It's 20+ year old tech. Flash media has existed for a considerable time by now too, as have things like digital cameras and stuff that write to them. Don't you think it's a little filthy to wait for companies to have their hardware in place before "suddenly" realising they have rights over the IP in it?
It's legal, but that doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with it.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
Why says they used this kernel exploit?
Seems they got in through rsync (see the rsync advisory).
If you want to run an rsync server, this server has to run with root privs (or at least be started with 'em. I'm going from the manpage, so don't consider this authoritive) if you want any of the following:
- Have it run chrooted
- Have it listen on a port below 1024 (default=873)
- Have it be able to set file ownership
It seems rsync never gives up any privileges (even though it could for the first 2 I think...). So I'd give it a fair chance that as they went in via rsync, it was already running as root and so they didn't even NEED the kernel hack.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
It's common knowledge that electricity is only used by illegal filesharers, so increasing its cost to recoup diminishing profits^W^Wdamages makes a lot of sense.
Naturally, this also includes batteries. Solar panels are allowed (for now) but there's going to be a tax on sunlight soon which should be able to close that gap.
Remember folks: You are consumers. SO START CONSUMING ALREADY! Your unwillingness to consume our drivel^Wproduct is costing us MONEY. If this trend keeps up, we'll be forced to sue you.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
The Canary Islands actually got their name not from the humble bird, but from the loyal dog (canine).
I once got a whole bunch of such strange things. Like that english king who named himself George (numeral), but his name wasn't George, and in fact didn't even look or sound like it.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
You'd think they'd be a little more cautious in using the OS to promote their version of the service now that the EU is giving them a rectal exam.
Of course, if the DOJ's actions were anything to go by, they're probably feeling bulletproof, having gotten away almost unscathed.
Problem is, if they want to use their OS advantage, they need to release a new one that pushes this new service, and their next OS isn't due for some time. When's the next service pack due?
I'll come back and scream "Told you so" when such a service pack breaks iTunes in a subtle way. I don't expect Microsoft to be innovative in its anti-competitive techniques either.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
What you probably don't want to do is hype the next system when people are still actively buying your current system, because you run the risk that these customers will then choose to wait for this new, better version.
I can't remember who it was (but I'm sure someone will point it out to me) but he ran a successful hardware company, and just as sales were picking up he announced that the next version would be twice as fast or some such. Everybody then waited for the next version, and due to the dried up sales there wasn't enough income to finish building the thing. Company went bust over it.
If anything, I think you can just call this one of those advanced rumors to make sure the market knows they're not sitting on their laurels.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
That's a first. A legal document that uses terms I can understand. Go IBM!
What I'm wondering though, it seems IBM is just trying to get the case dismissed here on the basis that SCO refuses to show just what it is they did wrong. Say the judge goes with IBM and dismisses the case, then what?
Given the recent slashdot article about paying Boies for his work, how much do they stand to gain if it came to this?
Thanks to Groklaw for keeping close tabs on the trial. I wish general media would be equally forthcoming rather than just spit out whatever drivel SCO shoves their way.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
I'm rather bemused as to why a major business hasn't sued Microsoft over some of the security scandals this past couple of years.
It's called an End User License Agreement, or EULA, and can be found pretty much everywhere.
No doubt the fine print states somewhere that you can't sue them over this. I'm quite certain it states that even if you do sue them, you can't get more out of them than the cost of the actual software.
Cooper
--
Paranoids are simply people who have all the facts.
- Transmetropolitan -
1. Sue someone
2. Offer to settle for $amount (where $amount < $cost_of_lawsuit)
3. Profit!!
Finally a business that "gets it".
Seriously, when you can settle for $2500, who's going to challenge the accusation in court? I'm pretty sure that if you bring this to a lawyer (which I'm not) they'll advise you to settle.
Even if you didn't do anything, the RIAA got you by your Kazaa name and an IP address. You use an app which has sharing as its main function. Even if you can prove you didn't share, no court's gonna say the RIAA was wrong in sueing you and thus is quite unlikely to return you your court costs. By the time you ever reach that point you're well over the settlement amount.
So much for justice in the USA...
Cooper
--
Paranoids are simply people who have all the facts.
- Transmetropolitan -
At the moment I'm under the impression that SuSE parimarily targets European business whereas RedHat aims more for the US, so they're not really going for Red Hat's market. Please correct me if this is wrong.
Aside from this, Red Hat and Suse are competitors. Of course Suse is going for Red Hat's market and you can rest assured that Red Hat is trying very hard to react in kind.
Maybe someone should change the headline to "Suse signs a deal with Veritas"?
