We're at least still somewhat on-topic, and this is certainly an interesting conversation.
That's not correct. The analogy is not exact, but that's approximately the way GPS works.
Well, actually, if you look at what I said, it is correct. You're not going to get range from the phase. GPS works (horribly over-simplified here, obviously) with each satellite in the constellation saying "I am here now" and the receiver being able to work out the trig based on the time and location for each bird it's watching.
It's just like focusing in the optical domain- you can focus a phased array a fixed distance away, rather than at infinity.
Yes, you can - at least with some phased arrays (for example the LoJack array I mentioned earlier is a phased array that would be steerable, but not focusable - sort of. You're really just rotating the lobes and nulls of your antenna's pattern). Though the device shown wasn't a phased array, but a reflector that replaced some of the usually metallic elements with the plasma tubes.
You seem to be thinking that the phased array can only focus at infinity, but that is not in fact the case, and focusing it at the appropriate distance gives more discrimination for the antenna.
I think we're getting at two separate points. Phase descrimination will give you a line of position on the source. Array focus could then be used to bring in the strongest signal and from there extrapolate the range. Much like an inexpensive optical range-finder, or even the focusing ring on a decent film camera.
Note please that you're focusing on signal strength, not phase. Two separate componants. Computationally, it should be marginally more efficient - and more accurate - to use separate arrays a fixed distance apart instead of running focusing calculations.
Going back to the original topic, it's unclear whether this would be 'secure'- it's theoretically possible to arrange for the signals that arrive at the antenna to have the same phase as an antenna that is close to the array but from further away, but it's a whole heap of hassle and unlikely to be practical in most cases.
It's quite clear it wouldn't be secure. Unencrypted wireless is insecure. You're using an insecure medium, and without encryption people will be able to eavesdrop on the "conversation." Optical frequency (Laser mostly) are considerably more secure, and even they suffer from backscatter problems.
As for the phase, I'm not sure I follow where you're going. Antenna's, in of themselves, don't have phase. Antennas are resonators. Signals have phase. Antennas have polarity, resonant frequency(ies), gain, etc., but not phase.
I think you're referring to having several signals coming in together and either amplifying or cancelling each other out. With harmonics like that there will be locations that are "in phase" and thus have a strong signal, and places that will be "out of phase" and have virtually none. I believe that's what you mean there. If I understand you correctly, you're certainly right in that it's more hassle than it's worth.
I guess the bottom line is if you want security, forget wireless. If you absolutely MUST have wireless, use encryption, because you're not going to get it just from a nifty antenna.
You still seem to be missing the point- this system is electronically steerable. Sure there are other ways to do that with switchable antennas, or physical steering, but this is another way.
No, no. I got the point. You're missing mine - that an electronically steerable plasma grating is more exotic than a conventional antenna array.
Didn't say it wasn't cool or wouldn't work. I said it's hungry in both computing power and energy consumption, and simpler solutions exist.
It's cool, but it's not especially useful for WiFi. Remember that the original thread was how this new technology would improve security on wireless networks? It's not particularly useful for that.
Inside a building you can used fixed antennas to limit your coverage to specific areas - so don't need the steerable aspect. Outside, or in large areas inside, the steerable aspect is good, but relying on signal coverage for security is a Bad Thing (tm).
For security, encryption is the only real solution.
For improving bandwidth at a hotspot or something by using steerable antennas, you still have the problem of multiple users in the same space. It's not something this technology is going to work around.
It certainly can do; when the antenna subtends a large angle to the client; the point is that the phase at the elements of the antenna is not uniform across the antenna for the relatively small distances typically seen in WiFi.
That gives you a bearing, yes. The larger the aperature of your array, the more accurate your bearing will be. Unless your array is large enough (and has enough elements) to get multiple relative bearings on the same source, you're not going to get a range simply from the signal's phase. If I have two or more arrays a known distance apart (they could be parts of the same suitably large array) I can triangulate on a signal. Without the seperation, I'm not going to get it.
Measuring the phase difference give you the difference in time between the signal hitting Element A and Element B. That gives you a line of position (though not which way along that line!) on the source of the signal. Extra elements give you more points of compareson and tell you which direction along the line the your source lays.
Yes, but with normal phased array, you need other switcheable electronics to introduce phase delays on the signal which you don't need here; they may well be expensive, and will consume power as well. I expect you are correct that the plasma solution is more power hungry, although I'd need to check. But in any case I'm quite unclear that power is a bottleneck for this application in most circumstances. I mean, a PC is taking 300 watts, and laptops are perhaps 60 watts; unless you are talking kilowatts, it probably goes in the 'who cares' category.
A phased array is not a particularly complex device. In fact, it's something you can make from a wiring diagram and a handful of parts from the local Radio Shack. I can almost guarantee the electronics to control plasma generators at GHz frequencies are vastly more complex and expensive than what goes into a simple Phased Array.
And the point with power consumption isn't the absolute magnitude, but the relative magnitude. Even if it's only another 10 watts, it's power and heat wasted.
As a side note on "Who cares" with the power consumption, I've read somewhere that all those VCR clocks blinking 12:00 in the US consume more power than the total consumed by several African nations.
I'm sure there are some valid, and very cool, applications for this technology. The developers website lists several, including military radars and communication systems. WiFi seems to be an afterthought. It's a possible application for this technology, but not an especially good one.
