Correct me if I'm wrong (IANAL) but don't you need an element of intent to commit damage etc to be labelled as a potential criminal?
In other words, if you are hacking with intent to commit credit card fraud etc, you get done under credit card fraud laws because your intent was to steal the numbers and use them in a manner contrary to law.
On the other hand, if your intent is to do a public good for the company (especially if you state this in a sealed and notarised letter held by your attorney prior to the event) then surely you cannot be found guilty of criminal intent?
Microsoft isn't worried about their backup emails being found and used in this case, because once they get their new Palladium enabled computers up and running on site, they'll never have to worry about leaking emails ever again.
"We're sorry but we HAVE backups, it's just that we can't read them because Johnny X no longer works for us and his key was accidentally erased. We'd try to recover it but it's illegal to circumvent encryption due to the DMCA."
Reminds me once again why Palladium is such a bad idea - all it secures is the corporation, not the individual.
I installed an older variant of Norton Antivirus on one of my wife's relatives' computer, and since I haven't seen them for a while (more than 12 months obviously!) the program still requested that they renew their subscription.
The interesting point here is that even though they were using a pirated copy of NAV, they ended up paying Symantec anyway for another twelve month subscription, since they aren't very net savvy.
I imagine that quite a few people fall under this way of operation, meaning that Symantec makes money even from pirated copies in some instances.
Of course, now I use a free program called AntiVir which does the job equally well, and I get to feel all warm and fuzzy inside that I'm not pirating anything.
What really got me changing was when Symantec announced that whilst older version of NAV (pre-2001 I think) would be able to be kept up to date forever due to the licence they had at the time, the new version they'd released came with only a 12 month subscription (after shelling out over AUD$100 for the program in the annual upgrade cycle they seem to get you into!).
So their greed has now cost them myself as a subscriber, plus all my relatives/friends who I now set up with free alternatives.
I use another free antivirus program called Antivir, which you can find at www.free-av.com (don't want to slashdot them by providing an easy click link).
I ditched Norton when I installed NAV2002 and found that it really slowed my system down. Antivir is made by a German company and is free for personal use. It's very efficient, the whole program plus definitions is the same size as Norton's definitions file!!
The original poster's comment is quite valid though, and illustrates a glaring oversight of the open source community. All those who regularly dismiss Windows as being insecure etc, must realise that there are lots of people (gamers mostly I'd wager) that cannot move from Windows without affecting their computer usage in a significant way.
An open source antivirus program could be made, much like OpenOffice.org, to be cross platform, with a single universal definitions file that could be easily shared amongst any OS you could name and still provide the same functionality. Because of its open source nature, it would be constantly able to be checked for exploits etc, and the wider community would have no excuse not to use it since it would be free forever.
All of you using Linux must also remember that whilst poorly run Windows boxen are the main spreaders of viruses, they impact the wider internet, and thereby become OS neutral problems regardless of where they began.
I for one really hope that a team of programmers step up to the plate and make an open source Windows antivirus program, free of bloat, that runs efficiently in the background without bogging down the system. You could even distribute the updates via P2P, adding to the legitimate functions of P2P.
I monitor my father's email as well as my own, since he was a bit naive when he started out on the internet and got his email address in a bunch of spam lists.
Since the NZ guy got shut down, he's had about 1 spam a day (in Australia, close to NZ). I've been using Mailwasher to bounce all his spam, figuring eventually his email would show up in the spam lists as being dead, and hopefully being removed (other than those lists that don't care who they spam).
So it would be interesting to see if we can get a sense of the list this guy used, based on geographic proximity to NZ. I figured that maybe he was getting his names from closer to home, but I could be wrong.
The spam had so many different email addresses as the reply to field that I wouldn't have thought it all came from one guy!
The problem with getting off the grid, or becoming decentralised, isn't one of technology. It is one of monopoly.
Much like the world dependence on oil to power cars etc, our real problem stems from one (or a few in a cartel) provider having full control over your energy supplies. This is why the US is now entrenched in Iraq - human rights issues do not enter the equation. Rather, it is the fact that oil reserves ARE running out, be it in ten, twenty or fifty years. As it runs out, America's ability to maintain military superiority will be eroded, something they cannot allow.
Imagine if there was no need for centralised energy systems to provide you with fuel, electricity etc. Imagine if you could generate enough electricity merely to serve your own home, perhaps storing excess for yourself if you wanted to. Not sending it back to the grid, because there would be no grid. Imagine being able to generate enough fuel to power your car/transportation device from home. No dependence on fuel stations dotted around the country (you still may want to buy extra on a long journey etc, but you might also be able to get extra fuel from those who want to give away excess energy of their own because you aren't paying for it anyway, being self-generated).
Enabling technology questions aside, who is the biggest obstacle to this system? Old money energy companies of course. They NEED you on their grid, they NEED to supply you with fuel through only THEIR suppliers, or they lose their entire business. And they absolutely, positively, will NOT let that happen. Hence our stupid reliance on centralised power.
Blackout was terrorist "proof of concept"?
on
Blackout Week Continues
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Has no one else considered the possibility that the national infrastructure story on Slashdot a month ago:
may have been used to examine the system and test out a weak spot?
