Lets make it clear that there are a lot of different people in the world with a lot of different basic beliefs and tenets that all call themselves christians.
I am one of those, for those who didn't already know (feel free to read my comments history before slamming me, you won't find much interesting, but hey...)
Some christians have historically believed that killing people 'on God's behalf' is a valid exercise. The Bible itself makes it very clear that whatever it is that God considers worthy of death, he'll do the deed himself ("Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord"). Anyone acting for him in this area is misled (and misread).
The people who killed thousands in NYC in the name of Allah claimed to be Muslims.
BGP4 blackholing (which MAPS half-condones) is stupid when its based on a spam list. Having a list for known abusive networks would be great, that is, they send large numbers of 'abusive' packets that aren't application or protocol specific. In that case, BGP4 blackhole them... but if they just send spam, block their E-mail servers from sending you mail, don't block your users from downloading their software.
Unfortunately, the workplace and school both involve other human beings... these will get in your way some times, but often aren't removable without jail time.
That said, part of being a good programmer in the real world is knowing when to take something that's already been done and just improve on it instead of re-inventing the wheel.
One way around this behaviour when its not desired is to force students to use cvs or another versioning system on a regular basis; their code modifications as they go along are saved along with comments. Your ability to comment your code for others' perusal is noted alongside how you went about designing the project.
You do realise that divx (the one you mentionned) 'failed' during an era that DVDs weren't being purchased either? DVDs took at least another two to three years before they became popular -- the divx scheme was too early, as were DVDs, for the general population to be willing to try them.
A publisher might allow you to download a copy of a book that would only work for the two day period after the download. This would allow you to sample the book before buying a 'full rights' version.
A keynote speaker or lecturer might give out copies of his latest article that he's sold to someone else or will be putting into a book in a format only readable during the morning he's speaking.
Speaking of Linux, I hope some intelligent company (like RedHat, SuSe, etc.) grabs up these guys as fast as possible -- especially before they end up posting resumes to Microsoft.
He's _hoping_ to make $200 million a year off the music industry? That's it?
I hope he starts to realise how much money goes into the coffers of the large music houses compared to his and the artists' and starts thinking about telling them to drop the price on CDs a little. Now _that_ would help copy protection issues.
Any good HOWTO on remailing will point out that you should use cypherpunk remailers and chaining...
encrypt message to Bin Laden.
add "to: laden@hilltop.af" as the first line before the encryption.
encrypt it all to remailer C
add "to: remailerc@somewhere.com" to the top
encrypt it all to remailer B
add "to: remailerb@another.net" to the top
encrypt it all to remailer A
Send it off to remailera@anon.fi
At each waypoint, the remailers should hold the message for a random amount of time before resending it to the next remailer. Each remailer decrypts who the next point in the chain is off the message and passes the rest of the message to the next remailer until the last remailer sends the encrypted message to Bin Laden.
If the remailers in question have a fairly high level of E-mail traffic (or generate fake traffic between each other from time to time), tracking messages becomes nearly impossible.
PS, its more fun if your message says:
Check out my latest beach photos on webshots.
The traffic analysis that would have to then be avoided is also the correlation between people who receive lots of E-mail from cypherpunks remailers and which websites they visit frequently...
PS, almost nobody actually uses public keys to encrypt messages, they use random 128 bit or 256 bit AES/IDEA/Twofish keys to encrypt messages whose keys are then encrypted with a public key algorithm.
Ignoring some of the humour value, I hope someone in the media makes a bit of noise about the fact that making strong encryption have backdoors has no effect at all on the use of other methods like pre-exchanged one time pads and the use of little-known languages.
That aside as well, who's going to force the terrorists to use the state-approved software in the first place? That's what I thought....
I'm glad to hear it; I'm actually quite suprised by how long it took me to bother to try Python as well. I think it was when I discovered how much RedHat was using it for building their new installers, etc.
I still like the idea of upgrading the security within the cockpit. Whether its a thumbprint scanner on the controls or a retina scanner for access to the cabin area, some technology upgrades are probably due.
