And guess what. The shit eventually hits the fan and we get to prosecute. Most of that shit (most notably the Hydro bosses' handshakes) could never be punished were I a customer of corperation. At least with my government, we find out (private companies wouldn't even have to disclose that 20% of the cost of the product is going to a few suits at the top) and we nail them.
No such luxury in most corperate situations.
I probably should be been a little more articulate: I trust that my government will be held more accountable and be more prone to public scrutiny for illegal/unethical behaviour than companies. Can you argue that?
> if given to the gov't it would just add to thier already too great power.
Oh yeah, and that power is available to all arms of the government at any time.
[Branch A of US Government:] Hello, the Navy? I dont like my neighbour. Could you send over the Navy SEALs to take him out?
[Navy:] Sure. Want us to get the FBI to erase his life savings, just to add insult to injury to his family?
[Branch A of US Government:] Sure! Man, I love being in the government, we're so darn powerful! We can do anything! Anything, I tell you! Bywuahahahaha!
Yes they can. At which point you could fight against them, and nobody would protect them other than themselves. You know, this is when its time for a new government.
> The worst business can do is sic their lawyers on you
Or sell you a product that kills you. The rough part about this is, they are protected by the government in this case. Procedure, laywers, etc. Companies are sued all the time for releasing dangerous products to the public, and yet, you cannot retaliate in a like-minded manner.
Which is why, to me, companies are inherently more dangerous. They have the freedom, leverage, and power to do shit and then influence their body gaurd to protect them. When the body gaurd (government) charges, alone, without its funding partner (companies) joining the fight, I think youd be in a much better situation to protect yourself because all bets regarding what constitutes allowable forms of defense would be off.
Dont know much about the FCC, but your DMCA and SSSCA laws wouldn't even be in existance (or on the burner, respectively) were it not for the interests of large companies. They drove the 'demand' for those pieces of legislation, and we've nobody but ourselves to blame for allowing companies to become weathier (and thus more influential than the government) than the interests of the government and people.
> how about trusting neither and using intellect to figure out what in the world is going on.
Of course! I simply meant my 'default' state is to trust the intentions of government, more than the intentions of companies. Most of the stupid shit my government does is at the behest of companies, and most of the good stuff they try to do is denounced by companies. Thus, by default, I think the government has generally good intentions - when it does shit not in the interests of the people, you can usually find a corperate lobby-tank behind it.
> The government can have you locked up with all of ten minutes notice-- Intel can't.
But Adobe can!
Anyhow, sure, the government can have me locked up with all of 10 minutes notice. People would notice, noise would be made. Realistically, *somebody* has to protect your property rights, or else your car might be getting stolen every other week until material wealth disparty is nearly eliminated. Unfortunately, capitalism does not work without a body that enforces and protects property rights in order to keep the motivations for gaining in material wealth in check. Otherwise your 'right' to gain and become weathier would be judged by your immediate peers and community, and youd have to physically defend your property yoruself from people who feel you dont deserve it.
Ironic, isn't it? The government is the only body that allows companies and humans in general to gain disproportionate amounts of wealth other their peers, the very driving force of the most american system of all, free market capitalism!
Hey, I agree with that logic. I'm in no way advocating that the US Government should have a dominant role in the domain-name infrastructure.
The above poster took at shot at government, using examples of behaviour that are infinately more reflective of the dealings of corperations. Thats all.:)
From what I gather from this specific issue, the US government would not be a popular choice given that it should be indepenant of countries (I'm in Canada, for instance), but it seems that anything would be better than ICANN in its current state.
Oh please. You know, for all the corruption, backdoor deals, conspiracies, etc, etc private companies have infinately more legistlation in place to protect their ability to do shit behind your back. I will never understand why people fear/dislike their government more than private companies who never even have to let you know anything strange is going on unless they get caught.
Kinda hard to knock the government when the problem in this case is clearly that the body is operating more like a company than a regulatory body as it should be.
Government 'n business may be in cahoots, but at least there are still some laws that force the government to be open about its dealings, even if its not always effectively enforced or followed. Aisde, there doesn't seem to be much public push for making soft donations 'n influence of that nature public, so we can lay the blame there on ourselves.
