As I have said, the problem is with Islam itself. Enough political correctness, please. Islam is a religion that exhorts its followers to violence.
*sigh* Fine, I have karma to burn, and I am feeling in a bad mood today.
You should get out more and meet more diverse people.
You should buy this book and meditate its teachings on the violent background of every religion.
Now, with the exception of radical Hinduism and unorthodox strains of pseudo-Christian religions, almost all modern religion outside of Islam considers peace to be a virtue.
Right. And you are full of it. Religion is all about gathering a group of people around a central figure. The easiest way to do this is to create "enemies of the faith". And the easiest way to create enemies is to focus on their (alleged) sexual behaviour. Read this book and that book for more information on this. The bottom line is this: group dynamics and religious propaganda will always drag people toward violence , especially if religion -- or some form of religious belief -- is there to de-humanize the so-called "enemies". By the time individuals realize this, it's a full-scale religious war and it's to late to change course.
When you have created nice enemies, violence will always be a consequence. Does not matter which religion you are following, including Buddhism. Jainism or Zoroastrianism may be exceptions, but this is mainly due to the fact they have both been extremely small minorities for centuries now, even millenias in the case of Zoroastrianism.
And just as a warning to those who want to cite a few violent verses in the Bible to me as "proof" that Judaism and Christianity are as bad as Islam, I can cite just as many direct commands from God that override any "general" interpretation of those.
This is so dumb it's not even funny. First of all, I can probably quote more scriptures from the Bible (that great big piece of religious shit) than you. Second, when will you realize that human beings focus on the violence, and not on peace?
For every "Love thy neighbour" there is a "Kill all your enemies, and do not spare women and children". We could go tit-for-tat like this for centuries, and people have been doing exactly this all over the Internet. Interpretation of absurd commands and nit-picking regulations is what most religions are all about. And interpretation always responds first of all to bloodthirst. And we are bloodthirsty animals, all of us.
There was a time when good Christians launched Crusades against Moslems -- whose civilization was, at the time, the most brilliant on Earth. Now Moslems are using terrorism against "Christians". History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun, yadda yadda yadda. I am sick of people like you who blame one religion for all the problems. Religion, in general, is the problem (and especially retarded religious people).
You know, I have seen the same kind of FUD ever since the days of the Apple ][. I mean, every single step of the way, some journalists have said, again and again and again, that Apple was finished and that it was going to disappear any day now.
When the IBM PC came out, Apple was finished.
When the Macintosh came out, Apple was finished.
When Windows 3.0 came out, Apple was finished.
When the Macintosh switched to PowerPC, Apple was finished.
When Windows 95 came out, Apple was finished.
When Windows NT came out, Apple was finished.
When the Macintosh switched to G3 (and G4, and G5), Apple was finished.
Etc... etc... Etc... Same thing with the PowerBook, the Cube, the switch to Intel, ad nauseam. I wish these people could stop writing that FUD, already! Apple will disappear when it will disappear, in the meantime, its financial position looks excellent.
I personally think Macintosh, and Ipods, and Mac OS X are very sexy beasts. They are much too expensive for my taste, they run expensive proprietary software, and everything Apple does is way too costly for me, but Gosh, aren't they sexy.
The fact is, Apple has survived. Every single "Apple is dying" has been proved wrong time and time again. They have top-notch engineers and designers and they will keep on making great products for the time being. Sure, the last WWDC may have been unexciting, but guess what? Even great companies won't release great (hardware) products every six or eight months. These things take time.
And dissing Steve Jobs for looking thin is simply disgusting. The guy recently survived cancer, for (bleep) sake! Give him a break: he is not going to look plump after chimio or whatever he had to do to overcome cancer! Sheeesh. Tech Journalists sound more and more like bottom feeder, these days.
Is open source difficult? Yes, if you are just an average user. No, if you are a system administrator-type of user and that you manage information system for a living.