PS, I once wrote a similar letter about gun registration in Canada... we don't allow personal small arms (in most cases), but you are allowed to own a hunting rifle. Since most crimes in Canada involving guns are committed with guns that were illegally acquired in the first place, it was hard for me to figure out why the mandatory registration of hunting rifles would stifle gun-related crime... but simpler people don't seem to grasp these concepts.
"They're already criminals... duh" comes to mind everytime one of these things comes up.
FWIW, I agree that the data structures are the intellectual property of the original creator thereof. However, without being able to actually see those structures, anything Søren entered into his editor and saved as those header files is definately copyright him. The fact that the structures are reverse-engineered severely limits his ability to claim that they are his intellectual property.
A long time ago, Slashdot became the place for all news nerds might enjoy... including Star Wars and the like. Feel free to edit your preferences to not include these stories.
In case they decide to change it or post a retraction (everybody contact the editors?), here's the quote right now:
Like many Americans, Phil Zimmermann, a stocky, 47-year-old computer programmer, has been crying every day since last week's terrorist attacks. He has been overwhelmed with feelings of guilt.
Zimmermann is the inventor of a computer program called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP. He posted the tool for free on the Internet 10 years ago; it was the first to allow ordinary people to encrypt messages so only those with a "key" could read them. No government or law enforcement agency has been able to get in.
... In a telephone interview from his home in Burlingame, Calif., Zimmermann said he doesn't regret posting the encryption program on the Internet. Yet he has trouble dealing with the reality that his software was likely used for evil.
Yes, it would be quite possible to do that, except that it would require postprocessing that would require more time than I have for such a project. I'm told a simple WAP interface already exists; the tools at PyWeb should let you see it.
I'm still trying to figure out how a reader could confuse a company having an internal self-audit procedure for compliance with an external group showing up impromptu and demanding counts of licenses.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, they usually work in shops that do it all day for customers.
Believe it or not, there are a _lot_ of people who bring their PCs in for upgrades of various kinds, including CPUs and memory.
One of the only preventative factors is that CPUs often do require new motherboards.
Lets make it clear that there are a lot of different people in the world with a lot of different basic beliefs and tenets that all call themselves christians.
...)
...
I am one of those, for those who didn't already know (feel free to read my comments history before slamming me, you won't find much interesting, but hey
Some christians have historically believed that killing people 'on God's behalf' is a valid exercise. The Bible itself makes it very clear that whatever it is that God considers worthy of death, he'll do the deed himself ("Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord"). Anyone acting for him in this area is misled (and misread).
The people who killed thousands in NYC in the name of Allah claimed to be Muslims.
The KKK claim to be Christians.
Hitler claimed to be a Christian
Try some of the open relay lists:
dev.null.dk
relays.ordb.or
orbs.dorkslayers.com
inputs.orbz.org
outputs.orbz.org
etc.
BGP4 blackholing (which MAPS half-condones) is stupid when its based on a spam list. Having a list for known abusive networks would be great, that is, they send large numbers of 'abusive' packets that aren't application or protocol specific. In that case, BGP4 blackhole them ... but if they just send spam, block their E-mail servers from sending you mail, don't block your users from downloading their software.
Anyone published a list of their IPs on Slashdot yet?
For the lazy, that's xml.apache.org.
In sum, you learn how to deal with people.
... these will get in your way some times, but often aren't removable without jail time.
Unfortunately, the workplace and school both involve other human beings
Cross-reference Dilbert.
:-)
That said, part of being a good programmer in the real world is knowing when to take something that's already been done and just improve on it instead of re-inventing the wheel.
...
One way around this behaviour when its not desired is to force students to use cvs or another versioning system on a regular basis; their code modifications as they go along are saved along with comments. Your ability to comment your code for others' perusal is noted alongside how you went about designing the project.
Just some thoughts
There's an Ask Slashdot; what does a person do for work when they decide to leave a relatively focused and high-paying career?
