It's debatable whether computer "science" is really science, after all, just like the way some people don't consider mathematics to be science.
When I was in (engineering) college, our rule of thumb was that any subject which included the word "science" in the title was not a science.
We mainly aimed this barb at majors like "political science" and "economic science", contrasting them to things like Physics and Chemistry.
As for computer science, it depended on which computer science major you signed up for, there were two. One under the college of liberal arts and sciences, and one under the college of engineering. The engineering program was far more rigorous.
An iPod does exactly, precisely what it should do and not a single thing more.
Apparently, you have never navigated your way down the "Extras" menu, where you will find the calendar, the contact manager, the text file viewer, the games, etc.
I agree that they do keep them out of the way, but there is some mostly useless cruft in there.
I would think she'd lose all claims to credibility by making statements like that. For one, she's making an ad hominem (although not against a singular person in this case) argument by arguing that the groups are wrong because they are (allegedly) supported by Microsoft. That argument falls apart, logically, because someone could offer a simple counter statement of "so, why does that make them wrong?"
And if this were the only argument presented, then you might have a point. However, when the specific points *are* addressed, and then in addition it is pointed out that the majority of the opponents also have a suspicious commonality, then that is no longer an ad hominem attack, is it?
I do find it interesting to note that the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science is criticizing the move and I think they offer legitimate reasons for using Microsoft products-- that is, until OpenDocument supports the same braille readers and other screen-reader programs.
You are making the same error that many of the opponents of this move seem to be making. Namely, confusing OpenDocument with OpenOffice. OpenDocument is the file format. It does not now, nor will it ever "support the same braille readers and other screen-reader programs". That is the job of the application, not the file format. Massachusetts is not mandating any particular application.
If the blind state workers are using MS products and the other state workers are using OpenDocument, I'd think that might cause some problems.
This is nothing that they won't be dealing with anyhow. They will not be able to magically switch everyone over in a day, and they will have to deal with all of the pre-existing documents in Word format. Getting the occasional Word document from a blind worker is not going alter things substantially.
Without a doubt, people will be able to read your RFID off this thing. They're lying if they say otherwise. They claim to be able to reduce the effective range to 10 cm, but even if that were true it would still be sniffed by a guy bumping into you in a crowd.
From the article:
The Department will also implement Basic Access Control (BAC) to
mitigate further any potential threat of skimming or eavesdropping. BAC
recently has been adopted as a best practice by the ICAO New
Technologies Working Group and will soon be formally added to the ICAO
specifications. BAC utilizes a form of Personal Identification Number
(PIN) that must be physically read in order to unlock the data on the
chip. In this case, the PIN will be derived from the printed characters
from the second line of data on the Machine-Readable Zone that is
visibly printed on the passport data page. The BAC also results in the
communication between the chip and the reader being encrypted,
providing further protection.
So no, they can not read the contents unless they have physically opened the passport and read off the PIN number. And if they have managed to do that, they already have your data:
The passport data on the chip does not require encryption in
order to be secure and protected. It is the same data that is visually
displayed on the passport data page.
The ability to mass-swipe passport data without the owner's awareness does open up a new line of attack, where they can steal many passports until they find one that matches themselves closely enough, especially if they can disable the parts of it that they can't easily fake. Proper digital signing of the data would help with that.
Again, from the article:
Finally, the chip will contain coding to prevent any
digital data from being altered or removed as well as the chip's unique
ID number. This coding will be in the form of a high strength digital
signature.
There's also the fact that you're now broadcasting that you're an American, but one's accent and skin color do that pretty effectively already.
Since they are implementing international standards for this, merely having an electronic passport should not identify you as an American. Presumably, other countries will be distributing them as well.
When I first read about RFIDs going into passports, I was very much opposed to the idea. However, I found this article reassuring. They really do seem to have taken the security objections seriously, and are taking reasonable steps. In particular, I like that format is seems to be open, and given that the PIN code is printed on the passport, one could conceivably verify just what is and is not stored on the RFID chip.
My first thought when reading this: Build it in to a desk and use it as your mouse pad. Then, you would never have to charge your wireless mouse. Sweet.