If you are just an end-user, someone who uses computer to do something else (creative work, accounting, marketing, sales, whatever) and you don't know anything about computer, then yes, I guess Open Source is still too difficult for you... unless you have a sysadmin close at hand to (a) install your machine and (b) make sure it's updated regularly. Then, Open Source can be -- should be -- just as easy (if not easier) than Microsoft products. Open Source GUIs, such as XFCE, KDE or Gnome, once installed and configured properly, are just as easy and friendly as Windows. Of course, the ultimate in user-friendliness is Mac OS X, but that's another story.
Please note that the term "user" -- as used above -- is not negative at all in my mind: I can perfectly understand that your job has nothing to do with computers, and that you don't have the time, or the inclination, to learn more about computers. And no, I don't think there is such as thing as a "Power User". Either you know enough to manage your own machines, or you don't. People who know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to clean up the mess they have made, are users in my mind. Dangerous ones, but users nonetheless.
On the other hand, when it comes to system administrators, Open Source wins hands down. Things like Apache, vsftpd, NFS, CUPS, perl/python/shell scripting and, especially, OpenSSH make my life (and the lives of countless other people) so much easier than their Microsoft counterparts. Plus, they are a lot cheaper than all the Microsoft products, they are more reliable, easier to manage, upgrade, patch and install. Seriously, consider the following examples to upgrade a machine or an application:
Sure, to get to the stage that you actually can type these commands under OpenSSH and know what they do, you need to put in a lot of work. But the result is worth it. And, if you are a sysadmin worth his/her salary, you'll probably have a passion to learn that kind of things. Once learned, these commands result in less downtime, less cost, more customer satisfaction and a more efficient company. All in all, Windows, with its lack of security, Registry Database, its rather ugly GUI and its general flakiness is not good enough or "simple" enough when it comes to systems that must run 24/7 and support dozens, or even hundreds of users.
Linux, on the other hand, may not ready just yet for the desktop. But it will one day. Which is probably why there is an un-ending stream of FUD coming out of Redmond these days...
A great many educators are a bit shook up by this, and are stockpiling prior art all over the place
If they can prove in a court of law that there is prior art, I don't see what the fuss is all about. Whatever stupid patent the attacking company shows, it will be laughed out of court and will probably be declared null and void.
Of course, that's assuming the judge involved in this case still has functioning grey matter, which may be a bit too optmistic. Then again, SCO is in dire straits, so there is still hope...
One thing is certain though: this case proves, if that was still needed, that the US Patent Office does not have any grey matter left. I mean, another (fairly-obvious-sounding) patent that could be invalidated with prior art? How many of these exist out there "in the wild", to be used by rich b______s?
If you count open-source software companies (I have seen ActiveState and CodeWeavers, for instance), sure, it seems most of it is gathered in the USA and in Europe.
But take a look at, for instance, the map of the OpenBSD developers (at the bottom of the link): there are individuals working on OpenBSD all over the place.
Another case that I know well is Slackware: there are developers helping Patrick Volkerding all over the world, with strong clusters in Italy, Brazil, the UK and other countries. Mandriva is a French/Brazilian companies, with strong sales in the USA, and so on and so forth. And there are so many other projects out there that are definitely not US-centric.
So, again: count companies and Open Source seems to be based in Silicon Valley. Take a look at individual developers and the picture becomes a lot more international.
IrfanView to grab the entire screen and/or apply optional transforms to the captured image. This is optional, since AutoIT can probably send the "PrintScreen" command itself, and move the resulting file(s) into a capture directory.
Just set your DVD software to play frame-by-frame. The rest is taken care of by the automated script. Sure, it may take a couple of attempts, but once you have the formula down, ripping an entire DVD movie should not take more than 4x or 5x the normal duration of the movie. Just let your computer run all night and you can have a brand new DiVX in the morning.
Now, what I'd like to know is: how do you rip the soundtrack off those uber-protected DVD? Hook the DVD player to an MP3 recorder? Or do you use one of the software that pretends to be a valid sound card?
Microsoft has finally realized it cannot fight against the Linux trend. Even if Linux is not ready for the desktop -- which is debatable -- free [beer|speech] software is now good enough to replace at least part of Windows and/or Office on the desktop.
