them.
During a major network reworking project at a college apartment complex, my partner and I recommend that the comlpex go over to Firefox. The interesting thing is that some of the tenats referred to the new internet at "Firefox" internet, as opposed to "Internet Explorer" internet. And even better was the fact that several of the tenats asked where they could get his new "internet." Out of the people over in the complex nearly half have switched over to Firefox. The exposure of Firefox actually started in their Internet lounge. And since people saw that the complex was using Firefox they started to what it. So I think that the best way to get some of these alternative standards-based browsers out is for exposure in main stream enviroments.
Here is an interesting question: literacy rates have, at least their is the perception, been falling for years. Now I question the efficacy of those tests. Language and the use of words evolve with the culture. In 2004 we are not exactly using words used in 1984 or 1964 and so on. Each generation has its own unique idiosyncracies that define a culture of its own. And the language that each generation uses has a unique cultural identifier to it. You can readily identify 80's cultural language, just as you can identify other generations cultural languages. It seems that those tests that messure literacy don't account for the literary and colloquial changes that happen on a generational basis. My bet is if the literacy tests actually accounted for changes in the use of language that it would probably show some change.
Slashdot Mirror
Humm...I find it painfully interesting that the legistlatures of states would try to enforce age restrictions on "M" rated games when fifteen year olds are freely walking into violent PG-13 and R rated movies. As it turns out the Gaming Industry was praised for the standards on how they rate video games, while the MPAA washes back and forth and allows some movies which should be R to be PG-13. At least with the Gaming Industry an M rating will be given with even the hint that it should be M rated, while the movie industry will tweak with a movie to take content out to sqeek it down to PG-13. So in my mind, I would like to see legislatures take on the MPAA and tighten the ratings before they get into games. Movies reach a larger audience than games do. If Government is going to get into legislating morals and games, then they should make it so minors can't get into R rated movies, rent them or buy them. I am tired of different standards being placed on different forms of media than others. The MPAA, RIAA and the Gaming Industry ought to get togther and develop a media neutral content rating system. That way a parent can reliably compare games to movies to music to print to whatever form the diffenet medias take. And if you compare M to the MPAA ratings, it turns out that M comes out to be the equivalent of a PG-13 rating. While Adults Only (AO) is closer to the mid-range R to NC-17.
Perhaps we ought to get together with Groklaw and send our own version to congress. Between the geek laywers, paralegals and legal-wannabes, and the general technical skills of the /. commuity, maybe we can come up with a law that would be both enforceable and strong enough to prevent any dork with an LLC from setting up shop.
In my college apt in Idaho (brr...South Eastern Idaho can get quite chilly) my room mate and I leave the heat off during the winter. My P4 and Athlon system do a great job of heating the bedroom. Through in his P4 laptop and it is comfortable. During the summer we need to put in an air conditioner, otherwise it gets unbearable in the room.
Actually the BSD's are Unix-variants. Per the FreeBSD homepage, "It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley."
Answer: Turn the computer on.
Not to be a prick and disagree, but some of the most useful systems to me have been ones that don't even have X installed. Not having a GUI is a powerful security tool -- some numb nut can't screw around, and assuming they have the root password wouldn't be able to do anything if they don't know the commands. The statement should be more qualified -- "All usefull Unicies for XXXXXX have the the Unix user hidden behind a user friendly mask." Case in point, some users of firewall box don't want/need a GUI. The last server I build is very "user" friendly, but doesn't have a GUI.
