But will the chatty Cathy standing to your left STFU long enough for you to get fix on your Google Maps? Eventually there will be a 4G phone every 2 meters.
The web links point to some vanity site run by a bunch of idealists who appear not yet disillusioned by the inevitable flood of douchbaggery that flocks to any government enterprise, or the arrival of difficult people who quibble endlessly over spelling.
If they think vested interests have too much of a hold on government now, just wait till the system they envision were in place. By definition, it would consist of NOTHING BUT vested interest groups.
At best those issues we vote on, and the issues our representatives vote on might be decided by direct participation via electronic means.
Much beyond that is pretty much not possible, as the GP points out, no one is likely to show up for road patching duty just because a tweet went out, and fewer still pick up the garbage, and nobody would want to cross the Mississippi on a bridge designed and built by the Birkenstock anti-motor vehicle crowd .
Executive branch duties would still need to be done by professionals with proper training and authority.
Who would want to submit to mob rule when it comes to Trial? The Judiciary stays too.
So the best you can accomplish is collaborative electronic construction of legislation and e-voting.
I can't imagine collaborative legislation construction on a scale the size of a Switzerland, let along the US. We would have to elect collaborators just to keep the wiki from being a reversion war. What's the point of that, we have elected collaborators now. How would that change anything?
So we are down to e-voting. About the only thing that could work.
It might work on more issues than we currently use voting for, such as passing ordinances, allocating tax dollars among discretionary projects (parks vs street lights vs snow removal), and deciding what should be the state bird and flower. But anything close to giving Joe Sixpack the keys to the treasury will result in the tragedy of the commons all over again.
You simply can't fork Government. Wrapping something up in a layer of grandiosity does not add any degree of practicality.
Just like your gas tax goes god knows where these days too.
I have mixed feelings about this.
Propping up POTS is probably a bad idea. There seems to be little future there.
I suspect it costs no more to string fiber to small towns and then put up a cell tower. Or maybe buy small sat dishes and a a cell tower in small towns. Or put in the broadband and offer a free femtocells in really rural places.
Still I expect the fund just got ripped off for some other use. Perhaps it should just be repealed and they can sell us a whole new solution with new legislation.
You're right of course, I didn't mean to suggest it be ignored. Until fixed, people should know their usb devices, and disable the thumbnail feature in Nautilus.
He stressed throughout the entire presentation just how hard it was to pull this off, and he made use of exploits in a font management system that have since been patched. (The exploit of crashing the thumbnail generation was not sufficient to get him anywhere, he needed yet another exploit beyond that. to obtain shell access.) There are other exploits he could have used, he deliberately chose one in a library that has not been modified since the year 2000.
And all he managed to do was to break out of a locked screen saver as the user that was last logged on. No root exploit here. No privilege elevation. He seems sharp enough that I don't doubt he could have gone the extra mile and perhaps built a more nefarious hack, but all he really did was kill a task running with the privileges of the logged in user.
And as he stated, virtually impossible to exploit remotely even if you socially engineer someone into plugging in the thumb drive. (He needed to know key load addresses of various modules, which while statistically clustered, are not absolute).
So that leaves having physical access to pull this off. When you have that, all bets are off.
But you are correct, it shouldn't be ignored. Even if GVFS crashes it should not allow continued execution of random data. It needs to be fixed. And perhaps that is part of why Ubuntu is moving away from Gnome in future releases.
Watched the video and you will see its not really Autorun at fault here (Because there is no "Autorun" in the microsoft sense of the word. Its not like its launching a program on the thumb drive.
The exploit simply takes advantage of the rendering of thumbnails for the content of the files on the drive. He speculates that you could construct a thumb drive that has some broken files an purposely crash the thumbnailer, and then attempt to load something else after it crashes from probable locations in memory.
Its specific to Gnome. Not generic in Linux. Not quite the same thing as the Microsoft autorun exploit.
