The thing to remember is that the i-Names are sponsdered by XDI.org. When you get an i-Name you have to go to a broker, such as IDCommons.
Asside from the format, here is what the XDI.org website has to say about the benefit of an i-name:
# Privacy. Because an i-name or i-number is not itself a communications address like an email address or phone number, it is unspammable. You simply can't send it email, call it, or send it a fax directly unless the owner has given you permission. If you don't have permission, you can use an i-name to make a contact request of the owner. These requests can be automatically filtered by your i-broker to eliminate all but legitimate requests for contact.
# Persistence. Together, i-names and i-numbers are the first true universal addresses designed to last for a lifetime. Unlike any other form of address - postal address, telephone number, fax number, email address, domain name, etc. - i-names and i-numbers never need to change when a person or company moves, changes service providers, or even changes their real-world name.
# Portability. Global i-names and i-numbers - those registered directly with XDI.ORG - are guaranteed to be portable among i-brokers (the service providers that offer i-name/i-number data sharing applications) anywhere in the world.
Together, XRI and XDI solve the twin problems of persistent identity and trusted data sharing relationships by providing the technical foundation for linking people and organizations in a "Web of trust" just the way the Web lets us link pages in a "Web of text".
XRIs (Extensible Resource Identifiers) address a longstanding problem on the Internet: how to have a persistent, portable, privacy-protected identifier for any resource, from a person to a company to an application to a concept.
XDI (XRI Data Interchange) uses XRIs to securely and privately share, link, and synchronize data between any two devices, domains, or applications - and maintain this link for as long as the two parties want to keep a data sharing relationship.
http://www.xdi.org/faq.html
What I want to see is a format that offers these advantages with out the funky format. Instead of redoing the email address format, lets see a change which allows for the benefits in the existing format.
Yeah, can you imagine the shock when you give your email address out? I mean if I hadn't seen the format myself I would have thought that it would be a bogus email address. Afterall what would you think if you saw someone pass you =foo.bar? Nothing personal, but I think that this is one of the dumbest ideas that I have seen. People on the internet are comfortable with the foo.bar@foobar.com format. Most of the people that are savy enough to _want_ such a creature may not _want_ the hassle. Also asking the mainstream to accept it, is questionable. I'm with you, I don't see this becoming popular at all.
Currently at my school I have three ways to identify myself. There is my SSN, which is used for finances, then my NetID, which is used to to login and access information related to classes, updating information, etc; and then there is my email address which is used to communicate. The system use only my email address as a login, but my school told me that due to federal regulations, they have to have a unique identifier. So it is interesting that the Federal Government told the school that they have to use a system that does not use anything tied to the SSN (the NetID and the email monicker, are not tied to the SSN and financial records) and now they are proposing a system that will track based on SSN.
How come I can see the Mafia setting up some false-front shop to "sell" illegal copies, and then using a ton of aliases to get legit copies of XP to just resell the copies? I mean, the ethical disinclined could simply put up an elaborate scheme and bilk M$ for legit licenses.
The problem that I see M$ running into is that Linux is becoming so entrenched in Corparate and Government life that any serious threat to Linux would be disabled on the Government level. We're complaining of software patents. But just imagine what will happen when someone threatens Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Electric Boat, Red Hat, Novell, et al., on a serious level. Then I bet you that these guys will start to lobby Congress rather heavily and software patents just might disappear. The issue that we have here is that there is little insentive to change, but when a threat comes along that has enough teeth, but is absurd enough then Congress will castrate them via lobbying efforts. You will notice that SCO didn't go off and sue the major defense contractors? Or the music/movie industry. Someone will be selfish enough to make the mistake of taking a lobbying group to court, and then it will be over. The same thing will end up happening in other countries and this would issue of the WTO will be moot.
If they had coughed it up earlier, then SCO might have still had a chance. But since SCO spent all the earlier time jerking around, they just waited for the right moment. You know, when hunters spot a deer, they don't go blasting away -- the hunter will wait until the right moment. The hunter may know that he can hit the deer through the brush, but waiting until he can get a clear shot in the meadow is better. Novell warned them, and then waited for the moment. I see nothing wrong with it. Now Novell has taken aim, fired and is waiting for the finality of the bullet. My hat goes off to Novell -- not all Utah software companies are idiots.
