The integral macro-language in MS Office can access every feature of a document -- that's the whole point of a macro-language. So "all" you have to do is write a set of macros to translate the data to a readable format, and export that to a file which you can then translate at your leisure to another format -- either the OpenOffice.org XML format, or {if you must stick with a newer version of MS} write some more macros -- for the new version, this time -- to build up a document based on your own special format. That isn't as easy as I just made it sound, of course -- MS macro programming is a job in its own right -- but it's probably the surest method in the long run.
In some cases, the simplest option might be to re-create your documents from scratch -- or, just one step up from there, export everything in a plain text format and re-apply all formatting using the new software. You probably could even get a YTS-er {or several} to do that, and have the Social pay their wages for you; but check with your local JobCentre first in case you have to give them real jobs afterward.
Well, my proxy server is set up to block nearly all adverts anyway -- so I don't get to see many of them. The real point I was making is not that I want to see the other lot of advertisements {I dream of an Internet without any adverts}, but that information about users -- information that just maybe they don't want every pervert and stalker in town knowing -- might be being made available indirectly to third parties.
This is one question I will avoid a site rather than answer. There is one valid reason for wanting to know this: something that you intend to happen to me is critically dependent upon the presence or absence of certain organs. One example would be sexual intercourse with likelihood of conception -- but I only want to read the news, not have a freaking baby! {Similarly, age and income are not relevant unless you are planning to lend me money and want to be sure that I [a] can afford to pay it back and [b] aren't going to die before the repayment period is up.}
Why do sites ask this anyway? Well, this is a bit of an oversimplification; but if you answer "female", then it puts out adverts for things like shoes, cosmetics and weight loss products; if you answer "male" then it puts out adverts for car accessories, video games, power tools and that sort of thing.
Well, in most countries that is actually illegal since it is a form of sex discrimination. {Anyone know if the Unruh act would apply in California? The one that says any garment that would constitute appropriate dress on a woman must be held also to constitute appropriate dress on a man.} A man has a right to see adverts for shoes, cosmetics and weight loss systems, just as a woman has a right to see adverts for car parts, video games and power tools. It is a matter of personal preference and it depends more upon what lies between the ears, than what lies between the legs.
Now think about this. A cybervillain manages to access an ISP's server logs, and discovers an IP address which is being sent adverts for shoes, make-up and diet pills, from a registration site which asks a person's gender. If he can hack deeper into the system, and discover a physical address associated with that connection, then he has effectively located a potential victim.
Ask any CPO in any nick and they will tell you: if you're a woman living alone then you never reveal the fact to anybody you have a choice not to reveal it to. You use your initials, so they can't see it's a woman's name, without a prefix ("Ms" / "Miss" / "Mrs") -- just "A.J.S318." is less obvious than "Anita Jane S318.". Some even advice against double-locking your front door {i.e. so it can't be opened from the inside} because if anyone sees you do it, it shows the house is obviously empty. {Use a Chubb lock as well if you think a Yale lock isn't enough by itself}.
Although our hypothetical cybervillain is already prying somewhere he should not be, there is no earthly reason why the NYT et al should be {possibly illegally} practising this kind of sex discrimination in the first place -- if they simply displayed the same adverts to everyone, then women might be a little safer.
And by the way, I see nothing wrong with lying if the correct answer is "none of your bloody business" but the person doing the asking has not provided such an option.
Yes, you have to recompile your kernel. But it really is not that big a deal (all the same, I wouldn't do it on a machine in co-lo without an already-established phone line to a person standing in front of the box}.
Think of the kernel as just another tarball, which has a slightly weirdy make procedure {like, you can't just go 'make install'}. You have to download the kernel sources from a kernel.org mirror, your distribution's kernel patches from one of their mirrors {while Slackware users point and laugh}, and the local exploit patches from the site mentioned in the article.
If you use KDE, there is already a graphical kernel configurator known to work with 2.4 series kernels -- it may not work properly with 2.6 series kernels, but there probably is a patch.
Otherwise, apply your distribution's kernel patches (if any) as per their instructions, followed by the article patch. Then carry on with your distribution's instructions. If you're really lucky, your old.config file will work for the new kernel -- and if not, it probably is time to upgrade anyway.
And don't be put off by the rumours that you can trash your box this way. The worst that can happen is you forget to run LILO and have to boot from a CD-ROM. You can then run LILO and reboot. {Actually that's not true. The worst that can happen is you do run LILO as you meant, but you had incorrectly jumpered both drives on the primary IDE controller as masters when you meant cable select, and you stomp all over the bootloader and kernel on the "slave" drive. Trust me, you do NOT want to do that. Was a 'mare to get sorted and I ended up losing the partition I was trying to rescue because I made a brain-fart.}
SCO were ordered by the German courts not to go harassing Linux users -- unless and until it is proven beyond reasonable doubt, they are doing nothing illegal. That's what "innocent until proven guilty" means -- even if there is no doubt about whether you did something, there can be doubt about whether it was legal.
If SCO try it on, they will be in contempt of court, and that is a very serious offence.
They that live by the statute book, shall die by the statute book.
What we need is for everyone around the world to make a big push for a new law at the very highest level -- in the USA, an amendment to the constitution -- which makes it clear that an individual is privy to {but may be bound to keep} any secret contained in any article that they rightfully own, and guarantees that no-one can prevent an individual from attempting to decrypt a message where they are the rightful recipient.
That ought to be common sense, never mind English Common Law; but since the "deny all except allowed, guilty until proven innocent" mentality took over, some people might need a gentle reminder that the likes of you and I have rights, and governments -- whose wages we pay -- are supposed to protect those rights.
The data on a CD is written spirally and files are spread out around several complete turns. One shard -- assuming the coating had not peeled off -- would be akin to a narrow strip of paper cut diagonally from a newspaper. Too many gaps in it to make sense of it.
Data on HDs is stored as magnetic fields, that is correct. The read/write head can't -- by design -- tell the difference betwen a "1" that always was a "1" and a "1" that used to be a "0". There are exotic forms of electron microscope that can spot the difference, but they are numbered in the thousands. And they don't show a clear "1" or "0" either..... you have to interpret the pattern and decide for yourself. One bit at a time. Most of what's on a typical disk platter is crap, and you'd have to wade through a lot of crap to find the good stuff, and that's even if there is anything worth looking for.