That has been done. Check out This mouse and a review of it here. There is a wire to the mouse pad, but none to mouse. It is powered via RFID. I have one of these, and it works great. Never had any problems with it, even in games.
The article says that the robot would not return fire, it would just pinpoint where the shooting is coming from. So, why does it need to be a robot exactly? Why wouldn't it just be a computer with some cameras and microphones?
It is just a computer with some cameras and microphones. The article indicates that it was mounted on iRobot's existing "PackBot" robot. It is an add-on to an existing battlefield system, not a dedicated robot. Besides, this gives the detector a stable platform to work from, and means nobody has to schlep the thing around.
Here is the part I don't understand. How can the judge actually prevent him from actually working on search, natural language processing and speech recognition many years from now. Who's going to actually keep track of all the compete/noncompete activities?
While the article is not very specific, usually this this sort of injunction only applies until the main issue is resolved at trial, not indefinately. Note that Google had already agreed to this prior to MS pushing for an injunction.
Even if enforced, the non-compete is only good for a year. However, Google is hiring Lee to work in California and China. The non-compete was done in the state of Washington. Generally speaking, California state law does not allow enforcement of non-competes, although apparently there have been exceptions.
If you don't want to be bound by these terms, don't participate in the program.
This presumes that there will always be an option, and that they will continue to also offer their products without the restrictive "contracts", but nothing obligates them to do so.
I have no problem with Lexmark's "prebate" program per se. I have an issue with allowing them to print some mumbo-jumbo on the side of the box, and then call that a legal, enforcable contract.
If their program were a normal, after-the-fact rebate, or if one had to sign a contract at the cash register to get the discount, I would have no problem with that being legal. (Although I suspect signing contracts to get the discount would scare a lot of people off.)
ACRA (the company that filed suit) contended, among other things, that the printing on the box could not be construed as a legal contract. The court said it could. I consider this another step down the slippery slope of eroding consumer rights with more and more restrictive "contracts" and "licenses" for things that used to be simple purchases.
At this rate, soon you won't be able to own anything.
In Canada, there is such a levy; see http://www.ccfda.ca/index_eng.html. I keep hearing that there's something similar in the US, but I've seen no proof.
In the US, a stand-alone CD recorder (with audio inputs that you hook into your stereo), will only use "Music" CDs, not normal "computer" CDs. These music CDs are more expensive than the computer ones, since they are only used for music recordings and carry a levy.
Most people aren't familiar with this, as most people never use such a device. Recording audio CDs on a computer is far more flexible.
By dubious I assume you mean SPARC laptops, because laptops as a whole are a huge business, accounting for 51% of pc sales by revenue last year and rising.
Yes, that is exactly what I meant. For the earlier generations of Sparc laptops, the main use I saw of those was for chip-design tool vendors to use them for demos. I knew of engineers that wanted one, but no companies that were buying them for that reason.
These days, all of the chip-design tools also run on Linux (and in fact, Linux is used more than Sparc/Solaris these days), and it would be far more economical to do demos on a Linux laptop.
I had a Sun laptop in something like '97. And it wasn't brand new even then.
There have been Sparc laptops for a long time. They were never build by Sun, though. And they were also hideously expensive, i.e. in the $20,000 range. This is Sun's first foray into this highly dubious market segment.
The "trusted computing" platform mostly boils down to the fact that "they" (mostly the entertainment industries, plus some others) want to make sure that the program you are running to talk to them has not been modified. The was a discussion on/. the other day here
about a fake iTunes client that would download songs and not encrypt them. This is exactly the sort of thing they wish to prevent.
The problem is that if they want to be sure that the program is what it claims to be, they need to have the OS check that for them. But how do they know this OS hasn't been modified? The solution they have come up with starts with the hardware, which checks a digitial signature on the PROM before the BIOS is allowed to load. An approved BIOS can then check the signature of the OS to make sure it is an approved version, and the OS then checks the applications. It all traces back to encryption keys that are built into the hardware itself.
When it comes to issues like booting linux, the people working on this will very quickly tell you that "of course you can". That is not, however, the whole truth.
