Why not just scan web pages as they are downloaded by the browser?
Is there some really clever reason why this doesn't work, i.e why it's more effective to grab the web pages ahead of time? Because I can't think of one, other than a case of PEBCAK at AVG. You could route all TCP/IP traffic through a transparent proxy and scan the pages there before releasing them to the browser: if there's malware, you don't let it through. Surely this would be just as good at catching malware, and more "environmentally friendly" for the Internet generally.
Are TIFFs better than PDFs for future use? I wonder what format you think would last longer. Are there any other formats that you think would be better or more future-proof? To me, storage is not a good enough reason to go to TIFF, because storage prices are always dropping anyway.
Don't use TIFF. Stay with PDF. PDF is what all the big digital libraries are using. It's a proper standard, it's readable and writable by lots of free open source software, so even if Adobe disappears in a puff of intellectual property, you'll still be able to read your documents.
TIFF, on the other hand, is a container format (like AVI, but worse). It isn't fully supported by every program - what sort of TIFF do you want, anyway? Compressed with LZW? With RLE? Not compressed at all? There's free software that will read and write the most common types of TIFF, so you can certainly do it, but why give up the convenience of using PDF?
Also, since they already have many of these files in PDF format and they want to convert them into multipage TIFFs, are there any programs that you can recommend that will perform batch processing of files so that we do not have to convert each PDF one by one?
Use ghostscript. Use something like the following command line:
This turns input.pdf into a series of 300 dpi tiff files, one for each page, called output01.tiff, output02.tiff, etc. Change the DEVICE to get a different sort of tiff file, and use gs --help to get a list of options. You can easily wrap this command in a script of almost any sort to make the process fully automatic.
Well, good luck. But I can see why they think you're a kook. This AI stuff is a bit too close to "free energy" and "cold fusion" for my liking; decades of research and no progress to speak of, wild promises of what *might* happen if all the problems were magically solved, and an army of AI believers who won't let go of the dream. That's not to say you can't do it, just that lots of smart people have already tried and failed, which is generally a bad sign.
But AI has already succeeded in some ways. It's contributed great things to our society:
This is exactly how digital restrictions of any kind can be compatible with free software. You have a division between free and non-free, and as Perens suggests, maybe it's the kernel/user interface, or physical separation, or a virtual machine. What matters is that the division exists and that it preserves all of the software freedoms that the licence requires.
Personally I think virtual machines are the way to go. You put your free software in one virtual machine and your GSM stack/software radio/DRM code/etc. in another, and run them both using a hypervisor. That way, you get all the benefits of free software without having to put the non-free components in hardware or on a separate CPU. Oddly enough, support for this kind of operation already exists in CPUs, e.g. ARM's Trustzone. Clearly manufacturers have been thinking about how to combine open software with secure components, and their solution is Perens' bright lines.
Virtualisation is exactly how we will get the flexibility and openness we need in small computers without losing the features that network operators demand. Of course it's not a pure free software system any more, but you don't have the source for your x86 CPU microcode, so you're already using a hybrid system that runs both free and non-free code. The best advice is not to worry about it, and enjoy the improved flexibility that you get from being able to run your own code on *most* of the system, instead of none of it.
Good point. You could avoid that problem by encrypting your root filesystem and booting from trusted media, e.g. a CD or USB stick. That way, the agents can't install a rootkit, since (1) they don't know the root filesystem key, and (2) they can't get the laptop to load extra files during boot. (You could also use TCPA to manage the boot process on some laptops: the TCPA chip could store part of the filesystem key and only provide it if the boot files were unmodified.)
You'll need a top of the range HDTV and Bluray player to watch this movie, which will not work on 10% of the world's Bluray players because it includes a poorly-designed additional copy protection scheme on top of the usual Bluray DRM. The disc requires online activation before it will play, and you'll be limited to five activations, so you can use each disc in no more than five Bluray players. The good news is that the trailer will also be protected by the same scheme, so you will be able to check your equipment for compatibility before you buy.