I'm not saying the government is perfect, but it seems to be that private, even public companies, are in an infinately better position to manipulate your opinions and consent, and not be held accountable for it. Hell, MS's potentially illegal OEM agreement is/was marked as a trade secret, so nobody could look at it. What a joke. I'll trust my government more than companies any day of the week.
Good point. Although I wouldn't say it can never happen.. maybe we reach a 'featureset limit' (like the lawnmower, hasn't really changed too much, the technology changes inside it, but its featureset remains relatively constant.) Given that the hardware and software world are seperate in the computer world, I really wouldn't put money on it never happening in the future.
After all, if decision decisions are grey (you can never proove one method of solving something is implicitly better than the other, as you can justify different expectations and requirements for a chunk of code.. ie, favour speed over memory, memory over speed), I really dont think its out the question that design decision that has no obvious answer is left to whatever happens to make more money in the end, even *if* that includes favouring some implementation that is slower for the purpose of driving new hardware.
I see exactly what you're saying, and I dont think it happens at all these days, but I could see it happening in the future as computers and applications begin to reach their featureset limits.
Thanks for the dicussion tho, you provided good examples of why I might have a little tinfoil around the ears.:) I dont think organized conspiracies happen very often, but I do believe that flippant decisions with questionable justifications can be made without stirring the pot too violently.
Unfortunately, history is a good example of why problems like this are usually cancerous in nature, and require a violent, unjustifiable (and yet completely justifiable, at a macroscopic level) response.
I 100% agree with you, but please make reference to a culture/society in the past that has successfully curbed its own problems when the downside of those problems were not felt by them? I dont think its happened much.
Nevermind that our entire economic system is geared towards consumption. Its hard to turn an entire nation or three into martyrs.
You know, renewable resources aside, if you imagine the amount of energy humans consume daily from physical work, and the amount of work it _should_ take (given 100% efficiency) to power these small devices, human effort is truely the ultimate renewable resource. I can't even imagine the efficiency, cost and energy savings of using human effort to offload the power requirements for small devices like this. Think of the energy, no only to produce, but to store, ship, sell, package, etc, batteries for small devices. Gone, hopefully, if this type of technology gains a foot hold (or arm hold, pardon the pun.)
1. No, I do not believe this gopher issue had anything to do with any partnership. More likely, it was the 'well, the code was written by some temp who was here 10 years ago' (or better yet, to be topical, the code was borrowed by someone we've lost track of, but thank god they licensed under BSD or we'd have had to write our own;) I dont think the conspiracy guy had much water in this case.
2. Of course, Apples hardware and software divisions are 'in cahoots' (if I were a stockholder, I'd hope so, they work at the same freakin company).. they might not be 'in cahoots' to add this feature, drop that feature for driving each others sales. But it doesn't take a market analyst to understand that hardware people/rely/ on software people to push the latest and greatest to push hardware. It might not be a conspiracy, but the hardware camp leaning on the software camp to drive demand for various types of hardware, and vice versa is called 'business strategy'. Hell, its in the press releases. Thats the truely funny part about both conspiracy theorists and their naysayers who deny all intentions of said conspiracy. While the methods of using leverage across hard/soft-ware markets might not be as in the dark or 'cool' as the tinhats might like it to be, it still stands that tactics like this are used. It's kind of funny - it seems people are often more complacent of 'intent to conspire', so long as its done in plain view. I still dont think it excuses cases where that leverage is taking precendance over solid engineering design.
Another poster made the wise observation that given how much of MS's revenue comes from new computer software royalties, they do have a massive vested interest in keeping the hardware upgrade cycle very short in order to keep the market fueling the damand for new computers, and thus provide a steady, reliable revenue stream.
> I've been seing some decimal on slashdot, which geeks hate.
Yes, they hate decimals. Thats why all CVS versioning is done in hex. Thats why all software versioning is done in hex. Thats why all file sizes are listed in hex. Thats why.. well, dont get me wrong, its a fairly funny ploy, but it just doesn't have enough legs to warrent its own login.:/
And that's why IE 5.x was slimmed down and much faster than the old IE4
See, if you really think customer demand and usefulness doth an MS product make, you're just as bad as our conspiracy theorist. Of course it enters the equation. But if you think its the only factor, keep dreaming.