Well if you actually step into a Best Buy, they seem content to drive off any customer, just for the heck of it. If you actually know something about computers, just ask someone there a question, and they will pretty much ignore you. Best Buy, in my opinion, is the worst retailer in electronics. Case in point -- I tried to buy a computer there, but the salesman wouldn't give me the time of day, much less actually help me to get the computer that I wanted to buy. I know own a Dell because of it. I will only buy things at Best Buy that don't require ANY associate interaction (well I'll give you the cashier and that is it). I doubt that any/.er would buy memory there, but for kicks just go up the memory counter and ask for a price. You'll be amazed at how fast they blow you off.
Some of the main stream sites are picking up on this. I have noticed that The Washington Post's website used to not work with Firefox -- it would actually look the page had gone in to a grand mal siezure. Now it works just fine. Then another thing to note is how the site managers took the CERT warning -- if you found out that CERT, the NYTimes and even Microsoft's own online magazine were saying use Firefox, would you ignore it? If it was me, I would start to support it.
I think that this is a tech trend that Microsoft is not paying attention to. With all the spyware/viruses that are out in the wild, I have installed, recommneded and even forced (if you don't use Firefox, I will not fix your computer again) people to switch to Firefox. In my college apartment, all of us are now using Firefox. And the funny thing is that they are all non-Geeks (music majors mostly) and they are recommending it to their friends too. Microsoft seems to have forgotten the economics of the browser wars. Just because they won over Netscape by using the operating system as a way to distribute, doesn't mean that they will nessasarily maintain. And the thing that is going to be difficult for them is to convince everyone that is using Mozilla to switch back. The lesson that MS needs to learn if they want to maintain the dominance is to produce a secure product that gives people what they want. Heck, when some of MS's own execs use Firefox then you know that something is up.
The comment about it being a Representation Democracy is true. The United States is a Representation Democracy and a Federal Republic. In our case Democracy refers to how the leaders in our representational system is chosen. And Republic is the form of government -- in our case it is a strong Federal Republic. GWB was elected based on the rules of the Republic. Calling the Electoral College a technicality show a lack of understanding of the Federal System. Gore decided that he wanted to change the rules of the Constitution. That is why the whole ordeal was referred to as a "Constitutional Crisis". Study the Electoral College and it will be clear who the real winner is.
Not if you want to be a little Machiavellian. Simply pick up the phone and dial the nearest police/FBI/whoever station and arrange a possible whitsle-blower agreement. You follow the orders while collecting information, your boss gets canned and sent to jail and when you get fired you file a whistle-blower lawsuit. Then it is a lose/lose for your boss and a win/win for you. And the best part is that you have covered your ace.
Well recorded. You have to be able to prove it -- and with out a record it is hard to prove that Ug, that lived in 50,000BC was the first one to implement a bad idea.
Just imagine the court case -- "Your Honor this Robot here, which incorporates a system to safe guard humanity, violates my patents. You see, this Robot will not harm a human, allow harm to come to human beings and the like. So you see, clearly this in violation of my patent."
If common sense in computing and inventing is patentable, then I will file for the "Systemic Implementation of Bad Ideas" patent. One of the things that I would in the patent application would be a methology for appling for and implementing bad patent ideas. Then I would go an chase after SCO for violating my patent. Better yet, I will sell licenses to people -- "You sir, and your company, are now offically licensed to be stupid." Oh the entertainment that one would have with this. Could you then exact royalties from Microsoft...or better yet, President Bush?
However, I think I would fail on prior art -- 7,000 years of history. D@mn.
I had to laugh when I saw the article. My room mates and I were joking that Coke must have made them pull the label. It is sick when a cynnical comment acutually rings true. But what happens when let's say Dr. Pepper sponsors one of the athletes? Does that mean that the athlete is barred from showing their personal sponsorship?