In that case, do we need a DRM service run by a trusted third party, like a bank?
Suppose that all DRM worked in a single standardised way, and the online activation services were independent of both the publisher and content creator. In that scenario, the chances of you losing access to your content are similar to the chances of you losing access to the money in your bank account. There would be no "Microsoft has decided not to support MSN Music any more, so you are shit out of luck" or "You can only install this game on three computers". If they licensed the content to you in the first place, you'd always be able to use it, reactivate it, and shift it around. Equally there would be no "You must buy all your music from Apple" or "This video can't be played on Linux", because the system would be standard and therefore interoperable.
I wouldn't reference Satan directly in my code, but if I need to pick an arbitrary integer constant for something, it's going to be 666. Possibly disguised as 0x29a or 01232. I can't resist an opportunity to annoy people who take Revelations seriously.
It's very unfashionable, but the Ada language has threads (tasks) as a first-order part of the language, so you don't need a specific class or library in order to use them. The things you need to use threads safely, like protected objects, are also part of the language. That means it is very easy to write correct multithreaded code in Ada. You won't be missing a mutex unlock command, and you won't be accessing something owned by another thread: the compiler won't let you.
Threads are one thing that Ada does really well. I don't know of any other language in the ALGOL family that matches it. Certainly C/C++/Java are far behind.
You do a death throw after you've failed your saving throw. Roll 3d6, then look up the number in your rulebook to see how you died. In this case the RIAA has rolled 18, so it's... ah, one moment... ah, here it is.
I'll just roll the dice again a few times. Oh no! The RIAA comes back as an army of fifty immortal Zombie Lawyers, each with a +2 damage modifier against Pirates. And they're resistant to damage from illegally copied spells.
Don't be silly! Temperance is at least logically consistent.
On the other hand, legalizing Marijuana would probably go further towards combating drunk driving than anything MADD ever did.
The extreme runaway success of the War on Drugs proves that prohibition works. I mean, look how difficult it is to get drugs these days! Clearly, these days the police and justice system are efficient enough to almost eradicate illegal drug use, no matter how popular it once might have been, so the time is right to reintroduce alcohol prohibition.
It just isn't right that dangerous drugs like alcohol remain legal. For every argument you can make about marijuana being dangerous, I can make a similar but even stronger argument about alcohol. It is time to end the liberal tolerance of drinkers (drug users by any other name), close all the bars and breweries, and destroy the life of anyone who still chooses to drink. Lock them up for ten years and prevent them getting a job afterwards, etc., etc. Or just execute them, like they do in Arab countries. That sort of approach got rid of all the stoners; it will get rid of all the drinkers as well, and then finally our streets will be safe from drunk drivers. At last our children will be safe from the horrors of all deadly drugs, including beer and the new genetically engineered superdrinks like bourbon and vodka.
If he does, then he's not in the minority. I bet 99% of the people who read this post are XBox, PS3 or Wii owners: I think the DRM on those systems is tolerated so widely because it just works. Even nerds who understand the implications are willing to buy into it.
Some people object to DRM on ideological grounds, but not many. It's like free software versus commercial software. You can decide to use only free software because it fits your personal ideology, but most people use a mixture of free and non-free software. If good free software doesn't exist for a task, then they pay up. Equally, we would all prefer to have no DRM, but we can tolerate it if it means we get to do something that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.
Good suggestion. I did try doing this, but could not make it work. After a few attempts, I got my modified Windows CD to boot, but it didn't pick up the new drivers. In the end it was easier to buy a box of floppy disks.
When I tried to install XP, I found it could recognise a USB drive. It would even allow me to install Windows onto it! But it wouldn't read the SATA drivers off it. I needed to find a working floppy disk in order to get those drivers onto the machine!
Reminded me of Slackware back in the mid 90s. It's just as well most Windows users get the OS preloaded by the PC manufacturer. If they all had to install it themselves, surely most would give up and install Linux instead. The installer boots from the CD and includes all the drivers? What crazy person thought of that insane idea.