Customers dont know what to demand. Go ask your mother what the next feature of Windows should be. Most people dont know. I dont believe that MS and Intel have an agreement to push hardware requirements, however, the possibility that execs and project managers 'suggest' things to eath other (hey, keep that feature in there, whats the damage, or hey, we're thinking of do this and that, what do you think) doesn't require a conspiracy to influence the design decisions. And if you think glib, ignorant purely business strategy speak doesnt influence decision decisions suggests that your no less niave than he is conspiracy theorist.
> I've heard of Everquest accounts sold for upwards of a thousand dollars... Considering that what is actually for sale is just an username and password, which generally comes up to less than 20 bytes in total, this amounts to over $50 per byte.
Well, the money is being paid (presumably) for the stats and inventory of that user. So saying the 'value per byte' based on the metrics of the key is like saying that paying 1000$ for a key to a safety deposit box with 1000$ in it works out to (1000/metrics-of-key)$
So the real cost-per-byte number for these EQ accounts relates to how many bytes are in a full player record for an EQ account.
Anyhow, I'm sure some company out there has paid in the thousands for a few lines of code.
This does make me think about my 'Guiness Book of World Records That We'll Never Know' book I wish I could have. Whats the furthest a rental cars keys have ever been from its associated car, and is there an interesting story about it? You get the idea...
Most Eminem-bots around here wont even complain that their Eminem CD wont play on their PC, and they STILL bought it. Of course they downloaded the mp3s, but they buy the CD too (its called franchise penetance, and I'd be more sympathetic to the RIAA if wasting money on brands, regardless of quality of product, wasnt America's favorite passtime, anyhow. Do they really honestly think people are downloading top40 bands because the quality is top notch? Nope. The big bands are Brands, and nobody likes to own a brand without owning some officially licensed 'gear', which is the CD in this case.)
The RIAA's archtypal top 40 uber-pirate downloader does not exist! Instead, those downloaders have ALSO been rushing to their local store, repeating, "I know I'm a sucker, but hes so cuuuuute, I have to buy his CD!" for the last 5 years..
So, I'd say, they are targeting an audience that is buying CDs from them anyhow. I certainly dont know too many NON-top40 downloaders who are buying CDs nearly as religiously as the brand whores who need their latest Eminem or No Doubt (tho thier last single is pretty catchy, I have to admit they've grown) or big label divas.
How does this impact this story? I think if it is the RIAA or labels that are doing this, they are wasting their time, and the bandwidth of the last slice of their realiable, heavy user consumer base. It might work tho, which is fine with me as it would leave the people actually using file sharing networks to increase their exposure to new music alone to pursue such a noble quest.
> a "social problem, not a technological problem, therefore Not Our Problem(TM)".
It is a social problem. If you want to consider it a technical problem, you might as well be advocating that humans be installed with biochips.
Face it, you can't trust anyone, and thus can trust everyone, to some degree. Life is a series of risk analysis', followed by decisions. The Perfect Secure Trusted World is both undefinable and impossible to implement.
So, by utilizing one's brains, one can decide where to get ones sources from, depending on the various levels of 'risk' one would be exposing themselves to during the intended use of the software. I would hope the government would get their sources from distributors for which they have high levels of trust - and given who they are, even visiting the home of the original developer to get the sources isn't out of the question. It's not like they'd be installing secure software from tarbells off public ftps or Kazaa - and if they did, to make a reference, that's their own social problem. Not a technical one.:)
To that end, GPG/PGP raises the bar on what must be done to commit fraud or tamper with data, and thus you can assume a certain higher level of trust for the authenticity of the data being sent. It doesn't mean you'll never fall victim to a man-in-the-middle, but like the club (or the condom!), it'll deter detremental events, even if its not always 100% effective.
PGP protects against certain types of data tampering - not all. I hope you dont feel this means its 100% worthless. At any rate, I suspect PGP would claim to be more about deterring evesdropping rather than ensuring 100% the authenticity of data (or even the sender). I think md5 is typically more suited to checking the authentiticy of data against a trusted published md5 signature, but I'm no expert.:)
Re:Well, they may have a point somewhere in there.
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ADTI Whitepaper Released
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· Score: 4, Insightful
> But I believe in this case, the group is advocating commercial code that comes with the source.
