So guys, how can we prevent this from getting out of hand?
Hah! With self-replicating bots, it's going to be the old software-copying problem x10. No-one's going to market these things until someone has found a nice way of making them self-destruct / cease replicating after your licence expires. The EULAs for these things are going to be hysterical. Can anyone picture the M$oft lawyers demanding blood samples to see if you're running unlicenced nanobots?
Combine it with speech recognition software and have it supply Fnords everytime you see the name of the manufacturer's rivals, least favourite political party, etc.
If you can't see the Fnord, the fnord can't eat you.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
What I want is some sort of visor that could PICK OUT subliminal messages and alert you to them. Now I'd buy that for a dollar.
It would certainly be useful. I was recently sacked from a small company, I believe for pushing the GPL licensing issue. The company I worked for, has wrapped up a couple of well known GPL'd products and sold them on to a customer without the copyright notices etc. I'm wondering whether I should pursue this. However, as they distributed the downloaded executables for this rather than re-using source code, watermarking isn't really necessary in this case...
I worked for eight months for a British company that had a degree of paranoia that was only balanced by its technical ignorance. A new IT manager was brought in, interviewed solely by a EPHB (Extremely Pointy Haired Boss) who knew nothing. We then discovered a new species we've called the Pointy Haired Sys Admin. A scary thing. He introduced Websense at the cost of about ten-thousand pounds (this was for a small company with a very dodgy financial history). For some reason management thought that we the employees had to be controlled. It took five seconds for us to realize that Websense can be circumvented by setting a Proxy in IE.Of course, as far as managemnet is concerned, this is hacking. I don't recall ever actually bothering to circumvent, although it pissed me off when I found Websense banned Mathematics under the heading 'Games.'
The company also hired a contractor to install a PIX firewall (the sort that comes with a thousand user plus licence) to protect us against hackers, ignoring the fact that for the first few months of our IT Manager's reign, the network password was a single-case, single-English-word that had to do with security.
I was finally fired (mysteriously shortly after telling them I quit) for installing Black ICE firewall on my PC, which they said would interfere with the Cisco firewall (I'm impressed) and threaten security.
I guess what I'm getting at is that yes, I worked for a company that did everything it could to censor and limit the employees, but it seemed that this attitude went hand in hand with technical ignorance. One reason for their behaviour I think was that computers were such a black art to the management that they didn't trust those who used them - it was something they couldn't control.
Barring massive social breakdown in the next twenty years, it looks like GM Athletes are inevitable. My reasoning is that the technology will become cheap and safe (in that order) and whether someone is an olympic athlete or not, they may want it. It is unlikely that once it gets into the reach of ordinary people some few athletes will abstain on the grounds that they want to compete at a professional level. And where is the glamour of proffesional sports if amateurs are breaking the records. It will come.
The IOC would be better off not banning it even initially however for several reasons. Not the least of which is the permanence of it. Because a kid at school had his genes spliced is he forever banned from competitive sports in adult life?
The IOC bans substances on the following grounds: 1. It is harmful to the athlete. 2. It enhances performance 3. It is against the spirit of the sport.
The last reason is vague, subjective and in my opinion should be dropped. By these guidelines, steroids are banned, but creatine (sensibly) is not. Gene-therapy for athletes will fulfill condition one, but probably not for long.
Also, what happens when someone is modified without consent because it was done to them while they were a fetus, or even before implantation?
The greatest risks are not in sport. The greatest risks are in parents having too much control over their offspings genes. For example - a survey in the USA showed that 75% of parents would refer a male first child. This is now possible. Over time it will become cheap and accepted. Can you picture what the USA would be like with an adult 3:1 Male-Female ratio? Think about it.
And on a personal note - all this I couldn't get laid, I weigh 98lbs stuff on Slashdot is starting to annoy me. Just because I'm a C++ programmer, doesn't mean I don't weigh 196lb and spar at the gym form time to time (which I do). People - get some pride!!!
"Och You can sit on the side of the Tardis. Look good in photographs..."
I know - no-one will catch the reference but... Eddie Izzard would be perfect. Richard E. Grant takes second place only because I want to see him play 'the Master,' too!
But please... not Jonathon Creek. He'd be like a more depressing clone of Tom Baker.
I have this book. It's very good. What I would be interested in are any comments from any old hands at UNIX security who also have it and noticed anything wrong with or ommited from it. For myself, a UNIX developer with average network experience, I'd like to learn what flaws there are that I can't see.
Slashdot Mirror
Talk about a get rich scheme!