Microsoft now openly acknowledges -- through this decision -- that they don't control the market, but that they are forced to bow to the pressure of their clients. This is pretty much unprecedented, as Microsoft, through FUD and VaporWare, used to control its clients, and not the other way around.
All in all, this is very good news for Open Source, and a chink in the mighty Microsoft FUD machine...
... Than the limited (though enormous) fines the EU was talking about the last time. Last I recall, the total fine was around 50 million dollars.
US$ 2.5M per day should be enough to get Microsoft full and undivided attention and, hopefully, make it play nice with other software suppliers. Or at least put on a better show of compliance.
Yes, I am rabidly anti-Microsoft... How could you tell?:-)
And one factor that should not be underestimated is that the U.S. Government has been willing -- and able -- to bankroll a lot of scientific projects for the past 50+ years. Think about it:
The Manhattan Project: start of nuclear energy. Immediate military applications, of course.
The ENIAC, first electronic computer: first model bought by the U.S. Census Bureau, second model bought by the N.S.A.
The Apollo program: biggest space-race project of all times, with benefits too numerous to list here, from electronics to materials to aerospace engineering (including military applications, of course).
The Internet: bankrolled by DARPA, then by the NSF, both US Governement agencies.
Nano-technology, the Genome Project, etc... etc...
Don't forget that, for many years, the USA have been at the forefront of technology and science because the US Governement -- meaning you, Happy American Tax-Payers! -- has been very happy to sign big, fat juicy checks to US corporations, US Universities, US Think Tanks, etc. Also, the US Governement was able to do this because, right after the end of WWII, the USA were one of the very rare country in the world with industries left intact and a lot of natural resources.
Now that the US Governement is pretty much anti-science, and that the US debt is soaring to ever more dangerous summits, I am not so sure the USA can maintain their advance on the rest of the world. But we'll see.
Check out your local Linux/BSD/UNIX user group: google is your friend for this. For instance, NYCBUG is very good if you live in New York City. Also Linux International has got a lot of conference-related announcements.
Pick a Linux distribution, any Linux distribution really, and try to find forums and User's group in your area. Then, do the same for another distro. And another. Lather, rinse, repeat.
...but, with all due respect, when organizations as diverse as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, moveon.org, the NRA, the Christian Coaliation and the EFF all actually agree on Net Neutrality, you must be barking up the wrong tree.
Sure, laws on this subject need to very carefully crafted to avoid unintended consequences. And the American Lawmakers have a long record of messing up in that respect. But I believe -- with all the above-mentioned organizations, that Net Neutrality has to be respected.
... As soon as they read this, thousands of CIOs, PHBs, and Microsoftie system administrators realize Linux IS ready for the desktop, and introduce large-scale plans to switch all their users to ______________ [insert favourite distribution here], stat.
Panic seizes Wall Street, Microsoft stock dives, NASDAQ tanks, Bill Gates become the 100th richest man in the world, and Congress introduces law designed to protect "American innovation and competitiveness against the evil, communist, terrorist-sponsored opensource software".
Ask yourselves this, how much is going to cost ISPs to administer this monstrosity? Suppose Google's homepage has to traverse 5 networks to go to my PC. How is Google's fee going to be split across these networks? That sounds like a big fucking pain in the arse to me.
Actually, connecting to Google is usually easier than this, thanks to points of peering and the like. From where I am, Google is just 10 hops away, and most of these take place between my ISP and a subsidiary. The last two hops are a direct gateway to google, and the Google server itself. OK, maybe I am just in a minority here.
So, managing the costs could be a lot easier. What I'd like to see is how big ISPs are going to explain this to their customers: if google home page takes 2 minutes to load on a high-speed DSL link, a lot of people -- even non-geeks -- will start howling. If Yahoo AND Google take a long time, everyone will start researching Net Neutrality, and will demand it from their ISPs. Large companies such as Verizon and AT&T could shoot themselves in the foot with this, and find out -- the hard way -- that this was a bad idea, when they see thousands of people leave them for competitors.