Looks like I have also been confused by the difference between Liveleak (originally hosted the video, removed it after death threats) and Wikileaks (which ran out of bandwidth). D'oh.
This is exactly why Wikileaks was offline. The whole story is about Fitna. Basically, the Wikileaks admins got death threats and had to take the video offline, replacing it with an apology about having to put staff safety before freedom of speech. Later, the site might have been taken down by the increased traffic, but by that time Fitna was already on Google Video and Youtube, so it was way too late to stop people seeing it.
I think the Slashdot editors might have been looking for a story about Fitna that doesn't explicitly mention Fitna in the summary, since they no doubt wish to avoid getting some death threats of their own.
With apologies to Yogi, are we reaching a point where no one will buy an Apple because everyone's buying Apple?
Well, that's one reason why I won't buy any Apple products: they're way too popular. In fact, they are so popular that it's obvious something is wrong. It's a cult!
As soon you buy an Apple product you always talk about how great it is, and you never buy computers from any other manufacturer again. You show off your Mac and your iPhone at every opportunity, and encourage everyone else to buy one too. No matter who you are talking to, you can think of several reasons why an Apple product would be better than whatever they are currently using. But you have to watch your back, because Mac users are always in a minority (even when they're not). The jealous and stupid PC users are always out to attack Apple with lies and misinformation. They do not own Macs so they are incapable of understanding the Truth. So real Mac users will always mod people down if they disrespect Apple, and will always slavishly defend everything that Apple does.
In terms of brand loyalty, the major religions are the only organisations that can compete with Apple. Remember, if your Mac ever breaks down, it's because you weren't good enough for it.
She should call James Randi, since she apparently has the paranormal ability to detect radio waves. For $1m, she could buy herself a nice big Faraday cage.
Maybe he hoped this would happen. If you are making an anti-religious film, or selling anything remotely anti-religious, then the best thing that can happen to you is a bunch of crazy religious dudes kicking up a fuss about it. You get immediate sympathy from just about everyone else, plus lots of media attention, and it almost certainly proves whatever point you were trying to make. And since Wilders' point is "Islam is a bad thing for freedom", being forced offline by Muslims is great news for him. "It's the film they tried to ban!"
He'll be back on a different ISP soon enough. Conspiracy theorists might like to ask if Wilders could have forced himself offline, then blamed it on the Muslims...
Christ. They don't check? Then what prevents an individual voting twice?
Here in England, each polling station has a list of registered voters. They tick you off the list when they give you a poll card. I guess it must be the same in Australia where you get fined for not turning up at your polling station.
Yeah, Napster offers this service already. For £10/month you get unlimited access to their song library - so long as you don't mind the Windows Media DRM and total lack of support for non-Windows platforms. So Apple shouldn't have too much difficulty in their negotiations, since Napster has already paved the way. It'll be the same service, plus support for Macs and iPods. This is hardly a revolutionary new idea.
With this kind of service, DRM is a big turnoff. But I am not sure how this service could possibly be offered without DRM. The need for a special client program is also a turnoff: why not just provide the catalogue on a website and rely on the media player for DRM authentication?
I think your perspective on this matter is interesting, but I am not convinced that there is something special about information that means it can't be property. It is easy to copy, yes, but it is not easy to create, and I think that is why copyright law is justified. We must distinguish between the principles of copyright law and their actual implementation, which is flawed in many ways.
Abolishing copyright might lead to a better world, but I am unconvinced. I think it would be better to change the law to more accurately reflect reality. Historically, abolishing property rights has led to less freedom, not more, and I think it would be best to continue to allow everyone the choice between whether they want to give their work away (like BSD), use a permissive license (like the GPL), or sell for profit (like Microsoft). In this world, free software can (and does) replace commercial software, but nothing compels you to make one or the other.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just scan web pages as they are downloaded by the browser?
Is there some really clever reason why this doesn't work, i.e why it's more effective to grab the web pages ahead of time? Because I can't think of one, other than a case of PEBCAK at AVG. You could route all TCP/IP traffic through a transparent proxy and scan the pages there before releasing them to the browser: if there's malware, you don't let it through. Surely this would be just as good at catching malware, and more "environmentally friendly" for the Internet generally.