So guys, how can we prevent this from getting out of hand?
Hah! With self-replicating bots, it's going to be the old software-copying problem x10. No-one's going to market these things until someone has found a nice way of making them self-destruct / cease replicating after your licence expires. The EULAs for these things are going to be hysterical. Can anyone picture the M$oft lawyers demanding blood samples to see if you're running unlicenced nanobots?
Combine it with speech recognition software and have it supply Fnords everytime you see the name of the manufacturer's rivals, least favourite political party, etc. If you can't see the Fnord, the fnord can't eat you. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! What I want is some sort of visor that could PICK OUT subliminal messages and alert you to them. Now I'd buy that for a dollar.
It would certainly be useful. I was recently sacked from a small company, I believe for pushing the GPL licensing issue. The company I worked for, has wrapped up a couple of well known GPL'd products and sold them on to a customer without the copyright notices etc. I'm wondering whether I should pursue this. However, as they distributed the downloaded executables for this rather than re-using source code, watermarking isn't really necessary in this case...
I worked for eight months for a British company that had a degree of paranoia that was only balanced by its technical ignorance. A new IT manager was brought in, interviewed solely by a EPHB (Extremely Pointy Haired Boss) who knew nothing. We then discovered a new species we've called the Pointy Haired Sys Admin. A scary thing. He introduced Websense at the cost of about ten-thousand pounds (this was for a small company with a very dodgy financial history). For some reason management thought that we the employees had to be controlled. It took five seconds for us to realize that Websense can be circumvented by setting a Proxy in IE.Of course, as far as managemnet is concerned, this is hacking. I don't recall ever actually bothering to circumvent, although it pissed me off when I found Websense banned Mathematics under the heading 'Games.'
The company also hired a contractor to install a PIX firewall (the sort that comes with a thousand user plus licence) to protect us against hackers, ignoring the fact that for the first few months of our IT Manager's reign, the network password was a single-case, single-English-word that had to do with security.
I was finally fired (mysteriously shortly after telling them I quit) for installing Black ICE firewall on my PC, which they said would interfere with the Cisco firewall (I'm impressed) and threaten security.
I guess what I'm getting at is that yes, I worked for a company that did everything it could to censor and limit the employees, but it seemed that this attitude went hand in hand with technical ignorance. One reason for their behaviour I think was that computers were such a black art to the management that they didn't trust those who used them - it was something they couldn't control.
Barring massive social breakdown in the next twenty years, it looks like GM Athletes are inevitable. My reasoning is that the technology will become cheap and safe (in that order) and whether someone is an olympic athlete or not, they may want it. It is unlikely that once it gets into the reach of ordinary people some few athletes will abstain on the grounds that they want to compete at a professional level. And where is the glamour of proffesional sports if amateurs are breaking the records. It will come.
The IOC would be better off not banning it even initially however for several reasons. Not the least of which is the permanence of it. Because a kid at school had his genes spliced is he forever banned from competitive sports in adult life?
The IOC bans substances on the following grounds:
1. It is harmful to the athlete.
2. It enhances performance
3. It is against the spirit of the sport.
The last reason is vague, subjective and in my opinion should be dropped. By these guidelines, steroids are banned, but creatine (sensibly) is not. Gene-therapy for athletes will fulfill condition one, but probably not for long.
Also, what happens when someone is modified without consent because it was done to them while they were a fetus, or even before implantation?
The greatest risks are not in sport. The greatest risks are in parents having too much control over their offspings genes. For example - a survey in the USA showed that 75% of parents would refer a male first child. This is now possible. Over time it will become cheap and accepted. Can you picture what the USA would be like with an adult 3:1 Male-Female ratio? Think about it.
And on a personal note - all this I couldn't get laid, I weigh 98lbs stuff on Slashdot is starting to annoy me. Just because I'm a C++ programmer, doesn't mean I don't weigh 196lb and spar at the gym form time to time (which I do). People - get some pride!!!
"Och You can sit on the side of the Tardis. Look good in photographs..." I know - no-one will catch the reference but... Eddie Izzard would be perfect. Richard E. Grant takes second place only because I want to see him play 'the Master,' too! But please... not Jonathon Creek. He'd be like a more depressing clone of Tom Baker.
Superb! I remember that speech from the Paul Schofield film version. And very apt for this story.
Superb.
----------------------
I have this book. It's very good. What I would be interested in are any comments from any old hands at UNIX security who also have it and noticed anything wrong with or ommited from it. For myself, a UNIX developer with average network experience, I'd like to learn what flaws there are that I can't see.