I have said this before, and I'll say it again: a true "net neutral", user friendly ISP could be a very good business model for the future, if big telcos feel like enforcing this stupidity. What I'd like to see is a joint-venture between, let's say, Google, Yahoo, Amazon and other big 'net names to create that sort of company. They certainly have the money, the motivation and the technical skills to make this a roaring success. Plus, Google has bought dark fiber, and they all have experience in managing huge networks and technical infrastructure.
This being said, the rest of your example is spot-on: flat rate postal service is a good way to explain this nonsense to non-technical people.
I mean what "commercially available network-analysis product" breaks encryption?
Except, of course, that breaking encryption is the Holy Grail of Signal Intelligence. Sometimes, Traffic Analysis -- which is exactly what the NSA is doing here acording to the Wired article -- is just as interesting, and a lot easier to do.
Knowing that person A is talking to person B, and that the number of messages between the two is increasing, and where and when each message has been sent (not to mention what type of traffic is taking place) is also very informative. If you know A, a known terrorist, is exchanging a lot of messages with B, a PhD student in nuclear physics in a top-notch university, is enough to raise red flags all over the place, regardless of what kind of encryption is used to protect the messages themselves. Which is why NSA has illegally gone fishing in the first place.
For pete's sake people, if you have to show genuine emails, try at leat to sanitize them a little. Some of the 'ham' emails shown still have the full contact information, including the original email address. That's what I call dangerous!
If you don't believe me, go to the web site, and try classifying some emails... You'll see what I mean...
Go read the Puzzle Palace for an interesting history of the NSA. The NSA was always allowd to operate and spy in the USA. It is nothing new.
Actually, I read the Puzzle Palace, as well as "Body of Secrets", the follow-up book by James Bamford. Here is what this book says on the subject (page 440-441, 1st Edition, published in May 2001, if you have to know):
"Among the reforms to come out of the Church Committee investigation was the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [...] In order for NSA to target an American citizen or permanent resident alien -- a green card holder -- within the United States, a secret warrant must be obtained from the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] court. To get the warrant, the NSA officials must show that the person they wish to target is either an agent of a foreign power or involved in espionage or terrorism. But because these issues fall under the jurisidction of the FBI within the United States the NSA seldom becomes involved. Thus, according to senior U.S. intelligence official involved in Sigint, NSA does not target Americans at home." (Emphasis mine).
Therefore, contrary to what you just posted, NSA is allowed to spy on American citizens, but only after getting a court warrant. The fact that the NSA is spying right now on American citizens -- without obtaining this warrant -- should be more than enough reason to impeach the current President of the United States, as well as prosecute USAF General Hayden, the former NSA Director who authorized this program, and who is now the new CIA director.
Actually Bin Laden came that close to being snuffed by the NSA, since they have tapes of him talking to his mother by sat-phone, while he was in Afghanistan and she was in Saudi Arabia. This is why Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan using long-range cruise missiles. They missed him, too, by a few minutes, unfortunately.
Of course, last I heard, he only used trusted human couriers to deliver messages. He may be a madman, but he is a smart madman. And most of these couriers were not American, but Pakistani and Saudi citizens, and they try to be as discreet -- and "un-islamist" as possible. So the NSA domestic spying program is definitely not useful against terrorists. But remember, kids, if we can't listen to your phone, the terrorists have won!
After all, it was an electric car that, for the first time, beat the 100 kilometer-per-hour speed record. And that was at a time (early 20th century) when cars were much heavier and bulkier than what is possible now.
Most people seem to have forgotten that, prior to WWI, and the improvement to the internal combustion engine, there was a lot of debate between which engine was the best. Internal combustion won, because it offered longer range, not necessarily better performances.
Yeah, damn those bastards trying to make a profit. Profit is such a waste. It serves no purpose. Everything would be better run if it were run by non-profit organizations, or corporations whose profits were taxed 100%.
The problem is not that they are making a profit: I have no problems with companies making a profit (even an indecent profit). The problem I have is when a large company like Verizon is (a) screwing customers to make even more profit and (b) creating a two-speed Internet to extort money out of both their customers and other companies.
And yes, we are talking about extortion here, which is not a normal modus operandi by any measure. Except for the Mob, but that's another story.
Well, goodbye Internet, we hardly knew you. It's been a long, strange and wonderful ride.