You might call me out for wearing my tin foil hat on this one, but consider the scenario - Student compiles national infrastructure map from public information showing that the national fibreoptic grid (and perhaps electricity?) is routed through several choke points. Student gets told his thesis may be classified due to sensitive information.
Meanwhile, "insert terrorist-du-jour here" decides to compile the same information, getting the same analysis of the US infrastructure. He decides to test the theory out - bang, the lights go out over half the US. Proof of concept is a stunning success, better than he had hoped for (like the Sept 11 attacks). Now he has the knowledge that his attack worked, plus the knowledge that next time he wants to attack in a major way, all he has to do is follow standard military doctrine of cutting the enemy's power before launching his attack.
Result - major chaos and no response infrastructure because the power's out as well.
Now, imagine for a moment that the blackout WAS caused by nefarious people. Do you think the government is going to admit they got hit and were vulnerable? HELL NO!! They will feed a nice cover story which will result in plausible deniability, so that the public does not get alarmed. Media stations bite, hook, line and sinker. Investigative committees are launched. The REAL cause is already known, but kept classified to prevent loss of faith in the government (after all, elections are coming up and people have a nasty habit of REMEMBERING such lapses in security).
Paranoid scenario? Possibly. But equally possible is the likelihood of the above being factual.
Just to summarise, in Australia the ACCC (consumer competition watchdog) mandated that number portability be free, since by forcing people to pay to keep their old number they were effectively impeding businesses that relied on their number being well known to conduct their business, thereby reducing competition because customers were less likely to change carriers as a result.
So now, if I want to change to a better provider here in Australia, it won't cost me anything to keep my old number.
Ironically, I remain with my current provider (Optus) because they still provide the best package for my requirements. So telcos only need fear number portability if their services are inferior to that of the opposition (hence the largest telco, Telstra, fighting it all the way until forced).
That is EXACTLY what I tell my friends and anyone who asks what Ogg is after I mention it in passing.
Everyone knows what MP3 is - compressed audio you can get from the internet that plays on some cool portable players. (Joe Sixpack thinking)
Ogg needs to elevate itself into the psyche of the general Joe Sixpacks with a catchy, easy to remember phrase anyone will remember. Sure, it's really called Ogg Vorbis. Yeah, it's not exactly like MP3. Forget that it's open source and royalty free. Those are geeky points we know about, but Joe doesn't.
Joe will remember this if you gently say it enough and burn it into his brain:
So how do you teach someone that the "intarweb" is a dangerous place to download stuff from and that you shouldn't trust automated programs that offer to install themselves for your convenience, then explain to them that it's ok if it's from Microsoft or from the Windows Update?
I can see that one being a defence in the future, which may see Microsoft end up in court defending itself against accusations that some over-zealous employee must have sent them kiddie porn in their latest update, or that the latest update actually opened a new vulnerability that allowed someone else to hack your computer and store kiddie porn there.
"My computer was secure until Microsoft auto-updated me, after that a trojan ended up on my machine and put kiddie porn there."
After all, M$ pays Slashdot to run these ads, but if, as you say (and I agree), everyone here hates M$, then no one is going to click on the ads are they?
Me, I don't even SEE ads in my web browsing anymore, or popups, or dodgy Javascript etc, all thanks to a wonderful program called The Proxomitron.
So let M$ give/. money for nothing, after all, it's better in our pockets than theirs right?
There now exists in the world technology to make exact copies of something in the digital domain. Anything that exists or can exist in this domain is rapidly going to lose its artificially imposed scarcity as the interconnected world reproduces it ad infinitum.
That goes for music, movies, programs, and any other concept that has its roots in 1s and 0s.
Laws in meatspace are not going to stem the tide. It's already in motion.
What the SMART companies, individuals etc will do is sit down and work out how they can make money from their craft with the reproductive value of their wares at zero. Value will have to come by other means.
For now the movie companies continue to offer value in their cinemas with giant screens and bum-numbing subwoofers. If they accept that they will make their revenue from the cinema and can live with the fact that later on the film will be released in the digital domain with little profit, they will continue to survive.
Those that don't, like the music industry, will wither and die because they are not willing to change the perceived value of their product.
When you are facing a foe with superior assets, you don't face them head on or you get crushed. You conduct hit and fade attacks against their weak points, which are usually the supply lines feeding the front line.
Iraq was a case in point - there was no way the Iraqi army could defeat the US head on. Where they did succeed (and continue to do so) is to hit the soft targets such as the logistics supply lines (as in the platoon Jessica Lynch was part of etc).
So, how does this relate to the RIAA? Simple. There is little point in trying to fight them in court, because they are using the advantage of million dollar coffers to "buy" their way to winning cases.
The solution is to simply starve them of funds by cutting off their cash (fuel) supply:
Don't buy CDs.
It really is that simple. If you can convince the teen demographic to stop buying CDs you will win the war even though a few tactical battles may be lost along the way.
The car in the article does NOT possess street cred due to its shape. It turns heads not because people look at it as a sexy car, they look at it because it is new and different and half as wide as any other car!
Looking out of curiosity is natural. Looking at it with a feeling of wanting one is something VERY different. Kind of how you look at women (if you're the normal Slashdot demographic) - people will turn their heads and eye off a supermodel when she walks by, out of a feeling of DESIRE. On the other hand, people still turn and stare at an unusually fat woman, but it's a CURIOSITY/REVULSION thing more than one of DESIRE. (I hope!!!;)
As far as copying the A-Class, it's function (like the Smart etc) is as a city runabout, NOT as a serious all purpose car or sports car. See desirability again.