Agreed. One of the things that the /. community needs to understand is that some people are incapable, unwilling or just don't have the time to worry about their computer. In general, the /. community is quite intolerant of people who are unaware of what is going on in their computers. I had a tech support friend who used to tell customers that the problem is a "ID-10-T" error. Even though we may know how to fix a computer, upgrade Windows to Linux or whatever FOSS OS that you choose, doesn't mean that we should be intolerant of people that don't know about computers. I am sure that there are many mechanics who feel the same. Case in point -- I would never, ever pay for someone to fix my computer. But I do know how to fix my brakes, change my oil and do just about any mantience on my car; it may take me a while to accomplish a task, but it isn't worth it to me. Some people that use computers are the exact same way. They don't want to fix a computer themselves or learn how to do it because it just isn't worth it to them. I made a $100 because a person didn't want to learn how to fix their computer. Fine by me. But when it comes to changing my oil, I'll happily fork out $35 because I don't want to bother with. The best that we can expect is to train people about basic maintence. The real burden for securing computer is for those of us that have the skills to do it. We're starting to see the nessesity for responsable programming and security in computer systems. Simply put, we need to stop complaining about the unaware computer users and implement systems, designs and policies to make it easier on the user to have a secure system, while protecting the computer and the internet at large. Let's drop the "I am a geek, and therefore superior attitude."
How do we know that was even true? I mean he _lied_ about the webcam? These days, you can pick up lights for about $1.49 at Wal-mart for 100 bulbs. So you need 170 packs, at a modest $253. Yeah, I don't have the dough either, but it still isn't that bad...especially if you run an extension cord from your neighbors house...
So Wormwood won't hit in 2029...so that delays Armageddon a little. Well, more time to repent I guess.
site...sorry. I guess that's what the preview button is all about...
The BSD Daemon in me wants to code up a little project to do what his sight was supposed to do. Sure the neighbors would be annoyed. But something about really doing it and being able to prove it would be a little satisfying. Pride -- yup. Oh well. Maybe we'll see the Christmas Light project on Source Forge soon....
At college, I had to bring down the number of computers that I fix. Otherwise I would have no time. So I started charging 3 dozen oatmeal raisen cookies for each repair. Had a lot of cookies. But the best part was that I wasn't fixing 15 computers a week, only five, and got 15 dozen cookies out of it.
Actually, let's send them over to the UK. SCO is operating on USD not on the British Pound. The current exchange rate is pathetic: 1USD to 0.52BP. So at that rate, SCO can be pounded broke faster. Now if they win, then they stand to gain more. But let's be honest, there going to lose...faster now.
FYI: It is a 400 meter astriod. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/asteroid_2 004_mn4.html
No, that wouldn't work. The Mafia or some smart felon would claim prior art.
Should we call /. Scrouge Dot? Wow! This years Christmas isn't all that because important people are missing, but man alive, people are certainly bitter about it.
Circular arguments, hasty generalizations, straw-man arguments....it's a logical fallacy cornocopia!
Wow. Who would have thought trying to prove that Santa can do all that he is proported to do could rest on logical fallacies. The article looks like something that you would have found in the 1980's Pravda. But I guess this is what you get when you have to prove something. Oh well.
And why didn't Apple hire the guy after this dedication? I mean he proved that he not only had the dedication, but he also proved effective inter-department communication, team managment, "hiring" skills, and the ability to produce quality. If I were Apple I would have begged him to stay and given him a nice job -- if I didn't reward him financially for the project.
Have you installed the latest version of the Open Office or Star Office? You have to read the EULA first, or at least scroll down to the bottom of the EULA. At least then you skim it. And it is quite true that as consumers we are lousy consumers. What I think we need are required courses in school called Consumer Economics or something that addresses issues like knowing what your getting yourself into how to be a good consumer. But to the defense of the countless masses, there are many things that are on the minds of people, and the EULA is one thing most don't want to worry about. The fact remains that the /. community is the minority when it comes to EULA's -- even software patents and copyrights are a non-issue for many. Too many are worried about soccer practice and the PTA and Social Security. We have to cut the average PC user a little slack here.
So wait -- Microsoft == Trust, therefore !Microsoft != Trust? False premise? Yup.
