Trains in India and attempting to validate everyone's ID? Good luck with that!
Actually, when we book a ticket online, and take the printed ticket on a train, we have to carry some ID to ensure that the person who's travelling is the same that the ticket was booked for. This is basically to prevent people from booking in bulk in advance and then reselling the tickets. Usually, it's just any photo-ID, and the conductor glances at it and at your face, and moves onto the next passenger. If the ticket is for multiple people, any one person having the ID is usually enough.
Not to mention, names can change through a person's life, say by marriage, or by religious conversion. Or maybe simply because someone doesn't like their current name. Or because they're the-artist-formerly-and-now-currently-known-as-Prince.
In India, it becomes even more difficult - I see newspaper reports every day with people named as "A" alias "B"; not necessarily for illicit purposes, but just because they may be called differently by different people. Besides, I (for example) don't really have a "family name" - I have a given name and a couple of other identifiers. Even for those who do have "family" names, it's more of a "community" name. For example, the name "Singh" would indicate a North Indian, either a Sikh, or one of the many Hindu clans that use the name. It's not just likely that someone bearing the same first + last name would be pretty similar in physical characteristics, it would be almost a given.
Another non-blackberry user here, but from what I understand, what they provide is something like PGP on top of mail; your message gets encrypted using a private/public key system such that it's not vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, which SSL/TLS (https/imaps) can be susceptible to.
It still requires the equivalent of a warrant to demand a key from you. From what I'm reading, they tried to use contractual obligations with RIM (and Google and friends) to force them to make access to encryption easier, because those companies complained that "it couldn't be done", which is patently false.
Basically, parliament passed a law, the companies tried to weasel out, and they were called out. The fact that the law in question is crap does nothing to mitigate that.
This isn't something really new; it's been brewing since the Mumbai attacks. The government has been trying to build up an "Indian FBI", and this is just part of that...
Frankly, I think somebody high up has just seen too many spy movies!
Asking for the keys to every single VPN in a country of a billion people? Seriously?
The law basically states that "The Intermediary or any person in-charge of the Computer resource shall when called upon by the agency which has been authorized under sub-section (1), provide technical assistance and extend all facilities to such agency to enable online access or to secure and provide online access to the computer resource generating , transmitting, receiving or storing such traffic data or information."
Basically, this means that they ask you for your key if they want to read your data, and you can't refuse. No different from a warrant...
If you really need it to be that secure, use Sneakernet + easily hidden micro SDs to deliver the secret... The first time might be a bit slow, but after that, you're set!
The actions of a citizen or (relatively) small group of citizens does not in any way invalidate the government a country has. Just so you know, the demolishers were arrested and charged with various crimes (or at least, the ringleaders were).
Wiki fail! India does not have "polytheistic Hindu as it's official religion" (sic) - just one link down, you'll find that
The Constitution of India declares the nation to be a secular republic that must uphold the right of citizens to freely worship and propagate any religion or faith (with activities subject to reasonable restrictions for the sake of morality, law and order, etc.). The Constitution of India also declares the right to freedom of religion as a fundamental right.
Slightly off-topic, i know, but please, get your facts right...
If it's patents, it's irrelevant whether they implemented Java, Go or Smalltalk. They allegedly violated (Sun) Oracle's patents by providing any implementation of what's described in those patents.
And again, it appears that Oracle isn't claiming copyright over those - they're claiming patent infringement. I don't know what the legal issues over using the java.* namespace are, but apparently, even Oracle doesn't claim that they're infringement.
Trademark: irrelevant as long as Google doesn't call it Java
Copyright: irrelevant as long as Google doesn't use Java code (or infringe other material published under copyright)
Patents: well, that's what Oracle's suing about; the veracity of their claims is yet to be demonstrated
Re:Ok so they might have a case against google
on
The Case For Oracle
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, from what I've heard, this is pretty standard in patent infringement cases. They may not be shooting for it, but they'll use it as a bargaining position.
Also, it may be because J2ME is primitive, proprietary and useless, and J2SE is just not enough for what they want to do.
Also, it may be because the license terms were unacceptable to them as a company, and they went with a clean-room implementation.
Their intentions are not the question anyway - the legality of their actions is. If they did infringe the patents, they will face some punishment to the extent of their infringement. If they didn't, they won't. Oracle feels they did, but it's for the courts to decide. And you can be sure the courts will only look at whether they infringed the patents in question or not (and probably whether those patents are valid or not, if Google wants to press that issue), and not whether they are being evil splitters or not.
I stopped reading where he equated a contract violation (Sun vs. Microsoft in the J++ case) with (alleged) patent infrigement (Oracle vs. Google in the Dalvik case). Honestly, this is like comparing apples and bicycles.
I think at least this particular reporter's cluelessness is pretty much proved...
And the rest of the story is that Webkit went on to become the fastest library on the planet, adopted into pretty much every toolkit and platform currently known to man (scroll down to "webkit ports"), including Chrome and Android.
The whole thing started because the KDE guys didn't want to use Gecko in 1998
Slashdot Mirror
Trains in India and attempting to validate everyone's ID? Good luck with that!
Actually, when we book a ticket online, and take the printed ticket on a train, we have to carry some ID to ensure that the person who's travelling is the same that the ticket was booked for. This is basically to prevent people from booking in bulk in advance and then reselling the tickets. Usually, it's just any photo-ID, and the conductor glances at it and at your face, and moves onto the next passenger. If the ticket is for multiple people, any one person having the ID is usually enough.