Something that I can do in class. Now instead of being bored out of my mind during lectures on the nature of Legumes and why Shakespear matters in my daily life, I can enjoy a rousing game. Although I do have a tendency to get into what I am watching. That could be bad. Standing up and cheering as I hoot. Yeah, pretty less effective. Yup.
It's not about suppressing speech it's about paying people for their creative talent.
The problem is that the the forms of speech that are being suppressed also fall in the creative realm. Just becuase the President used a private venue to make political statements does not mean that those that performed the "creative talent" should have exclusive rights to control who sees that political statement. In my opinion, commercialized political speech should not enjoy copyright protection -- creative talent or otherwise. Most people are not going to bootleg copies of the president, video or otherwise for personal gain. For the most part, those that would use copies of a the president would use it to persaude othes to reach a conclusion -- they would use it in support of their political speech. The only people that might use video or pictorial representations would be news media and the campaigns -- a very small portion of the country.
Copyright law is about balancing ownership rights and public interest. It's gone too far with the whole music thing but the examples cited here seem like reasonable enforcement of ownership rights.
How is this a case where the public interest is being preseved and protected? I am a republican, but I see no reason why Bush's statement on NBC should be allowed to hide behind a copyright law. As stated many times, the President own's neither his words nor his likeness when speaking on political ideas in a public forum. It is quite debatable that the TV (broadcast over publicly owned airways) could constitute a public forum. Further, the nature of the interview was quite political. There is very little creative talent involved. And what is there to protect? Presdient Bush can run about and say the same things over and over again, and it can be captured again and again. The problem is that the people that hold and control the copyright are not the orginator of the controversial or interesting arguments or the ideas. The only creative talent or innovation may be the way the interview happened, the filming, etc.
Political speech by an elected offical should not enjoy copyright protectection regardless of the forum if that speech is publicly displayed in any form. TV and radio included.
Finally, we found those millions of lines of code. We just thought they were talking about source code and they were talking about compiled code. It all makes sense now...
One of the fundamental goverment roles is to provide basic services. If the power were to go out, I would bet people would be up in arms. They also provide for roads and other public goods. The problem is that most Americans, and a good part of the first-World consider medical care a basic service. As the trend continues for medical cost to rise, such basics to our standard of living, like medicane is begining to be prohibitive. The problem then becomes who can afford medicial care? If it reaches the point where you have to make a small fortune every year to afford medical insurance, then there is a problem. IMHO if a significant majority of American's are overweight then that is a social problem that needs to be addressed. The same argument could be stated for other diseases. The question that you have to ask when deciding if something is a bad thing for society is whether or not the social benefit outweighs the social cost. But to argue that pretty soon state aide will be more attractive than working is short-sighted. The state can only supply services based on income. If the majority of people get on social-aide, then the system won't be able to support them and they will be forced to work. With the current trends, some believe, the Social Security system will collaspe by 2030 -- with nearly 3 people on Social Security and 1 person working. Also, it is estimated that by the same time that people will be paying nearly 80% of their real income to pay for medical care. Now the question I have to ask: at what point is state aide for medical care reasonable? When only the super rich can afford it? Just in case your wondering, I am a republican. But I also have seen how unreasonable medical costs can consume the lives of people and destroy the finanical livelyhood of familes.
I orginally purchased my first domain name for email reasons. It proved to cut down on spam significantly. I went from recieving about 20-30 spams a day to now just the occasional virus messages. The only problem that I ran into was that I purchased a.org address, and well some people were putting.com. So I had to buy.com too. But it sure is nice having the portability and knowing that you own your own address. The other problem that I have had is that the WHOIS information is used by spammers. The email address that I listed in the WHOIS information gets spammed by the likes of people offering website logo crap and offers for CIALIS or whatever that impotence drug is called.
I just about dropped a brick in my pants. Up here at school a lot of the apartment complexes have high speed internet, and of course, it is set up for the cheapest and least secure way you can think of. As a result with the last round I had a queue of some six computer all in need of patching, spyware removal, and virus removal. One of the apartment complex's is going to hire me to fix the tenants computers. When I saw the post the first thing that went through my mind is that I am going to make some money. One of the first things that I do when I fix a Windows computer now is to install Firefox. And before someone says it has bugs, I must say that it is significantly less buggy than IE. What I would like to know is how much the last round cost and how much these new 9 vulnerabilites will cost. And I think its time that computer users file a class-action, anti-trust suit. I think we have a pretty good case to argue that Microsoft abused it's monopoly to push superior products out and as a result the public has suffered. With 96% of desktops running Windows this many bugs is simply unacceptable.