Journalling is a bit of a red herring, since the journal file will get overwritten with meaningless stuff sooner or later.
I still maintain that one or two overwrites with really or nearly random data is plenty. Anybody work for a data recovery firm and fancy a challenge?
There is no need to pay a licence fee to use Linux. Linux is copyright Linus Torvalds, who has agreed that anyone is allowed to use it, inspect it and modify it provided they eithershare their improvements with everybody or keep their trap shut about their improvements. SCO has no more claim to Linux than Sony to the VHS format. There are obvious similarities (macrokernel-based POSIX implementation in UNIX and Linux; PAL video signal and mono audio recorded on 12.7mm wide magnetic tape in Beta and VHS) but these are accepted to fall outside the scope of protectable intellectual property.
In most countries it is a criminal offence to sell stuff you do not own (unless you have lien over it and in most countries "intellectual property" is not subject to lien). The only person who has the right to charge money for Linux licences is Linus Torvalds, and he has already granted a free-of-charge {though not free-of-obligations} licence to use it. Anybody else attempting to sell Linux licences is guilty of fraud.
The police can recover a drive after it has had zeros written to the drive up to 7 times, and the higher levels of the gov't probably can recover data after it's even further gone. Not only that, but they can recover CeeDees... even those that have been shattered (just need enough of the pieces...
Proof? Looks too much like a breach of the laws of physics to me.
My thoughts entirely..... you can launch the damn thing into the sun if you like, but if you can't be certain that the drive you were trying to destroy is the same one that has the information on it, then it's all just a show.
It takes just two overwrites with really random data to remove data forever. Magnetism is a hysteresis loop phenomenon {think of a spring toggle; it will only move if you push it hard enough, then the same spring you were fighting against snaps it into its new position}. There is a slight difference between a "1 that used to be a 0" and a "1 that was always a 1", and there's a corresponding slight difference between a "0 that always was a 0" and a "0 that used to be a 1" -- but that, by design, isn't apparent to the disk read head. (Think: the same few hundred MB of disk get repeatedly overwritten when it's used as a swapfile. Data surviving overwrites would lead to all manner of reliability problems.)
You can usually get some fairly random data from/dev/dsp - if all the inputs are turned up full whack with nothing plugged into them, then you will get a nice mix of static and power hum that ought not to contain any discernible pattern.
A "1 that used to be a 0, and before that a 1" and a "1 that used to be a 0, and before that a 0" are almost certainly indistinguible. One write ago you might be able to recover, but two writes ago you haven't got much chance. Perhaps if you extracted the platters, you might be able to find some remnants of data on them..... but you'd have to do a lot of work to reconstruct it. Unless you struck gold straight away, you'd have to wade through a hell of a lot of crap reconstructing the drive's own low level structure and the OS's file format before you work out what order the recovered zeros and ones should even go in.
Once the data is as close to unrecoverable as won't make much difference, any extra effort you make is wasted. Sure, there are going to be one or two gems out there; but most people's data isn't that valuable, or can be had elsewhere for less effort. Think about it: Names and addresses are published in phone books and electoral registers. Identity numbers / SSNs are not secret. Nor are bank account numbers -- they're on every cheque you write. Credit card numbers are only valid for two years. Medical records of strangers are an interesting read, but not terrifically useful for anything interesting. If you're utterly paranoid, it might be worth doing partial random writes before storing any data on a new drive -- so if someone really can determine the first thing ever written to the drive, it would be nonsense. "Underwrite" each sector a random number of times, of course. Of course, if you have an encrypted file system, only the encryption key need be erased securely.
So, having applied the laws of physics and seen that getting rid of data isn't that hard (and could be implemented almost trivially at the OS level; but not being able to recover data might conceivably be worse than being able to recover it, what with everyone getting used to the idea of a magical 'undo' button), let's turn the question around and look at it from the other side:
Who gets fat on persuading people that they need to physically destroy used hard disk drives? And why? Let's see.....
Hard drive manufacturers - they will obviously sell more new drives if people can't buy second-hand ones.
Data recovery companies - they make money persuading people they can recover data from anything.
Secure data disposal consultants - they can charge big money under the colour of authority.
The Government - misinforming the populace is a centuries-old tradition. Documenting a data disposal procedure that is actually overkill might suggest to the Enemy that you have the technology to recover from anything less.
Anyway, if recovering overwritten data really worked -- or even only half-worked -- someone would, by now, have tried to use it for a "drive space expander" utility. The kind of thing that would probably be advertised by SPAM.
But what you're forgetting is that the vast majority of copies of Windows out there are pirated.
If even as many as one in two copies of Windows is legitimate, then the problem will only be cut by half.
At any rate, Microsoft would be committing suicide by stopping pirates from upgrading their security. It's a matter of time before non-Windows PCs become seriously viable for beginners. It will just take a hardware manufacturer / rebadger to commit seriously to Linux {or possibly FreeBSD}, and write {or commission} appropriate drivers for their own brand kit. When Joe Moron can buy a PC, digital camera, scanner, printer and flashy-LED ashtray all in one box, take it home and have it just work, he won't care if it's running Windows, Linux, BSD or VAX/VMS. {Yeah, OK, I know the Mac does that already, and does it bloody well too. But Macs are perceived as expensive, by people who don't factor in having to spend fortunes recovering from malware damage.}
Introducing a "networthy test" would be a great idea if and not unless it was done properly, but I fear it has enormous potential for abuse. What if some scuzzballmer went up to the committee set up to determine a framework for testing, and said something like "You can't trust that open source software, it's full of security holes; now here are some pictures of the Queen to help you make your mind up" ? Linux users might find themselves barred from the net. If ISPs say something like "You need to be running foo before we will allow you to connect to our equipment" where foo is a Windows-only package, then that might be reason enough to bar Linux users even though they might well have something better than foo installed on their systems already.
