I'm sure it's a nice conversation starter for the military types around here, but note that even this nearly information free news article is vague on the status of this "in the concept stage" weapon system. Sure, they're marketing it, but that's how corporations raise money and make themselves look worth investing in, or attract attention to their other products, or just try to stave off the bank closing them down.
Essentially this article looks like some marketer dreamed up a cool-sounding product, convinced management to make a sales video, and used it to generate some interest in his/her company. Then a clueless reporter grabbed it, looked up potential effects of "cruise missiles", combined it with an out of context quote from someone at Jane's for expert effect, and spewed it out onto the net with a healthy dose of fear mongering about how it could be sold to terrorists.
Let's review...There's no evidence that such a weapon exists other than marketing drivel. There's no evidence that the company claiming to produce it has the capability to do so. If they do produce it, odds are good it won't meet the "looks good on paper but hard to actually do" marketing goals and be a viable threat to anyone. Once it exists, the Russians are not likely to allow it to be sold any more than most other non US countries with Naval forces.
So, this article should only generate interest if you A) Accept the premise that a relatively unknown company in Russia can suddenly produce an advanced weapon system like this B) Accept that once produced, the weapon will somehow be more of a threat than existing weapon systems, many of which are probably more advanced and C) Are ignorant enough to think that because the Russian government is not made of Americans that they'll sell weapons which could potentially threaten them to terrorist groups just so they can make the small amount of cash that would provide (a few million dollars... most terrorists aren't rich, although OBL is) and in exchange for which they earn the enmity and political consequences of supplying terrorists.
It's specifically targeted at sloppy thinking westerners who have a stereotypical view of other world countries. How plausible would the article be if it talked about a smaller American company in eg. California producing the same product? You'd automatically think that terrorists wouldn't get it because the US Military would buy it, or the US Government would prevent export of it, or you'd choose not to believe the hype about it.. after all, with billions of dollars more in funding larger companies haven't produced a missile system superior to existing Exocet and Harpoon series weapons. Yet if the mythical company is placed in Russia, suddenly people swallow this completely... because everyone knows Russians are genius weapon designers who are all desperately poor and willing to sell their products to everyone regardless of who they threaten, with the support and assistance of the corrupt Russian government, right?
This is NOT NEWS. It's barely even marketing material.
But enjoy the testosterone pumped discussion of weapons and ships.
Please... you're placing a dent in my ethnocentric view of the world!:)
I address the US because A) That's where Google is and B) The question of whether or not Google is or is not currently violating any laws in countries around the world has less import than whether or not a new way of looking at privacy as a concept is needed.
Obviously if what Google's doing is illegal where they're doing it, they should stop or face the consequences.
But I'm not aware of any country with a comprehensive set of privacy laws addressing aggregated, inferred, or derived data use to avoid privacy violations. Are you?
Google is not doing any individual act that's illegal, and isn't doing anything in aggregate that's illegal. It makes people nervous that they have the ability to cross reference information on a massive scale... to mine the data they have collected for information that was not intended to be revealed by the average person on the street.
It should make people nervous, of course. What's "off" is the perception that Google is the only entity doing this and that they should stop because it's obviously somehow illegal. It's not illegal for them or anyone else to perform, and indeed the government and many other corporate entities are doing this sort of thing now with any data they can collect.....information on TV watching habits, information collected from online shopping on Amazon, data mined from Facebook relationships, information on who updated Wikipedia and when. As a country (and species) we haven't really had both the massive amount of information available to us that we have now along with the ability to process it and infer further data. There have been organizations and individuals that have been able to sift through libraries and census data and pick out small amounts of information, but the fact that they were rare and the resources involved formed a natural barrier to inferred information being generated and acted upon. That's no longer the case - a clever teenager in his first job can do the work now.
I submit for your consideration that a new kind of law is needed, one that limits uses of aggregated data and recognizes that privacy considerations apply both for the actual data collected and the data that can be inferred from it. There's a fine path to be walked here...after all, doesn't the census permit thousands of useful things to be done with population data? We can't make that illegal entirely. Likewise we can't continue to do nothing... despite the fact that information "wants" to be free, it's only a matter of time before corporations make use of the data for everyday business, and once their use is entrenched, it'll be nearly impossible to stop. Worse, once the data is collected and generated, it's available to anyone who can rent, steal, co-opt, or copy it. The worst risk of misuse is of course from the government itself.
It's not enough to wait for the court system to re-interpret the right to privacy so it includes inferred and collected data.. the courts shouldn't be making laws regardless.
But do we have any hope that our government A) Understands the problem B) Believes it needs to be addressed and C) Is willing to limit its own power through laws?
I don't.
As an aside, I'm sure the Slashcode website base is quite impressive with regards to its moderation, comment system, karma and performance. So why are the authors stuck in the dark ages as far as text editors go? I feel like I'm typing on a buggy 80s dial-up bbs here...
Those of you excited about this should take a closer look. This is a breakthrough for data over copper, but fiber is faster, and this tech is only useful for locations that are densely populated with short wire distances... IE the same locations where fiber could be installed economically. There have been dozens of "breakthroughs" like this over the years, and none of them has substantially improved high speed access in the US. Mostly they're incremental upgrades for DSL users, a lot of whom don't see the full speed promised anyway.
It's always been possible to transfer large amounts of data over relatively short distances. If you shorten the distance to bus length you can transfer dozens of gigabytes per second. 400 meters is almost no distance as far as telco wiring is concerned.