To be fair, this is more of a UDEV, and WM/DE problem in mainstream distro's, rather than specific Linux kernel issue itself, but I won't let the headline, article/video presentation detract from that fact.
Not even a problem Mainstream Distro problem. Its exclusive to Gnome's method of thumbnail creation on a plugged in device. He only demonstrated it on Ubuntu with Gnome, and specifically with Nautilus file manager, but its probably the fault of GVFS, Gnome's virtual file system.
He specifically mentions that this exploit does not work with KBuntu.
So once again Linux gets painted with a user space exploit.
How do you "jam" a router that has an upstream into thinking it doesn't?
And how does the fact that not every exploit imaginable to a devious mind is yet solved make mandatory mesh better than long term disaster outage (or a government induced one)?
I think you could make a case for requiring Mesh network support in all commercial/residential wifi routers. Upon losing their upstream, the routers automatically revert to mesh mode on a VLAN providing connectivity for Civil Defense purposes, emergency management, in case of storms or regional outage.
Yes it would be slow, but since most smartphones have wifi, and would be able to use some messaging services and web access even if only local. (But there would be no reason it would be limited to local if some method were provided for routers at the edge of the failure to join the mesh even when they do have upstream.)
You might be able to push this thru legislation if you sell it as a civil defense item. (Hey, I can dream can't I?)
Change is due to natural selection "favoring" one minor mutation over another. A mutation is not enough. It has to impart some survival advantage in the then current environment.
Without selection mutation goes nowhere.
I think you are very confused about mechanisms and encourage you to continue your education in this area.
Evolution can be tested by observing the rate of mutations in the lab, measuring the amount of genetic difference between two species, and performing simple math to determine when their most recent common ancestor lived. If the fossil record did not agree with the prediction, evolution could be falsified.
No it really can't be falsified by a time line argument alone. After all the timeline is not all that consistent on the grand scale. Stephen Jay Gould's theory of Punctuated Equilibrium was proposed precisely because the timeline is not consistent, predictable, or even remotely uniform.
Muller/Newman book "Origination of Organismal Form" further explores how rapid changes in form do not fit any sort of timeline prediction, are far from simple math, and essentially can not be explained by the gradual drift commonly (and wrongly) perceived as part of Natural Selection and evolution.
The rate of mutation has little at all to do with natural selection or evolution, and carries no predictive value.
The theory of evolution is complex, and changing as new investigations provide supportive and alternative theories and mechanism.
It is an evolving theory, and far from settled science.
Because then articles about topics that I care about are written by people with a very homogeneous and biased perspective, resulting in worse articles for me. Sure, there's nothing that stops them from contributing, but they don't, and that is the problem. Because when I systematically don't get the perspective of 50% of people, that makes the information I do receive form Wikipedia less useful.
"Resulting in worse articles for me"?
Is it possible that some articles may seem disagreeable to you because they does not conform to your preconceived notions?
Were you looking for answers or simply support for your pet positions?
Isn't it rather intellectually dishonest to rate an article by the gender of the author?
If you even check the gender of the author (who does that?) isn't it an admission of gender bias on your part? Why not check the sources, verify the facts, use Google to find alternative views and check the sources of those articles as well?
In politics it might be for the population as a whole, but certainly not for any given political party.
But diversity is central to the concept of an encyclopedia.
Some topics may have definitive facts, documented historical basis, photographic evidence, mathematical proofs, etc. It seems unlikely that a missile designed by women would look any less phallic, or the oxidation of iron would be documented any differently by a woman than a man.
Other topics which naturally cry out for diversity of viewpoint. Such as those dealing with culture, the arts, politics, relationships, etc. A gender diversity is almost required if all sides of these issues are to be presented.
No, science is not about being open minded. It is about following the evidence, creating explanations that are verifiable, testable and make predictions.
What part of evolution is testable, verifiable and makes predictions? What part of global warming is testable and verifiable?