Forgive my cynism, but he is ass|u|me|ing that people trust Microsoft in the first place? Does the guy not live in the real world? The reason that I trust Firefox is because I don't have any of the problems that I have with Internet Explorer. I liked IE until my computer became overran with spyware and trojans. Code signing would be nice. But didn't the guy find the feature that only allows software installations from certain sites. I am very trusting of Mozdev, and Mozilla.org. But I am quite glad that www.hijackyourbrowser.com isn't allowed to install software. Code signing is a nice idea, but I trust a whole lot of software that isn't signed. And Microsoft should know that code signing is often ignored. I ignored the driver signing last time I updated my NVidia drivers. Just because something is digitally signed doesn't mean that I should trust it. Heck, according to Microsoft's arguments I should get a new anti-virus (even though I am running Norton Antivirus Corparate Edition) because it doesn't report itself to the OS. And what is to prevent someone from cracking the way things are digitally signed? Again, I get back to the logical fallacy -- he is assuming that people inherently trust Microsoft.
As the global economy relies more and more on computers to conduct comerce, I for one am glad that computer crimes are being treated quite seriously. Just because it is a computer, and just because there was no physical harm to someone, doesn't mean that the crime is not a damaging crime. And with the concerns running about for identity theft, the sentence seems appropriate. It should go out for a warning: if you want to hack others computers, then you should set up your own LAN and only hack computers that you have permission to hack. And to the arguments that they just trying to collect passwords: what good is a password if you don't plan on doing anything with it. Snooping around someone elses computer is the electronic equivalent to voyeurism. It constitutes an invasion of privacy. Those with the know-how to hack have an ethical responsability to refrain from hacking, and those that hack should be held to the same standard of other white-collar crimes. Severe economic consquences can follow unauthorized hacking. Now if there is permission for the hacking to take place, that is one story. But to hack some computer system for kicks and giggles is wrong.
But here is an interesting question -- what would happen if, and when the TLD was approved for porn that several people/organizations bought famous SLD's in the TLD for porn? Somehow I can see some Family Group picking up Sex.xxx and Playboy.xxx, etc., and then putting up some sort of anti-porn message. The only way for a porn TLD to work is for people to respect the transition -- that means no cyber squatting to make a buck. In this case, I think what should happen is that all domain name owners in the .COM, then in the .NET name space should be given a one-year, automatic registration. So Slashdot would be given Slashdot.xxx, just off hat. Then those who have been given registration, can elect to keep the domain name or can elect to surrender the domain name back. This would prevent playboy.xxx from being squatted by someone and would allow the transition over the .xxx domain without to many problems. Obviously Sex.com is not going to surrender their .com space. But what they can do is place a front on the .com space that links to the .xxx space (with out the porn of course). We have to recognise that sex.com and many other porn domain names will never have much value to many people as anything other than a porn site. However, if the content is stored and displayed on a .xxx page instead of another TLD, then the enforcement of net nanny's and parents can happen. But I guess the porn industry doesn't want people to _have_ to go out and look for them.
No, but it would become far easier -- www.google.porn or www.google.xxx. Brings new meaning to the "I'm feeling lucky" button...
During a major network reworking project at a college apartment complex, my partner and I recommend that the comlpex go over to Firefox. The interesting thing is that some of the tenats referred to the new internet at "Firefox" internet, as opposed to "Internet Explorer" internet. And even better was the fact that several of the tenats asked where they could get his new "internet." Out of the people over in the complex nearly half have switched over to Firefox. The exposure of Firefox actually started in their Internet lounge. And since people saw that the complex was using Firefox they started to what it. So I think that the best way to get some of these alternative standards-based browsers out is for exposure in main stream enviroments.
Here is an interesting question: literacy rates have, at least their is the perception, been falling for years. Now I question the efficacy of those tests. Language and the use of words evolve with the culture. In 2004 we are not exactly using words used in 1984 or 1964 and so on. Each generation has its own unique idiosyncracies that define a culture of its own. And the language that each generation uses has a unique cultural identifier to it. You can readily identify 80's cultural language, just as you can identify other generations cultural languages. It seems that those tests that messure literacy don't account for the literary and colloquial changes that happen on a generational basis. My bet is if the literacy tests actually accounted for changes in the use of language that it would probably show some change.