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
But what does Microsoft possibly have to gain from Sun? The right to play trick with Java legally? Now that they've got.NET going, there's no need for that anymore. There might be some cool IP in there somewhere, but Sun still seems to be primarily a hardware company which shouldn't be interesting at all to Microsoft (unless they were to think of some Sun tech to add to their XBox, which would probably be the ultimate insult).
Nah, I think Sun is on its own, and if they were to expect anything from anybody it would be from IBM who has a vested interest in seeing Java improve.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass
- Groo The Wanderer -
They didn't exactly plug in a CD and the thing suddenly became the new home of our trusty penguin. They either "chipped" (modded for us old people) the thing first, or exploited a bug in one of the games to get the install going.
Now, unless I'm mistaken, this has been possible for quite some time now. The only new part is that they're using it for a cluster, and commercial companies are considering doing the same. Of course, the article points out that this too has already been done with Sony PS2s.
The only 'news' here is that they're using an X-Box for the cluster. In short, move along. Nothing to see here.
Cooper
--
Television is reality, and reality is less than television -- Videodrome
From the "Old" Radio site: 10/3/03 16 STIPULATION to extend time for deft. to file reply brief in support of Motion to Dismiss; with proposed order (ft)
10/6/03 -- So Ordered granting [16-1] stipulation reset Reply Brief Deadline to 10/10/03 re: [8-1] motion to Dismiss ( signed by Judge Sue L. Robinson ) Notice to all parties. (rd)
Hoookay. Could somebody tell me in plain english just what this bit means??
Cooper -- I just didn't want to be a loser anymore. - Mitsuko Souma, Battle Royale -
I don't know what came over me, but for some reason I chose to RTFA. Sorry.
to say it has not affected us would not be accurate; we continue to spend a lot of time with customers around this. Those who are sitting on the fence are using this as an excuse to continue to sit there
It's rather silly to deny that it's costing them revenue, but I suppose it's a sign of a good business when they manage to deal with it and still post a profit in the process.
If you read a little bit less between the lines and pay a little more attention to the lines themselves you'll see that they're objecting to sending out your personal information because some guy went to see a clerk, said someone did something nasty and they wanted to sue him.
At no point are they saying that what their customers did is legal. All they're saying is they want a judge to OK the subpeana.
Cooper_007
--
If you can read this you're probably not dead yet.
You can practically hear their webserver screaming in agony.
I suspect this is the first time DC's gotten a nice, hard Slashdotting. I wonder if they'll have a comment on that sometime in the future... (Letters page perhaps?)
Did anybody manage to get a hold of the actual text?
--
Yeah, I still RTFA. I'm new here. Sorry.
Here you have a company that goes out and make some cool software that scratches an itch that a big chunk of the world also feels. The program is an instant hit, becomes #1 on CNET's download page and the main coder gets his picture on the cover of Time (one can always dream).
Suddenly a bug is discovered which will give others full control of your system. Acting quickly, a patch is created and a fixed version is put online, and warnings posted to all the regular places.
Several weeks later an exploit program is seen in the wild, attacking systems owned by CLUELESS USERS who either never knew of the problem, or were too lazy/overworked to fix it. The damage is immense, and in the current fingerpointing society most people blame this company even though they did everything that could be reasonably expected from them.
And now a growing group of people feel the government should be breathing down this company's neck for not making secure software?
Replace "company" with "group of OSS developers", and tell me how things should be different for this case, and why.
All this does is prevent people from using their own mailserver to send mail directly to the user. It may provide a clearer path back to the original sender, but you already have that with plain ol' SMTP, and it's not exactly proving effective in stopping, or better yet, PREVENTING spam.
The best way to deal with spam is to educate the masses so that spammers get less and less ROI and eventually go belly-up. Problem is, this will probably *NEVER* happen. There are just too many suckers out there waiting to be taken advantage of.
Laws won't help. If you're lucky enough to catch a spammer in a state/country with strict laws on spam, they'll just get some small fine. If spammers can affort their own mansions from their work, the fine won't really work, and I fear the possibility for abuse with yet more laws is significant.
So what remains? Short of ritually butchering spammers, which I think is still illegal in some places, I don't see any viable options.
Incredible to see a +5 on an incorrect statement.
There is only one reason to do this decoding in hardware:
SPEED
More accuracy in decoding a stream? In software you can take a variable that's as big as you want. Bigger variable => higher accuracy.
Additional features? Code 'em up, make a filter of 'em or whatever. Only takes a good concept and some time.
All these plusses you state as being the reason for using a hardware solution can actually be made using plain old software. The only reason they're not going that route is because if you increase your variable size to get more accuracy, you get a performance penalty. If you make the stream go through filter after filter getting the quality up to snuff, you get a performance penalty.
The only way to not incur these penalties is by making a hardware part that does all those things without taxing the CPU.
Maybe you should take another look at the article that initially gave you this idea.
Now look at this slashdot comment for a small explanation.