The problem that has existed since the internet began (and since I was an ISP tech in the late 90s) is that the central office to subscriber connection is slow, operates over short distances, and is handicapped by the desire (on the phone companies' part) to use existing infrastructure.
The public telephone network was built at taxpayer cost and "inherited" by the various post-bell system phone companies. They didn't pay for it in the first place and they're not going to pay to replace it if they can help it. They have some of the most legally protected profit margins anywhere... imagine if you were handed an infrastructure with thousands of subscribers, guaranteed no competition, and otherwise allowed to make as much money as you can in exchange for some occasional government regulation... it's every businessman's dream (provided they're not completely ethical). Having the gravy train rolling in doesn't give them any incentive to build out the network, especially to the less populated areas. They get the same money anyway provided they lie well enough to the government to keep additional regulation and competition away. The only way for them to make less money is to spend it on major improvement projects like replacing the old copper pairs to each house with fiber, especially if you do it in areas where people can't or won't pay a premium price for the service, IE the areas that don't have high speed internet now.
The same telco companies have even requested money from the federal government in tax breaks and outright subsidies over the years to "bring internet into rural communities". I have to laugh when I hear that. Many rural communities in the US still have dial-up only. The telcos go on their merry way and pocket the money.. after all, that's what they're good at.
Greatly expanded speeds over copper for a relatively short distance are pointless because it doesn't help with the access problem. All this improved technology means is that for a small subset of DSL users in densely populated metro areas where the telco is willing to upgrade equipment a speed increase to the telco will be seen. Who knows if the bandwidth exists at the central office to make it worth it? The telcos aren't going to spend money to link multiple intermediate sites together with the high speed tech to extend service out to sparsely populated areas. Sure, it would work technically, but it costs money for little return. Despite the fact that they're effectively subsidized by the taxpayers, they're under no obligation to help the taxpayers.
What's really needed to kick off broadband development is someone other than the phone companies taking on network service delivery to the home, without using the public telephone network and without handing money to the telcos. Like Google is trying to do... I guess if you get enough money on your side in this country, you find the power to do things. Too bad the government can't do things like that itself. Change, pfft. It's too late.
Now, a communications break through that lets 10 mbit bidirectional data be delivered over, say, a 10 wire mile distance (50,000 feet).. that would be a game changer. What's needed is a moderate speed tech that costs the phone companies very little to implement but works over long distances.... something cheap enough for the telcos to preserve their precious profits but still install it and provide service farther out.
There was an old cartoon from back in the 80s when the first really painful desktop security measures were put in place... back when people still ran unpatched OSs and downloading updates (via dial-up modem) wasn't common.
I think it was "The Fifth Wave" series. Wish I could find it to post a link.
Basically, it was a manager turning to an employee looking stubborn at his computer terminal and saying "Now c'mon, Bob, you know nose scanning is our best defense against unauthorized computer use!" The nose scanners were cups on thick cords hanging from the ceiling like airline oxygen masks.
Biometrics is a cute marketing trick, but it's no substitute for good security process. That's why I like signing in to my laptop using the "fingerprint" of a small area on the underside of my scrotum. Any legitimate reason to doff one's pants at work is good. "I'm just logging in." or "Whoops, there goes my screensaver. Zzzzzzzip...."
Yes, that was the command. Thanks for bringing back those nightmares.
(I'll skip talking about different ROM addresses for diff. controllers since someone already did. I had machines with multiple controllers in them, and god help you if you picked the wrong address).
I'll give the direct/short answer to the question you're asking.
No.
The reason is that hard drives only write data in precise locations so they can find it later. You can't write anywhere other than those locations because the drive won't do it... not even with new firmware. The read/write heads may not even be capable of addressing the locations you want to write. The only way to write in an arbitrary location is to remove the disks from the drive in a clean room, and use a very precise CNC read/write head to address the locations you want. Disk manufacturers have machines that do this.
If you confine your request to only writing arbitrary locations within the physically addressable areas of the disk, then you can do what you want if and only if you write new firmware for the drive... it used to be firmware was in EPROM and couldn't be altered, but you can flash it nowadays. So you A) Buy a drive then B) Re-flash the eprom with code to do what you want (custom developed after reverse engineering the original firmware) and then you can write wherever, without worrying about niceties like the end of sector marks the drive uses to keep track of data locations. You'll have to do that sort of thing yourself.
So, confining our discussion to disk areas that the default drive firmware will write to, If you're looking for a way to ignore/override the OS I/O code, the disk controller firmware and the disk firmware in order to "talk to the bare metal" it may be possible depending on the particular combination of OS, controller, and disk, and assuming you have the right privileges in the OS. But there's no standard way to do it, nor API. You have to know exactly how the hardware in question works, down to the chip level and in some cases below. If the computer you're interested in has a different drive, controller or OS I/O code than you wrote your program for, then you have to re-write it.
I'm sure a lot of us here would be curious to know what you're trying to do... accessing non data sectors on a disk hasn't been done commonly for years, and when it was it was used for some awful copy protection methods (awful as in they created compatibility issues, even with "standard" PC hardware and also they could still be broken).
I think the question is "Are there any internet users who actually trust Paypal?"
I've had a dispute with them for 2 years because they reversed a transaction without asking, and I keep running into small merchants who use them for credit card processing who can't take my card - Paypal has the card number blacklisted, and won't let me use it for any transactions that they handle processing for, even if completely unrelated to the dispute and even if they're just doing back end processing for another company.