The speed thing's good, but only being able to go 80 miles on a charge isn't. Make the thing go ALL DAY at speed and I'll be impressed.
Note finally that what I listed is things that IMHO are needed to sell electric cars. I didn't state that the article's car didn't have any of these;)
WhilstI would dearly love to end our reliance on fossil fuels (and as a side benefit other than the environment, America could come home and stop trying to rule the world to ensure its own fuel supply), the electric car won't take off because it has an image problem.
People don't want to buy a car because it's good for the environment, they don't buy it for its fuel efficiency, and they don't buy it because it'll seat half a basketball team. They buy a car mostly because they are a status symbol way of getting from A to B. So, to sell electric cars, here's a small list of how to make them DESIRABLE:
1. Make it FAST. 0-60MPH in 4 seconds minimum. (Doesn't matter if you actually USE that acceleration, it's street cred poser value, for the most part the "mine's bigger than yours" syndrome)
2. Make it STYLISH. Not your usual avant garde electric enviro-car. Take a look at rally cars and real sports cars for inspiration. Get Porsche or Ferrari to build one.
3. Get them seen in public, not as show cars, but being used to do things better than their petrol counterparts. Rally driving, motor racing etc. Give them performance in spades, ultra-low C of G, and watch them out-turn regular cars.
4. Get the racing fraternity (all types) to hold competitions. I mean REAL F1 or TOCA type competitions that use cars you'd be able to buy. Not the solar/electric challenge type competition that most people only see as the dead donkey story at the end of the news.
5. Finally, make them rechargeable through simple means ie. domestic power plugs or some other common infrastructure ALREADY IN PLACE. Chicken and egg scenarios are doomed from the get go.
Do those things, and you will sell electric cars. Until then, it's never going to take off.
I (and many others I'd wager) would gladly pay for it. He (or someone else, I only use his name because it is well known to us geeks) could just as easily bundle the GameOS with his next version of Quake or Doom and say "Here's my new game, and here's the best OS to run it on, included for the bundle price of just $5 more."
Here's the REAL problem with recovery CDs: when you screw up your Windows installation and want to fix it, customer "service" response is to put in the recovery CD and let it go.
Of course, when that's finished, the customer goes looking for his old documents, pictures, programs and emails etc.... whoops, they've gone!!
It's your classic short sightedness of Microsoft to place your data on the same partition as the OS, so if your OS gets hosed, your data is gone too unless you are smart enough not to delete the old partition(s) by using a recovery CD in the first place!!
THAT is the major problem with the way recovery CDs work. Plus of course, as others have mentioned, a side effect of the partition killing recovery CDs is they wipe any other OS or data partition even if you HAD made them separate.
First thing I ALWAYS do when installing Windows for someone is to create a separate data partition and link My Documents etc to it. Then I tell them that if their Windows crashes and they need to reinstall (from a real CD) without my help, to only allow the setup routine to FORMAT C: and NOT to delete the partition itself.
The quickness with which supposedly reputable companies tell their customers to reinstall Windows without thought for their data, 99% of the time located in C:\Documents and Settings, is amazing. Operating systems can be reinstalled no problems, recovering your data is much harder if you've killed your old partition or overwritten the data space with a new OS install.
I have said before on Slashdot that if someone like John Carmack were to build a highly efficient (non-bloatware) GameOS based on Linux and write his Quake games for it, there would be an overnight mass exodus from Windows.
To have an open source OS with REAL major league games support would be nirvana. No memory sucking apps lurking in the background, just a nice clean DirectX style (OpenX perhaps?) API and top notch driver support (proprietary or otherwise but DEVELOPED for open standards).
Make Ogg Vorbis for audio, OpenGL for graphics etc. part of the OpenX standard.
And when you're finished playing games, each game exit routine drops you back to a normal GUI desktop environment for your normal computing tasks.
You could have competing (but OpenX standards based) distros that would try to eek as much performance out of the game kernel as possible.
Give me that and I'll ditch Windows 2000 tomorrow.
As most people currently acknowledge (if only grudgingly), wanton copying of songs is, whilst not immoral, certainly illegal in the eyes of the law. The answer to this phenomenon of music downloading isn't encrypted filetrading etc, but MAKING IT LEGAL.
As a recent example that comes to mind, look at the overturning of the sodomy laws in a few US states that still had them on the books. On the day prior to the overturn you could have been arrested for having sex with your gay significant other, however one day later and you were LEGALLY able to do so without fear of arrest.
Did the morality of the situation magically change overnight? No, of course not. What changed was that society at large recognised that the legality didn't gel with the morality, and therefore overturned the law itself because it was not considered to be of "benefit" to society any more (it never was IMHO).
So should it be for copyright law in the digital age, where information can be easily copied for near zero cost (other than buying hard drives etc).
I am reminded of another good example, though fictional at this time, of matter replicators as seen on Star Trek et al. If we could download the recipe for a meal and replicate it, should that be deemed illegal, or should we end world hunger virtually overnight?