... although a few very bitter OS designers might be 'useful'.
...
I'm glad you don't want to work in Redmond
Good luck
You do realise that divx (the one you mentionned) 'failed' during an era that DVDs weren't being purchased either? DVDs took at least another two to three years before they became popular -- the divx scheme was too early, as were DVDs, for the general population to be willing to try them.
I can actually answer the 'on Tuesday' question.
A publisher might allow you to download a copy of a book that would only work for the two day period after the download. This would allow you to sample the book before buying a 'full rights' version.
A keynote speaker or lecturer might give out copies of his latest article that he's sold to someone else or will be putting into a book in a format only readable during the morning he's speaking.
Speaking of Linux, I hope some intelligent company (like RedHat, SuSe, etc.) grabs up these guys as fast as possible -- especially before they end up posting resumes to Microsoft.
He's _hoping_ to make $200 million a year off the music industry? That's it?
I hope he starts to realise how much money goes into the coffers of the large music houses compared to his and the artists' and starts thinking about telling them to drop the price on CDs a little. Now _that_ would help copy protection issues.
You might want to check out Guerilla News' reporting on Bob Kolody and how Coke may have lost their rights to the distinctive bottle image ...
Any good HOWTO on remailing will point out that you should use cypherpunk remailers and chaining ...
At each waypoint, the remailers should hold the message for a random amount of time before resending it to the next remailer. Each remailer decrypts who the next point in the chain is off the message and passes the rest of the message to the next remailer until the last remailer sends the encrypted message to Bin Laden.
If the remailers in question have a fairly high level of E-mail traffic (or generate fake traffic between each other from time to time), tracking messages becomes nearly impossible.
PS, its more fun if your message says:
The traffic analysis that would have to then be avoided is also the correlation between people who receive lots of E-mail from cypherpunks remailers and which websites they visit frequently ...
PS, almost nobody actually uses public keys to encrypt messages, they use random 128 bit or 256 bit AES/IDEA/Twofish keys to encrypt messages whose keys are then encrypted with a public key algorithm.
Ignoring some of the humour value, I hope someone in the media makes a bit of noise about the fact that making strong encryption have backdoors has no effect at all on the use of other methods like pre-exchanged one time pads and the use of little-known languages.
That aside as well, who's going to force the terrorists to use the state-approved software in the first place? That's what I thought....
I'm glad to hear it; I'm actually quite suprised by how long it took me to bother to try Python as well. I think it was when I discovered how much RedHat was using it for building their new installers, etc.
I still like the idea of upgrading the security within the cockpit. Whether its a thumbprint scanner on the controls or a retina scanner for access to the cabin area, some technology upgrades are probably due.
PS, I once wrote a similar letter about gun registration in Canada ... we don't allow personal small arms (in most cases), but you are allowed to own a hunting rifle. Since most crimes in Canada involving guns are committed with guns that were illegally acquired in the first place, it was hard for me to figure out why the mandatory registration of hunting rifles would stifle gun-related crime ... but simpler people don't seem to grasp these concepts.
... duh" comes to mind everytime one of these things comes up.
"They're already criminals
FWIW, I agree that the data structures are the intellectual property of the original creator thereof. However, without being able to actually see those structures, anything Søren entered into his editor and saved as those header files is definately copyright him. The fact that the structures are reverse-engineered severely limits his ability to claim that they are his intellectual property.
A long time ago, Slashdot became the place for all news nerds might enjoy ... including Star Wars and the like. Feel free to edit your preferences to not include these stories.
If they did it right, we'll never know.
In case they decide to change it or post a retraction (everybody contact the editors?), here's the quote right now:
Yes, it would be quite possible to do that, except that it would require postprocessing that would require more time than I have for such a project. I'm told a simple WAP interface already exists; the tools at PyWeb should let you see it.
I'm still trying to figure out how a reader could confuse a company having an internal self-audit procedure for compliance with an external group showing up impromptu and demanding counts of licenses.