I guess we can always all go back to Fidonet, using 33.6bps modems. Fortunately, the necessary software can be installed on Linux.
Unfortunately, I am not entirely joking. It's either Fidonet, or creating a some sort of cooperative (not-for-profit) ISP, based in part on WiFi technology.
Seriously, though, I am all for science and genetic engineering and all that, but this is simply crazy. We are talking about a world where some people hate other's guts, simply because their skin color is not the same as theirs, where wackos cut other's throats simply because they are not worshipping the same deity*... And you want to release genetically re-engineered humans into society? Sheesh. Talk about premature.
(*) Even though 99.9999% of all gods are about as real as the Easter Bunny.
On the other hand, I think email is not admissible as 'proof' in a court of law, since it is too easy to forge and email and/or muck up the sender information. So, even if an email includes a clever sig and/or statement to the effect that it is a binding contract between the sender and the recipient, it is highly possible it would be thrown out of court, as it does not constitute admissible evidence.
At least, I am almost certain that's the case in my area... Napoleonic code and all that. YMMV, IANAL, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
*sigh* Fine, I have karma to burn, and I am feeling in a bad mood today.
Right. And you are full of it. Religion is all about gathering a group of people around a central figure. The easiest way to do this is to create "enemies of the faith". And the easiest way to create enemies is to focus on their (alleged) sexual behaviour. Read this book and that book for more information on this. The bottom line is this: group dynamics and religious propaganda will always drag people toward violence , especially if religion -- or some form of religious belief -- is there to de-humanize the so-called "enemies". By the time individuals realize this, it's a full-scale religious war and it's to late to change course.
When you have created nice enemies, violence will always be a consequence. Does not matter which religion you are following, including Buddhism. Jainism or Zoroastrianism may be exceptions, but this is mainly due to the fact they have both been extremely small minorities for centuries now, even millenias in the case of Zoroastrianism.
This is so dumb it's not even funny. First of all, I can probably quote more scriptures from the Bible (that great big piece of religious shit) than you. Second, when will you realize that human beings focus on the violence, and not on peace?
For every "Love thy neighbour" there is a "Kill all your enemies, and do not spare women and children". We could go tit-for-tat like this for centuries, and people have been doing exactly this all over the Internet. Interpretation of absurd commands and nit-picking regulations is what most religions are all about. And interpretation always responds first of all to bloodthirst. And we are bloodthirsty animals, all of us.
There was a time when good Christians launched Crusades against Moslems -- whose civilization was, at the time, the most brilliant on Earth. Now Moslems are using terrorism against "Christians". History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun, yadda yadda yadda. I am sick of people like you who blame one religion for all the problems. Religion, in general, is the problem (and especially retarded religious people).
Etc... etc... Etc... Same thing with the PowerBook, the Cube, the switch to Intel, ad nauseam. I wish these people could stop writing that FUD, already! Apple will disappear when it will disappear, in the meantime, its financial position looks excellent.
I personally think Macintosh, and Ipods, and Mac OS X are very sexy beasts. They are much too expensive for my taste, they run expensive proprietary software, and everything Apple does is way too costly for me, but Gosh, aren't they sexy.
The fact is, Apple has survived. Every single "Apple is dying" has been proved wrong time and time again. They have top-notch engineers and designers and they will keep on making great products for the time being. Sure, the last WWDC may have been unexciting, but guess what? Even great companies won't release great (hardware) products every six or eight months. These things take time.
And dissing Steve Jobs for looking thin is simply disgusting. The guy recently survived cancer, for (bleep) sake! Give him a break: he is not going to look plump after chimio or whatever he had to do to overcome cancer! Sheeesh. Tech Journalists sound more and more like bottom feeder, these days.
Is open source difficult? Yes, if you are just an average user. No, if you are a system administrator-type of user and that you manage information system for a living.