If we accept your definitions of science, then we must toss out a lot of what passes for science these days. Of course, that isn't your fault, its the fault of people using theories as if they were facts. Would that science did conform more to your definition, at least then we would have a lot fewer instances of people getting junk science admitted in courts of law.
Lets put it in terms your simple mind can handle. If you LOVE someone overseas more than you LOVE your own friends and neighbors you have made a choice. Those close to you now feel unloved, and require your assistance. But you've chose to turn your back on them. They become angry and act out. Then YOU have to pay someone to keep them away from your door.
Oh, gee, there is that nasty money coming back into it....
The US never really had an imperial phase, at least not as a Super Power. Had it, there would be no Germany, Japan, South Korea, Cuba, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc. They would all have been assimilated.
Instead we can't even be bothered to guard our own borders.
What ever the outcome for the US, only one thing is certain. Australia will never be a super power. But should the wrong people come to power in China, you can bet Australia will be occupied in short order. Too many resources, too few people.
And this brings us back to adoption of IPV6. With just 21 million people, and a network installed much later than that in Europe or North America, and a very small number of ISPs its much easier to get to IPV6.
Comcast servers 22.9 million cable customers. One company, with more subscribers than Australia has citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
But will the chatty Cathy standing to your left STFU long enough for you to get fix on your Google Maps? Eventually there will be a 4G phone every 2 meters.
The web links point to some vanity site run by a bunch of idealists who appear not yet disillusioned by the inevitable flood of douchbaggery that flocks to any government enterprise, or the arrival of difficult people who quibble endlessly over spelling.
If they think vested interests have too much of a hold on government now, just wait till the system they envision were in place. By definition, it would consist of NOTHING BUT vested interest groups.
At best those issues we vote on, and the issues our representatives vote on might be decided by direct participation via electronic means.
Much beyond that is pretty much not possible, as the GP points out, no one is likely to show up for road patching duty just because a tweet went out, and fewer still pick up the garbage, and nobody would want to cross the Mississippi on a bridge designed and built by the Birkenstock anti-motor vehicle crowd .
Executive branch duties would still need to be done by professionals with proper training and authority.
Who would want to submit to mob rule when it comes to Trial? The Judiciary stays too.
So the best you can accomplish is collaborative electronic construction of legislation and e-voting.
I can't imagine collaborative legislation construction on a scale the size of a Switzerland, let along the US. We would have to elect collaborators just to keep the wiki from being a reversion war. What's the point of that, we have elected collaborators now. How would that change anything?
So we are down to e-voting. About the only thing that could work.
It might work on more issues than we currently use voting for, such as passing ordinances, allocating tax dollars among discretionary projects (parks vs street lights vs snow removal), and deciding what should be the state bird and flower. But anything close to giving Joe Sixpack the keys to the treasury will result in the tragedy of the commons all over again.
You simply can't fork Government.
Wrapping something up in a layer of grandiosity does not add any degree of practicality.
Only if you sleep with your pigs.
Start reading on Page 11:
http://financecommission.dot.gov/Documents/Tax%20Foundation%20paper%20on%20Gas%20Tax.pdf
But it seems both the summary and TFA overlooked the FOURTH big Key Challenge to getting off shore wind projects started, namely Ted Kennedy, (rip).
A steadfast opponent of anything in his back yard, he pretty well held the entire off shore industry in check for 30 years.
Maybe cheaper if near the sea, but Alascom (remember them?), AT&T, and then GCI have a boat load of those little dishes and Microwave in the interior.
Probably it means some form of rural broadband or Wimax or something for shcools. But maybe not for every farmer along the route.
It was Obama's promise to push the internet into every classroom and village library and small town hospital.
Just like your gas tax goes god knows where these days too.
I have mixed feelings about this.
Propping up POTS is probably a bad idea. There seems to be little future there.
I suspect it costs no more to string fiber to small towns and then put up a cell tower.