No, they ad advocating that open source is good, because commercial companies can use it to cut costs (and profit on the backs of others' work), but that those companies should not have to repay the community for reasons of security.
It really should read 'borrowable open-source good, except when the source code is mine.. then it should be closed.'
We all know the usual/. arguments on whether OS is more or less secure than CS, so we dont need to go into that. But really, they like it when companies can borrow source (heaven forbid they have to actually hire as many skilled programmers as it takes to build any given application.. I mean, they have execs and marketers to pay, doncha know!).. but hate it when they have to give that source back.
I've been watching the commercial world come to the realization that open-source isn't what they should be scared of (MS has borrowed BSD'd code many a time).. its just the thought of holding the quality of their software accountable to a community that scares the shit out of them. Anyone following what the multinationals have been doing for the last 20 years in order to divest themselves from ALL possible negative public reaction understands this position. Just like Nike no longer technically employs their sweatshop workers (they're contracted, so the accountability is divested from Nike to their contractors), companies want to be able to take 'tried and true' code, use it, not have to hold their use of the code (and the rest of their code) accountable to the community, and PLUS they get the benifit of passing the buck to the open-source author should problems be found! (Since in a closed source product, nobody can proove it _wasnt_ the open source chunk that caused the problems or indroduced the security hole or whatever.)
It's the usual power mongering, and desire to not be held accountable for any of it.
They play it as if it is, but by saying open-source good, GPL bad, they are clearly desperately attempting to keep the sea full of fish for MS when it needs a chunk of [stable and useful] code here and there for their projects. They hate the GPL cause theres no way they'll GPL the whole damn OS.. so this attack is specifically targetted at the GPL, with purely financial intentions in mind. The security angle is clearly just a way of getting people to read it, and to associate GPL with 'problems'. I'd imagine most decision-makers won't have to remember what those 'problems' are (much less understand them), but so long as they walk away going, 'open source good' (so MS can borrow at will, remember how much they like BSD license), 'GPL bad', they've done their job.
Ironic, huh? MS has the power and might to take and use, and they dont perceive having to apply the same standards as their code-base contributors (ie, the borrowed code) to their own product. It's flat out hypocracy to anyone with half a clue.. fortunately for them, in this day and age of specialization and legal and technological complexity, thats 99.9999% of the population on any particular issue.
Fuck 'em and their shareholders.
I assume by decrying the GPL for security, their lame argument is.. "well, open source is fine, so long as we can keep the parts actually keeping the system secure obscured behind closed source?"
So then why is open-source good? Seems to me that security is 80% of the benifit of open source. I guess MS's story is, 100% of the benifit of open source is 'borrowing' code, and 0% is security. Not surprising, but still infuriating.
> you have the freedom and flexibility to choose the best solutions for future
One small problem with this is if the person actually making the decisions wants to open up the possible vendor pool for political/economical reasons rather than technical. For this reason, you can end up with multiple *nix boxen from multiple vendors, neither of which were selected because they are technical more suitable for their individual tasks, but rather because of politico/economic reasons.
>the customers don't maintain the systems, they're perfectly breakable.
Hello nurse! C'mon, you dont really want to detroy the utopian 'once the *cough*secure*cough* product is bought/installed, we're secure' view we all have, do you?
Please, this culture abhorrs responsibility. Thats why we champion a system where responsibiltiy can be outsourced.
Hehe. Sometimes I wish I could leave people with their 'clean gene pool' of choice. I think, more often than not, you'd find the people made from the your preferred 'gene' pool would be just as likely to kill your before you kill them.
Do you really want to be left alone in a gene pool filled with the same intelligent, elitist, passionate genes that you have? Stop assuming they'd all share your opinions and start thinking about having to face off against those with skills equivilent to yours (whatever those may be.)
> Those awards shows keep all the dumbass cattle in this county entertained.
Nevermind squarely in the social sniper-sights (or envy, depending on personality type) of those in less fortunate economies. This isn't flamebait, but its good evidence that humans dont enjoy freeloaders who seek opportunities to avoid exposing themselves to anything other than unmitigated 'winners'.
Slashdot Mirror
And guess what. The shit eventually hits the fan and we get to prosecute. Most of that shit (most notably the Hydro bosses' handshakes) could never be punished were I a customer of corperation. At least with my government, we find out (private companies wouldn't even have to disclose that 20% of the cost of the product is going to a few suits at the top) and we nail them.