In a best-case scenario, when running linux, you would still be shut out of the "high-value" applications. Even if someone were to make an official, signed and sanctioned version of linux, it would essentially not be linux anymore, since the slightest change you made to it would mean it would no longer match the signature, and would no longer work with those applications.
Worse yet, as RMS pointed out in the article linked previously, they have the ability to unilaterally change the deal after you have signed up. For instance, if you had a machine that dual-booted between a "trusted" OS and linux, you might find out one day that the "trusted" OS had updated the settings stored in the hardware, and it will no longer allow booting into an untrusted mode. Your machine no longer boots linux!
There are lots of arguments against this view spewed out by the PR flacks, but it all boils down to "Trust us, we won't go that far, even though we made sure we can, if we decide we want to." A "trusted computing platform" is one that "they" can trust, not one that you can. Using such a platform empowers others to make the choice for you of what your computer will and will not run.
But I don't get it with this ENV. How is its motor "6KW", while its power supply outputs only 1KW? Is it really all science fiction?
RTFM:
At the bike's heart is a fully-integrated 1kW fuel cell generator providing power on demand directly to the drive-train. To enhance performance during peak power demand (ie when accelerating), the fuel cell is hybridised with a battery pack to provide a 6kW peak load to the motor.
With today's large screens, it is easy to open two different applications at the same time, side by side. However, in OS-X, only one of these apps has its menu available. What's worse, it is not even readily apparently which one that is!
Even when I am successfully keeping track of which app is active, I find it awkward that the application in the right has its menus way over on the left!
I find a common, fixed position, always there menubar is a great feature.
Interestingly, this is the single most-hated feature of any Apple-OS for me. I have heard the arguments about how this makes the menu bar so much easier to navigate to, but I find it total destroys multi-tasking.
Having it this way enforces a click-to-focus, active-app-always-on-top system, which I detest. I find myself most productive on X-windows desktops where I use pointer focus and overlapping windows. I frequently arrange windows such that the parts that I care about are visible and use those apps without ever bringing them to the top. And each one of those applications has its menus available without necessarily completely obscuring the other apps.
Your other points are spot-on, but this one misses the entire point of the GPL. The GPL is meant as a monkey wrench in the copyright system, as a sort of "anti-copyright". If copyright did not exist, there would be no need for the GPL.
I would claim that you have missed the entire point of the GPL. It depends on copyright to deny certain rights, and then it itself grants other rights. This is what forces people to "play fair". If you want to use the code that I have shared, I will let you, but you must share your code as well.
People focus on the "negative" side of copyright, i.e. the limitation on distribution. However, it also limits fraud and misrepresentation. While many people enjoying seeing their work go out into the world and are happy to be helping people, most would be less happy to see their work going out with someone else's name on it. Or to see it mangled and broken, and then still being represented as their work.
While copyright has its problems, few people that have really thought it through seek to have it completely abolished.
The main issue is that people license software instead of owning the copy they get, unlike just about any other product.
While this is what the software vendors would like you to think, the truth of the matter is much less clear.
Some software is very clearly licensed. A company will often license software needed to do business. Corporate representatives will meet with vendor representatives. Terms are negotiated. Eventually, a license agreement is signed. Only then is premission to use the software obtained.
Walking into a retail store, handing the clerk some cash, and walking away with a CD is a very different situation. The validity of EULAs, shrink-wrap, and click-thru licenses is very much in doubt. They have been upheld in some courts, and completely thrown out in others.
I am not sure I agree with that. The key to Grokster being free of liability is that it does not hold or index any of the files, nor have any ability to restrict the usage patterns of the end-users. That is not the case here.
If I were he, I would eliminate the anonymous access. If someone cracks his computer and grabs his files when he clearly is taking reasonable precautions, he is very unlikely to be held accountable. As it is, he could be seen as abetting them.
I really hope they put the responsibility with the people who deserve it, IF YOU DOWNLOAD MATERIAL you are not entitled to YOU ARE THE CRIMINAL, it should NOT be the one hosts it. I have an ftp server up so I can spool music to work, MP3's cannot reside on the systems, now I have a standard disclaimer but it is anonymous access, if someone goes there and gets all my music files, where does the fault reside ??? The one taking what they KNOW they are not authorized to have of the one making the files potentially available ?