Something that would be interesting to study is how many jobs open source creates -- it may just be a reshuffling of jobs around though. If companies have more money to spend on IT development instead of buying software it may create jobs. Also if a company can pay a developer to alter some OSS projects and still save money then it is still creating jobs. With the trend of companies to outsource, it just means that the people that developers need to adapt offer specialties in areas of OSS.
Now they can actually find the old people when they die....not that nursing homes really worry about all the bells and whistles....well had to say something since it might be a first post.
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What I want to see is a format that offers these advantages with out the funky format. Instead of redoing the email address format, lets see a change which allows for the benefits in the existing format.
Yeah, can you imagine the shock when you give your email address out? I mean if I hadn't seen the format myself I would have thought that it would be a bogus email address. Afterall what would you think if you saw someone pass you =foo.bar? Nothing personal, but I think that this is one of the dumbest ideas that I have seen. People on the internet are comfortable with the foo.bar@foobar.com format. Most of the people that are savy enough to _want_ such a creature may not _want_ the hassle. Also asking the mainstream to accept it, is questionable. I'm with you, I don't see this becoming popular at all.
Currently at my school I have three ways to identify myself. There is my SSN, which is used for finances, then my NetID, which is used to to login and access information related to classes, updating information, etc; and then there is my email address which is used to communicate. The system use only my email address as a login, but my school told me that due to federal regulations, they have to have a unique identifier. So it is interesting that the Federal Government told the school that they have to use a system that does not use anything tied to the SSN (the NetID and the email monicker, are not tied to the SSN and financial records) and now they are proposing a system that will track based on SSN.
How come I can see the Mafia setting up some false-front shop to "sell" illegal copies, and then using a ton of aliases to get legit copies of XP to just resell the copies? I mean, the ethical disinclined could simply put up an elaborate scheme and bilk M$ for legit licenses.
The problem that I see M$ running into is that Linux is becoming so entrenched in Corparate and Government life that any serious threat to Linux would be disabled on the Government level. We're complaining of software patents. But just imagine what will happen when someone threatens Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Electric Boat, Red Hat, Novell, et al., on a serious level. Then I bet you that these guys will start to lobby Congress rather heavily and software patents just might disappear. The issue that we have here is that there is little insentive to change, but when a threat comes along that has enough teeth, but is absurd enough then Congress will castrate them via lobbying efforts. You will notice that SCO didn't go off and sue the major defense contractors? Or the music/movie industry. Someone will be selfish enough to make the mistake of taking a lobbying group to court, and then it will be over. The same thing will end up happening in other countries and this would issue of the WTO will be moot.
If they had coughed it up earlier, then SCO might have still had a chance. But since SCO spent all the earlier time jerking around, they just waited for the right moment. You know, when hunters spot a deer, they don't go blasting away -- the hunter will wait until the right moment. The hunter may know that he can hit the deer through the brush, but waiting until he can get a clear shot in the meadow is better. Novell warned them, and then waited for the moment. I see nothing wrong with it. Now Novell has taken aim, fired and is waiting for the finality of the bullet. My hat goes off to Novell -- not all Utah software companies are idiots.
Well if you actually step into a Best Buy, they seem content to drive off any customer, just for the heck of it. If you actually know something about computers, just ask someone there a question, and they will pretty much ignore you. Best Buy, in my opinion, is the worst retailer in electronics. Case in point -- I tried to buy a computer there, but the salesman wouldn't give me the time of day, much less actually help me to get the computer that I wanted to buy. I know own a Dell because of it. I will only buy things at Best Buy that don't require ANY associate interaction (well I'll give you the cashier and that is it). I doubt that any /.er would buy memory there, but for kicks just go up the memory counter and ask for a price. You'll be amazed at how fast they blow you off.