This section sums it up nicely:
It seems rather clear that management at SCO talked to legal, who probably advised them that SCO's claims are frivolous and will not hold up in court, and not to pay. Ergo, HP claims it does not infringe on SCO's copyrights.
Many of those warnings (yeah, I RFTA. Sorry) are uninitialised variables. This is more a cleanliness issue rather than an actual problem. Most obvious indication of this is that it hasn't been fixed yet.
Rather than say that there must be 0 such compiler warnings/errors, I'd like to see what statistics would be produced if used on a 2.4/2.2 kernel. At least then we'll have something to compare the numbers to.
At no time were there more than 80 players connected?
If that really was a problem they should've just hooked it up to the internet and put an invitation up on some game sites. Surely IBM can foot the bandwidth bill that would result from it.
Aren't votes more important that campaign funding?
on
Open Source in Oregon
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I realise this sickening influence of lobbyists is something that won't be going away anytime soon, but aren't these senators weary of public backlash?
I mean, there's the speaker of the house arguing against savings when other equally or more urgent sectors experience budget cuts. Don't voters care about such things? Aren't the voters ultimately the people responsible for just who's up there representing them?
Is it really worth while to line your pockets with campaign contributions when ultimately nobody will vote for you anyways because you sold them out?
Slashdot Mirror
It's legal, but that doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with it.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
Seems they got in through rsync (see the rsync advisory).
If you want to run an rsync server, this server has to run with root privs (or at least be started with 'em. I'm going from the manpage, so don't consider this authoritive) if you want any of the following:
- Have it run chrooted
- Have it listen on a port below 1024 (default=873)
- Have it be able to set file ownership
It seems rsync never gives up any privileges (even though it could for the first 2 I think...). So I'd give it a fair chance that as they went in via rsync, it was already running as root and so they didn't even NEED the kernel hack.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
It's common knowledge that electricity is only used by illegal filesharers, so increasing its cost to recoup diminishing profits^W^Wdamages makes a lot of sense.
Naturally, this also includes batteries. Solar panels are allowed (for now) but there's going to be a tax on sunlight soon which should be able to close that gap.
Remember folks: You are consumers. SO START CONSUMING ALREADY! Your unwillingness to consume our drivel^Wproduct is costing us MONEY. If this trend keeps up, we'll be forced to sue you.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
I once got a whole bunch of such strange things. Like that english king who named himself George (numeral), but his name wasn't George, and in fact didn't even look or sound like it.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
Of course, if the DOJ's actions were anything to go by, they're probably feeling bulletproof, having gotten away almost unscathed.
Problem is, if they want to use their OS advantage, they need to release a new one that pushes this new service, and their next OS isn't due for some time. When's the next service pack due?
I'll come back and scream "Told you so" when such a service pack breaks iTunes in a subtle way. I don't expect Microsoft to be innovative in its anti-competitive techniques either.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
I can't remember who it was (but I'm sure someone will point it out to me) but he ran a successful hardware company, and just as sales were picking up he announced that the next version would be twice as fast or some such. Everybody then waited for the next version, and due to the dried up sales there wasn't enough income to finish building the thing. Company went bust over it.
If anything, I think you can just call this one of those advanced rumors to make sure the market knows they're not sitting on their laurels.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
What I'm wondering though, it seems IBM is just trying to get the case dismissed here on the basis that SCO refuses to show just what it is they did wrong. Say the judge goes with IBM and dismisses the case, then what?
Given the recent slashdot article about paying Boies for his work, how much do they stand to gain if it came to this?
Thanks to Groklaw for keeping close tabs on the trial. I wish general media would be equally forthcoming rather than just spit out whatever drivel SCO shoves their way.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
It's called an End User License Agreement, or EULA, and can be found pretty much everywhere.
No doubt the fine print states somewhere that you can't sue them over this. I'm quite certain it states that even if you do sue them, you can't get more out of them than the cost of the actual software.
Cooper
--
Paranoids are simply people who have all the facts.
- Transmetropolitan -
2. Offer to settle for $amount (where $amount < $cost_of_lawsuit)
3. Profit!!
Finally a business that "gets it".
Seriously, when you can settle for $2500, who's going to challenge the accusation in court? I'm pretty sure that if you bring this to a lawyer (which I'm not) they'll advise you to settle.
Even if you didn't do anything, the RIAA got you by your Kazaa name and an IP address. You use an app which has sharing as its main function. Even if you can prove you didn't share, no court's gonna say the RIAA was wrong in sueing you and thus is quite unlikely to return you your court costs. By the time you ever reach that point you're well over the settlement amount.
So much for justice in the USA...
Cooper
--
Paranoids are simply people who have all the facts.
- Transmetropolitan -
Cooper
--
Paranoids are simply those with all the facts.