I'm sure if they could legally grab the card numbers as they go by and charge the disputed value they would.
This is a neat idea... but the cost of the units is obviously prohibitive at the moment. People (generalizing) will pay a bit more for guaranteed clean energy, especially if at some point it has little or no ongoing cost. But they won't pay for something that has a 30 year break even unless the devices last that long without any significant maintenance (added cost).
If mass production brought the costs down, I could see this being an interesting alternative for folks not well served (in one way or another, including cost) by existing power utilities. Provided of course the machine with its "secret" components doesn't create other problems, like being non recyclable, or being hazardous in some other way.
This is more revolutionary for the third world though.. any country without an existing power infrastructure or with a less than robust one could install a lower cost version of this unit at a lower price than creating a country wide power distribution network. We may see a time in the near future where the third world countries are running off of these sorts of micro power plants while the US still gets its energy centrally, from big expensive power plants.
Green is good, but people won't do it unless it's cheap too. We're kinda dumb that way.
It may come as a surprise to you, but there are actually many other "App Stores" that people care about, some of them a whole lot more than your favorite one. In fact there are other app stores not even associated with mobile devices... you are aware that other computing devices exist, right?
I just love the fact that you speak for the entire community of people who read this article: ("no one gives a shit" about other app stores).
Thanks for proving my point in spades.
Oh, and since this is a news article posted on a commonly read news aggregator, shouldn't the default be to assume that the reader *doesn't* know what you're talking about? I mean, it's not like this site is "The church of iPhone" or something. The next article in line might not even be about computers, or hardware at all. It would be confusing to read through a description of a new privacy law or Sci-Fi movie assuming it somehow only applied to iPhone users. Then again, maybe that's just the way you view the world.
... like a writer who launches into an article about the "App Store" without specifying which app store or whose app store. After all, there's only one App Store in the world, right?
I'm sure a person with such a mindset would always offer a calm discussion of the facts without using inflammatory language, weasel words, or unsubstantiated facts.
I'd imagine if the technology becomes more common that it would be possible to buy a personal set of glasses online or something... like a higher end set of sunglasses.
Or, get a set of new ones at some movie and carry 'em around with you for you own use.
For all I know even contacts would work for this...
From what I know of this particular 3d technology, it won't work at home without a really, really expensive monitor... cheaper just to buy two monitors...I was bummed:)
I'd have said the same thing before going to "Avatar" in 3d. The usual litany of anti-3d excuses would apply:
The glasses give me headaches
The colors aren't right
They'll rub on my nose/ears and hurt
They'll distort the screen
I think this is mostly due to hollywood/tech companies chasing the holy grail of 3d for a long time. Many, many vendors have sold products based on claims of "true 3d images" including some spectacularly bad products like the virtual boy or NVidia's attempt at 3d with LCD shutter glasses.
But with the current crop of tech, they've finally made it useable. The glasses I used actually improved the colors, and the film was bright enough not to notice the slight darkening due to the glasses.
After the first 15 minutes of viewing Avatar with the dark glasses (RealD 3D) on, I wouldn't want to watch it any other way.
If you haven't seen Avatar in 3D, do so. Very worth it, and I hope other films are made that way soon. I actually made a joke about wanting to see a 3D porn film on the way out of the theater ("we'd be ducking every time the male lead stood up facing the screen").
Their government may seem less inept, but they're much more bound by their culture and a world view stretching back by several thousand years than the US is. They manage to do some things quickly and well, but those are the exceptions.
See also all their trouble regulating lead in toys and melamine in milk.
Besides, China is on a ticking timer as Internet use becomes more widespread. Despite their great firewall, dissidents are going to find more and more ways to use their net to, well, dissent. As more people communicate and find out the truth about their great leaders, their government will change. Just like North Korea will when the great lunatic over there dies.
The only way the government of china could stop this is to outlaw and dismantle their net... which would also stop many of the forward thinking projects the chinese leaders are so proud of. The chinese government is slowly creeping toward the moment when they kick themselves out of office.
You give the government too much credit. The "government and their corporate masters" may have the money and law on their side (or they may not) but they probably are too bound by inertia to actually accomplish anything at all.
Probably they'd just design a fantastic new infrastructure then partially or fully fail to implement it, all the while skimming off money for their own pocket.
They're not malevolent for the most part, they're inept.
It's true that the physical infrastructure of the internet could probably only be altered due to an unusual, disruptive technology or by government mandate, but the software infrastructure of it (or more accurately a "killer app" like email that forces a change in infrastructure to support it) CAN very well be developed in one man shops or as a hobby.
No real argument here, I've often thought NASA (and many other government organizations) are too far gone culture-wise and in monetary habits to be worth keeping.
I do disagree that Phd types wouldn't work cheap... I'm sure you'd find a lot who would for a chance like this, especially in the current economy.
And I also think that the bulk of the budget to keep these rovers up and running isn't people and high government salaries (although the fact that it's a government operation multiplies the cost) but rather the large scale equipment needed... antennae, WAN communications, etc.
Too bad the design didn't include a wind generator...something with hugely oversized blades on a light, expanding tower, to catch the thin air. It would look like a giant palm tree walking across mars.
Even better, how about a rover with a giant sail, rolling across the landscape using spoked free wheels rather than powered ones, or even wide skis.