If it is accurate that most (>50%) people download music then we should overturn the whole concept of copyright, move with the times, get rid of outdated business models (distribution monopoly through artificial scarcity) and start over. Society should base laws on accepted morality, not corporate buyoffs of laws paid to politicians.
Finally I just want to say this:
Listening to a song on the radio is legal. Time-shifting a recording for viewing or listening later is legal. But if I download that same recording from P2P to time-shift my listening to when I want to listen to it instead of when some DJ decided it was time to listen it, suddenly I'm a criminal. What the fsck???
(The answer of course, is that by stripping out the ads the radio station can't sell their advertisers the audience. Yes, YOU are the PRODUCT being sold BY radio stations TO advertisers. It destroys yet another outdated business model. Middle-man based industries are the ones dying off, and it is these industries that are now paying off the politicians to keep themselves in control that little bit longer until they can cash out.)
Most probably due to Slashdot Effect!! This sort of site should be mirrored, stored on Freenet etc so as to make sure no one can suppress its information by bandwidth overloading or DDoSing. After all, information is no good if you can't access it in a timely manner...
A Planetary Society produced mini-DVD will fly on each Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft, mounted to the lander petals as shown here. These DVDs are designed to engage and involve the public in numerous ways. After landing on Mars the rover will capture an image of the DVD before driving away from the lander.
Each DVD carries nearly four million Mars enthusiasts? names collected by NASA. Each DVD also includes engaging designs leading to other activities. Each DVD?s engaging design includes the ?Astrobot? LEGO mini-figure representation in the middle, magnets to collect dust, colors to study color appearance under a Martian sky, LEGO brick representations to engage kids, and secret codes around the outside to be decoded from images on Mars. Astrobots Biff Starling and Sandy Moondust (one on each DVD central oval) are LEGO minifigure representations suited up for space. Their job: tell their stories to the world through a series of entertaining online communications between themselves and the ground available via the Web.
The DVD is made of silica glass rather than plastic so that it can withstand the high temperatures necessary to sterilize it of Earth microbes before it is sent to the Martian surface. Also, the silica glass has a much longer lifetime than typical commercial DVDs?in fact, the silica glass DVD could last more than 500 years. The DVD will remain on the lander as a time capsule for a future generation.
The DVD assembly?s base, the simulated LEGO bricks, and the central oval are made of machined and anodized aluminum. The aluminum parts are separated from the silica glass DVD with Delrin pads. Delrin is an inflexible polymer that is very tough and heat resistant.
The entire assembly, which weighs 69 grams, has been subjected to a battery of tests designed to simulate the extreme environmental conditions of the journey to Mars: temperature cycling from 125 to 60 degrees Celsius, exposure to vacuum, high-speed random vibration, and shocks of 4,000 times the acceleration of Earth?s gravity.
The Planetary Society, in collaboration with the LEGO Company, provided the DVDs to NASA for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Visionary Products, Inc. implemented the DVD mounting assembly, Plasmon OMS donated the silica glass DVDs and data etching, and the magnets were donated by the Danish magnet team who also have other magnets on the spacecraft.
3,551,645 names were submitted to the NASA site for launch on the two rovers. They have a nice picture of it with explanation here:
http://www.planetary.org/rrgtm/dvd.html
Let's hope this doesn't/. NASA and send the rovers off course;)
It's strangely comforting to know that my name will be up there forever (well at least until we colonise Mars and enshrine the little discs somewhere)!
I live in Australia, where the film "Ken Park" has recently been banned even from being screened at a film festival.
It is causing a furore here because of the censorship issues, and Larry Clark (the director) has been interviewed by several media channels on the issue.
When asked what he thought of people "illegally" downloading his film off the internet, his reply basically condoned the practice:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s896904. ht m
In this instance, because the director cannot profit from his work in this country, I don't see how it can really fall under copyright infringement. Mind you, the free PR and overseas sales he gains from our nation's stupid censors will far outweigh any potential sales he may have had if the film had not caused controversy.
So in this instance P2P provided the freedom for me to make my OWN choice to watch the film, despite our government censors saying I can't. I'd consider that a fairly good use for P2P, and Freenet is a natural extension of this principle of freedom to choose without being persecuted or arrested for it.
Since changing to Ogg Vorbis encoding early this year I've been very impressed with the space savings and quality over MP3. I have since re-encoded most of my CDs into Ogg format and thanks to the team at Neuros supporting Ogg, I plan to buy one of the 128MB units with the addon 20GB hard drive in the near future based on that feature alone.
With its FM transmitter as well, I look forward to taking my entire 8GB of music on the road with me to listen to non-stop on long journeys.
This is a clear example of the customer buying a product because it offers what WE want, not what corporations dictate we should have.
Well done to Neuros Audio, for looking after the geeks, because it is our recommendations that often lead to many others buying a tech product that otherwise may not get so much exposure.
Slashdot Mirror
Correct me if I'm wrong (IANAL) but don't you need an element of intent to commit damage etc to be labelled as a potential criminal?
In other words, if you are hacking with intent to commit credit card fraud etc, you get done under credit card fraud laws because your intent was to steal the numbers and use them in a manner contrary to law.
On the other hand, if your intent is to do a public good for the company (especially if you state this in a sealed and notarised letter held by your attorney prior to the event) then surely you cannot be found guilty of criminal intent?