I'd like to think scientists were immune to being bought off like politicians; but I rather suspect that politicians, as opposed to scientists, will dominate the committee. Especially if the consensus amongst scientists is that Windows will need much expensive work to get it up to networthiness.
I wrote a piece of software once -- it's called LDPSK and it doesn't do very much really -- and released it under a modified BSD licence with an extra clause requiring intent to distribute source code. Bit over the top since it's all interpreted anyway, but you never know. Anyway, as I understand it, if somebody modifies LDPSK, and their modification is not a new work in its own right, then the copyright on their modified LDPSK still belongs to me {at least in some part} -- otherwise, the licence would be unenforceable.
Had I placed LDPSK in the public domain, then anyone modifying it would have copyright on the whole of their modified version.
That's the important difference I feel needs to be levelled out. If modified versions of existing works in the Public Domain were bound by law to remain in the Public Domain for all time, then there would be no need for "copyleft" -- because works dedicated to the Public Domain would have the same protection as . I also think the Public Domain is "special" enough that the contributor should renounce their partial copyright in return for using PD work in the first place.
Clarification: Proprietary EULAs seem to say "Sharing is theft". If you don't agree with that, then there are two {sensible} places where you can add the word "not", and you end up with quite different meanings. Either "Sharing is not theft" {expressing permission to share - BSD style} or "Not sharing is theft" {expressing obligation to share - GPL style}.
It's actually taken from an old.sig, which I'll reproduce here in all its glory for the benefit of anyone who missed it:
MS EULA: sharing is theft.
BSD: sharing is not theft.
GPL: not sharing is theft.
I hope that sorts out some of the confusion..... but I bet it won't stop people saying "The GPL says you mustn't....." when what they really mean is "Copyright law says you mustn't.....".
If they use the "sharing is not theft" BSD licence, then someone conceivably could take Java, modify it just enough to make it incompatible with the old version, and release their modified version -- let's call it EvilJava because I can't think of anything better -- closed-source. By writing plenty of code that only runs on EvilJava, someone can effectively usurp control of the market -- this, presumably, is the "nightmare scenario" Sun is keenest to avoid.
If they use the "not sharing is theft" GPL, then nobody can release a closed-source modification. Somebody could conceivably write a "JavaTwoPlus" incompatible with plain old Java, but it would necessarily be GPL. We have to assume that GPL automatically means cross-platform, since there would be nothing to prevent Sun themselves from porting JavaTwoPlus to any other platform for which a version of GCC exists.
If they go for a Pine-like licence, then nobody will be allowed to release modified binaries to the general public -- whether EvilJava or JavaTwoPlus -- in such a way that they could be confused with the "official" Java. Anyone wishing to create an improved Java would be confined to releasing patches for the source. As wonderful as this looks in theory, it's a nightmare in practice because of the problems it creates for distributors. Some Linux distros already don't include Pine, precisely for fear of running afoul of its licencing terms {You typically have to modify any source package ever so slightly to get it to work with your own distribution; that's what the configure process is about. The actual Pine licence doesn't make it clear that such modification is permitted. Even if the University of Washington turns a blind eye to some distros putting out a patched pine, there is nothing to say that one day it won't start coming down hard on distributors}. Sun presumably wants Java to be distributed widely, so should word the licence very carefully if following this route -- there is a real risk of alienating distributors.
The question boils one of balance between code integrity and the benefits of Open Source. BSD doesn't assure code integrity or cross-platform-ness. Pine-like assures integrity but impacts negatively on distributability. GPL blocks any outright threats to code integrity and cross-platform compatibility -- but potentially leaves Sun with hard work to do.
All that being said, if Java has enough functionality already then nobody will really feel the need to add anything else -- which, of course, is where the greatest single threat to cross-platform-ness comes from. Those few who do have special requirements which can best be met through modifications, probably will not be releasing their modified Java versions into the mainstream.
Sun has up to now played the role of a protective parent, shielding the child (Java) from the worst elements of the outside, adult world (closed-source vendors who would take a beautiful product and distort it for their own ends). But children do eventually grow up; and after a point, when they have learned the dangers of the world, it becomes wrong not to set them free into that very world -- for all its dangers, it is still a beautiful place. If Sun has done everything right -- or even done just enough right -- then there is nothing to fear when Java makes the transistion from tightly-reined, closed-source child to well-balanced, Open Source adult with an existence of its own that does not depend on Sun.
Even if I thought there was anything wrong with being a hippie, that would still be an ad hominem attack..... a fallacy.
There are accepted standards of behaviour in society. Wearing jeans and tshirt and visible tattoos and facial pericings is not acceptable if you are a Fortune 500 CEO, a Prosecutor, or President.
Why? Please try to give me an argument which does not depend on fallacies.
It is not acceptable in many other areas in life either. In the REAL WORLD you must do things even if you don't like them. It's just the way it is. You must learn to take orders before you can give orders.
This looks like part of a circular argument, i.e. a fallacy. "The way it is" can be changed. It already has been changed, greatly for the better.
Now, finish high school, grow up, and stop listening to punk rock
Another ad hominem attack, and not even consistent with the previous one. Please make up your mind whether I am supposed to be a hippie or a punk.
"it's not appropriate to wear T-shirts and jeans to work, wear a nice shirt and tie" is a human rights violation.
It may look like a very minor one, but it's a human rights violation all the same. I am no less able to do my job in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt than I would be in a shirt and tie, nor does my wearing a T-shirt and jeans endanger others; therefore it is not necessary that I should wear a shirt and tie to do my job. "What other people might think" is a red herring, since it is a matter of opinion and therefore beyond my control. What if some of those "other people" have an irrational distrust of people with dark hair and blue eyes? Should I dye my hair or wear tinted contact lenses just to please them?
if you live in the sort of society where you can get away with speaking up against it, you should count yourself lucky-- most places in most periods of history haven't allowed you to speak up.
Small abuses make it easier to perpetuate large ones -- that was one of my points, remember. Yes, I am bloody lucky to have what I've got -- but I'm still entitled to more, and I'm damned if I'm not going to fight for it with everything I've got, because if I give in now then somebody else is only going to have a harder time in future. The idea that there is such a thing as "just free enough" is what keeps the whole rotten system going -- the truth is, either you are free, or you aren't. And I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.