The silly thing is that the way these missions are designed, it costs NASA a bundle to keep the lights on. Not on the rover of course, but all the telecom equipment and people. If NASA designed a low cost communication system that could support these things for years, then they could just leave the thing operating and hand it over to a secondary investigator or intern to do science with. Or even a class of school kids.
We could have dozens of these things operating on the moon, controlled directly from earth stations, for years at a time.
"Why, we could redefine everything, from a new addressing scheme to network management protocols, and we could define a software stack with specific functions performed by each level of the network code.. from packet construction to routing and switching! And get this... for flexibility, we'll allow each layer to communicate directly with its corresponding layer in another application! You'll be able to use the same network code for local shared memory communications and global internet communications! There'll be a new addressing scheme with no shortage of addresses, performance will be better than it currently is, and most of the problems related to security and routing of traffic will be solved!"
"Best of all, the new model for the network will be very logically organized, not the mishmash of software and standards that have organically evolved from the old ARPANet protocols and de facto standards. It will be easily understandable through common sense acronyms and simple models."
"It'll be so superior to what we have now that it's a no brainer.. everyone will obviously convert to it right away, with no one left behind."
"So, you should watch closely and start admiring the folks writing this standard now, and start teaching it to college students so they're prepared to deal with the New Internet when we're done."
If the internet is unrecognizable in 20 years it'll be because of some great innovation from a random guy in his college office, or someone working on a private project during spare moments at his job, or an amateur coder who works on an idea beyond the limit of sanity to turn vision into reality. It won't come from a bunch of bureacrats and government servants setting out to make "The New Internet (tm)".
I've worked at places where individual users (developers, engineers, and other tech savvy folks) have admin rights.
In every case, it's a balance. The ease of getting things done quickly vs. manageability and security of the computer involved.
If you lock a computer down so the installed apps can be used but nothing else can be installed, it tends to be relatively stable, and you don't get rogue programs installed that cause problems and generate extra work for installers and work disruption for users. The other end of the spectrum means anyone can install what they want. You give rights to everyone and end up with constant rebuilds and virus problems, etc. These can be just minor annoyances or in the worst case can disrupt business or cause legal issues (like loss of private or protected data) that will shut the company down. At the very least they create lots of extra work for someone in the company.
So, many managers (tech savvy and not) are deciding that they need to lock down control of work computers. Basically, they remove the ability to do anything but run work related applications (centrally installed to ensure licensing works and to make sure everyone has the same version) to simplify support and lower costs (which are a big headache for any IT manager).
This makes things more complicated for individuals with legitimate business reasons to install software (like dev add-ons or new versions of libraries, etc). In the case of a locked down system, the central authority in the business for support needs to provide a way to respond to requests to install needed software quickly. This can be either an automated system with menus, or an on-call support staff that handles things. With remote access to desktops they can generally get things installed quickly enough that work isn't significantly delayed. If and only if management recognizes that this support is necessary (people hear what they want to hear, and too often management thinks the clamor against locking down workstations is simply bruised egos (see below)).
This problem comes in when a company decides to solve its rogue software problems by restricting desktop access but doesn't provide any way to request "special" software. Unless your company is very unusual, certain users will need software that's not generally installed everywhere, and not everyone will fit the "standard business software" mold. This is a rough parallel to IT departments restricting access and forcing change control for "production" tier systems without changing their development processes to remove the need for production access. You're left with a choice to either break the rules or not get work done, and god help you if you try to explain things to whichever manager is getting a pat on the back for "securing the system".
Of course, the reason most people ask questions like the submitter is probably due to ego. The emotion behind the question runs roughly "I'm a smart (guy, girl).. I've been progamming and running my own system since before this OS was released! I don't need a low paid staffer to handle this for me, and you're just slowing me down! I feel insulted by you not giving me privileges and trusting me to keep things working!"
Having control is a hard habit to break. Taking it away from people who've "always" had it is like introducing change control to a company that's always been a free for all... people see the change as extra procedure being introduced that is unnecessary and slows down "real work".
The best way I've found to deal with people who want admin rights because their ego demands control is to ask them if they're also willing to accept responsibility for their workstation being productive. The desktop support folks or central desktop team accept this as part of their job.. in cases of heavily regulated industries, there may be legal requirements for someone to be responsible for the integrity of such systems. So once you get the person complaining about a lack of access rights
Actually, I did make the stub myself:) Hot rolled square bar of steel faced off and then turned and threaded in the lathe for 1250 lb axle (IE no taper to mess up).
Not for a heavy use trailer or anything, but I was proud of it... I'm not a pro machinist.
Let me put it this way... CNC doesn't change things on its own. People not making things now aren't going to suddenly run out and buy a CNC system, even if it's dirt cheap (relatively).
But cheap CNC appeals to do it yourself types the same way fixing their own car, building their own furniture, and home gunsmithing appeals to them. They'll get a machine for 1-2 purposes, like making a custom set of speaker grilles or gunsight rails. Once they have a machine that can make anything out of a given material, they'll start looking for things to make.
I believe we're going to see more and more people making things in tiny shops or hobby labs that before were only bought from factories, because it'll be easy and economical to do so.
Since these people won't be corporations trying to keep secrets, they'll trade CNC patterns like people trade cross stitch patterns now.
We'll be going from the ability to learn to make things by studying online to the ability to make things instantly by downloading the code.
True, but don't forget one of the more famous sayings of the internet age: "Information wants to be free."