Microsoft isn't worried about their backup emails being found and used in this case, because once they get their new Palladium enabled computers up and running on site, they'll never have to worry about leaking emails ever again.
"We're sorry but we HAVE backups, it's just that we can't read them because Johnny X no longer works for us and his key was accidentally erased. We'd try to recover it but it's illegal to circumvent encryption due to the DMCA."
Reminds me once again why Palladium is such a bad idea - all it secures is the corporation, not the individual.
Quizo69
I installed an older variant of Norton Antivirus on one of my wife's relatives' computer, and since I haven't seen them for a while (more than 12 months obviously!) the program still requested that they renew their subscription.
The interesting point here is that even though they were using a pirated copy of NAV, they ended up paying Symantec anyway for another twelve month subscription, since they aren't very net savvy.
I imagine that quite a few people fall under this way of operation, meaning that Symantec makes money even from pirated copies in some instances.
Of course, now I use a free program called AntiVir which does the job equally well, and I get to feel all warm and fuzzy inside that I'm not pirating anything.
What really got me changing was when Symantec announced that whilst older version of NAV (pre-2001 I think) would be able to be kept up to date forever due to the licence they had at the time, the new version they'd released came with only a 12 month subscription (after shelling out over AUD$100 for the program in the annual upgrade cycle they seem to get you into!).
So their greed has now cost them myself as a subscriber, plus all my relatives/friends who I now set up with free alternatives.
I use another free antivirus program called Antivir, which you can find at www.free-av.com (don't want to slashdot them by providing an easy click link).
I ditched Norton when I installed NAV2002 and found that it really slowed my system down. Antivir is made by a German company and is free for personal use. It's very efficient, the whole program plus definitions is the same size as Norton's definitions file!!
The original poster's comment is quite valid though, and illustrates a glaring oversight of the open source community. All those who regularly dismiss Windows as being insecure etc, must realise that there are lots of people (gamers mostly I'd wager) that cannot move from Windows without affecting their computer usage in a significant way.
An open source antivirus program could be made, much like OpenOffice.org, to be cross platform, with a single universal definitions file that could be easily shared amongst any OS you could name and still provide the same functionality. Because of its open source nature, it would be constantly able to be checked for exploits etc, and the wider community would have no excuse not to use it since it would be free forever.
All of you using Linux must also remember that whilst poorly run Windows boxen are the main spreaders of viruses, they impact the wider internet, and thereby become OS neutral problems regardless of where they began.
I for one really hope that a team of programmers step up to the plate and make an open source Windows antivirus program, free of bloat, that runs efficiently in the background without bogging down the system. You could even distribute the updates via P2P, adding to the legitimate functions of P2P.
Quizo69
I monitor my father's email as well as my own, since he was a bit naive when he started out on the internet and got his email address in a bunch of spam lists.
Since the NZ guy got shut down, he's had about 1 spam a day (in Australia, close to NZ). I've been using Mailwasher to bounce all his spam, figuring eventually his email would show up in the spam lists as being dead, and hopefully being removed (other than those lists that don't care who they spam).
So it would be interesting to see if we can get a sense of the list this guy used, based on geographic proximity to NZ. I figured that maybe he was getting his names from closer to home, but I could be wrong.
The spam had so many different email addresses as the reply to field that I wouldn't have thought it all came from one guy!
Quizo69
The problem with getting off the grid, or becoming decentralised, isn't one of technology. It is one of monopoly.
Much like the world dependence on oil to power cars etc, our real problem stems from one (or a few in a cartel) provider having full control over your energy supplies. This is why the US is now entrenched in Iraq - human rights issues do not enter the equation. Rather, it is the fact that oil reserves ARE running out, be it in ten, twenty or fifty years. As it runs out, America's ability to maintain military superiority will be eroded, something they cannot allow.
Imagine if there was no need for centralised energy systems to provide you with fuel, electricity etc. Imagine if you could generate enough electricity merely to serve your own home, perhaps storing excess for yourself if you wanted to. Not sending it back to the grid, because there would be no grid. Imagine being able to generate enough fuel to power your car/transportation device from home. No dependence on fuel stations dotted around the country (you still may want to buy extra on a long journey etc, but you might also be able to get extra fuel from those who want to give away excess energy of their own because you aren't paying for it anyway, being self-generated).
Enabling technology questions aside, who is the biggest obstacle to this system? Old money energy companies of course. They NEED you on their grid, they NEED to supply you with fuel through only THEIR suppliers, or they lose their entire business. And they absolutely, positively, will NOT let that happen. Hence our stupid reliance on centralised power.
Has no one else considered the possibility that the national infrastructure story on Slashdot a month ago:
/ 12 54254&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=153&tid= 99
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/09
may have been used to examine the system and test out a weak spot?
You might call me out for wearing my tin foil hat on this one, but consider the scenario - Student compiles national infrastructure map from public information showing that the national fibreoptic grid (and perhaps electricity?) is routed through several choke points. Student gets told his thesis may be classified due to sensitive information.
Meanwhile, "insert terrorist-du-jour here" decides to compile the same information, getting the same analysis of the US infrastructure. He decides to test the theory out - bang, the lights go out over half the US. Proof of concept is a stunning success, better than he had hoped for (like the Sept 11 attacks). Now he has the knowledge that his attack worked, plus the knowledge that next time he wants to attack in a major way, all he has to do is follow standard military doctrine of cutting the enemy's power before launching his attack.