Or maybe buy small sat dishes and a a cell tower in small towns.
Or put in the broadband and offer a free femtocells in really rural places.
Still I expect the fund just got ripped off for some other use. Perhaps it should just
be repealed and they can sell us a whole new solution with new legislation.
You're right of course, I didn't mean to suggest it be ignored. Until fixed, people should know their usb devices, and disable the thumbnail feature in Nautilus.
He stressed throughout the entire presentation just how hard it was to pull this off, and he made use of exploits in a font management system that have since been patched. (The exploit of crashing the thumbnail generation was not sufficient to get him anywhere, he needed yet another exploit beyond that. to obtain shell access.) There are other exploits he could have used, he deliberately chose one in a library that has not been modified since the year 2000.
And all he managed to do was to break out of a locked screen saver as the user that was last logged on. No root exploit here. No privilege elevation. He seems sharp enough that I don't doubt he could have gone the extra mile and perhaps built a more nefarious hack, but all he really did was kill a task running with the privileges of the logged in user.
And as he stated, virtually impossible to exploit remotely even if you socially engineer someone into plugging in the thumb drive. (He needed to know key load addresses of various modules, which while statistically clustered, are not absolute).
So that leaves having physical access to pull this off. When you have that, all bets are off.
But you are correct, it shouldn't be ignored. Even if GVFS crashes it should not allow continued execution of random data. It needs to be fixed. And perhaps that is part of why Ubuntu is moving away from Gnome in future releases.
How does a Delta II or Atlas V qualify as a Russian Main Engine?
Watched the video and you will see its not really Autorun at fault here (Because there is no "Autorun" in the microsoft sense of the word.
Its not like its launching a program on the thumb drive.
The exploit simply takes advantage of the rendering of thumbnails for the content of the files on the drive. He speculates that you could construct a thumb drive that has some broken files an purposely crash the thumbnailer, and then attempt to load something else after it crashes from probable locations in memory.
Its specific to Gnome. Not generic in Linux.
Not quite the same thing as the Microsoft autorun exploit.
To be fair, this is more of a UDEV, and WM/DE problem in mainstream distro's, rather than specific Linux kernel issue itself, but I won't let the headline, article/video presentation detract from that fact.
Not even a problem Mainstream Distro problem. Its exclusive to Gnome's method of thumbnail creation on a plugged in device. He only demonstrated it on Ubuntu with Gnome, and specifically with Nautilus file manager, but its probably the fault of GVFS, Gnome's virtual file system.
He specifically mentions that this exploit does not work with KBuntu.
So once again Linux gets painted with a user space exploit.
How do you "jam" a router that has an upstream into thinking it doesn't?
And how does the fact that not every exploit imaginable to a devious mind is yet solved make mandatory mesh better than long term disaster outage (or a government induced one)?
I think you could make a case for requiring Mesh network support in all commercial/residential wifi routers. Upon losing their upstream, the routers automatically revert to mesh mode on a VLAN providing connectivity for Civil Defense purposes, emergency management, in case of storms or regional outage.
Yes it would be slow, but since most smartphones have wifi, and would be able to use some messaging services and web access even if only local. (But there would be no reason it would be limited to local if some method were provided for routers at the edge of the failure to join the mesh even when they do have upstream.)
You might be able to push this thru legislation if you sell it as a civil defense item. (Hey, I can dream can't I?)
Change is due to natural selection "favoring" one minor mutation over another. A mutation is not enough. It has to impart some survival advantage in the then current environment.
Without selection mutation goes nowhere.
I think you are very confused about mechanisms and encourage you to continue your education in this area.
s due to random genetic mutation is settled.
I suggest you continue your reading.
Evolution is not DUE to mutations any more than wind is due to air.
You are confusing the media with the cause.
Evolution can be tested by observing the rate of mutations in the lab, measuring the amount of genetic difference between two species, and performing simple math to determine when their most recent common ancestor lived. If the fossil record did not agree with the prediction, evolution could be falsified.