BTW, I haven't worn a tie for ten years, and you would have an easier job getting a hangman's noose around my neck.
Oh yes they are. Discrimination is discrimination, never mind what it's about. The fact that I can change my clothing more easily than I can change the colour of my skin does not mean it is generally OK to say "No Jeans", even though you are generally not allowed to say "No N***ers". If someone invented a device or substance which would allow someone to change reversibly the colour of their skin as easily as changing their clothing, would that then make it generally OK to discriminate on skin colour? Of course not, and it follows that it is cannot generally OK to discriminate on clothing either.
This is part of my point about the minor abuses making it easier to justify the major ones.
I'll give you a clue how many people were killed in Nazi concentration camps: it was significantly fewer than the entire population of Europe at the time. Revising the estimates upward is just as bad as downward. We probably will never know the exact figure, and so many lies have been told now that nobody would believe the truth if you told them.
Have you ever tried buying an 80x86-type laptop without Windows installed? Desktops I can, and do, build up from parts; but not laptops. Microsoft is limiting my choice there. I am not making a trivial matter look serious; you just can't see how serious it really is.
Look beyond the means {yes, there are some people who really do see killing people as no more than a means to an end} and see the end. If the Nazis could have found a way to destroy the ideas they did not agree with, without killing anyone, then they probably would have done that instead. And they would, in all likelihood, have succeeded in their aims. As things worked out, the killing was what got their efforts nipped in the bud.
The Nazis were trying to eradicate ideas they did not agree with, by killing people.
Microsoft is trying to eradicate ideas it does not agree with, by misusing its position of power. Different means, same end.
Some might say that forcing me to use a particular brand of software is a lesser abuse of my human rights than killing me. My point, and the parent's point, is that closed-source software may look trivial -- especially when millions of people have far, far worse things to worry about than choosing their own software -- but an abuse of human rights is still an abuse of human rights.
There is actually a school of thought that says we should fight just as hard, if not harder, against "small" human rights abuses {e.g. dress codes} as "big" human rights abuses {e.g. racism, sexism}. As long as the lesser abuses are accepted without question, that acceptance can be cited in an attempt to justify greater ones. And, of course, the great abuses are used to justify the small ones; giving every would-be abuser of human rights a circular argument. {"Right to wear trousers? Pah! You should count yourself lucky -- thirty years ago a woman wouldn't have been allowed in this job at all!"}
An abuse of human rights is stil an abuse of human rights. And the fact that a few hundred thousand people died in the Nazi concentration camps does not make it any less wrong for Microsoft to deny me the right to choose what software I use.
My point exactly. A work, once it has entered the Public Domain, should be there forever.
If you look at something over which I have copyright, and make a new work based on it, that will be considered "your own work" if and only if you use less than X% of my material {where X varies dependent upon jurisdiction and circumstances}. Otherwise, I still have copyright over your derivative work, and it's up to me how -- or even if at all -- it's distributed.
With the Public Domain, as the law stands now, there is nothing to stop you taking a PD work, making one tiny change and claiming it as "your own work" {and thereby being granted copyright on it, and by extension control over distribution}.
What I am advocating is that there should be a law against that -- there isn't, but there bloody well should be. Once a work has entered the Public Domain, it should never, ever again be the subject of copyright. According to which, Disney's version of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio should remain in the PD {unless Disney added enough of their own new material to constitute a new work; unlikely, though}.
Sound harsh? You bet. But if you have benefitted from any of the following: fire, weapons, clothing, shelter, agriculture, mathematics, living in cities, electronics, And Many More; then you have benefitted from discoveries made by others. {Electronics being a very good one. Guess how many patents Michael Faraday ever owned? Do you suppose you would still be using that computer if things had been a little different?} Everything we ever do is based on something else someone else already did, and it seems to me to be supremely selfish and destructive to misappropriate all that good work that put us here, for the sake of a quick profit.
Point taken; but I was actually responding to a post about copyrights triggered by a poster's signature in a discussion about patents. At least a person has a chance of living to see a patent expire.....
I've never used these so-called "browser toolbars" because they seem to only work on inferior browsers (= MS Internet Explorer) on toy OSes (= Windows), upon neither of which would I waste a precious CPU cycle; so perhaps I'm not the fittest person to comment here.
But how come, when people install these things, they don't just do the nearest thing to what I would do when installing a package with functionality I didn't want: edit the source code with whatever Windows has instead of vi, and comment out all the spyware-ish bits, before they do whatever Windows does instead of make? Maybe they could even do whatever Windows does instead of diff to create a patch, and offer that for download from their own site.
If people aren't smart enough to do that, they probably deserve the consequences.
At last, someone talking sense. The GPL is a workaround for a bad situation. The problem is that -- under the law as it stands today -- copyright is sacrosanct, whereas the Public Domain is unprotected from pilfering. Anybody can legally take a Public Domain work, make a tiny change, claim copyright on it, and start throwing their weight around in the courts. It should be the other way around: the Public Domain {which belongs to the majority} should be protected from abuse by copyright holders {the minority}. The GPL is a way to use existing copyright laws -- which ordinarily would benefit the minority -- in a way which benefits the majority. Copyright law gives authors {too much, some would say} control over distribution of their works -- the GPL is a way to use that control for good {ensuring that the majority of people have access to works in a fashion similar to the "Enhanced Public Domain" described below} rather than for evil {ensuring that a minority profit from works}.
If the Public Domain were as well protected from what some call "theft" as copyright material, -- i.e. you could make "fair use" of a PD work but not attempt to call it your own -- then there would be no need for the GPL, as all Free software could be dedicated to the Public Domain and then could not be "stolen" by Closed Source authors.
You would be automatically permitted to use up to X% of a PD work in a work on which you claim copyright, but any more than that and the work would belong in the Public Domain; just as you are allowed to use up to X% of someone else's copyrighted work in a work in a work on which you claim copyright, but any more than that and the work is still copyright of the original author. Additionally, any person would have to have the right to investigate any copyrighted work for evidence of misappropriation of Public Domain material {which would have to be made a criminal, rather than civil, offence; and falsely copyrighted works would pass automatically into the Public Domain}.