If you are just an end-user, someone who uses computer to do something else (creative work, accounting, marketing, sales, whatever) and you don't know anything about computer, then yes, I guess Open Source is still too difficult for you... unless you have a sysadmin close at hand to (a) install your machine and (b) make sure it's updated regularly. Then, Open Source can be -- should be -- just as easy (if not easier) than Microsoft products. Open Source GUIs, such as XFCE, KDE or Gnome, once installed and configured properly, are just as easy and friendly as Windows. Of course, the ultimate in user-friendliness is Mac OS X, but that's another story.
Please note that the term "user" -- as used above -- is not negative at all in my mind: I can perfectly understand that your job has nothing to do with computers, and that you don't have the time, or the inclination, to learn more about computers. And no, I don't think there is such as thing as a "Power User". Either you know enough to manage your own machines, or you don't. People who know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to clean up the mess they have made, are users in my mind. Dangerous ones, but users nonetheless.
On the other hand, when it comes to system administrators, Open Source wins hands down. Things like Apache, vsftpd, NFS, CUPS, perl/python/shell scripting and, especially, OpenSSH make my life (and the lives of countless other people) so much easier than their Microsoft counterparts. Plus, they are a lot cheaper than all the Microsoft products, they are more reliable, easier to manage, upgrade, patch and install. Seriously, consider the following examples to upgrade a machine or an application:
Sure, to get to the stage that you actually can type these commands under OpenSSH and know what they do, you need to put in a lot of work. But the result is worth it. And, if you are a sysadmin worth his/her salary, you'll probably have a passion to learn that kind of things. Once learned, these commands result in less downtime, less cost, more customer satisfaction and a more efficient company. All in all, Windows, with its lack of security, Registry Database, its rather ugly GUI and its general flakiness is not good enough or "simple" enough when it comes to systems that must run 24/7 and support dozens, or even hundreds of users.
Linux, on the other hand, may not ready just yet for the desktop. But it will one day. Which is probably why there is an un-ending stream of FUD coming out of Redmond these days...
If they can prove in a court of law that there is prior art, I don't see what the fuss is all about. Whatever stupid patent the attacking company shows, it will be laughed out of court and will probably be declared null and void.
Of course, that's assuming the judge involved in this case still has functioning grey matter, which may be a bit too optmistic. Then again, SCO is in dire straits, so there is still hope...
One thing is certain though: this case proves, if that was still needed, that the US Patent Office does not have any grey matter left. I mean, another (fairly-obvious-sounding) patent that could be invalidated with prior art? How many of these exist out there "in the wild", to be used by rich b______s?
You are just 70 years behind Europe. What took you so long?
(Moderators: this is called black humor).
... is that the map is about open source vendors .
If you count open-source software companies (I have seen ActiveState and CodeWeavers, for instance), sure, it seems most of it is gathered in the USA and in Europe.
But take a look at, for instance, the map of the OpenBSD developers (at the bottom of the link): there are individuals working on OpenBSD all over the place.
Another case that I know well is Slackware: there are developers helping Patrick Volkerding all over the world, with strong clusters in Italy, Brazil, the UK and other countries. Mandriva is a French/Brazilian companies, with strong sales in the USA, and so on and so forth. And there are so many other projects out there that are definitely not US-centric.
So, again: count companies and Open Source seems to be based in Silicon Valley. Take a look at individual developers and the picture becomes a lot more international.
Just set your DVD software to play frame-by-frame. The rest is taken care of by the automated script. Sure, it may take a couple of attempts, but once you have the formula down, ripping an entire DVD movie should not take more than 4x or 5x the normal duration of the movie. Just let your computer run all night and you can have a brand new DiVX in the morning.
Now, what I'd like to know is: how do you rip the soundtrack off those uber-protected DVD? Hook the DVD player to an MP3 recorder? Or do you use one of the software that pretends to be a valid sound card?
All in all, this is very good news for Open Source, and a chink in the mighty Microsoft FUD machine...
... Than the limited (though enormous) fines the EU was talking about the last time. Last I recall, the total fine was around 50 million dollars.
:-)
US$ 2.5M per day should be enough to get Microsoft full and undivided attention and, hopefully, make it play nice with other software suppliers. Or at least put on a better show of compliance.
Yes, I am rabidly anti-Microsoft... How could you tell?
