If we are ever to spread democracy and more opportunity and well-being throughout the world modern communications is utterly essential. If we can't talk to them, they can't learn of anything from outside and they can't even talk to one another in any modern way, then there is no way their situation can ever improve. Cutting off money coming in is also especially damaging.
In the rush to "do something" about terrorism we are stomping on a lot of rights and a lot of peoples lives. It is not money that makes terror. It is oppression, hatred, hoplessness, and rage. If we really want to cut "funding" to terror we must clean up its true funds by doing what we can to end oppression and to give hope.
Our government is obviously not our servant or intent on protecting any of our rights and liberties whatsoever. Protest now and loudly while you still can.
The question of whether hierarchical or relational databases are better, more flexible, dependable and so on has already been answered decades ago. I fail to see how a popular hierarchical data transfer protocol re-opens the question. If XML is going to be pushed far beyond what it was designed for then it needs to become far less hierarchical rather than having the rest of the world, and especially mainstream DBMS, re-arranging itself according to XML's limitations.
You don't have to know a hell of a lot about law to understand when you and your industry is being robbed blind.
People have damn good reasons to hate Microsoft. They don't generally do it just for the hell of it or because it is the "in" thing.
Who is the greater loser? Someone who complains about an evil they have experienced for too long even if they can't express themselves as elegantly as you might like or one who puts them down for even opening their mouths as "losers". I would rather have those honestly ticked off whether or elegant or not than someone arrogantly slandering and attempting to silence them.
This is ridiculous. One major terrorist incident and a smattering of anthrax scares and we start acting like chickens with our heads cut off. Personally I am more than willing to be a little less secure and a lot more free. At the rate we are going the techno-revolution will be still-born out of fear of terrorism. What a waste.
NOT. Let's get all those dirty potential terrorists (aka citizens) to switch to e-mail where we've established the infinite right of the Fed to snoop at will. In the meantime lets start an Anthrax scare and then pass it off as the next country we want to bomb the hell out of (Irag) being the perpetrator.
SIGH. The plot sucks but the people are infinitely gullible and utterly apathetic.
I see no future for DRM beyond the next few years of froth as we come to grips with the implications of abundance and the importance of openness in the realm of ideas, information and algorithms. DRM is the death throws of an information scarcity based worldview. The existing players are doing their damest to insure a new information abundant open world does not replace their world. Ultimately, for the wellbeing of all of us, they must fail.
Fundamentally I do not believe in "Digital Rights" in terms commonly used which is a supposed "right" to block the free flow of information and require others to do the same. I believe in freedom.
Something this important should have been brought up here over a month ago. To not hear about it until literally the last day is very surprising and disappointing. What happened? Some of the documents on the W3C site are dated last modified on 8/10/2001.
That said, I believe we should raise bloody hell. We can't afford to have the standards for the Web become closed and proprietary. I know of no way patents can be enforced without also closing the source of implementations. This is absolutely unacceptable. It is also unacceptable that basic software technology is owned as "property".
You would be incorrect. Do the math. Enough computing power to break some algorithms and keys of certain sizes does not exist on the entire planet. Also, one-time pads are not breakable with any amount of computing power. Lastly, as many fine crypto minds now exist in academia and the comercial secrot as in NSA & co.
I do. That is why I wish to make as much as possible open to everyone. I don't want any special power brokers. There is also simply no conceivable way to prejudge all possible applications of some basic bit of software technology. We should use our power wisely to increase the freedom and possible benefits to all and refuse to use our power to imprison others for the benefit of the few.
It is not arrogant to vote for freedom and distributing the power as broadly as possible.
I would very seriously doubt that air traffic control radar is sitting on the Internet. If it is then it is poorly designed and protected to start with. It is vulnerable to just general net craziness with no terrorist anywher to be seen. It is a very poor example.
Precisely what parts do you consider FUD? Terrorism is not well defined in the proposal (not legislation yet thank God). Computer crimes are mentioned but not well enough delimited for me to fee very safe. Whatever is able to be called terrorism now or in the future is proposed to be prosecuted with no statue of limitations and precious little judicial review or due process. Do you deny any/all of these allegations or are there specifics you believe are hunky-dory?