- Transmetropolitan -
Aside from this, Red Hat and Suse are competitors. Of course Suse is going for Red Hat's market and you can rest assured that Red Hat is trying very hard to react in kind.
Maybe someone should change the headline to "Suse signs a deal with Veritas"?
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
Nah, I think Sun is on its own, and if they were to expect anything from anybody it would be from IBM who has a vested interest in seeing Java improve.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass
- Groo The Wanderer -
Now, unless I'm mistaken, this has been possible for quite some time now. The only new part is that they're using it for a cluster, and commercial companies are considering doing the same. Of course, the article points out that this too has already been done with Sony PS2s.
The only 'news' here is that they're using an X-Box for the cluster.
In short, move along. Nothing to see here.
Cooper
--
Television is reality, and reality is less than television -- Videodrome
10/3/03 16 STIPULATION to extend time for deft. to file reply brief in support of Motion to Dismiss; with proposed order (ft)
10/6/03 -- So Ordered granting [16-1] stipulation reset Reply Brief Deadline to 10/10/03 re: [8-1] motion to Dismiss ( signed by Judge Sue L. Robinson ) Notice to all parties. (rd)
Hoookay. Could somebody tell me in plain english just what this bit means??
Cooper
--
I just didn't want to be a loser anymore.
- Mitsuko Souma, Battle Royale -
Our apologies for this interruption of service, the Webmaster.
I love webmasters with a sense of humor :)
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
to say it has not affected us would not be accurate; we continue to spend a lot of time with customers around this. Those who are sitting on the fence are using this as an excuse to continue to sit there
It's rather silly to deny that it's costing them revenue, but I suppose it's a sign of a good business when they manage to deal with it and still post a profit in the process.
At no point are they saying that what their customers did is legal. All they're saying is they want a judge to OK the subpeana.
Cooper_007
--
If you can read this you're probably not dead yet.
I suspect this is the first time DC's gotten a nice, hard Slashdotting. I wonder if they'll have a comment on that sometime in the future... (Letters page perhaps?)
Did anybody manage to get a hold of the actual text?
--
Yeah, I still RTFA. I'm new here. Sorry.
Suddenly a bug is discovered which will give others full control of your system. Acting quickly, a patch is created and a fixed version is put online, and warnings posted to all the regular places.
Several weeks later an exploit program is seen in the wild, attacking systems owned by CLUELESS USERS who either never knew of the problem, or were too lazy/overworked to fix it. The damage is immense, and in the current fingerpointing society most people blame this company even though they did everything that could be reasonably expected from them.
And now a growing group of people feel the government should be breathing down this company's neck for not making secure software?
Replace "company" with "group of OSS developers", and tell me how things should be different for this case, and why.
Mirrors suck, huh?
The best way to deal with spam is to educate the masses so that spammers get less and less ROI and eventually go belly-up. Problem is, this will probably *NEVER* happen. There are just too many suckers out there waiting to be taken advantage of.
Laws won't help. If you're lucky enough to catch a spammer in a state/country with strict laws on spam, they'll just get some small fine. If spammers can affort their own mansions from their work, the fine won't really work, and I fear the possibility for abuse with yet more laws is significant.
So what remains? Short of ritually butchering spammers, which I think is still illegal in some places, I don't see any viable options.
There is only one reason to do this decoding in hardware:
SPEED
More accuracy in decoding a stream? In software you can take a variable that's as big as you want. Bigger variable => higher accuracy.
Additional features? Code 'em up, make a filter of 'em or whatever. Only takes a good concept and some time.
All these plusses you state as being the reason for using a hardware solution can actually be made using plain old software. The only reason they're not going that route is because if you increase your variable size to get more accuracy, you get a performance penalty. If you make the stream go through filter after filter getting the quality up to snuff, you get a performance penalty.
The only way to not incur these penalties is by making a hardware part that does all those things without taxing the CPU.
Cooper
Now look at this slashdot comment for a small explanation.
This section sums it up nicely:
It seems rather clear that management at SCO talked to legal, who probably advised them that SCO's claims are frivolous and will not hold up in court, and not to pay. Ergo, HP claims it does not infringe on SCO's copyrights.
Rather than say that there must be 0 such compiler warnings/errors, I'd like to see what statistics would be produced if used on a 2.4/2.2 kernel. At least then we'll have something to compare the numbers to.
If that really was a problem they should've just hooked it up to the internet and put an invitation up on some game sites. Surely IBM can foot the bandwidth bill that would result from it.
I mean, there's the speaker of the house arguing against savings when other equally or more urgent sectors experience budget cuts. Don't voters care about such things? Aren't the voters ultimately the people responsible for just who's up there representing them?
Is it really worth while to line your pockets with campaign contributions when ultimately nobody will vote for you anyways because you sold them out?