Both are at fault and legally liable.
It is quite apparent that you did not read the legal decision. If you put up MP3's on a publicly accessable FTP server with anonymous access, the downloader is guilty of direct copyright infrigement, and *YOU* are guilty of contributory infrigement. From the PDF, there are three requirements:
Infringement by a primary infringer
knowledge of the infringement
material contribution to the infringement
The first is a given in your scenario. The third comes from your hosting the files on a machine you control, and configuring the FTP server for anonymous access, despite easily being able to restricted it to registered users. Now, all they need to do to prove number 2 is show that you had knowledge that someone other than yourself *ever* accessed those files and you did not immediately take action, and you get nailed to the wall.
By your argument, the original Napster would have been found not guilty, which was not the case. Simply putting up a disclaimer without taking any action to prevent abuse will not get you very far in a court of law. In fact, it would probably count against you, since it proves that you knew that the abuse was possible, and did nothing to prevent it.
If you follows some of the links in the referenced articles, you will find a demonstation showing that the tag deactivator in fact does not work. (See here)
While it does clear the bar code field, it still keeps the unique item ID, meaning that item can still be tracked and still be linked to you forever afterwards.
I agree with the writer, claiming to deactivate the tags without actually doing so is not only deceptive, but is far more harmful that not doing it at all, as it creates a false sense of security.
I have, in the past, tried to push back on employee agreements, and have found tremendous resistance from the HR departments. I don't believe that it is so much that they do not want to allow you the latitude, but rather that they do not want to deal with an exception.
What has worked, however, is striking out certain sections (for instance, non-compete clauses), signing it, and turning it in. Now they must deal with it, and in many cases, they simply let it go. At the very least, if they are unwilling to allow it, they must come back and talk with you about it.
My experience with this has been with small companies, and it may work better under those circumstances. Large employers may be more resistant. If you try this, you should be prepared for them to tell you that you can not work for them without signing the standard, unmodified agreement.
These days, I am doing contract work, and push back on contractor agreements is more expected, and generally handled fairly quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
When I was in (engineering) college, our rule of thumb was that any subject which included the word "science" in the title was not a science. We mainly aimed this barb at majors like "political science" and "economic science", contrasting them to things like Physics and Chemistry.
As for computer science, it depended on which computer science major you signed up for, there were two. One under the college of liberal arts and sciences, and one under the college of engineering. The engineering program was far more rigorous.
Apparently, you have never navigated your way down the "Extras" menu, where you will find the calendar, the contact manager, the text file viewer, the games, etc.
I agree that they do keep them out of the way, but there is some mostly useless cruft in there.
And if this were the only argument presented, then you might have a point. However, when the specific points *are* addressed, and then in addition it is pointed out that the majority of the opponents also have a suspicious commonality, then that is no longer an ad hominem attack, is it?
I do find it interesting to note that the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science is criticizing the move and I think they offer legitimate reasons for using Microsoft products-- that is, until OpenDocument supports the same braille readers and other screen-reader programs.
You are making the same error that many of the opponents of this move seem to be making. Namely, confusing OpenDocument with OpenOffice. OpenDocument is the file format. It does not now, nor will it ever "support the same braille readers and other screen-reader programs". That is the job of the application, not the file format. Massachusetts is not mandating any particular application.
If the blind state workers are using MS products and the other state workers are using OpenDocument, I'd think that might cause some problems.
This is nothing that they won't be dealing with anyhow. They will not be able to magically switch everyone over in a day, and they will have to deal with all of the pre-existing documents in Word format. Getting the occasional Word document from a blind worker is not going alter things substantially.
From the article:
So no, they can not read the contents unless they have physically opened the passport and read off the PIN number. And if they have managed to do that, they already have your data:
The ability to mass-swipe passport data without the owner's awareness does open up a new line of attack, where they can steal many passports until they find one that matches themselves closely enough, especially if they can disable the parts of it that they can't easily fake. Proper digital signing of the data would help with that.
Again, from the article:
There's also the fact that you're now broadcasting that you're an American, but one's accent and skin color do that pretty effectively already.
Since they are implementing international standards for this, merely having an electronic passport should not identify you as an American. Presumably, other countries will be distributing them as well.