The important difference is that, unlike a copyrighted work, nobody would be able to give permission to use nore than X% of a Public Domain work in a copyrighted work {unless the would-be pilferer wishes to organise, at their own expense and to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, a nationwide referendum on the issue}. This way, the Public Domain would be guaranteed to grow and grow.
In case anybody forgets, the original purpose of copyright law was to enhance the Public Domain by encouraging authors to contribute to it -- you were given a limited-term monopoly over your own work, in return for releasing it to the Public Domain for the benefit of everyone.
Bypassing any particular form of copy prevention may be supremely difficult, but it is not impossible.
Copy prevention is impossible. Not very, very difficult - it is impossible.
That is not a limitation of present-day technology, it is a limitation of the universe, and is as fundamental as the law of conservation of energy. If something can be listened to, it can be copied.
Any attempt on copy-prevention is a waste of resources. It only takes for one person to "beat" the scheme, and every work it ever used to "protect" is potentially suddenly "unprotected" again. The instant someone defeats a scheme -- possibly even by something as lame as pointing a mic at a speaker and staying very, very quiet -- then can make as many copies as they want..... and nothing anybody can ever do will ever stop it.
All copy-prevention does is push up the cost -- and occasionally, spoil the audio quality -- of CDs. Ironically, the high cost of CDs is why people copy them in the first place {when did you see anybody photocopying a Harry Potter book one page at a time?} If the ratio (cost of a pre-recorded CD):(cost of blank CD) could be brought down to about 3:1, then there would be little or no "piracy" going on.
Slashdot Mirror
The integral macro-language in MS Office can access every feature of a document -- that's the whole point of a macro-language. So "all" you have to do is write a set of macros to translate the data to a readable format, and export that to a file which you can then translate at your leisure to another format -- either the OpenOffice.org XML format, or {if you must stick with a newer version of MS} write some more macros -- for the new version, this time -- to build up a document based on your own special format. That isn't as easy as I just made it sound, of course -- MS macro programming is a job in its own right -- but it's probably the surest method in the long run.
In some cases, the simplest option might be to re-create your documents from scratch -- or, just one step up from there, export everything in a plain text format and re-apply all formatting using the new software. You probably could even get a YTS-er {or several} to do that, and have the Social pay their wages for you; but check with your local JobCentre first in case you have to give them real jobs afterward.
Well, my proxy server is set up to block nearly all adverts anyway -- so I don't get to see many of them. The real point I was making is not that I want to see the other lot of advertisements {I dream of an Internet without any adverts}, but that information about users -- information that just maybe they don't want every pervert and stalker in town knowing -- might be being made available indirectly to third parties.
This is one question I will avoid a site rather than answer. There is one valid reason for wanting to know this: something that you intend to happen to me is critically dependent upon the presence or absence of certain organs. One example would be sexual intercourse with likelihood of conception -- but I only want to read the news, not have a freaking baby! {Similarly, age and income are not relevant unless you are planning to lend me money and want to be sure that I [a] can afford to pay it back and [b] aren't going to die before the repayment period is up.}
Why do sites ask this anyway? Well, this is a bit of an oversimplification; but if you answer "female", then it puts out adverts for things like shoes, cosmetics and weight loss products; if you answer "male" then it puts out adverts for car accessories, video games, power tools and that sort of thing.
Well, in most countries that is actually illegal since it is a form of sex discrimination. {Anyone know if the Unruh act would apply in California? The one that says any garment that would constitute appropriate dress on a woman must be held also to constitute appropriate dress on a man.} A man has a right to see adverts for shoes, cosmetics and weight loss systems, just as a woman has a right to see adverts for car parts, video games and power tools. It is a matter of personal preference and it depends more upon what lies between the ears, than what lies between the legs.
Now think about this. A cybervillain manages to access an ISP's server logs, and discovers an IP address which is being sent adverts for shoes, make-up and diet pills, from a registration site which asks a person's gender. If he can hack deeper into the system, and discover a physical address associated with that connection, then he has effectively located a potential victim.
Ask any CPO in any nick and they will tell you: if you're a woman living alone then you never reveal the fact to anybody you have a choice not to reveal it to. You use your initials, so they can't see it's a woman's name, without a prefix ("Ms" / "Miss" / "Mrs") -- just "A.J.S318." is less obvious than "Anita Jane S318.". Some even advice against double-locking your front door {i.e. so it can't be opened from the inside} because if anyone sees you do it, it shows the house is obviously empty. {Use a Chubb lock as well if you think a Yale lock isn't enough by itself}.
Although our hypothetical cybervillain is already prying somewhere he should not be, there is no earthly reason why the NYT et al should be {possibly illegally} practising this kind of sex discrimination in the first place -- if they simply displayed the same adverts to everyone, then women might be a little safer.
And by the way, I see nothing wrong with lying if the correct answer is "none of your bloody business" but the person doing the asking has not provided such an option.
Yes, you have to recompile your kernel. But it really is not that big a deal (all the same, I wouldn't do it on a machine in co-lo without an already-established phone line to a person standing in front of the box}.
.config file will work for the new kernel -- and if not, it probably is time to upgrade anyway.
Think of the kernel as just another tarball, which has a slightly weirdy make procedure {like, you can't just go 'make install'}. You have to download the kernel sources from a kernel.org mirror, your distribution's kernel patches from one of their mirrors {while Slackware users point and laugh}, and the local exploit patches from the site mentioned in the article.
If you use KDE, there is already a graphical kernel configurator known to work with 2.4 series kernels -- it may not work properly with 2.6 series kernels, but there probably is a patch.