What other posts? Quote the original relevant material and some credible interpreters of it. There is nothing in the proposal that serves to limit expanding what is to be terrorism. That is one of the most frightening aspects of it. Even more dangerously, what aiding and abetting "terrorists" does and does not mean is also not defined. So what do we do? Pass this blank check and wait for case law to define what it does and doesn't mean?
In this country we spend many months scrutinizing what kind of sex a President did or did not have in the oval office yet we are asked to run a blank check like this potentially impacting all of our freedoms through Congress in a week? Does anyone actually believe that what is proposed will make an extremely short term difference in stopping terrorism? No? Then why not scrutinize this proposal and its repurcussions for at least a month or more? I think our freedom is worth that little bit of extra care.
This stuff is extremely dangerous. While the country is reeling from 9/11 Ashcroft and company are seeking to do an end run around due process, legislative considerations, the Bill of Rights and, potentially, the freedom and security of all of us. What does "terrorism" mean? Why, it means whatever Ashcroft and company say it means this week, or next week or next year. And of course all future definitions are retroactively effective. This week it covers amorphously "computer crimes" which we all know are so well defined there is no confusion there right? Anything and everything any of us geeks/nerds do is, or will be if this or that bill is passed, a "computer crime". If you somehow manage to escape the ever-broadening net of what is a computer crime and therefore "terrorism" then you better be real careful of who you trade code with or date or give tips to before you are accused of aiding and abetting a terrorist!
These people aren't fooling around. They can take everything you own and lock you up for as long as they wish by this proposal without even necessarily charging you!
Please, PLEASE pay attention and do what you can to fight this now while you still have the ability to do so. At this rate it will not be so easy very shortly.
Call your congress critters. Write editorials. Inform your friends. Demonstrate. Support any/all organizations fighting this before they get accused of aiding and abetting terrorists!
Pay attention! The proposal does not distinquish by what kind of system is penetrated. It does not even distinquish cracking per se from other things that are or will be considered computer crimes. This proposal is much, much too broad and is a huge danger to everyone. Stop it while you still have the power to act.
There is more than 100 times the currently produced software per annum that is needed and desired. So, if you did make programming 100 times more efficient you wouldn't be in danger of putting any programmers out of work except for those who could not adapt to the more efficient methods.
As interesting and necessary as technical self-defense is, I believe the main battle must be fought in the realm of politics, ideas and cultural values. Some of us have never been part of large scale political action and protests. Some of us are old enough to have grown up in the Vietnam era and we learned a bit about these things. We who are of the aging baby boomer generation need to learn to protest and to demonstrate all over again. We need to learn how to do it smarter than we did back then. But we need just as much dedication and passion and just as much of a counter culture identity as in the sixties and seventies. And all of us, regardless of our ages, need to make our voices heard, heard now and heard LOUD. We need to become revolutionaries and to teach the world what the revolution is about, what they stand to gain or lose, and how to fight for it. We need first to recognize it and dedicate to it ourselves. Or are we going to simply whine?
It is easier to stop the State from going totalitarian in disasterous ways than it is to survive and manage to sneak by it once it has done so. You may think you are smart enough to escape or to to work around it. But how much pain, lost years and lost lives might you avoid if you used that wonderful brain to organize, oppose and protest now or at least support those who do?
So what will it take? Memetic engineering yes. But also more active stuff that gives notice right now that we will not stand for the nonsense comming in SSSCA. We must go viral and flood the congress critters with mail and phone calls and infect everyone we can with the importance of doing likewise. We need marches and demonstrations in Washington and throughout the country as soon as we can organize them. We needed them already for DMCA and its early victims but it is better late than never. We need lawyers and legal entanglements for bringing the IP police state policies down. We need legal protests and test cases, editorials, letter to editors. We need teach-ins. Can we reach a broad enough coalition to force the politicians to take notice? I don't know. But we must try in all ways that make sense to try.
We must start asap. Preferably the protests should begin even before this gross legislative miscarriage is even officially a bill before Congress.
The day I have to "be thankful to have a job at all" and not speak my very experienced and bright mind as I see fit is the day I stop programming for a living. I wouldn't be worth a damn without being able to speak up and actually make a difference.
Not taking a stand, if done by enough employees, guarantees that your job, or even your entire company will be the one with its head on the block next.