When I first read about RFIDs going into passports, I was very much opposed to the idea. However, I found this article reassuring. They really do seem to have taken the security objections seriously, and are taking reasonable steps. In particular, I like that format is seems to be open, and given that the PIN code is printed on the passport, one could conceivably verify just what is and is not stored on the RFID chip.
That has been done. Check out This mouse and a review of it here. There is a wire to the mouse pad, but none to mouse. It is powered via RFID. I have one of these, and it works great. Never had any problems with it, even in games.
It is just a computer with some cameras and microphones. The article indicates that it was mounted on iRobot's existing "PackBot" robot. It is an add-on to an existing battlefield system, not a dedicated robot. Besides, this gives the detector a stable platform to work from, and means nobody has to schlep the thing around.
I followed the link to the Wired News article, and the ad on the side of the page was for the iPod nano.
While the article is not very specific, usually this this sort of injunction only applies until the main issue is resolved at trial, not indefinately. Note that Google had already agreed to this prior to MS pushing for an injunction.
Even if enforced, the non-compete is only good for a year. However, Google is hiring Lee to work in California and China. The non-compete was done in the state of Washington. Generally speaking, California state law does not allow enforcement of non-competes, although apparently there have been exceptions.
This presumes that there will always be an option, and that they will continue to also offer their products without the restrictive "contracts", but nothing obligates them to do so.
I have no problem with Lexmark's "prebate" program per se. I have an issue with allowing them to print some mumbo-jumbo on the side of the box, and then call that a legal, enforcable contract. If their program were a normal, after-the-fact rebate, or if one had to sign a contract at the cash register to get the discount, I would have no problem with that being legal. (Although I suspect signing contracts to get the discount would scare a lot of people off.)
ACRA (the company that filed suit) contended, among other things, that the printing on the box could not be construed as a legal contract. The court said it could. I consider this another step down the slippery slope of eroding consumer rights with more and more restrictive "contracts" and "licenses" for things that used to be simple purchases.
At this rate, soon you won't be able to own anything.
In the US, a stand-alone CD recorder (with audio inputs that you hook into your stereo), will only use "Music" CDs, not normal "computer" CDs. These music CDs are more expensive than the computer ones, since they are only used for music recordings and carry a levy.
Most people aren't familiar with this, as most people never use such a device. Recording audio CDs on a computer is far more flexible.
That all depends on how long they live, each time. The tricky part, of course, is tracking the re-incarnations and jailing the correct newborn.
While that may well be a better way, it is by no means easier!
Yes, that is exactly what I meant. For the earlier generations of Sparc laptops, the main use I saw of those was for chip-design tool vendors to use them for demos. I knew of engineers that wanted one, but no companies that were buying them for that reason.
These days, all of the chip-design tools also run on Linux (and in fact, Linux is used more than Sparc/Solaris these days), and it would be far more economical to do demos on a Linux laptop.
There have been Sparc laptops for a long time. They were never build by Sun, though. And they were also hideously expensive, i.e. in the $20,000 range. This is Sun's first foray into this highly dubious market segment.
The problem is that if they want to be sure that the program is what it claims to be, they need to have the OS check that for them. But how do they know this OS hasn't been modified? The solution they have come up with starts with the hardware, which checks a digitial signature on the PROM before the BIOS is allowed to load. An approved BIOS can then check the signature of the OS to make sure it is an approved version, and the OS then checks the applications. It all traces back to encryption keys that are built into the hardware itself.
When it comes to issues like booting linux, the people working on this will very quickly tell you that "of course you can". That is not, however, the whole truth.
In a best-case scenario, when running linux, you would still be shut out of the "high-value" applications. Even if someone were to make an official, signed and sanctioned version of linux, it would essentially not be linux anymore, since the slightest change you made to it would mean it would no longer match the signature, and would no longer work with those applications.
Worse yet, as RMS pointed out in the article linked previously, they have the ability to unilaterally change the deal after you have signed up. For instance, if you had a machine that dual-booted between a "trusted" OS and linux, you might find out one day that the "trusted" OS had updated the settings stored in the hardware, and it will no longer allow booting into an untrusted mode. Your machine no longer boots linux!