Result - major chaos and no response infrastructure because the power's out as well.
Now, imagine for a moment that the blackout WAS caused by nefarious people. Do you think the government is going to admit they got hit and were vulnerable? HELL NO!! They will feed a nice cover story which will result in plausible deniability, so that the public does not get alarmed. Media stations bite, hook, line and sinker. Investigative committees are launched. The REAL cause is already known, but kept classified to prevent loss of faith in the government (after all, elections are coming up and people have a nasty habit of REMEMBERING such lapses in security).
Paranoid scenario? Possibly. But equally possible is the likelihood of the above being factual.
Food for thought.
Quizo69
Just to summarise, in Australia the ACCC (consumer competition watchdog) mandated that number portability be free, since by forcing people to pay to keep their old number they were effectively impeding businesses that relied on their number being well known to conduct their business, thereby reducing competition because customers were less likely to change carriers as a result.
So now, if I want to change to a better provider here in Australia, it won't cost me anything to keep my old number.
Ironically, I remain with my current provider (Optus) because they still provide the best package for my requirements. So telcos only need fear number portability if their services are inferior to that of the opposition (hence the largest telco, Telstra, fighting it all the way until forced).
Quizo69
"Think of Ogg as MP3 only better."
That is EXACTLY what I tell my friends and anyone who asks what Ogg is after I mention it in passing.
Everyone knows what MP3 is - compressed audio you can get from the internet that plays on some cool portable players. (Joe Sixpack thinking)
Ogg needs to elevate itself into the psyche of the general Joe Sixpacks with a catchy, easy to remember phrase anyone will remember. Sure, it's really called Ogg Vorbis. Yeah, it's not exactly like MP3. Forget that it's open source and royalty free. Those are geeky points we know about, but Joe doesn't.
Joe will remember this if you gently say it enough and burn it into his brain:
"Think of Ogg as MP3 only better."
Quizo69
sniggly wrote: "....how to run windows update."
So how do you teach someone that the "intarweb" is a dangerous place to download stuff from and that you shouldn't trust automated programs that offer to install themselves for your convenience, then explain to them that it's ok if it's from Microsoft or from the Windows Update?
I can see that one being a defence in the future, which may see Microsoft end up in court defending itself against accusations that some over-zealous employee must have sent them kiddie porn in their latest update, or that the latest update actually opened a new vulnerability that allowed someone else to hack your computer and store kiddie porn there.
"My computer was secure until Microsoft auto-updated me, after that a trojan ended up on my machine and put kiddie porn there."
Interesting times ahead....
Quizo69
After all, M$ pays Slashdot to run these ads, but if, as you say (and I agree), everyone here hates M$, then no one is going to click on the ads are they?
/. money for nothing, after all, it's better in our pockets than theirs right?
Me, I don't even SEE ads in my web browsing anymore, or popups, or dodgy Javascript etc, all thanks to a wonderful program called The Proxomitron.
So let M$ give
Quizo69
That's what it boils down to in the end.
There now exists in the world technology to make exact copies of something in the digital domain. Anything that exists or can exist in this domain is rapidly going to lose its artificially imposed scarcity as the interconnected world reproduces it ad infinitum.
That goes for music, movies, programs, and any other concept that has its roots in 1s and 0s.
Laws in meatspace are not going to stem the tide. It's already in motion.
What the SMART companies, individuals etc will do is sit down and work out how they can make money from their craft with the reproductive value of their wares at zero. Value will have to come by other means.
For now the movie companies continue to offer value in their cinemas with giant screens and bum-numbing subwoofers. If they accept that they will make their revenue from the cinema and can live with the fact that later on the film will be released in the digital domain with little profit, they will continue to survive.
Those that don't, like the music industry, will wither and die because they are not willing to change the perceived value of their product.
Quizo69
When you are facing a foe with superior assets, you don't face them head on or you get crushed. You conduct hit and fade attacks against their weak points, which are usually the supply lines feeding the front line.
Iraq was a case in point - there was no way the Iraqi army could defeat the US head on. Where they did succeed (and continue to do so) is to hit the soft targets such as the logistics supply lines (as in the platoon Jessica Lynch was part of etc).
So, how does this relate to the RIAA? Simple. There is little point in trying to fight them in court, because they are using the advantage of million dollar coffers to "buy" their way to winning cases.
The solution is to simply starve them of funds by cutting off their cash (fuel) supply:
Don't buy CDs.
It really is that simple. If you can convince the teen demographic to stop buying CDs you will win the war even though a few tactical battles may be lost along the way.
Quizo69
The car in the article does NOT possess street cred due to its shape. It turns heads not because people look at it as a sexy car, they look at it because it is new and different and half as wide as any other car!
;)
;)
Looking out of curiosity is natural. Looking at it with a feeling of wanting one is something VERY different. Kind of how you look at women (if you're the normal Slashdot demographic) - people will turn their heads and eye off a supermodel when she walks by, out of a feeling of DESIRE. On the other hand, people still turn and stare at an unusually fat woman, but it's a CURIOSITY/REVULSION thing more than one of DESIRE. (I hope!!!