Not caring about quality because your company doesn't is a most excellent way to hate your work and lose your spark utterly. Don't do it. The paycheck isn't worth what that will do to you if you take such advise. I know what I am talking about.
No manager in the world (unless yours is really brain-dead) is going to object from hearing from you that you believe the quality of the work being done is just not good enough and that it is weakening the business, raising costs, ticking off customers and demoralizing the staff AND (if it is so) that you would like to be part of making it different.
On the other hand, most managers will not take it well if you start hinting that you are moving on if things don't change the wrong way or too early. It is better to test the waters to see what other opportunities are out there, if you think things can't change where you are to suit you, and have that next gig lined up or pretty likely before you talk about leaving. Especially in today's job market.
I don't care about it being a largely Muslim site or rather supporting a lot of Muslim web presence. What I care about is that our government can come in on some pretext and copy any of our computer files in toto and even cart of our machines without even specifying what it is about. That is extremenly frightening and quite antithetical to any sort of genuine human freedom. RISE UP!
It is not the Muslims or any other smokescreen that is under attack and oppression here. It is all of us.
Why are they calling what is now OpenOffice? Why are they speaking of what is now an Open Source program as if it is a program Sun makes money off of? Why are they speaking as if Sun is doing all the work or is the only party involved?
Once again most of the/. voices totally miss the point and pick at mere words of no consequence.
Government limiting scientific research and doing so on the basis of loaded emotional argumentation and political maneuvering is WRONG and dangerous to what all of us presumably care about.
Having a person of some reknown and clout speak up and act on his convictions about the wrongness of such government meddling with our lives and future should in all reason be a cause for cheer!
Intead we have picking on whether conservatives are or are not a "few" and whether liberals are better as if that is an issue of any substance at all when our government is abrogating more and more power to itself to control all aspects of our lives including technology.
Can we please pay attention a bit and concentrate on what is important?
Slashdot Mirror
If we are ever to spread democracy and more opportunity and well-being throughout the world modern communications is utterly essential. If we can't talk to them, they can't learn of anything from outside and they can't even talk to one another in any modern way, then there is no way their situation can ever improve. Cutting off money coming in is also especially damaging.
In the rush to "do something" about terrorism we are stomping on a lot of rights and a lot of peoples lives. It is not money that makes terror. It is oppression, hatred, hoplessness, and rage. If we really want to cut "funding" to terror we must clean up its true funds by doing what we can to end oppression and to give hope.
We are headed in precisely the wrong direction.
Screw dumb headhunters. All I have to do is get my resume on a manager's desk. Of course I have a lot of C,C++,Java and other languages to boot.
How is learning Lisp if you also have C,C++ going to hurt you exactly? I have over 10 languages that I've used commercially. I don't see a problem.
Our government is obviously not our servant or intent on protecting any of our rights and liberties whatsoever. Protest now and loudly while you still can.
The question of whether hierarchical or relational databases are better, more flexible, dependable and so on has already been answered decades ago. I fail to see how a popular hierarchical data transfer protocol re-opens the question. If XML is going to be pushed far beyond what it was designed for then it needs to become far less hierarchical rather than having the rest of the world, and especially mainstream DBMS, re-arranging itself according to XML's limitations.
You don't have to know a hell of a lot about law to understand when you and your industry is being robbed blind.
People have damn good reasons to hate Microsoft. They don't generally do it just for the hell of it or because it is the "in" thing.
Who is the greater loser? Someone who complains about an evil they have experienced for too long even if they can't express themselves as elegantly as you might like or one who puts them down for even opening their mouths as "losers". I would rather have those honestly ticked off whether or elegant or not than someone arrogantly slandering and attempting to silence them.
This is ridiculous. One major terrorist incident and a smattering of anthrax scares and we start acting like chickens with our heads cut off. Personally I am more than willing to be a little less secure and a lot more free. At the rate we are going the techno-revolution will be still-born out of fear of terrorism. What a waste.
NOT. Let's get all those dirty potential terrorists (aka citizens) to switch to e-mail where we've established the infinite right of the Fed to snoop at will. In the meantime lets start an Anthrax scare and then pass it off as the next country we want to bomb the hell out of (Irag) being the perpetrator.
SIGH. The plot sucks but the people are infinitely gullible and utterly apathetic.