No such luxury in most corperate situations.
I probably should be been a little more articulate: I trust that my government will be held more accountable and be more prone to public scrutiny for illegal/unethical behaviour than companies. Can you argue that?
> if given to the gov't it would just add to thier already too great power.
Oh yeah, and that power is available to all arms of the government at any time.
[Branch A of US Government:] Hello, the Navy? I dont like my neighbour. Could you send over the Navy SEALs to take him out?
[Navy:] Sure. Want us to get the FBI to erase his life savings, just to add insult to injury to his family?
[Branch A of US Government:] Sure! Man, I love being in the government, we're so darn powerful! We can do anything! Anything, I tell you! Bywuahahahaha!
> the gov't can come charging in with guns
Yes they can. At which point you could fight against them, and nobody would protect them other than themselves. You know, this is when its time for a new government.
> The worst business can do is sic their lawyers on you
Or sell you a product that kills you. The rough part about this is, they are protected by the government in this case. Procedure, laywers, etc. Companies are sued all the time for releasing dangerous products to the public, and yet, you cannot retaliate in a like-minded manner.
Which is why, to me, companies are inherently more dangerous. They have the freedom, leverage, and power to do shit and then influence their body gaurd to protect them. When the body gaurd (government) charges, alone, without its funding partner (companies) joining the fight, I think youd be in a much better situation to protect yourself because all bets regarding what constitutes allowable forms of defense would be off.
Dont know much about the FCC, but your DMCA and SSSCA laws wouldn't even be in existance (or on the burner, respectively) were it not for the interests of large companies. They drove the 'demand' for those pieces of legislation, and we've nobody but ourselves to blame for allowing companies to become weathier (and thus more influential than the government) than the interests of the government and people.
> how about trusting neither and using intellect to figure out what in the world is going on.
Of course! I simply meant my 'default' state is to trust the intentions of government, more than the intentions of companies. Most of the stupid shit my government does is at the behest of companies, and most of the good stuff they try to do is denounced by companies. Thus, by default, I think the government has generally good intentions - when it does shit not in the interests of the people, you can usually find a corperate lobby-tank behind it.
> The government can have you locked up with all of ten minutes notice-- Intel can't.
But Adobe can!
Anyhow, sure, the government can have me locked up with all of 10 minutes notice. People would notice, noise would be made. Realistically, *somebody* has to protect your property rights, or else your car might be getting stolen every other week until material wealth disparty is nearly eliminated. Unfortunately, capitalism does not work without a body that enforces and protects property rights in order to keep the motivations for gaining in material wealth in check. Otherwise your 'right' to gain and become weathier would be judged by your immediate peers and community, and youd have to physically defend your property yoruself from people who feel you dont deserve it.
Ironic, isn't it? The government is the only body that allows companies and humans in general to gain disproportionate amounts of wealth other their peers, the very driving force of the most american system of all, free market capitalism!
Hey, I agree with that logic. I'm in no way advocating that the US Government should have a dominant role in the domain-name infrastructure.
:)
The above poster took at shot at government, using examples of behaviour that are infinately more reflective of the dealings of corperations. Thats all.
From what I gather from this specific issue, the US government would not be a popular choice given that it should be indepenant of countries (I'm in Canada, for instance), but it seems that anything would be better than ICANN in its current state.
Oh please. You know, for all the corruption, backdoor deals, conspiracies, etc, etc private companies have infinately more legistlation in place to protect their ability to do shit behind your back. I will never understand why people fear/dislike their government more than private companies who never even have to let you know anything strange is going on unless they get caught.
Kinda hard to knock the government when the problem in this case is clearly that the body is operating more like a company than a regulatory body as it should be.
Government 'n business may be in cahoots, but at least there are still some laws that force the government to be open about its dealings, even if its not always effectively enforced or followed. Aisde, there doesn't seem to be much public push for making soft donations 'n influence of that nature public, so we can lay the blame there on ourselves.
I'm not saying the government is perfect, but it seems to be that private, even public companies, are in an infinately better position to manipulate your opinions and consent, and not be held accountable for it. Hell, MS's potentially illegal OEM agreement is/was marked as a trade secret, so nobody could look at it. What a joke. I'll trust my government more than companies any day of the week.