There are lots of arguments against this view spewed out by the PR flacks, but it all boils down to "Trust us, we won't go that far, even though we made sure we can, if we decide we want to." A "trusted computing platform" is one that "they" can trust, not one that you can. Using such a platform empowers others to make the choice for you of what your computer will and will not run.
As for myself, I definately don't trust them.
RTFM:
With today's large screens, it is easy to open two different applications at the same time, side by side. However, in OS-X, only one of these apps has its menu available. What's worse, it is not even readily apparently which one that is!
Even when I am successfully keeping track of which app is active, I find it awkward that the application in the right has its menus way over on the left!
Interestingly, this is the single most-hated feature of any Apple-OS for me. I have heard the arguments about how this makes the menu bar so much easier to navigate to, but I find it total destroys multi-tasking.
Having it this way enforces a click-to-focus, active-app-always-on-top system, which I detest. I find myself most productive on X-windows desktops where I use pointer focus and overlapping windows. I frequently arrange windows such that the parts that I care about are visible and use those apps without ever bringing them to the top. And each one of those applications has its menus available without necessarily completely obscuring the other apps.
I would claim that you have missed the entire point of the GPL. It depends on copyright to deny certain rights, and then it itself grants other rights. This is what forces people to "play fair". If you want to use the code that I have shared, I will let you, but you must share your code as well.
People focus on the "negative" side of copyright, i.e. the limitation on distribution. However, it also limits fraud and misrepresentation. While many people enjoying seeing their work go out into the world and are happy to be helping people, most would be less happy to see their work going out with someone else's name on it. Or to see it mangled and broken, and then still being represented as their work.
While copyright has its problems, few people that have really thought it through seek to have it completely abolished.
While this is what the software vendors would like you to think, the truth of the matter is much less clear.
Some software is very clearly licensed. A company will often license software needed to do business. Corporate representatives will meet with vendor representatives. Terms are negotiated. Eventually, a license agreement is signed. Only then is premission to use the software obtained.
Walking into a retail store, handing the clerk some cash, and walking away with a CD is a very different situation. The validity of EULAs, shrink-wrap, and click-thru licenses is very much in doubt. They have been upheld in some courts, and completely thrown out in others.
If I were he, I would eliminate the anonymous access. If someone cracks his computer and grabs his files when he clearly is taking reasonable precautions, he is very unlikely to be held accountable. As it is, he could be seen as abetting them.
It is quite apparent that you did not read the legal decision. If you put up MP3's on a publicly accessable FTP server with anonymous access, the downloader is guilty of direct copyright infrigement, and *YOU* are guilty of contributory infrigement. From the PDF, there are three requirements:
Infringement by a primary infringer
knowledge of the infringement
material contribution to the infringement
The first is a given in your scenario. The third comes from your hosting the files on a machine you control, and configuring the FTP server for anonymous access, despite easily being able to restricted it to registered users. Now, all they need to do to prove number 2 is show that you had knowledge that someone other than yourself *ever* accessed those files and you did not immediately take action, and you get nailed to the wall.
By your argument, the original Napster would have been found not guilty, which was not the case. Simply putting up a disclaimer without taking any action to prevent abuse will not get you very far in a court of law. In fact, it would probably count against you, since it proves that you knew that the abuse was possible, and did nothing to prevent it.
While it does clear the bar code field, it still keeps the unique item ID, meaning that item can still be tracked and still be linked to you forever afterwards.
I agree with the writer, claiming to deactivate the tags without actually doing so is not only deceptive, but is far more harmful that not doing it at all, as it creates a false sense of security.
Modern redwood is much to soft, and it is against code to use it for anything structural.
What has worked, however, is striking out certain sections (for instance, non-compete clauses), signing it, and turning it in. Now they must deal with it, and in many cases, they simply let it go. At the very least, if they are unwilling to allow it, they must come back and talk with you about it.
My experience with this has been with small companies, and it may work better under those circumstances. Large employers may be more resistant. If you try this, you should be prepared for them to tell you that you can not work for them without signing the standard, unmodified agreement.
These days, I am doing contract work, and push back on contractor agreements is more expected, and generally handled fairly quickly.