Who can I write at Apple and HP to express appreciation? This is good news!
I see no future for DRM beyond the next few years of froth as we come to grips with the implications of abundance and the importance of openness in the realm of ideas, information and algorithms. DRM is the death throws of an information scarcity based worldview. The existing players are doing their damest to insure a new information abundant open world does not replace their world. Ultimately, for the wellbeing of all of us, they must fail.
Fundamentally I do not believe in "Digital Rights" in terms commonly used which is a supposed "right" to block the free flow of information and require others to do the same. I believe in freedom.
Something this important should have been brought up here over a month ago. To not hear about it until literally the last day is very surprising and disappointing. What happened? Some of the documents on the W3C site are dated last modified on 8/10/2001.
That said, I believe we should raise bloody hell. We can't afford to have the standards for the Web become closed and proprietary. I know of no way patents can be enforced without also closing the source of implementations. This is absolutely unacceptable. It is also unacceptable that basic software technology is owned as "property".
You would be incorrect. Do the math. Enough computing power to break some algorithms and keys of certain sizes does not exist on the entire planet. Also, one-time pads are not breakable with any amount of computing power. Lastly, as many fine crypto minds now exist in academia and the comercial secrot as in NSA & co.
I do. That is why I wish to make as much as possible open to everyone. I don't want any special power brokers. There is also simply no conceivable way to prejudge all possible applications of some basic bit of software technology. We should use our power wisely to increase the freedom and possible benefits to all and refuse to use our power to imprison others for the benefit of the few.
It is not arrogant to vote for freedom and distributing the power as broadly as possible.
I would very seriously doubt that air traffic control radar is sitting on the Internet. If it is then it is poorly designed and protected to start with. It is vulnerable to just general net craziness with no terrorist anywher to be seen. It is a very poor example.
Precisely what parts do you consider FUD? Terrorism is not well defined in the proposal (not legislation yet thank God). Computer crimes are mentioned but not well enough delimited for me to fee very safe. Whatever is able to be called terrorism now or in the future is proposed to be prosecuted with no statue of limitations and precious little judicial review or due process. Do you deny any/all of these allegations or are there specifics you believe are hunky-dory?
What other posts? Quote the original relevant material and some credible interpreters of it. There is nothing in the proposal that serves to limit expanding what is to be terrorism. That is one of the most frightening aspects of it. Even more dangerously, what aiding and abetting "terrorists" does and does not mean is also not defined. So what do we do? Pass this blank check and wait for case law to define what it does and doesn't mean?
In this country we spend many months scrutinizing what kind of sex a President did or did not have in the oval office yet we are asked to run a blank check like this potentially impacting all of our freedoms through Congress in a week? Does anyone actually believe that what is proposed will make an extremely short term difference in stopping terrorism? No? Then why not scrutinize this proposal and its repurcussions for at least a month or more? I think our freedom is worth that little bit of extra care.
Don't you?
This stuff is extremely dangerous. While the country is reeling from 9/11 Ashcroft and company are seeking to do an end run around due process, legislative considerations, the Bill of Rights and, potentially, the freedom and security of all of us. What does "terrorism" mean? Why, it means whatever Ashcroft and company say it means this week, or next week or next year. And of course all future definitions are retroactively effective. This week it covers amorphously "computer crimes" which we all know are so well defined there is no confusion there right? Anything and everything any of us geeks/nerds do is, or will be if this or that bill is passed, a "computer crime". If you somehow manage to escape the ever-broadening net of what is a computer crime and therefore "terrorism" then you better be real careful of who you trade code with or date or give tips to before you are accused of aiding and abetting a terrorist!
These people aren't fooling around. They can take everything you own and lock you up for as long as they wish by this proposal without even necessarily charging you!
Please, PLEASE pay attention and do what you can to fight this now while you still have the ability to do so. At this rate it will not be so easy very shortly.
Call your congress critters. Write editorials. Inform your friends. Demonstrate. Support any/all organizations fighting this before they get accused of aiding and abetting terrorists!
The time for vigilance is NOW.
Pay attention! The proposal does not distinquish by what kind of system is penetrated. It does not even distinquish cracking per se from other things that are or will be considered computer crimes. This proposal is much, much too broad and is a huge danger to everyone. Stop it while you still have the power to act.