Good point. Although I wouldn't say it can never happen .. maybe we reach a 'featureset limit' (like the lawnmower, hasn't really changed too much, the technology changes inside it, but its featureset remains relatively constant.) Given that the hardware and software world are seperate in the computer world, I really wouldn't put money on it never happening in the future.
.. ie, favour speed over memory, memory over speed), I really dont think its out the question that design decision that has no obvious answer is left to whatever happens to make more money in the end, even *if* that includes favouring some implementation that is slower for the purpose of driving new hardware.
:) I dont think organized conspiracies happen very often, but I do believe that flippant decisions with questionable justifications can be made without stirring the pot too violently.
After all, if decision decisions are grey (you can never proove one method of solving something is implicitly better than the other, as you can justify different expectations and requirements for a chunk of code
I see exactly what you're saying, and I dont think it happens at all these days, but I could see it happening in the future as computers and applications begin to reach their featureset limits.
Thanks for the dicussion tho, you provided good examples of why I might have a little tinfoil around the ears.
Unfortunately, history is a good example of why problems like this are usually cancerous in nature, and require a violent, unjustifiable (and yet completely justifiable, at a macroscopic level) response.
I 100% agree with you, but please make reference to a culture/society in the past that has successfully curbed its own problems when the downside of those problems were not felt by them? I dont think its happened much.
Nevermind that our entire economic system is geared towards consumption. Its hard to turn an entire nation or three into martyrs.
> Then I hit the back button and ALL MY FUCKING TEXT IS ERASED!
Use Mozilla. It wont do that.
Also, try logging in. That way I won't automatically lose any sympathy I may have had for you in understanding your complaints.
You know, renewable resources aside, if you imagine the amount of energy humans consume daily from physical work, and the amount of work it _should_ take (given 100% efficiency) to power these small devices, human effort is truely the ultimate renewable resource. I can't even imagine the efficiency, cost and energy savings of using human effort to offload the power requirements for small devices like this. Think of the energy, no only to produce, but to store, ship, sell, package, etc, batteries for small devices. Gone, hopefully, if this type of technology gains a foot hold (or arm hold, pardon the pun.)
Two things:
;) I dont think the conspiracy guy had much water in this case.
.. they might not be 'in cahoots' to add this feature, drop that feature for driving each others sales. But it doesn't take a market analyst to understand that hardware people /rely/ on software people to push the latest and greatest to push hardware. It might not be a conspiracy, but the hardware camp leaning on the software camp to drive demand for various types of hardware, and vice versa is called 'business strategy'. Hell, its in the press releases. Thats the truely funny part about both conspiracy theorists and their naysayers who deny all intentions of said conspiracy. While the methods of using leverage across hard/soft-ware markets might not be as in the dark or 'cool' as the tinhats might like it to be, it still stands that tactics like this are used. It's kind of funny - it seems people are often more complacent of 'intent to conspire', so long as its done in plain view. I still dont think it excuses cases where that leverage is taking precendance over solid engineering design.
1. No, I do not believe this gopher issue had anything to do with any partnership. More likely, it was the 'well, the code was written by some temp who was here 10 years ago' (or better yet, to be topical, the code was borrowed by someone we've lost track of, but thank god they licensed under BSD or we'd have had to write our own
2. Of course, Apples hardware and software divisions are 'in cahoots' (if I were a stockholder, I'd hope so, they work at the same freakin company)
Another poster made the wise observation that given how much of MS's revenue comes from new computer software royalties, they do have a massive vested interest in keeping the hardware upgrade cycle very short in order to keep the market fueling the damand for new computers, and thus provide a steady, reliable revenue stream.
> I've been seing some decimal on slashdot, which geeks hate.
.. well, dont get me wrong, its a fairly funny ploy, but it just doesn't have enough legs to warrent its own login. :/
Yes, they hate decimals. Thats why all CVS versioning is done in hex. Thats why all software versioning is done in hex. Thats why all file sizes are listed in hex. Thats why
See, if you really think customer demand and usefulness doth an MS product make, you're just as bad as our conspiracy theorist. Of course it enters the equation. But if you think its the only factor, keep dreaming.