Are TIFFs better than PDFs for future use? I wonder what format you think would last longer. Are there any other formats that you think would be better or more future-proof? To me, storage is not a good enough reason to go to TIFF, because storage prices are always dropping anyway.
Don't use TIFF. Stay with PDF. PDF is what all the big digital libraries are using. It's a proper standard, it's readable and writable by lots of free open source software, so even if Adobe disappears in a puff of intellectual property, you'll still be able to read your documents.
TIFF, on the other hand, is a container format (like AVI, but worse). It isn't fully supported by every program - what sort of TIFF do you want, anyway? Compressed with LZW? With RLE? Not compressed at all? There's free software that will read and write the most common types of TIFF, so you can certainly do it, but why give up the convenience of using PDF?
Also, since they already have many of these files in PDF format and they want to convert them into multipage TIFFs, are there any programs that you can recommend that will perform batch processing of files so that we do not have to convert each PDF one by one?
Use ghostscript. Use something like the following command line:
This turns input.pdf into a series of 300 dpi tiff files, one for each page, called output01.tiff, output02.tiff, etc. Change the DEVICE to get a different sort of tiff file, and use gs --help to get a list of options. You can easily wrap this command in a script of almost any sort to make the process fully automatic.Well, good luck. But I can see why they think you're a kook. This AI stuff is a bit too close to "free energy" and "cold fusion" for my liking; decades of research and no progress to speak of, wild promises of what *might* happen if all the problems were magically solved, and an army of AI believers who won't let go of the dream. That's not to say you can't do it, just that lots of smart people have already tried and failed, which is generally a bad sign.
But AI has already succeeded in some ways. It's contributed great things to our society:
- Image processing algorithms
- LISP, Scheme, and Prolog
- Some great scifi books and films
- Clippy
- Keeping researchers off the streets
- Eliza and Dr Sbaitso
So it's not been a total waste of time.Yeah, I thought that was ironic. The article compiler blamed the boss instead of the IT guy, making his own bone-headed IT mistake in the process.
This is exactly how digital restrictions of any kind can be compatible with free software. You have a division between free and non-free, and as Perens suggests, maybe it's the kernel/user interface, or physical separation, or a virtual machine. What matters is that the division exists and that it preserves all of the software freedoms that the licence requires.
Personally I think virtual machines are the way to go. You put your free software in one virtual machine and your GSM stack/software radio/DRM code/etc. in another, and run them both using a hypervisor. That way, you get all the benefits of free software without having to put the non-free components in hardware or on a separate CPU. Oddly enough, support for this kind of operation already exists in CPUs, e.g. ARM's Trustzone. Clearly manufacturers have been thinking about how to combine open software with secure components, and their solution is Perens' bright lines.
Virtualisation is exactly how we will get the flexibility and openness we need in small computers without losing the features that network operators demand. Of course it's not a pure free software system any more, but you don't have the source for your x86 CPU microcode, so you're already using a hybrid system that runs both free and non-free code. The best advice is not to worry about it, and enjoy the improved flexibility that you get from being able to run your own code on *most* of the system, instead of none of it.
Good point. You could avoid that problem by encrypting your root filesystem and booting from trusted media, e.g. a CD or USB stick. That way, the agents can't install a rootkit, since (1) they don't know the root filesystem key, and (2) they can't get the laptop to load extra files during boot. (You could also use TCPA to manage the boot process on some laptops: the TCPA chip could store part of the filesystem key and only provide it if the boot files were unmodified.)
You'll need a top of the range HDTV and Bluray player to watch this movie, which will not work on 10% of the world's Bluray players because it includes a poorly-designed additional copy protection scheme on top of the usual Bluray DRM. The disc requires online activation before it will play, and you'll be limited to five activations, so you can use each disc in no more than five Bluray players. The good news is that the trailer will also be protected by the same scheme, so you will be able to check your equipment for compatibility before you buy.