Not to mention, names can change through a person's life, say by marriage, or by religious conversion. Or maybe simply because someone doesn't like their current name. Or because they're the-artist-formerly-and-now-currently-known-as-Prince.
In India, it becomes even more difficult - I see newspaper reports every day with people named as "A" alias "B"; not necessarily for illicit purposes, but just because they may be called differently by different people. Besides, I (for example) don't really have a "family name" - I have a given name and a couple of other identifiers. Even for those who do have "family" names, it's more of a "community" name. For example, the name "Singh" would indicate a North Indian, either a Sikh, or one of the many Hindu clans that use the name. It's not just likely that someone bearing the same first + last name would be pretty similar in physical characteristics, it would be almost a given.
Quite frankly, I'm glad we're finally getting this.
Another non-blackberry user here, but from what I understand, what they provide is something like PGP on top of mail; your message gets encrypted using a private/public key system such that it's not vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, which SSL/TLS (https/imaps) can be susceptible to.
Open source != "I don't like it".
In case you didn't know, kitware's clients already include Sandia labs, and various other agencies.
They still keep the core products (VTK, ITK, CMake, etc) open, but will build custom solutions on top of them for clients.
The gift in question isn't really that much different from their usual work...
This seems to be the "force shutdown" screen from Win7
What have you been doing that terrorists want to stop?
Existing...
It still requires the equivalent of a warrant to demand a key from you. From what I'm reading, they tried to use contractual obligations with RIM (and Google and friends) to force them to make access to encryption easier, because those companies complained that "it couldn't be done", which is patently false.
Basically, parliament passed a law, the companies tried to weasel out, and they were called out. The fact that the law in question is crap does nothing to mitigate that.
This isn't something really new; it's been brewing since the Mumbai attacks. The government has been trying to build up an "Indian FBI", and this is just part of that...
Frankly, I think somebody high up has just seen too many spy movies!
Asking for the keys to every single VPN in a country of a billion people? Seriously?
The law basically states that "The Intermediary or any person in-charge of the Computer resource shall when called upon by the agency which has been authorized under sub-section (1), provide technical assistance and extend all facilities to such agency to enable online access or to secure and provide online access to the computer resource generating , transmitting, receiving or storing such traffic data or information."
Basically, this means that they ask you for your key if they want to read your data, and you can't refuse. No different from a warrant...
If you really need it to be that secure, use Sneakernet + easily hidden micro SDs to deliver the secret... The first time might be a bit slow, but after that, you're set!
Also, like blowing up a building with lots of people inside it?
The actions of a citizen or (relatively) small group of citizens does not in any way invalidate the government a country has. Just so you know, the demolishers were arrested and charged with various crimes (or at least, the ringleaders were).
Wiki fail! India does not have "polytheistic Hindu as it's official religion" (sic) - just one link down, you'll find that
Slightly off-topic, i know, but please, get your facts right...
Why should there be? Is a clock any different just because it uses pixels?
Did it predict that the article on it would be on top of Digg?
If it's patents, it's irrelevant whether they implemented Java, Go or Smalltalk. They allegedly violated (Sun) Oracle's patents by providing any implementation of what's described in those patents.
And again, it appears that Oracle isn't claiming copyright over those - they're claiming patent infringement. I don't know what the legal issues over using the java.* namespace are, but apparently, even Oracle doesn't claim that they're infringement.
Note: If it were even remotely likely to be i
Trademark: irrelevant as long as Google doesn't call it Java
Copyright: irrelevant as long as Google doesn't use Java code (or infringe other material published under copyright)
Patents: well, that's what Oracle's suing about; the veracity of their claims is yet to be demonstrated
Actually, from what I've heard, this is pretty standard in patent infringement cases. They may not be shooting for it, but they'll use it as a bargaining position.
Also, it may be because J2ME is primitive, proprietary and useless, and J2SE is just not enough for what they want to do.
Also, it may be because the license terms were unacceptable to them as a company, and they went with a clean-room implementation.
Their intentions are not the question anyway - the legality of their actions is. If they did infringe the patents, they will face some punishment to the extent of their infringement. If they didn't, they won't. Oracle feels they did, but it's for the courts to decide. And you can be sure the courts will only look at whether they infringed the patents in question or not (and probably whether those patents are valid or not, if Google wants to press that issue), and not whether they are being evil splitters or not.
I stopped reading where he equated a contract violation (Sun vs. Microsoft in the J++ case) with (alleged) patent infrigement (Oracle vs. Google in the Dalvik case). Honestly, this is like comparing apples and bicycles.
I think at least this particular reporter's cluelessness is pretty much proved...
And when did Safari for iOS gain webcam support for web applications? Without it, you can't make something like Chatroulette.
Which many might consider a feature
Sounds like Iran has Patents of Mass Destruction.
Get Them!
And the rest of the story is that Webkit went on to become the fastest library on the planet, adopted into pretty much every toolkit and platform currently known to man (scroll down to "webkit ports"), including Chrome and Android.
The whole thing started because the KDE guys didn't want to use Gecko in 1998
(e.g., there's no forms designer for MS C++/CLI).
Small quibble: It's there in 2003 onwards.