Customers dont know what to demand. Go ask your mother what the next feature of Windows should be. Most people dont know. I dont believe that MS and Intel have an agreement to push hardware requirements, however, the possibility that execs and project managers 'suggest' things to eath other (hey, keep that feature in there, whats the damage, or hey, we're thinking of do this and that, what do you think) doesn't require a conspiracy to influence the design decisions. And if you think glib, ignorant purely business strategy speak doesnt influence decision decisions suggests that your no less niave than he is conspiracy theorist.
> Natalie Portman's phone number (~9 bytes): priceless
;)
Should that read 'Natalie Portman's Call Screener (~9 bytes): worthless'?
> I've heard of Everquest accounts sold for upwards of a thousand dollars... Considering that what is actually for sale is just an username and password, which generally comes up to less than 20 bytes in total, this amounts to over $50 per byte.
...
Well, the money is being paid (presumably) for the stats and inventory of that user. So saying the 'value per byte' based on the metrics of the key is like saying that paying 1000$ for a key to a safety deposit box with 1000$ in it works out to (1000/metrics-of-key)$
So the real cost-per-byte number for these EQ accounts relates to how many bytes are in a full player record for an EQ account.
Anyhow, I'm sure some company out there has paid in the thousands for a few lines of code.
This does make me think about my 'Guiness Book of World Records That We'll Never Know' book I wish I could have. Whats the furthest a rental cars keys have ever been from its associated car, and is there an interesting story about it? You get the idea
Just a note about Top 40 Napsterizers in my area:
..
Most Eminem-bots around here wont even complain that their Eminem CD wont play on their PC, and they STILL bought it. Of course they downloaded the mp3s, but they buy the CD too (its called franchise penetance, and I'd be more sympathetic to the RIAA if wasting money on brands, regardless of quality of product, wasnt America's favorite passtime, anyhow. Do they really honestly think people are downloading top40 bands because the quality is top notch? Nope. The big bands are Brands, and nobody likes to own a brand without owning some officially licensed 'gear', which is the CD in this case.)
The RIAA's archtypal top 40 uber-pirate downloader does not exist! Instead, those downloaders have ALSO been rushing to their local store, repeating, "I know I'm a sucker, but hes so cuuuuute, I have to buy his CD!" for the last 5 years
So, I'd say, they are targeting an audience that is buying CDs from them anyhow. I certainly dont know too many NON-top40 downloaders who are buying CDs nearly as religiously as the brand whores who need their latest Eminem or No Doubt (tho thier last single is pretty catchy, I have to admit they've grown) or big label divas.
How does this impact this story? I think if it is the RIAA or labels that are doing this, they are wasting their time, and the bandwidth of the last slice of their realiable, heavy user consumer base. It might work tho, which is fine with me as it would leave the people actually using file sharing networks to increase their exposure to new music alone to pursue such a noble quest.
> a "social problem, not a technological problem, therefore Not Our Problem(TM)".
:)
:)
It is a social problem. If you want to consider it a technical problem, you might as well be advocating that humans be installed with biochips.
Face it, you can't trust anyone, and thus can trust everyone, to some degree. Life is a series of risk analysis', followed by decisions. The Perfect Secure Trusted World is both undefinable and impossible to implement.
So, by utilizing one's brains, one can decide where to get ones sources from, depending on the various levels of 'risk' one would be exposing themselves to during the intended use of the software. I would hope the government would get their sources from distributors for which they have high levels of trust - and given who they are, even visiting the home of the original developer to get the sources isn't out of the question. It's not like they'd be installing secure software from tarbells off public ftps or Kazaa - and if they did, to make a reference, that's their own social problem. Not a technical one.
To that end, GPG/PGP raises the bar on what must be done to commit fraud or tamper with data, and thus you can assume a certain higher level of trust for the authenticity of the data being sent. It doesn't mean you'll never fall victim to a man-in-the-middle, but like the club (or the condom!), it'll deter detremental events, even if its not always 100% effective.
PGP protects against certain types of data tampering - not all. I hope you dont feel this means its 100% worthless. At any rate, I suspect PGP would claim to be more about deterring evesdropping rather than ensuring 100% the authenticity of data (or even the sender). I think md5 is typically more suited to checking the authentiticy of data against a trusted published md5 signature, but I'm no expert.
> But I believe in this case, the group is advocating commercial code that comes with the source.