There's no better way to publicize the practice of at-home manufacturing than by having some large corporation whine about it:)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure it's a nice conversation starter for the military types around here, but note that even this nearly information free news article is vague on the status of this "in the concept stage" weapon system. Sure, they're marketing it, but that's how corporations raise money and make themselves look worth investing in, or attract attention to their other products, or just try to stave off the bank closing them down.
Essentially this article looks like some marketer dreamed up a cool-sounding product, convinced management to make a sales video, and used it to generate some interest in his/her company. Then a clueless reporter grabbed it, looked up potential effects of "cruise missiles", combined it with an out of context quote from someone at Jane's for expert effect, and spewed it out onto the net with a healthy dose of fear mongering about how it could be sold to terrorists.
Let's review...There's no evidence that such a weapon exists other than marketing drivel. There's no evidence that the company claiming to produce it has the capability to do so. If they do produce it, odds are good it won't meet the "looks good on paper but hard to actually do" marketing goals and be a viable threat to anyone. Once it exists, the Russians are not likely to allow it to be sold any more than most other non US countries with Naval forces.
So, this article should only generate interest if you A) Accept the premise that a relatively unknown company in Russia can suddenly produce an advanced weapon system like this B) Accept that once produced, the weapon will somehow be more of a threat than existing weapon systems, many of which are probably more advanced and C) Are ignorant enough to think that because the Russian government is not made of Americans that they'll sell weapons which could potentially threaten them to terrorist groups just so they can make the small amount of cash that would provide (a few million dollars... most terrorists aren't rich, although OBL is) and in exchange for which they earn the enmity and political consequences of supplying terrorists.
It's specifically targeted at sloppy thinking westerners who have a stereotypical view of other world countries. How plausible would the article be if it talked about a smaller American company in eg. California producing the same product? You'd automatically think that terrorists wouldn't get it because the US Military would buy it, or the US Government would prevent export of it, or you'd choose not to believe the hype about it.. after all, with billions of dollars more in funding larger companies haven't produced a missile system superior to existing Exocet and Harpoon series weapons. Yet if the mythical company is placed in Russia, suddenly people swallow this completely... because everyone knows Russians are genius weapon designers who are all desperately poor and willing to sell their products to everyone regardless of who they threaten, with the support and assistance of the corrupt Russian government, right?
This is NOT NEWS. It's barely even marketing material.
But enjoy the testosterone pumped discussion of weapons and ships.
I address the US because A) That's where Google is and B) The question of whether or not Google is or is not currently violating any laws in countries around the world has less import than whether or not a new way of looking at privacy as a concept is needed.
Obviously if what Google's doing is illegal where they're doing it, they should stop or face the consequences.
But I'm not aware of any country with a comprehensive set of privacy laws addressing aggregated, inferred, or derived data use to avoid privacy violations. Are you?
It should make people nervous, of course. What's "off" is the perception that Google is the only entity doing this and that they should stop because it's obviously somehow illegal. It's not illegal for them or anyone else to perform, and indeed the government and many other corporate entities are doing this sort of thing now with any data they can collect.....information on TV watching habits, information collected from online shopping on Amazon, data mined from Facebook relationships, information on who updated Wikipedia and when. As a country (and species) we haven't really had both the massive amount of information available to us that we have now along with the ability to process it and infer further data. There have been organizations and individuals that have been able to sift through libraries and census data and pick out small amounts of information, but the fact that they were rare and the resources involved formed a natural barrier to inferred information being generated and acted upon. That's no longer the case - a clever teenager in his first job can do the work now.
I submit for your consideration that a new kind of law is needed, one that limits uses of aggregated data and recognizes that privacy considerations apply both for the actual data collected and the data that can be inferred from it. There's a fine path to be walked here...after all, doesn't the census permit thousands of useful things to be done with population data? We can't make that illegal entirely. Likewise we can't continue to do nothing... despite the fact that information "wants" to be free, it's only a matter of time before corporations make use of the data for everyday business, and once their use is entrenched, it'll be nearly impossible to stop. Worse, once the data is collected and generated, it's available to anyone who can rent, steal, co-opt, or copy it. The worst risk of misuse is of course from the government itself.
It's not enough to wait for the court system to re-interpret the right to privacy so it includes inferred and collected data.. the courts shouldn't be making laws regardless.
But do we have any hope that our government A) Understands the problem B) Believes it needs to be addressed and C) Is willing to limit its own power through laws?
I don't.
As an aside, I'm sure the Slashcode website base is quite impressive with regards to its moderation, comment system, karma and performance. So why are the authors stuck in the dark ages as far as text editors go? I feel like I'm typing on a buggy 80s dial-up bbs here...
It's always been possible to transfer large amounts of data over relatively short distances. If you shorten the distance to bus length you can transfer dozens of gigabytes per second. 400 meters is almost no distance as far as telco wiring is concerned.
The problem that has existed since the internet began (and since I was an ISP tech in the late 90s) is that the central office to subscriber connection is slow, operates over short distances, and is handicapped by the desire (on the phone companies' part) to use existing infrastructure.
The public telephone network was built at taxpayer cost and "inherited" by the various post-bell system phone companies. They didn't pay for it in the first place and they're not going to pay to replace it if they can help it. They have some of the most legally protected profit margins anywhere... imagine if you were handed an infrastructure with thousands of subscribers, guaranteed no competition, and otherwise allowed to make as much money as you can in exchange for some occasional government regulation... it's every businessman's dream (provided they're not completely ethical). Having the gravy train rolling in doesn't give them any incentive to build out the network, especially to the less populated areas. They get the same money anyway provided they lie well enough to the government to keep additional regulation and competition away. The only way for them to make less money is to spend it on major improvement projects like replacing the old copper pairs to each house with fiber, especially if you do it in areas where people can't or won't pay a premium price for the service, IE the areas that don't have high speed internet now.