As far as copying the A-Class, it's function (like the Smart etc) is as a city runabout, NOT as a serious all purpose car or sports car. See desirability again.
The speed thing's good, but only being able to go 80 miles on a charge isn't. Make the thing go ALL DAY at speed and I'll be impressed.
Note finally that what I listed is things that IMHO are needed to sell electric cars. I didn't state that the article's car didn't have any of these
Quizo69
WhilstI would dearly love to end our reliance on fossil fuels (and as a side benefit other than the environment, America could come home and stop trying to rule the world to ensure its own fuel supply), the electric car won't take off because it has an image problem.
People don't want to buy a car because it's good for the environment, they don't buy it for its fuel efficiency, and they don't buy it because it'll seat half a basketball team. They buy a car mostly because they are a status symbol way of getting from A to B. So, to sell electric cars, here's a small list of how to make them DESIRABLE:
1. Make it FAST. 0-60MPH in 4 seconds minimum. (Doesn't matter if you actually USE that acceleration, it's street cred poser value, for the most part the "mine's bigger than yours" syndrome)
2. Make it STYLISH. Not your usual avant garde electric enviro-car. Take a look at rally cars and real sports cars for inspiration. Get Porsche or Ferrari to build one.
3. Get them seen in public, not as show cars, but being used to do things better than their petrol counterparts. Rally driving, motor racing etc. Give them performance in spades, ultra-low C of G, and watch them out-turn regular cars.
4. Get the racing fraternity (all types) to hold competitions. I mean REAL F1 or TOCA type competitions that use cars you'd be able to buy. Not the solar/electric challenge type competition that most people only see as the dead donkey story at the end of the news.
5. Finally, make them rechargeable through simple means ie. domestic power plugs or some other common infrastructure ALREADY IN PLACE. Chicken and egg scenarios are doomed from the get go.
Do those things, and you will sell electric cars. Until then, it's never going to take off.
Just that he could build an OPEN one.
I (and many others I'd wager) would gladly pay for it. He (or someone else, I only use his name because it is well known to us geeks) could just as easily bundle the GameOS with his next version of Quake or Doom and say "Here's my new game, and here's the best OS to run it on, included for the bundle price of just $5 more."
And why the anonymous coward posts??
Here's the REAL problem with recovery CDs: when you screw up your Windows installation and want to fix it, customer "service" response is to put in the recovery CD and let it go.
Of course, when that's finished, the customer goes looking for his old documents, pictures, programs and emails etc.... whoops, they've gone!!
It's your classic short sightedness of Microsoft to place your data on the same partition as the OS, so if your OS gets hosed, your data is gone too unless you are smart enough not to delete the old partition(s) by using a recovery CD in the first place!!
THAT is the major problem with the way recovery CDs work. Plus of course, as others have mentioned, a side effect of the partition killing recovery CDs is they wipe any other OS or data partition even if you HAD made them separate.
First thing I ALWAYS do when installing Windows for someone is to create a separate data partition and link My Documents etc to it. Then I tell them that if their Windows crashes and they need to reinstall (from a real CD) without my help, to only allow the setup routine to FORMAT C: and NOT to delete the partition itself.
The quickness with which supposedly reputable companies tell their customers to reinstall Windows without thought for their data, 99% of the time located in C:\Documents and Settings, is amazing. Operating systems can be reinstalled no problems, recovering your data is much harder if you've killed your old partition or overwritten the data space with a new OS install.
Quizo69
I have said before on Slashdot that if someone like John Carmack were to build a highly efficient (non-bloatware) GameOS based on Linux and write his Quake games for it, there would be an overnight mass exodus from Windows.
To have an open source OS with REAL major league games support would be nirvana. No memory sucking apps lurking in the background, just a nice clean DirectX style (OpenX perhaps?) API and top notch driver support (proprietary or otherwise but DEVELOPED for open standards).
Make Ogg Vorbis for audio, OpenGL for graphics etc. part of the OpenX standard.
And when you're finished playing games, each game exit routine drops you back to a normal GUI desktop environment for your normal computing tasks.
You could have competing (but OpenX standards based) distros that would try to eek as much performance out of the game kernel as possible.
Give me that and I'll ditch Windows 2000 tomorrow.
Quizo69
As most people currently acknowledge (if only grudgingly), wanton copying of songs is, whilst not immoral, certainly illegal in the eyes of the law. The answer to this phenomenon of music downloading isn't encrypted filetrading etc, but MAKING IT LEGAL.
As a recent example that comes to mind, look at the overturning of the sodomy laws in a few US states that still had them on the books. On the day prior to the overturn you could have been arrested for having sex with your gay significant other, however one day later and you were LEGALLY able to do so without fear of arrest.
Did the morality of the situation magically change overnight? No, of course not. What changed was that society at large recognised that the legality didn't gel with the morality, and therefore overturned the law itself because it was not considered to be of "benefit" to society any more (it never was IMHO).
So should it be for copyright law in the digital age, where information can be easily copied for near zero cost (other than buying hard drives etc).
I am reminded of another good example, though fictional at this time, of matter replicators as seen on Star Trek et al. If we could download the recipe for a meal and replicate it, should that be deemed illegal, or should we end world hunger virtually overnight?