Don't forget that, for many years, the USA have been at the forefront of technology and science because the US Governement -- meaning you, Happy American Tax-Payers! -- has been very happy to sign big, fat juicy checks to US corporations, US Universities, US Think Tanks, etc. Also, the US Governement was able to do this because, right after the end of WWII, the USA were one of the very rare country in the world with industries left intact and a lot of natural resources.
Now that the US Governement is pretty much anti-science, and that the US debt is soaring to ever more dangerous summits, I am not so sure the USA can maintain their advance on the rest of the world. But we'll see.
But, in everything you do, just remember: Google is your friend.
...but, with all due respect, when organizations as diverse as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, moveon.org, the NRA, the Christian Coaliation and the EFF all actually agree on Net Neutrality, you must be barking up the wrong tree.
Sure, laws on this subject need to very carefully crafted to avoid unintended consequences. And the American Lawmakers have a long record of messing up in that respect. But I believe -- with all the above-mentioned organizations, that Net Neutrality has to be respected.
... As soon as they read this, thousands of CIOs, PHBs, and Microsoftie system administrators realize Linux IS ready for the desktop, and introduce large-scale plans to switch all their users to ______________ [insert favourite distribution here], stat.
:-)
Panic seizes Wall Street, Microsoft stock dives, NASDAQ tanks, Bill Gates become the 100th richest man in the world, and Congress introduces law designed to protect "American innovation and competitiveness against the evil, communist, terrorist-sponsored opensource software".
Hey, one can dream, right?
Ask yourselves this, how much is going to cost ISPs to administer this monstrosity? Suppose Google's homepage has to traverse 5 networks to go to my PC. How is Google's fee going to be split across these networks? That sounds like a big fucking pain in the arse to me.
Actually, connecting to Google is usually easier than this, thanks to points of peering and the like. From where I am, Google is just 10 hops away, and most of these take place between my ISP and a subsidiary. The last two hops are a direct gateway to google, and the Google server itself. OK, maybe I am just in a minority here.
So, managing the costs could be a lot easier. What I'd like to see is how big ISPs are going to explain this to their customers: if google home page takes 2 minutes to load on a high-speed DSL link, a lot of people -- even non-geeks -- will start howling. If Yahoo AND Google take a long time, everyone will start researching Net Neutrality, and will demand it from their ISPs. Large companies such as Verizon and AT&T could shoot themselves in the foot with this, and find out -- the hard way -- that this was a bad idea, when they see thousands of people leave them for competitors.
I have said this before, and I'll say it again: a true "net neutral", user friendly ISP could be a very good business model for the future, if big telcos feel like enforcing this stupidity. What I'd like to see is a joint-venture between, let's say, Google, Yahoo, Amazon and other big 'net names to create that sort of company. They certainly have the money, the motivation and the technical skills to make this a roaring success. Plus, Google has bought dark fiber, and they all have experience in managing huge networks and technical infrastructure.
This being said, the rest of your example is spot-on: flat rate postal service is a good way to explain this nonsense to non-technical people.
I mean what "commercially available network-analysis product" breaks encryption?
Except, of course, that breaking encryption is the Holy Grail of Signal Intelligence. Sometimes, Traffic Analysis -- which is exactly what the NSA is doing here acording to the Wired article -- is just as interesting, and a lot easier to do.
Knowing that person A is talking to person B, and that the number of messages between the two is increasing, and where and when each message has been sent (not to mention what type of traffic is taking place) is also very informative. If you know A, a known terrorist, is exchanging a lot of messages with B, a PhD student in nuclear physics in a top-notch university, is enough to raise red flags all over the place, regardless of what kind of encryption is used to protect the messages themselves. Which is why NSA has illegally gone fishing in the first place.
I feel a great disturbance in the Force... As if a millions Slashdot posters all cried out in anguish...
For pete's sake people, if you have to show genuine emails, try at leat to sanitize them a little. Some of the 'ham' emails shown still have the full contact information, including the original email address. That's what I call dangerous!
If you don't believe me, go to the web site, and try classifying some emails... You'll see what I mean...