Otherwise, apply your distribution's kernel patches (if any) as per their instructions, followed by the article patch. Then carry on with your distribution's instructions. If you're really lucky, your old
And don't be put off by the rumours that you can trash your box this way. The worst that can happen is you forget to run LILO and have to boot from a CD-ROM. You can then run LILO and reboot. {Actually that's not true. The worst that can happen is you do run LILO as you meant, but you had incorrectly jumpered both drives on the primary IDE controller as masters when you meant cable select, and you stomp all over the bootloader and kernel on the "slave" drive. Trust me, you do NOT want to do that. Was a 'mare to get sorted and I ended up losing the partition I was trying to rescue because I made a brain-fart.}
SCO were ordered by the German courts not to go harassing Linux users -- unless and until it is proven beyond reasonable doubt, they are doing nothing illegal. That's what "innocent until proven guilty" means -- even if there is no doubt about whether you did something, there can be doubt about whether it was legal.
If SCO try it on, they will be in contempt of court, and that is a very serious offence.
They that live by the statute book, shall die by the statute book.
What we need is for everyone around the world to make a big push for a new law at the very highest level -- in the USA, an amendment to the constitution -- which makes it clear that an individual is privy to {but may be bound to keep} any secret contained in any article that they rightfully own, and guarantees that no-one can prevent an individual from attempting to decrypt a message where they are the rightful recipient.
That ought to be common sense, never mind English Common Law; but since the "deny all except allowed, guilty until proven innocent" mentality took over, some people might need a gentle reminder that the likes of you and I have rights, and governments -- whose wages we pay -- are supposed to protect those rights.
The data on a CD is written spirally and files are spread out around several complete turns. One shard -- assuming the coating had not peeled off -- would be akin to a narrow strip of paper cut diagonally from a newspaper. Too many gaps in it to make sense of it.
..... you have to interpret the pattern and decide for yourself. One bit at a time. Most of what's on a typical disk platter is crap, and you'd have to wade through a lot of crap to find the good stuff, and that's even if there is anything worth looking for.
Data on HDs is stored as magnetic fields, that is correct. The read/write head can't -- by design -- tell the difference betwen a "1" that always was a "1" and a "1" that used to be a "0". There are exotic forms of electron microscope that can spot the difference, but they are numbered in the thousands. And they don't show a clear "1" or "0" either
Journalling is a bit of a red herring, since the journal file will get overwritten with meaningless stuff sooner or later.
I still maintain that one or two overwrites with really or nearly random data is plenty. Anybody work for a data recovery firm and fancy a challenge?
There is no need to pay a licence fee to use Linux. Linux is copyright Linus Torvalds, who has agreed that anyone is allowed to use it, inspect it and modify it provided they eithershare their improvements with everybody or keep their trap shut about their improvements. SCO has no more claim to Linux than Sony to the VHS format. There are obvious similarities (macrokernel-based POSIX implementation in UNIX and Linux; PAL video signal and mono audio recorded on 12.7mm wide magnetic tape in Beta and VHS) but these are accepted to fall outside the scope of protectable intellectual property.
In most countries it is a criminal offence to sell stuff you do not own (unless you have lien over it and in most countries "intellectual property" is not subject to lien). The only person who has the right to charge money for Linux licences is Linus Torvalds, and he has already granted a free-of-charge {though not free-of-obligations} licence to use it. Anybody else attempting to sell Linux licences is guilty of fraud.
My thoughts entirely ..... you can launch the damn thing into the sun if you like, but if you can't be certain that the drive you were trying to destroy is the same one that has the information on it, then it's all just a show.
You can usually get some fairly random data from
A "1 that used to be a 0, and before that a 1" and a "1 that used to be a 0, and before that a 0" are almost certainly indistinguible. One write ago you might be able to recover, but two writes ago you haven't got much chance. Perhaps if you extracted the platters, you might be able to find some remnants of data on them
Once the data is as close to unrecoverable as won't make much difference, any extra effort you make is wasted. Sure, there are going to be one or two gems out there; but most people's data isn't that valuable, or can be had elsewhere for less effort. Think about it: Names and addresses are published in phone books and electoral registers. Identity numbers / SSNs are not secret. Nor are bank account numbers -- they're on every cheque you write. Credit card numbers are only valid for two years. Medical records of strangers are an interesting read, but not terrifically useful for anything interesting. If you're utterly paranoid, it might be worth doing partial random writes before storing any data on a new drive -- so if someone really can determine the first thing ever written to the drive, it would be nonsense. "Underwrite" each sector a random number of times, of course. Of course, if you have an encrypted file system, only the encryption key need be erased securely.
So, having applied the laws of physics and seen that getting rid of data isn't that hard (and could be implemented almost trivially at the OS level; but not being able to recover data might conceivably be worse than being able to recover it, what with everyone getting used to the idea of a magical 'undo' button), let's turn the question around and look at it from the other side:
Who gets fat on persuading people that they need to physically destroy used hard disk drives? And why? Let's see
Anyway, if recovering overwritten data really worked -- or even only half-worked -- someone would, by now, have tried to use it for a "drive space expander" utility. The kind of thing that would probably be advertised by SPAM.
But what you're forgetting is that the vast majority of copies of Windows out there are pirated.
If even as many as one in two copies of Windows is legitimate, then the problem will only be cut by half.
At any rate, Microsoft would be committing suicide by stopping pirates from upgrading their security. It's a matter of time before non-Windows PCs become seriously viable for beginners. It will just take a hardware manufacturer / rebadger to commit seriously to Linux {or possibly FreeBSD}, and write {or commission} appropriate drivers for their own brand kit. When Joe Moron can buy a PC, digital camera, scanner, printer and flashy-LED ashtray all in one box, take it home and have it just work, he won't care if it's running Windows, Linux, BSD or VAX/VMS. {Yeah, OK, I know the Mac does that already, and does it bloody well too. But Macs are perceived as expensive, by people who don't factor in having to spend fortunes recovering from malware damage.}
Introducing a "networthy test" would be a great idea if and not unless it was done properly, but I fear it has enormous potential for abuse. What if some scuzzballmer went up to the committee set up to determine a framework for testing, and said something like "You can't trust that open source software, it's full of security holes; now here are some pictures of the Queen to help you make your mind up" ? Linux users might find themselves barred from the net. If ISPs say something like "You need to be running foo before we will allow you to connect to our equipment" where foo is a Windows-only package, then that might be reason enough to bar Linux users even though they might well have something better than foo installed on their systems already.