Some of the main stream sites are picking up on this. I have noticed that The Washington Post's website used to not work with Firefox -- it would actually look the page had gone in to a grand mal siezure. Now it works just fine. Then another thing to note is how the site managers took the CERT warning -- if you found out that CERT, the NYTimes and even Microsoft's own online magazine were saying use Firefox, would you ignore it? If it was me, I would start to support it.
I guess that means that there is actually a Bikeshed. Who would have figured? And I thought that it was just proverbial...
I think that this is a tech trend that Microsoft is not paying attention to. With all the spyware/viruses that are out in the wild, I have installed, recommneded and even forced (if you don't use Firefox, I will not fix your computer again) people to switch to Firefox. In my college apartment, all of us are now using Firefox. And the funny thing is that they are all non-Geeks (music majors mostly) and they are recommending it to their friends too. Microsoft seems to have forgotten the economics of the browser wars. Just because they won over Netscape by using the operating system as a way to distribute, doesn't mean that they will nessasarily maintain. And the thing that is going to be difficult for them is to convince everyone that is using Mozilla to switch back. The lesson that MS needs to learn if they want to maintain the dominance is to produce a secure product that gives people what they want. Heck, when some of MS's own execs use Firefox then you know that something is up.
The comment about it being a Representation Democracy is true. The United States is a Representation Democracy and a Federal Republic. In our case Democracy refers to how the leaders in our representational system is chosen. And Republic is the form of government -- in our case it is a strong Federal Republic. GWB was elected based on the rules of the Republic. Calling the Electoral College a technicality show a lack of understanding of the Federal System. Gore decided that he wanted to change the rules of the Constitution. That is why the whole ordeal was referred to as a "Constitutional Crisis". Study the Electoral College and it will be clear who the real winner is.
Not if you want to be a little Machiavellian. Simply pick up the phone and dial the nearest police/FBI/whoever station and arrange a possible whitsle-blower agreement. You follow the orders while collecting information, your boss gets canned and sent to jail and when you get fired you file a whistle-blower lawsuit. Then it is a lose/lose for your boss and a win/win for you. And the best part is that you have covered your ace.
Well recorded. You have to be able to prove it -- and with out a record it is hard to prove that Ug, that lived in 50,000BC was the first one to implement a bad idea.
If common sense in computing and inventing is patentable, then I will file for the "Systemic Implementation of Bad Ideas" patent. One of the things that I would in the patent application would be a methology for appling for and implementing bad patent ideas. Then I would go an chase after SCO for violating my patent. Better yet, I will sell licenses to people -- "You sir, and your company, are now offically licensed to be stupid." Oh the entertainment that one would have with this. Could you then exact royalties from Microsoft...or better yet, President Bush?
However, I think I would fail on prior art -- 7,000 years of history. D@mn.
I had to laugh when I saw the article. My room mates and I were joking that Coke must have made them pull the label. It is sick when a cynnical comment acutually rings true. But what happens when let's say Dr. Pepper sponsors one of the athletes? Does that mean that the athlete is barred from showing their personal sponsorship?
Something that I can do in class. Now instead of being bored out of my mind during lectures on the nature of Legumes and why Shakespear matters in my daily life, I can enjoy a rousing game. Although I do have a tendency to get into what I am watching. That could be bad. Standing up and cheering as I hoot. Yeah, pretty less effective. Yup.
Or trademark it.
Well, how much typing can you do in artic tempetures. Your typing can only be so good with Gortex gloves rated for the artic...
The problem is that the the forms of speech that are being suppressed also fall in the creative realm. Just becuase the President used a private venue to make political statements does not mean that those that performed the "creative talent" should have exclusive rights to control who sees that political statement. In my opinion, commercialized political speech should not enjoy copyright protection -- creative talent or otherwise. Most people are not going to bootleg copies of the president, video or otherwise for personal gain. For the most part, those that would use copies of a the president would use it to persaude othes to reach a conclusion -- they would use it in support of their political speech. The only people that might use video or pictorial representations would be news media and the campaigns -- a very small portion of the country.