Go read the Puzzle Palace for an interesting history of the NSA. The NSA was always allowd to operate and spy in the USA. It is nothing new.
Actually, I read the Puzzle Palace, as well as "Body of Secrets", the follow-up book by James Bamford. Here is what this book says on the subject (page 440-441, 1st Edition, published in May 2001, if you have to know):
"Among the reforms to come out of the Church Committee investigation was the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [...] In order for NSA to target an American citizen or permanent resident alien -- a green card holder -- within the United States, a secret warrant must be obtained from the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] court. To get the warrant, the NSA officials must show that the person they wish to target is either an agent of a foreign power or involved in espionage or terrorism. But because these issues fall under the jurisidction of the FBI within the United States the NSA seldom becomes involved. Thus, according to senior U.S. intelligence official involved in Sigint, NSA does not target Americans at home." (Emphasis mine).
Therefore, contrary to what you just posted, NSA is allowed to spy on American citizens, but only after getting a court warrant. The fact that the NSA is spying right now on American citizens -- without obtaining this warrant -- should be more than enough reason to impeach the current President of the United States, as well as prosecute USAF General Hayden, the former NSA Director who authorized this program, and who is now the new CIA director.
Somehow, I don't think this is going to happen.
Thank goodness the UK isn't planning anything like that.
One (TLA) word for you: GCHQ.
Think NSA without the silly "no-domestic-spying" rule.
Have a nice day.
Actually Bin Laden came that close to being snuffed by the NSA, since they have tapes of him talking to his mother by sat-phone, while he was in Afghanistan and she was in Saudi Arabia. This is why Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan using long-range cruise missiles. They missed him, too, by a few minutes, unfortunately.
Of course, last I heard, he only used trusted human couriers to deliver messages. He may be a madman, but he is a smart madman. And most of these couriers were not American, but Pakistani and Saudi citizens, and they try to be as discreet -- and "un-islamist" as possible. So the NSA domestic spying program is definitely not useful against terrorists. But remember, kids, if we can't listen to your phone, the terrorists have won!
After all, it was an electric car that, for the first time, beat the 100 kilometer-per-hour speed record. And that was at a time (early 20th century) when cars were much heavier and bulkier than what is possible now.
Most people seem to have forgotten that, prior to WWI, and the improvement to the internal combustion engine, there was a lot of debate between which engine was the best. Internal combustion won, because it offered longer range, not necessarily better performances.
Yeah, damn those bastards trying to make a profit. Profit is such a waste. It serves no purpose. Everything would be better run if it were run by non-profit organizations, or corporations whose profits were taxed 100%.
The problem is not that they are making a profit: I have no problems with companies making a profit (even an indecent profit). The problem I have is when a large company like Verizon is (a) screwing customers to make even more profit and (b) creating a two-speed Internet to extort money out of both their customers and other companies.
And yes, we are talking about extortion here, which is not a normal modus operandi by any measure. Except for the Mob, but that's another story.
Well, goodbye Internet, we hardly knew you. It's been a long, strange and wonderful ride.
I guess we can always all go back to Fidonet, using 33.6bps modems. Fortunately, the necessary software can be installed on Linux.
Unfortunately, I am not entirely joking. It's either Fidonet, or creating a some sort of cooperative (not-for-profit) ISP, based in part on WiFi technology.
Wait until the religious nuts learn of this one!
Seriously, though, I am all for science and genetic engineering and all that, but this is simply crazy. We are talking about a world where some people hate other's guts, simply because their skin color is not the same as theirs, where wackos cut other's throats simply because they are not worshipping the same deity*... And you want to release genetically re-engineered humans into society? Sheesh. Talk about premature.
(*) Even though 99.9999% of all gods are about as real as the Easter Bunny.
On the other hand, I think email is not admissible as 'proof' in a court of law, since it is too easy to forge and email and/or muck up the sender information. So, even if an email includes a clever sig and/or statement to the effect that it is a binding contract between the sender and the recipient, it is highly possible it would be thrown out of court, as it does not constitute admissible evidence.
At least, I am almost certain that's the case in my area... Napoleonic code and all that. YMMV, IANAL, etc...