I'd like to think scientists were immune to being bought off like politicians; but I rather suspect that politicians, as opposed to scientists, will dominate the committee. Especially if the consensus amongst scientists is that Windows will need much expensive work to get it up to networthiness.
I wrote a piece of software once -- it's called LDPSK and it doesn't do very much really -- and released it under a modified BSD licence with an extra clause requiring intent to distribute source code. Bit over the top since it's all interpreted anyway, but you never know. Anyway, as I understand it, if somebody modifies LDPSK, and their modification is not a new work in its own right, then the copyright on their modified LDPSK still belongs to me {at least in some part} -- otherwise, the licence would be unenforceable.
Had I placed LDPSK in the public domain, then anyone modifying it would have copyright on the whole of their modified version.
That's the important difference I feel needs to be levelled out. If modified versions of existing works in the Public Domain were bound by law to remain in the Public Domain for all time, then there would be no need for "copyleft" -- because works dedicated to the Public Domain would have the same protection as . I also think the Public Domain is "special" enough that the contributor should renounce their partial copyright in return for using PD work in the first place.
It's actually taken from an old
- If they use the "sharing is not theft" BSD licence, then someone conceivably could take Java, modify it just enough to make it incompatible with the old version, and release their modified version -- let's call it EvilJava because I can't think of anything better -- closed-source. By writing plenty of code that only runs on EvilJava, someone can effectively usurp control of the market -- this, presumably, is the "nightmare scenario" Sun is keenest to avoid.
- If they use the "not sharing is theft" GPL, then nobody can release a closed-source modification. Somebody could conceivably write a "JavaTwoPlus" incompatible with plain old Java, but it would necessarily be GPL. We have to assume that GPL automatically means cross-platform, since there would be nothing to prevent Sun themselves from porting JavaTwoPlus to any other platform for which a version of GCC exists.
- If they go for a Pine-like licence, then nobody will be allowed to release modified binaries to the general public -- whether EvilJava or JavaTwoPlus -- in such a way that they could be confused with the "official" Java. Anyone wishing to create an improved Java would be confined to releasing patches for the source. As wonderful as this looks in theory, it's a nightmare in practice because of the problems it creates for distributors. Some Linux distros already don't include Pine, precisely for fear of running afoul of its licencing terms {You typically have to modify any source package ever so slightly to get it to work with your own distribution; that's what the configure process is about. The actual Pine licence doesn't make it clear that such modification is permitted. Even if the University of Washington turns a blind eye to some distros putting out a patched pine, there is nothing to say that one day it won't start coming down hard on distributors}. Sun presumably wants Java to be distributed widely, so should word the licence very carefully if following this route -- there is a real risk of alienating distributors.
The question boils one of balance between code integrity and the benefits of Open Source. BSD doesn't assure code integrity or cross-platform-ness. Pine-like assures integrity but impacts negatively on distributability. GPL blocks any outright threats to code integrity and cross-platform compatibility -- but potentially leaves Sun with hard work to do.All that being said, if Java has enough functionality already then nobody will really feel the need to add anything else -- which, of course, is where the greatest single threat to cross-platform-ness comes from. Those few who do have special requirements which can best be met through modifications, probably will not be releasing their modified Java versions into the mainstream.
Sun has up to now played the role of a protective parent, shielding the child (Java) from the worst elements of the outside, adult world (closed-source vendors who would take a beautiful product and distort it for their own ends). But children do eventually grow up; and after a point, when they have learned the dangers of the world, it becomes wrong not to set them free into that very world -- for all its dangers, it is still a beautiful place. If Sun has done everything right -- or even done just enough right -- then there is nothing to fear when Java makes the transistion from tightly-reined, closed-source child to well-balanced, Open Source adult with an existence of its own that does not depend on Sun.
It may look like a very minor one, but it's a human rights violation all the same. I am no less able to do my job in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt than I would be in a shirt and tie, nor does my wearing a T-shirt and jeans endanger others; therefore it is not necessary that I should wear a shirt and tie to do my job. "What other people might think" is a red herring, since it is a matter of opinion and therefore beyond my control. What if some of those "other people" have an irrational distrust of people with dark hair and blue eyes? Should I dye my hair or wear tinted contact lenses just to please them? Small abuses make it easier to perpetuate large ones -- that was one of my points, remember. Yes, I am bloody lucky to have what I've got -- but I'm still entitled to more, and I'm damned if I'm not going to fight for it with everything I've got, because if I give in now then somebody else is only going to have a harder time in future. The idea that there is such a thing as "just free enough" is what keeps the whole rotten system going -- the truth is, either you are free, or you aren't. And I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.
BTW, I haven't worn a tie for ten years, and you would have an easier job getting a hangman's noose around my neck.
Oh yes they are. Discrimination is discrimination, never mind what it's about. The fact that I can change my clothing more easily than I can change the colour of my skin does not mean it is generally OK to say "No Jeans", even though you are generally not allowed to say "No N***ers". If someone invented a device or substance which would allow someone to change reversibly the colour of their skin as easily as changing their clothing, would that then make it generally OK to discriminate on skin colour? Of course not, and it follows that it is cannot generally OK to discriminate on clothing either.
This is part of my point about the minor abuses making it easier to justify the major ones.
I'll give you a clue how many people were killed in Nazi concentration camps: it was significantly fewer than the entire population of Europe at the time. Revising the estimates upward is just as bad as downward. We probably will never know the exact figure, and so many lies have been told now that nobody would believe the truth if you told them.
Have you ever tried buying an 80x86-type laptop without Windows installed? Desktops I can, and do, build up from parts; but not laptops. Microsoft is limiting my choice there. I am not making a trivial matter look serious; you just can't see how serious it really is.
Look beyond the means {yes, there are some people who really do see killing people as no more than a means to an end} and see the end. If the Nazis could have found a way to destroy the ideas they did not agree with, without killing anyone, then they probably would have done that instead. And they would, in all likelihood, have succeeded in their aims. As things worked out, the killing was what got their efforts nipped in the bud.
The Nazis were trying to eradicate ideas they did not agree with, by killing people.
Microsoft is trying to eradicate ideas it does not agree with, by misusing its position of power. Different means, same end.