The same telco companies have even requested money from the federal government in tax breaks and outright subsidies over the years to "bring internet into rural communities". I have to laugh when I hear that. Many rural communities in the US still have dial-up only. The telcos go on their merry way and pocket the money.. after all, that's what they're good at.
Greatly expanded speeds over copper for a relatively short distance are pointless because it doesn't help with the access problem. All this improved technology means is that for a small subset of DSL users in densely populated metro areas where the telco is willing to upgrade equipment a speed increase to the telco will be seen. Who knows if the bandwidth exists at the central office to make it worth it? The telcos aren't going to spend money to link multiple intermediate sites together with the high speed tech to extend service out to sparsely populated areas. Sure, it would work technically, but it costs money for little return. Despite the fact that they're effectively subsidized by the taxpayers, they're under no obligation to help the taxpayers.
What's really needed to kick off broadband development is someone other than the phone companies taking on network service delivery to the home, without using the public telephone network and without handing money to the telcos. Like Google is trying to do... I guess if you get enough money on your side in this country, you find the power to do things. Too bad the government can't do things like that itself. Change, pfft. It's too late.
Now, a communications break through that lets 10 mbit bidirectional data be delivered over, say, a 10 wire mile distance (50,000 feet).. that would be a game changer. What's needed is a moderate speed tech that costs the phone companies very little to implement but works over long distances.... something cheap enough for the telcos to preserve their precious profits but still install it and provide service farther out.
Erik
Or is there more to this game than the video shows? I always thought Time was the 4th dimension...
There was an old cartoon from back in the 80s when the first really painful desktop security measures were put in place... back when people still ran unpatched OSs and downloading updates (via dial-up modem) wasn't common.
I think it was "The Fifth Wave" series. Wish I could find it to post a link.
Basically, it was a manager turning to an employee looking stubborn at his computer terminal and saying "Now c'mon, Bob, you know nose scanning is our best defense against unauthorized computer use!" The nose scanners were cups on thick cords hanging from the ceiling like airline oxygen masks.
Biometrics is a cute marketing trick, but it's no substitute for good security process. That's why I like signing in to my laptop using the "fingerprint" of a small area on the underside of my scrotum. Any legitimate reason to doff one's pants at work is good. "I'm just logging in." or "Whoops, there goes my screensaver. Zzzzzzzip...."
Erik
Yes, that was the command. Thanks for bringing back those nightmares.
(I'll skip talking about different ROM addresses for diff. controllers since someone already did. I had machines with multiple controllers in them, and god help you if you picked the wrong address).
I'll give the direct/short answer to the question you're asking.
No.
The reason is that hard drives only write data in precise locations so they can find it later. You can't write anywhere other than those locations because the drive won't do it... not even with new firmware. The read/write heads may not even be capable of addressing the locations you want to write. The only way to write in an arbitrary location is to remove the disks from the drive in a clean room, and use a very precise CNC read/write head to address the locations you want. Disk manufacturers have machines that do this.
If you confine your request to only writing arbitrary locations within the physically addressable areas of the disk, then you can do what you want if and only if you write new firmware for the drive... it used to be firmware was in EPROM and couldn't be altered, but you can flash it nowadays. So you A) Buy a drive then B) Re-flash the eprom with code to do what you want (custom developed after reverse engineering the original firmware) and then you can write wherever, without worrying about niceties like the end of sector marks the drive uses to keep track of data locations. You'll have to do that sort of thing yourself.
So, confining our discussion to disk areas that the default drive firmware will write to, If you're looking for a way to ignore/override the OS I/O code, the disk controller firmware and the disk firmware in order to "talk to the bare metal" it may be possible depending on the particular combination of OS, controller, and disk, and assuming you have the right privileges in the OS. But there's no standard way to do it, nor API. You have to know exactly how the hardware in question works, down to the chip level and in some cases below. If the computer you're interested in has a different drive, controller or OS I/O code than you wrote your program for, then you have to re-write it.
I'm sure a lot of us here would be curious to know what you're trying to do... accessing non data sectors on a disk hasn't been done commonly for years, and when it was it was used for some awful copy protection methods (awful as in they created compatibility issues, even with "standard" PC hardware and also they could still be broken).
Erik
I think the question is "Are there any internet users who actually trust Paypal?"
I've had a dispute with them for 2 years because they reversed a transaction without asking, and I keep running into small merchants who use them for credit card processing who can't take my card - Paypal has the card number blacklisted, and won't let me use it for any transactions that they handle processing for, even if completely unrelated to the dispute and even if they're just doing back end processing for another company.
I'm sure if they could legally grab the card numbers as they go by and charge the disputed value they would.
It's like they're an unregulated bank.
Erik
Yes, me too... IF (big if) he can hit his 3k/home cost target.
Right now a single unit is $700k-$800k. How many would he have to build to reduce the price that much? Hundreds of thousands?
Actually it can run on quite a variety of fuels... natural gas, propane, wood gas, landfill biofuel, etc.
I'd suspect folks in eg. Southeast Asia or Africa would use biofuels like wood gas or alcohol, or methane from plant decomp.