There is more than 100 times the currently produced software per annum that is needed and desired. So, if you did make programming 100 times more efficient you wouldn't be in danger of putting any programmers out of work except for those who could not adapt to the more efficient methods.
As interesting and necessary as technical self-defense is, I believe the main battle must be fought in the realm of politics, ideas and cultural values. Some of us have never been part of large scale political action and protests. Some of us are old enough to have grown up in the Vietnam era and we learned a bit about these things. We who are of the aging baby boomer generation need to learn to protest and to demonstrate all over again. We need to learn how to do it smarter than we did back then. But we need just as much dedication and passion and just as much of a counter culture identity as in the sixties and seventies. And all of us, regardless of our ages, need to make our voices heard, heard now and heard LOUD. We need to become revolutionaries and to teach the world what the revolution is about, what they stand to gain or lose, and how to fight for it. We need first to recognize it and dedicate to it ourselves. Or are we going to simply whine?
It is easier to stop the State from going totalitarian in disasterous ways than it is to survive and manage to sneak by it once it has done so. You may think you are smart enough to escape or to to work around it. But how much pain, lost years and lost lives might you avoid if you used that wonderful brain to organize, oppose and protest now or at least support those who do?
So what will it take? Memetic engineering yes. But also more active stuff that gives notice right now that we will not stand for the nonsense comming in SSSCA. We must go viral and flood the congress critters with mail and phone calls and infect everyone we can with the importance of doing likewise. We need marches and demonstrations in Washington and throughout the country as soon as we can organize them. We needed them already for DMCA and its early victims but it is better late than never. We need lawyers and legal entanglements for bringing the IP police state policies down. We need legal protests and test cases, editorials, letter to editors. We need teach-ins. Can we reach a broad enough coalition to force the politicians to take notice? I don't know. But we must try in all ways that make sense to try.
We must start asap. Preferably the protests should begin even before this gross legislative miscarriage is even officially a bill before Congress.
There are not "several hundred" applicants who can do what I do or have done what I have. So this is absolutely not a consideration.
The day I have to "be thankful to have a job at all" and not speak my very experienced and bright mind as I see fit is the day I stop programming for a living. I wouldn't be worth a damn without being able to speak up and actually make a difference.
Not taking a stand, if done by enough employees, guarantees that your job, or even your entire company will be the one with its head on the block next.
Not caring about quality because your company doesn't is a most excellent way to hate your work and lose your spark utterly. Don't do it. The paycheck isn't worth what that will do to you if you take such advise. I know what I am talking about.
No manager in the world (unless yours is really brain-dead) is going to object from hearing from you that you believe the quality of the work being done is just not good enough and that it is weakening the business, raising costs, ticking off customers and demoralizing the staff AND (if it is so) that you would like to be part of making it different.
On the other hand, most managers will not take it well if you start hinting that you are moving on if things don't change the wrong way or too early. It is better to test the waters to see what other opportunities are out there, if you think things can't change where you are to suit you, and have that next gig lined up or pretty likely before you talk about leaving. Especially in today's job market.
Good luck!
I don't care about it being a largely Muslim site or rather supporting a lot of Muslim web presence. What I care about is that our government can come in on some pretext and copy any of our computer files in toto and even cart of our machines without even specifying what it is about. That is extremenly frightening and quite antithetical to any sort of genuine human freedom. RISE UP!
It is not the Muslims or any other smokescreen that is under attack and oppression here. It is all of us.
Close enough for this type of program.
Why are they calling what is now OpenOffice? Why are they speaking of what is now an Open Source program as if it is a program Sun makes money off of? Why are they speaking as if Sun is doing all the work or is the only party involved?
Once again most of the /. voices totally miss the point and pick at mere words of no consequence.
Government limiting scientific research and doing so on the basis of loaded emotional argumentation and political maneuvering is WRONG and dangerous to what all of us presumably care about.
Having a person of some reknown and clout speak up and act on his convictions about the wrongness of such government meddling with our lives and future should in all reason be a cause for cheer!
Intead we have picking on whether conservatives are or are not a "few" and whether liberals are better as if that is an issue of any substance at all when our government is abrogating more and more power to itself to control all aspects of our lives including technology.
Can we please pay attention a bit and concentrate on what is important?