If it is accurate that most (>50%) people download music then we should overturn the whole concept of copyright, move with the times, get rid of outdated business models (distribution monopoly through artificial scarcity) and start over. Society should base laws on accepted morality, not corporate buyoffs of laws paid to politicians.
Finally I just want to say this:
Listening to a song on the radio is legal. Time-shifting a recording for viewing or listening later is legal. But if I download that same recording from P2P to time-shift my listening to when I want to listen to it instead of when some DJ decided it was time to listen it, suddenly I'm a criminal. What the fsck???
(The answer of course, is that by stripping out the ads the radio station can't sell their advertisers the audience. Yes, YOU are the PRODUCT being sold BY radio stations TO advertisers. It destroys yet another outdated business model. Middle-man based industries are the ones dying off, and it is these industries that are now paying off the politicians to keep themselves in control that little bit longer until they can cash out.)
Quizo69
Most probably due to Slashdot Effect!! This sort of site should be mirrored, stored on Freenet etc so as to make sure no one can suppress its information by bandwidth overloading or DDoSing. After all, information is no good if you can't access it in a timely manner...
Quizo69
The Red Rover Goes to Mars Spacecraft DVD
A Planetary Society produced mini-DVD will fly on each Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft, mounted to the lander petals as shown here. These DVDs are designed to engage and involve the public in numerous ways. After landing on Mars the rover will capture an image of the DVD before driving away from the lander.
Each DVD carries nearly four million Mars enthusiasts? names collected by NASA. Each DVD also includes engaging designs leading to other activities. Each DVD?s engaging design includes the ?Astrobot? LEGO mini-figure representation in the middle, magnets to collect dust, colors to study color appearance under a Martian sky, LEGO brick representations to engage kids, and secret codes around the outside to be decoded from images on Mars. Astrobots Biff Starling and Sandy Moondust (one on each DVD central oval) are LEGO minifigure representations suited up for space. Their job: tell their stories to the world through a series of entertaining online communications between themselves and the ground available via the Web.
The DVD is made of silica glass rather than plastic so that it can withstand the high temperatures necessary to sterilize it of Earth microbes before it is sent to the Martian surface. Also, the silica glass has a much longer lifetime than typical commercial DVDs?in fact, the silica glass DVD could last more than 500 years. The DVD will remain on the lander as a time capsule for a future generation.
The DVD assembly?s base, the simulated LEGO bricks, and the central oval are made of machined and anodized aluminum. The aluminum parts are separated from the silica glass DVD with Delrin pads. Delrin is an inflexible polymer that is very tough and heat resistant.
The entire assembly, which weighs 69 grams, has been subjected to a battery of tests designed to simulate the extreme environmental conditions of the journey to Mars: temperature cycling from 125 to 60 degrees Celsius, exposure to vacuum, high-speed random vibration, and shocks of 4,000 times the acceleration of Earth?s gravity.
The Planetary Society, in collaboration with the LEGO Company, provided the DVDs to NASA for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Visionary Products, Inc. implemented the DVD mounting assembly, Plasmon OMS donated the silica glass DVDs and data etching, and the magnets were donated by the Danish magnet team who also have other magnets on the spacecraft.
3,551,645 names were submitted to the NASA site for launch on the two rovers. They have a nice picture of it with explanation here:
/. NASA and send the rovers off course ;)
http://www.planetary.org/rrgtm/dvd.html
Let's hope this doesn't
It's strangely comforting to know that my name will be up there forever (well at least until we colonise Mars and enshrine the little discs somewhere)!
Quizo69
I live in Australia, where the film "Ken Park" has recently been banned even from being screened at a film festival.
. ht m
It is causing a furore here because of the censorship issues, and Larry Clark (the director) has been interviewed by several media channels on the issue.
When asked what he thought of people "illegally" downloading his film off the internet, his reply basically condoned the practice:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s896904
In this instance, because the director cannot profit from his work in this country, I don't see how it can really fall under copyright infringement. Mind you, the free PR and overseas sales he gains from our nation's stupid censors will far outweigh any potential sales he may have had if the film had not caused controversy.
So in this instance P2P provided the freedom for me to make my OWN choice to watch the film, despite our government censors saying I can't. I'd consider that a fairly good use for P2P, and Freenet is a natural extension of this principle of freedom to choose without being persecuted or arrested for it.
Quizo69
http://www.kaylon.com
It uses keyword search capability as well as taking note of how many times you access a bookmark so it can list them in that order if you want.
It supports Opera 7 and Mozilla (but not Firebird yet) as well as Netscape and IE (it even sits in the top bar of IE like a google search on Opera).
I'd like to see a free version of this program written because it's fairly indispensable when it comes to having 3000 bookmarks!
Quizo69
Since changing to Ogg Vorbis encoding early this year I've been very impressed with the space savings and quality over MP3. I have since re-encoded most of my CDs into Ogg format and thanks to the team at Neuros supporting Ogg, I plan to buy one of the 128MB units with the addon 20GB hard drive in the near future based on that feature alone.
With its FM transmitter as well, I look forward to taking my entire 8GB of music on the road with me to listen to non-stop on long journeys.
This is a clear example of the customer buying a product because it offers what WE want, not what corporations dictate we should have.
Well done to Neuros Audio, for looking after the geeks, because it is our recommendations that often lead to many others buying a tech product that otherwise may not get so much exposure.