Erik
This is a neat idea... but the cost of the units is obviously prohibitive at the moment. People (generalizing) will pay a bit more for guaranteed clean energy, especially if at some point it has little or no ongoing cost. But they won't pay for something that has a 30 year break even unless the devices last that long without any significant maintenance (added cost).
If mass production brought the costs down, I could see this being an interesting alternative for folks not well served (in one way or another, including cost) by existing power utilities. Provided of course the machine with its "secret" components doesn't create other problems, like being non recyclable, or being hazardous in some other way.
This is more revolutionary for the third world though.. any country without an existing power infrastructure or with a less than robust one could install a lower cost version of this unit at a lower price than creating a country wide power distribution network. We may see a time in the near future where the third world countries are running off of these sorts of micro power plants while the US still gets its energy centrally, from big expensive power plants.
Green is good, but people won't do it unless it's cheap too. We're kinda dumb that way.
If that's the App Store he was referring to, why didn't he include the trademark icon?
Or is it possible maybe that he was being a Mac Fanboi when he submitted the article, and was therefore suffering tunnel vision? :)
Erik
Okay, that was actually funny.
It may come as a surprise to you, but there are actually many other "App Stores" that people care about, some of them a whole lot more than your favorite one. In fact there are other app stores not even associated with mobile devices... you are aware that other computing devices exist, right?
I just love the fact that you speak for the entire community of people who read this article: ("no one gives a shit" about other app stores).
Thanks for proving my point in spades.
Oh, and since this is a news article posted on a commonly read news aggregator, shouldn't the default be to assume that the reader *doesn't* know what you're talking about? I mean, it's not like this site is "The church of iPhone" or something. The next article in line might not even be about computers, or hardware at all. It would be confusing to read through a description of a new privacy law or Sci-Fi movie assuming it somehow only applied to iPhone users. Then again, maybe that's just the way you view the world.
Erik
I'm sure a person with such a mindset would always offer a calm discussion of the facts without using inflammatory language, weasel words, or unsubstantiated facts.
Erik
Hmm... I got a set of new ones in the plastic.
I'd imagine if the technology becomes more common that it would be possible to buy a personal set of glasses online or something... like a higher end set of sunglasses.
Or, get a set of new ones at some movie and carry 'em around with you for you own use.
For all I know even contacts would work for this...
From what I know of this particular 3d technology, it won't work at home without a really, really expensive monitor... cheaper just to buy two monitors...I was bummed :)
Erik
I'd have said the same thing before going to "Avatar" in 3d. The usual litany of anti-3d excuses would apply:
I think this is mostly due to hollywood/tech companies chasing the holy grail of 3d for a long time. Many, many vendors have sold products based on claims of "true 3d images" including some spectacularly bad products like the virtual boy or NVidia's attempt at 3d with LCD shutter glasses.
But with the current crop of tech, they've finally made it useable. The glasses I used actually improved the colors, and the film was bright enough not to notice the slight darkening due to the glasses.
After the first 15 minutes of viewing Avatar with the dark glasses (RealD 3D) on, I wouldn't want to watch it any other way.
If you haven't seen Avatar in 3D, do so. Very worth it, and I hope other films are made that way soon. I actually made a joke about wanting to see a 3D porn film on the way out of the theater ("we'd be ducking every time the male lead stood up facing the screen").
Erik
Their government may seem less inept, but they're much more bound by their culture and a world view stretching back by several thousand years than the US is. They manage to do some things quickly and well, but those are the exceptions.
See also all their trouble regulating lead in toys and melamine in milk.
Besides, China is on a ticking timer as Internet use becomes more widespread. Despite their great firewall, dissidents are going to find more and more ways to use their net to, well, dissent. As more people communicate and find out the truth about their great leaders, their government will change. Just like North Korea will when the great lunatic over there dies.
The only way the government of china could stop this is to outlaw and dismantle their net... which would also stop many of the forward thinking projects the chinese leaders are so proud of. The chinese government is slowly creeping toward the moment when they kick themselves out of office.
Erik
Probably they'd just design a fantastic new infrastructure then partially or fully fail to implement it, all the while skimming off money for their own pocket.
They're not malevolent for the most part, they're inept.
It's true that the physical infrastructure of the internet could probably only be altered due to an unusual, disruptive technology or by government mandate, but the software infrastructure of it (or more accurately a "killer app" like email that forces a change in infrastructure to support it) CAN very well be developed in one man shops or as a hobby.
Erik
No real argument here, I've often thought NASA (and many other government organizations) are too far gone culture-wise and in monetary habits to be worth keeping.
I do disagree that Phd types wouldn't work cheap... I'm sure you'd find a lot who would for a chance like this, especially in the current economy.
And I also think that the bulk of the budget to keep these rovers up and running isn't people and high government salaries (although the fact that it's a government operation multiplies the cost) but rather the large scale equipment needed... antennae, WAN communications, etc.
Erik
Too bad the design didn't include a wind generator...something with hugely oversized blades on a light, expanding tower, to catch the thin air. It would look like a giant palm tree walking across mars.
Even better, how about a rover with a giant sail, rolling across the landscape using spoked free wheels rather than powered ones, or even wide skis.
The silly thing is that the way these missions are designed, it costs NASA a bundle to keep the lights on. Not on the rover of course, but all the telecom equipment and people. If NASA designed a low cost communication system that could support these things for years, then they could just leave the thing operating and hand it over to a secondary investigator or intern to do science with. Or even a class of school kids.