In that case, do we need a DRM service run by a trusted third party, like a bank?
Suppose that all DRM worked in a single standardised way, and the online activation services were independent of both the publisher and content creator. In that scenario, the chances of you losing access to your content are similar to the chances of you losing access to the money in your bank account. There would be no "Microsoft has decided not to support MSN Music any more, so you are shit out of luck" or "You can only install this game on three computers". If they licensed the content to you in the first place, you'd always be able to use it, reactivate it, and shift it around. Equally there would be no "You must buy all your music from Apple" or "This video can't be played on Linux", because the system would be standard and therefore interoperable.
I wouldn't reference Satan directly in my code, but if I need to pick an arbitrary integer constant for something, it's going to be 666. Possibly disguised as 0x29a or 01232. I can't resist an opportunity to annoy people who take Revelations seriously.
It's very unfashionable, but the Ada language has threads (tasks) as a first-order part of the language, so you don't need a specific class or library in order to use them. The things you need to use threads safely, like protected objects, are also part of the language. That means it is very easy to write correct multithreaded code in Ada. You won't be missing a mutex unlock command, and you won't be accessing something owned by another thread: the compiler won't let you.
Threads are one thing that Ada does really well. I don't know of any other language in the ALGOL family that matches it. Certainly C/C++/Java are far behind.
You do a death throw after you've failed your saving throw. Roll 3d6, then look up the number in your rulebook to see how you died. In this case the RIAA has rolled 18, so it's... ah, one moment... ah, here it is.
I'll just roll the dice again a few times. Oh no! The RIAA comes back as an army of fifty immortal Zombie Lawyers, each with a +2 damage modifier against Pirates. And they're resistant to damage from illegally copied spells.
Don't be silly! Temperance is at least logically consistent.
On the other hand, legalizing Marijuana would probably go further towards combating drunk driving than anything MADD ever did.
The extreme runaway success of the War on Drugs proves that prohibition works. I mean, look how difficult it is to get drugs these days! Clearly, these days the police and justice system are efficient enough to almost eradicate illegal drug use, no matter how popular it once might have been, so the time is right to reintroduce alcohol prohibition.
It just isn't right that dangerous drugs like alcohol remain legal. For every argument you can make about marijuana being dangerous, I can make a similar but even stronger argument about alcohol. It is time to end the liberal tolerance of drinkers (drug users by any other name), close all the bars and breweries, and destroy the life of anyone who still chooses to drink. Lock them up for ten years and prevent them getting a job afterwards, etc., etc. Or just execute them, like they do in Arab countries. That sort of approach got rid of all the stoners; it will get rid of all the drinkers as well, and then finally our streets will be safe from drunk drivers. At last our children will be safe from the horrors of all deadly drugs, including beer and the new genetically engineered superdrinks like bourbon and vodka.
If he does, then he's not in the minority. I bet 99% of the people who read this post are XBox, PS3 or Wii owners: I think the DRM on those systems is tolerated so widely because it just works. Even nerds who understand the implications are willing to buy into it.
Some people object to DRM on ideological grounds, but not many. It's like free software versus commercial software. You can decide to use only free software because it fits your personal ideology, but most people use a mixture of free and non-free software. If good free software doesn't exist for a task, then they pay up. Equally, we would all prefer to have no DRM, but we can tolerate it if it means we get to do something that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.
Good suggestion. I did try doing this, but could not make it work. After a few attempts, I got my modified Windows CD to boot, but it didn't pick up the new drivers. In the end it was easier to buy a box of floppy disks.
When I tried to install XP, I found it could recognise a USB drive. It would even allow me to install Windows onto it! But it wouldn't read the SATA drivers off it. I needed to find a working floppy disk in order to get those drivers onto the machine!
Reminded me of Slackware back in the mid 90s. It's just as well most Windows users get the OS preloaded by the PC manufacturer. If they all had to install it themselves, surely most would give up and install Linux instead. The installer boots from the CD and includes all the drivers? What crazy person thought of that insane idea.