Some might say that forcing me to use a particular brand of software is a lesser abuse of my human rights than killing me. My point, and the parent's point, is that closed-source software may look trivial -- especially when millions of people have far, far worse things to worry about than choosing their own software -- but an abuse of human rights is still an abuse of human rights.
There is actually a school of thought that says we should fight just as hard, if not harder, against "small" human rights abuses {e.g. dress codes} as "big" human rights abuses {e.g. racism, sexism}. As long as the lesser abuses are accepted without question, that acceptance can be cited in an attempt to justify greater ones. And, of course, the great abuses are used to justify the small ones; giving every would-be abuser of human rights a circular argument. {"Right to wear trousers? Pah! You should count yourself lucky -- thirty years ago a woman wouldn't have been allowed in this job at all!"}
An abuse of human rights is stil an abuse of human rights. And the fact that a few hundred thousand people died in the Nazi concentration camps does not make it any less wrong for Microsoft to deny me the right to choose what software I use.
My point exactly. A work, once it has entered the Public Domain, should be there forever.
If you look at something over which I have copyright, and make a new work based on it, that will be considered "your own work" if and only if you use less than X% of my material {where X varies dependent upon jurisdiction and circumstances}. Otherwise, I still have copyright over your derivative work, and it's up to me how -- or even if at all -- it's distributed.
With the Public Domain, as the law stands now, there is nothing to stop you taking a PD work, making one tiny change and claiming it as "your own work" {and thereby being granted copyright on it, and by extension control over distribution}.
What I am advocating is that there should be a law against that -- there isn't, but there bloody well should be. Once a work has entered the Public Domain, it should never, ever again be the subject of copyright. According to which, Disney's version of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio should remain in the PD {unless Disney added enough of their own new material to constitute a new work; unlikely, though}.
Sound harsh? You bet. But if you have benefitted from any of the following: fire, weapons, clothing, shelter, agriculture, mathematics, living in cities, electronics, And Many More; then you have benefitted from discoveries made by others. {Electronics being a very good one. Guess how many patents Michael Faraday ever owned? Do you suppose you would still be using that computer if things had been a little different?} Everything we ever do is based on something else someone else already did, and it seems to me to be supremely selfish and destructive to misappropriate all that good work that put us here, for the sake of a quick profit.
Point taken; but I was actually responding to a post about copyrights triggered by a poster's signature in a discussion about patents. At least a person has a chance of living to see a patent expire .....
I've never used these so-called "browser toolbars" because they seem to only work on inferior browsers (= MS Internet Explorer) on toy OSes (= Windows), upon neither of which would I waste a precious CPU cycle; so perhaps I'm not the fittest person to comment here.
But how come, when people install these things, they don't just do the nearest thing to what I would do when installing a package with functionality I didn't want: edit the source code with whatever Windows has instead of vi, and comment out all the spyware-ish bits, before they do whatever Windows does instead of make? Maybe they could even do whatever Windows does instead of diff to create a patch, and offer that for download from their own site.
If people aren't smart enough to do that, they probably deserve the consequences.
At last, someone talking sense. The GPL is a workaround for a bad situation. The problem is that -- under the law as it stands today -- copyright is sacrosanct, whereas the Public Domain is unprotected from pilfering. Anybody can legally take a Public Domain work, make a tiny change, claim copyright on it, and start throwing their weight around in the courts. It should be the other way around: the Public Domain {which belongs to the majority} should be protected from abuse by copyright holders {the minority}. The GPL is a way to use existing copyright laws -- which ordinarily would benefit the minority -- in a way which benefits the majority. Copyright law gives authors {too much, some would say} control over distribution of their works -- the GPL is a way to use that control for good {ensuring that the majority of people have access to works in a fashion similar to the "Enhanced Public Domain" described below} rather than for evil {ensuring that a minority profit from works}.
If the Public Domain were as well protected from what some call "theft" as copyright material, -- i.e. you could make "fair use" of a PD work but not attempt to call it your own -- then there would be no need for the GPL, as all Free software could be dedicated to the Public Domain and then could not be "stolen" by Closed Source authors.
You would be automatically permitted to use up to X% of a PD work in a work on which you claim copyright, but any more than that and the work would belong in the Public Domain; just as you are allowed to use up to X% of someone else's copyrighted work in a work in a work on which you claim copyright, but any more than that and the work is still copyright of the original author. Additionally, any person would have to have the right to investigate any copyrighted work for evidence of misappropriation of Public Domain material {which would have to be made a criminal, rather than civil, offence; and falsely copyrighted works would pass automatically into the Public Domain}.
The important difference is that, unlike a copyrighted work, nobody would be able to give permission to use nore than X% of a Public Domain work in a copyrighted work {unless the would-be pilferer wishes to organise, at their own expense and to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, a nationwide referendum on the issue}. This way, the Public Domain would be guaranteed to grow and grow.
In case anybody forgets, the original purpose of copyright law was to enhance the Public Domain by encouraging authors to contribute to it -- you were given a limited-term monopoly over your own work, in return for releasing it to the Public Domain for the benefit of everyone.
Bypassing any particular form of copy prevention may be supremely difficult, but it is not impossible.
..... and nothing anybody can ever do will ever stop it.
Copy prevention is impossible. Not very, very difficult - it is impossible.
That is not a limitation of present-day technology, it is a limitation of the universe, and is as fundamental as the law of conservation of energy. If something can be listened to, it can be copied.
Any attempt on copy-prevention is a waste of resources. It only takes for one person to "beat" the scheme, and every work it ever used to "protect" is potentially suddenly "unprotected" again. The instant someone defeats a scheme -- possibly even by something as lame as pointing a mic at a speaker and staying very, very quiet -- then can make as many copies as they want
All copy-prevention does is push up the cost -- and occasionally, spoil the audio quality -- of CDs. Ironically, the high cost of CDs is why people copy them in the first place {when did you see anybody photocopying a Harry Potter book one page at a time?} If the ratio (cost of a pre-recorded CD):(cost of blank CD) could be brought down to about 3:1, then there would be little or no "piracy" going on.