We could have dozens of these things operating on the moon, controlled directly from earth stations, for years at a time.
Erik
"Why, we could redefine everything, from a new addressing scheme to network management protocols, and we could define a software stack with specific functions performed by each level of the network code.. from packet construction to routing and switching! And get this... for flexibility, we'll allow each layer to communicate directly with its corresponding layer in another application! You'll be able to use the same network code for local shared memory communications and global internet communications! There'll be a new addressing scheme with no shortage of addresses, performance will be better than it currently is, and most of the problems related to security and routing of traffic will be solved!"
"Best of all, the new model for the network will be very logically organized, not the mishmash of software and standards that have organically evolved from the old ARPANet protocols and de facto standards. It will be easily understandable through common sense acronyms and simple models."
"It'll be so superior to what we have now that it's a no brainer.. everyone will obviously convert to it right away, with no one left behind."
"So, you should watch closely and start admiring the folks writing this standard now, and start teaching it to college students so they're prepared to deal with the New Internet when we're done."
Pfft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model
If the internet is unrecognizable in 20 years it'll be because of some great innovation from a random guy in his college office, or someone working on a private project during spare moments at his job, or an amateur coder who works on an idea beyond the limit of sanity to turn vision into reality. It won't come from a bunch of bureacrats and government servants setting out to make "The New Internet (tm)".
Erik
I've worked at places where individual users (developers, engineers, and other tech savvy folks) have admin rights.
In every case, it's a balance. The ease of getting things done quickly vs. manageability and security of the computer involved.
If you lock a computer down so the installed apps can be used but nothing else can be installed, it tends to be relatively stable, and you don't get rogue programs installed that cause problems and generate extra work for installers and work disruption for users. The other end of the spectrum means anyone can install what they want. You give rights to everyone and end up with constant rebuilds and virus problems, etc. These can be just minor annoyances or in the worst case can disrupt business or cause legal issues (like loss of private or protected data) that will shut the company down. At the very least they create lots of extra work for someone in the company.
So, many managers (tech savvy and not) are deciding that they need to lock down control of work computers. Basically, they remove the ability to do anything but run work related applications (centrally installed to ensure licensing works and to make sure everyone has the same version) to simplify support and lower costs (which are a big headache for any IT manager).
This makes things more complicated for individuals with legitimate business reasons to install software (like dev add-ons or new versions of libraries, etc). In the case of a locked down system, the central authority in the business for support needs to provide a way to respond to requests to install needed software quickly. This can be either an automated system with menus, or an on-call support staff that handles things. With remote access to desktops they can generally get things installed quickly enough that work isn't significantly delayed. If and only if management recognizes that this support is necessary (people hear what they want to hear, and too often management thinks the clamor against locking down workstations is simply bruised egos (see below)).
This problem comes in when a company decides to solve its rogue software problems by restricting desktop access but doesn't provide any way to request "special" software. Unless your company is very unusual, certain users will need software that's not generally installed everywhere, and not everyone will fit the "standard business software" mold. This is a rough parallel to IT departments restricting access and forcing change control for "production" tier systems without changing their development processes to remove the need for production access. You're left with a choice to either break the rules or not get work done, and god help you if you try to explain things to whichever manager is getting a pat on the back for "securing the system".
Of course, the reason most people ask questions like the submitter is probably due to ego. The emotion behind the question runs roughly "I'm a smart (guy, girl).. I've been progamming and running my own system since before this OS was released! I don't need a low paid staffer to handle this for me, and you're just slowing me down! I feel insulted by you not giving me privileges and trusting me to keep things working!"
Having control is a hard habit to break. Taking it away from people who've "always" had it is like introducing change control to a company that's always been a free for all... people see the change as extra procedure being introduced that is unnecessary and slows down "real work".
The best way I've found to deal with people who want admin rights because their ego demands control is to ask them if they're also willing to accept responsibility for their workstation being productive. The desktop support folks or central desktop team accept this as part of their job.. in cases of heavily regulated industries, there may be legal requirements for someone to be responsible for the integrity of such systems. So once you get the person complaining about a lack of access rights
Actually, I did make the stub myself :) Hot rolled square bar of steel faced off and then turned and threaded in the lathe for 1250 lb axle (IE no taper to mess up).
Not for a heavy use trailer or anything, but I was proud of it... I'm not a pro machinist.
Let me put it this way... CNC doesn't change things on its own. People not making things now aren't going to suddenly run out and buy a CNC system, even if it's dirt cheap (relatively).
But cheap CNC appeals to do it yourself types the same way fixing their own car, building their own furniture, and home gunsmithing appeals to them. They'll get a machine for 1-2 purposes, like making a custom set of speaker grilles or gunsight rails. Once they have a machine that can make anything out of a given material, they'll start looking for things to make.
I believe we're going to see more and more people making things in tiny shops or hobby labs that before were only bought from factories, because it'll be easy and economical to do so.
Since these people won't be corporations trying to keep secrets, they'll trade CNC patterns like people trade cross stitch patterns now.
We'll be going from the ability to learn to make things by studying online to the ability to make things instantly by downloading the code.
Not everything, but an awful lot of things.
Pretty cool, I think.
Erik
True, but don't forget one of the more famous sayings of the internet age: "Information wants to be free." There's no better way to publicize the practice of at-home manufacturing than by having some large corporation whine about it :)