Poor kid. The Wesley Crusher similarities are horrifying. "Wesley, go to your room!"
Looks like I have also been confused by the difference between Liveleak (originally hosted the video, removed it after death threats) and Wikileaks (which ran out of bandwidth). D'oh.
This is exactly why Wikileaks was offline. The whole story is about Fitna. Basically, the Wikileaks admins got death threats and had to take the video offline, replacing it with an apology about having to put staff safety before freedom of speech. Later, the site might have been taken down by the increased traffic, but by that time Fitna was already on Google Video and Youtube, so it was way too late to stop people seeing it.
I think the Slashdot editors might have been looking for a story about Fitna that doesn't explicitly mention Fitna in the summary, since they no doubt wish to avoid getting some death threats of their own.
With apologies to Yogi, are we reaching a point where no one will buy an Apple because everyone's buying Apple?
Well, that's one reason why I won't buy any Apple products: they're way too popular. In fact, they are so popular that it's obvious something is wrong. It's a cult!
As soon you buy an Apple product you always talk about how great it is, and you never buy computers from any other manufacturer again. You show off your Mac and your iPhone at every opportunity, and encourage everyone else to buy one too. No matter who you are talking to, you can think of several reasons why an Apple product would be better than whatever they are currently using. But you have to watch your back, because Mac users are always in a minority (even when they're not). The jealous and stupid PC users are always out to attack Apple with lies and misinformation. They do not own Macs so they are incapable of understanding the Truth. So real Mac users will always mod people down if they disrespect Apple, and will always slavishly defend everything that Apple does.
In terms of brand loyalty, the major religions are the only organisations that can compete with Apple. Remember, if your Mac ever breaks down, it's because you weren't good enough for it.
She should call James Randi, since she apparently has the paranormal ability to detect radio waves. For $1m, she could buy herself a nice big Faraday cage.
Sharia Law is a "hate crime" against women, non-Muslims and homosexuals. Who's the real "hate criminal" around here?
Maybe he hoped this would happen. If you are making an anti-religious film, or selling anything remotely anti-religious, then the best thing that can happen to you is a bunch of crazy religious dudes kicking up a fuss about it. You get immediate sympathy from just about everyone else, plus lots of media attention, and it almost certainly proves whatever point you were trying to make. And since Wilders' point is "Islam is a bad thing for freedom", being forced offline by Muslims is great news for him. "It's the film they tried to ban!"
He'll be back on a different ISP soon enough. Conspiracy theorists might like to ask if Wilders could have forced himself offline, then blamed it on the Muslims...
Christ. They don't check? Then what prevents an individual voting twice?
Here in England, each polling station has a list of registered voters. They tick you off the list when they give you a poll card. I guess it must be the same in Australia where you get fined for not turning up at your polling station.
Yeah, Napster offers this service already. For £10/month you get unlimited access to their song library - so long as you don't mind the Windows Media DRM and total lack of support for non-Windows platforms. So Apple shouldn't have too much difficulty in their negotiations, since Napster has already paved the way. It'll be the same service, plus support for Macs and iPods. This is hardly a revolutionary new idea.
With this kind of service, DRM is a big turnoff. But I am not sure how this service could possibly be offered without DRM. The need for a special client program is also a turnoff: why not just provide the catalogue on a website and rely on the media player for DRM authentication?
I think your perspective on this matter is interesting, but I am not convinced that there is something special about information that means it can't be property. It is easy to copy, yes, but it is not easy to create, and I think that is why copyright law is justified. We must distinguish between the principles of copyright law and their actual implementation, which is flawed in many ways.
Abolishing copyright might lead to a better world, but I am unconvinced. I think it would be better to change the law to more accurately reflect reality. Historically, abolishing property rights has led to less freedom, not more, and I think it would be best to continue to allow everyone the choice between whether they want to give their work away (like BSD), use a permissive license (like the GPL), or sell for profit (like Microsoft). In this world, free software can (and does) replace commercial software, but nothing compels you to make one or the other.