No it really can't be falsified by a time line argument alone. After all the timeline is not all that consistent on the grand scale. Stephen Jay Gould's theory of Punctuated Equilibrium was proposed precisely because the timeline is not consistent, predictable, or even remotely uniform.
Muller/Newman book "Origination of Organismal Form" further explores how rapid changes in form do not fit any sort of timeline prediction, are far from simple math, and essentially can not be explained by the gradual drift commonly (and wrongly) perceived as part of Natural Selection and evolution.
The rate of mutation has little at all to do with natural selection or evolution, and carries no predictive value.
The theory of evolution is complex, and changing as new investigations provide supportive and alternative theories and mechanism.
It is an evolving theory, and far from settled science.
Can you find even ONE reputable scientist that claims the Theory of Evolution is FACT?
There is a reason it is a theory.
Because then articles about topics that I care about are written by people with a very homogeneous and biased perspective, resulting in worse articles for me. Sure, there's nothing that stops them from contributing, but they don't, and that is the problem. Because when I systematically don't get the perspective of 50% of people, that makes the information I do receive form Wikipedia less useful.
"Resulting in worse articles for me"?
Is it possible that some articles may seem disagreeable to you because they does not conform to your preconceived notions?
Were you looking for answers or simply support for your pet positions?
Isn't it rather intellectually dishonest to rate an article by the gender of the author?
If you even check the gender of the author (who does that?) isn't it an admission of gender bias on your part? Why not check the sources, verify the facts, use Google to find alternative views and check the sources of those articles as well?
Killing the messenger ?
diversity is not a strength.
In biology it usually is.
In politics it might be for the population as a whole, but certainly not for any given political party.
But diversity is central to the concept of an encyclopedia.
Some topics may have definitive facts, documented historical basis, photographic evidence, mathematical proofs, etc.
It seems unlikely that a missile designed by women would look any less phallic, or the oxidation of iron would be documented any differently by a woman than a man.
Other topics which naturally cry out for diversity of viewpoint. Such as those dealing with culture, the arts, politics, relationships, etc. A gender diversity is almost required if all sides of these issues are to be presented.
A mono-culture of thought is not a strength.
Begone troll.
There is a reason these two topics are still called Theories rather than proven fact.
No, science is not about being open minded. It is about following the evidence, creating explanations that are verifiable, testable and make predictions.
What part of evolution is testable, verifiable and makes predictions?
What part of global warming is testable and verifiable?
If we accept your definitions of science, then we must toss out a lot of what passes for science these days. Of course, that isn't your fault, its the fault of people using theories as if they were facts. Would that science did conform more to your definition, at least then we would have a lot fewer instances of people getting junk science admitted in courts of law.
Is reading comprehension somehow anti-ethical?
The money is merely a stand in for one's actions.
Lets put it in terms your simple mind can handle. If you LOVE someone overseas more than you LOVE your own friends and neighbors you have made a choice. Those close to you now feel unloved, and require your assistance. But you've chose to turn your back on them. They become angry and act out. Then YOU have to pay someone to keep them away from your door.
Oh, gee, there is that nasty money coming back into it....
Ta-Bump tisssss.
He'll be here all week folks. Try the beef stew.
The US never really had an imperial phase, at least not as a Super Power. Had it, there would be no Germany, Japan, South Korea, Cuba, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc. They would all have been assimilated.
Instead we can't even be bothered to guard our own borders.
What ever the outcome for the US, only one thing is certain. Australia will never be a super power. But should the wrong people come to power in China, you can bet Australia will be occupied in short order. Too many resources, too few people.
And this brings us back to adoption of IPV6. With just 21 million people, and a network installed much later than that in Europe or North America, and a very small number of ISPs its much easier to get to IPV6.
Comcast servers 22.9 million cable customers. One company, with more subscribers than Australia has citizens.