Copyright law is about balancing ownership rights and public interest. It's gone too far with the whole music thing but the examples cited here seem like reasonable enforcement of ownership rights.
How is this a case where the public interest is being preseved and protected? I am a republican, but I see no reason why Bush's statement on NBC should be allowed to hide behind a copyright law. As stated many times, the President own's neither his words nor his likeness when speaking on political ideas in a public forum. It is quite debatable that the TV (broadcast over publicly owned airways) could constitute a public forum. Further, the nature of the interview was quite political. There is very little creative talent involved. And what is there to protect? Presdient Bush can run about and say the same things over and over again, and it can be captured again and again. The problem is that the people that hold and control the copyright are not the orginator of the controversial or interesting arguments or the ideas. The only creative talent or innovation may be the way the interview happened, the filming, etc.
Political speech by an elected offical should not enjoy copyright protectection regardless of the forum if that speech is publicly displayed in any form. TV and radio included.
Finally, we found those millions of lines of code. We just thought they were talking about source code and they were talking about compiled code. It all makes sense now...
One of the fundamental goverment roles is to provide basic services. If the power were to go out, I would bet people would be up in arms. They also provide for roads and other public goods. The problem is that most Americans, and a good part of the first-World consider medical care a basic service. As the trend continues for medical cost to rise, such basics to our standard of living, like medicane is begining to be prohibitive. The problem then becomes who can afford medicial care? If it reaches the point where you have to make a small fortune every year to afford medical insurance, then there is a problem. IMHO if a significant majority of American's are overweight then that is a social problem that needs to be addressed. The same argument could be stated for other diseases. The question that you have to ask when deciding if something is a bad thing for society is whether or not the social benefit outweighs the social cost. But to argue that pretty soon state aide will be more attractive than working is short-sighted. The state can only supply services based on income. If the majority of people get on social-aide, then the system won't be able to support them and they will be forced to work. With the current trends, some believe, the Social Security system will collaspe by 2030 -- with nearly 3 people on Social Security and 1 person working. Also, it is estimated that by the same time that people will be paying nearly 80% of their real income to pay for medical care. Now the question I have to ask: at what point is state aide for medical care reasonable? When only the super rich can afford it? Just in case your wondering, I am a republican. But I also have seen how unreasonable medical costs can consume the lives of people and destroy the finanical livelyhood of familes.
I orginally purchased my first domain name for email reasons. It proved to cut down on spam significantly. I went from recieving about 20-30 spams a day to now just the occasional virus messages. The only problem that I ran into was that I purchased a .org address, and well some people were putting .com. So I had to buy .com too. But it sure is nice having the portability and knowing that you own your own address. The other problem that I have had is that the WHOIS information is used by spammers. The email address that I listed in the WHOIS information gets spammed by the likes of people offering website logo crap and offers for CIALIS or whatever that impotence drug is called.
I just about dropped a brick in my pants. Up here at school a lot of the apartment complexes have high speed internet, and of course, it is set up for the cheapest and least secure way you can think of. As a result with the last round I had a queue of some six computer all in need of patching, spyware removal, and virus removal. One of the apartment complex's is going to hire me to fix the tenants computers. When I saw the post the first thing that went through my mind is that I am going to make some money. One of the first things that I do when I fix a Windows computer now is to install Firefox. And before someone says it has bugs, I must say that it is significantly less buggy than IE. What I would like to know is how much the last round cost and how much these new 9 vulnerabilites will cost. And I think its time that computer users file a class-action, anti-trust suit. I think we have a pretty good case to argue that Microsoft abused it's monopoly to push superior products out and as a result the public has suffered. With 96% of desktops running Windows this many bugs is simply unacceptable.
Something that would be interesting to study is how many jobs open source creates -- it may just be a reshuffling of jobs around though. If companies have more money to spend on IT development instead of buying software it may create jobs. Also if a company can pay a developer to alter some OSS projects and still save money then it is still creating jobs. With the trend of companies to outsource, it just means that the people that developers need to adapt offer specialties in areas of OSS.
Now they can actually find the old people when they die....not that nursing homes really worry about all the bells and whistles....well had to say something since it might be a first post.