.. then it should be closed.'
/. arguments on whether OS is more or less secure than CS, so we dont need to go into that. But really, they like it when companies can borrow source (heaven forbid they have to actually hire as many skilled programmers as it takes to build any given application .. I mean, they have execs and marketers to pay, doncha know!) .. but hate it when they have to give that source back.
.. its just the thought of holding the quality of their software accountable to a community that scares the shit out of them. Anyone following what the multinationals have been doing for the last 20 years in order to divest themselves from ALL possible negative public reaction understands this position. Just like Nike no longer technically employs their sweatshop workers (they're contracted, so the accountability is divested from Nike to their contractors), companies want to be able to take 'tried and true' code, use it, not have to hold their use of the code (and the rest of their code) accountable to the community, and PLUS they get the benifit of passing the buck to the open-source author should problems be found! (Since in a closed source product, nobody can proove it _wasnt_ the open source chunk that caused the problems or indroduced the security hole or whatever.)
No, they ad advocating that open source is good, because commercial companies can use it to cut costs (and profit on the backs of others' work), but that those companies should not have to repay the community for reasons of security.
It really should read 'borrowable open-source good, except when the source code is mine
We all know the usual
I've been watching the commercial world come to the realization that open-source isn't what they should be scared of (MS has borrowed BSD'd code many a time)
It's the usual power mongering, and desire to not be held accountable for any of it.
They play it as if it is, but by saying open-source good, GPL bad, they are clearly desperately attempting to keep the sea full of fish for MS when it needs a chunk of [stable and useful] code here and there for their projects. They hate the GPL cause theres no way they'll GPL the whole damn OS .. so this attack is specifically targetted at the GPL, with purely financial intentions in mind. The security angle is clearly just a way of getting people to read it, and to associate GPL with 'problems'. I'd imagine most decision-makers won't have to remember what those 'problems' are (much less understand them), but so long as they walk away going, 'open source good' (so MS can borrow at will, remember how much they like BSD license), 'GPL bad', they've done their job.
.. fortunately for them, in this day and age of specialization and legal and technological complexity, thats 99.9999% of the population on any particular issue.
.. "well, open source is fine, so long as we can keep the parts actually keeping the system secure obscured behind closed source?"
Ironic, huh? MS has the power and might to take and use, and they dont perceive having to apply the same standards as their code-base contributors (ie, the borrowed code) to their own product. It's flat out hypocracy to anyone with half a clue
Fuck 'em and their shareholders.
I assume by decrying the GPL for security, their lame argument is
So then why is open-source good? Seems to me that security is 80% of the benifit of open source. I guess MS's story is, 100% of the benifit of open source is 'borrowing' code, and 0% is security. Not surprising, but still infuriating.
> you have the freedom and flexibility to choose the best solutions for future
One small problem with this is if the person actually making the decisions wants to open up the possible vendor pool for political/economical reasons rather than technical. For this reason, you can end up with multiple *nix boxen from multiple vendors, neither of which were selected because they are technical more suitable for their individual tasks, but rather because of politico/economic reasons.
>the customers don't maintain the systems, they're perfectly breakable.
Hello nurse! C'mon, you dont really want to detroy the utopian 'once the *cough*secure*cough* product is bought/installed, we're secure' view we all have, do you?
Please, this culture abhorrs responsibility. Thats why we champion a system where responsibiltiy can be outsourced.
Uh. So could non-spyware?
Please define spyware so I can assess the 'ultimate evil' capabilities of spy-ware vs non-spy-ware.
Hehe. Sometimes I wish I could leave people with their 'clean gene pool' of choice. I think, more often than not, you'd find the people made from the your preferred 'gene' pool would be just as likely to kill your before you kill them.
Do you really want to be left alone in a gene pool filled with the same intelligent, elitist, passionate genes that you have? Stop assuming they'd all share your opinions and start thinking about having to face off against those with skills equivilent to yours (whatever those may be.)
> Those awards shows keep all the dumbass cattle in this county entertained.
Nevermind squarely in the social sniper-sights (or envy, depending on personality type) of those in less fortunate economies. This isn't flamebait, but its good evidence that humans dont enjoy freeloaders who seek opportunities to avoid exposing themselves to anything other than unmitigated 'winners'.