If you think about it, the wavefront from the trasnmitter has to hit the different parts of the antenna at the 'right' time- it's critically phase dependent- the wavelength of 2.5Ghz is about 15cm, so you can measure the distance to within a fraction of that.
Yes, sort of, that's how we can use a phased array to get a line of position. We have several physical antennas in an array and can calculate the direction of an incomming signal based on the phase difference between the antennas. You can see an example of this on any police car equipped with a LoJack receiver - an array of five antennas on the roof. One central, then four in a square around it. This is not done with a single antenna though, or between the "front and back" of a single antenna - but between different antennas in an array. There's a difference.
This technique does not give a range. Only a direction. We can calculate a range either by calculating signal strength or by drawing multiple lines of position. The former works only if we have a good idea of the signal strength at the source, and the latter works only if our base station is moving and the portable is stationary. I suppose we could get some sort of pulse ranging using ping times or something, but the accuracy would be abysimal. We could get relative range based on signal strength and LOP for a moving portable, but not an absolute range.
You're right in that a larger array will give you more accuracy - but only in so much as your determining a line of position. Now, given two (or more) base stations you could triangulate.
Not really. The radio power is limited by the FCC, but the base station power isn't. I mean, flourescents aren't particularly thirsty- and you only need a very small flourescent for this kind of thing.
My point is that your base station will have to consume X power for the RF section, and Y power for the processing section regardless of antenna type. A plasma antenna will add Z power to drive the plasma generator which strikes me as being considerably more power hungry than the X+Y power of existing base stations.
The flourescent light doesn't burn much. But flourescent + AP is still more than AP alone.
That's much more complex, notionally, it requires microwave frequency digital signal processing; the reflector system lets the antenna act as a spatial directional filter without any further processing.
Um, no. Sorry. You're going to spend as much computational power steering your virtual antenna as you will calculating phase angles between fixed antennas - which, incidently, is what you're talking about at the start of this.
The antenna pictured isn't a phased array. It appears to be a simple reflector made out of plasma filled glass tubes rather than a metal mesh. From the article, it appears they control the plasma in the tubes to change the characteristics of the reflector - which is going to take processing power.
It's certainly more complex than a phased array direction finder.
It's a reflective diffraction grating you can change on the fly. It de/reflects the signal back into a detector. It's not particularly exotic.
It's decidedly more exotic than the 18 element Yagi I've used for 2.4 gig work, or the 5 element phased array I've used fox hunting.
Not rocket science, maybe. But not the Marine Corps intelligence test either.
No, because the portable devices effectively have huge big directional virtual antennas pointed at them- so both send and receive are improved- only if the clients are very close together will there be problems.
If the clients are close enough to hear each other's signal there will be a problem. We won't even go into signal hetrodyning. The only place I can see this sort of beast having a real advantage is in some kind of out door setting where you could steer your signals onto multiple dispersed clients. In a case like that, a couple of conventional direct
Well, I think it's a bit better than that- a base station with this technology can probably work out the distance as well as the angle- the antenna forms a spatially distributed antenna and hence can measure the phase and intensity and show where the user is.
Base stations would be the logical place to use these things, yes, but how is it going to work out the range? You can get a line of position from your phased array, but that alone won't give you a range. You could, I suppose, ballpark it from relative signal strength - based on the FCC's maximum x Microvolts at y Range - but that's only a ballpark estimate and won't be able to compensate (without either manual intervention or more expensive componentry) for a directional antenna on the other end. Even a few dB of gain on the portable would throw the calculation off.
It's not a problem for a base station though- and that's where I see this technology going.
But it is still a problem. You still have an increased power requirement. Looking back at the article, it would appear the working gas is contained - so the fuel requirement isn't there, but you still need to ionize it. Without detail I can't confirm it, but I suspect there's considerably more power going into ionizing the "antenna" than is going into radiating signal. That's just wasteful.
As for the shielding, I was referring to the need to shield the plasma itself - the glass tube of a flourescent bulb, if you will. Chances are my plasma tube will actually be larger than a wire antenna.
The main advantage of this system is that the highly directional antenna can actually permit two users to use the same bands without interference (since they are distinguished by their location, the base stations would be relatively deaf to any users not associated with them)- this greatly multiplies up the bandwidth of a WIFI network.
Yes and no. First, we can get the same effect with a physical antenna array. It doesn't require an exotic plasma antenna (which still looks like a reflector to me from the pics, not a radiator) to tell which direction your users lay. And you'll only realize a bandwidth advantage if the remote signals don't interfear with each other - which would requre them to also be highly directional, which brings us back to trying to get these things working on a portable device.
Also remember you're limited by the processing power of the base station itself, and the inherent limitations of available bandwidth on any given freq.
It certainly seems like a cool technology, but I'm not sure how it would apply to WiFi - or even Ham for that matter. Yes, a tight beam antenna will provide some slight level of added security (while not substituting for encryption) there is the issue of power requirement - you need to create that plasma - fuel requirement - the gas you're ionizing - and the shielding requirements. The first one is a killer for portable devices (the usual application for this technology - if you're running a desktop, wires are dramatically more secure), while the second two add size and weight to the device. Both Bad Things (tm) for a portable device.
For an amature radio application, I'm not sure where it was frequency agile. Being able to alter the pattern and available bandwidth don't mean it's also changing it's resonant length - which is what we're usually concerned with when setting up a multi-band antenna. 1/4 wavelength at 20M is still a 5M antenna. Plasma or not, it's gonna be fairly big.
From the pictures in the article, it looked like they were using the plasma to replace the reflector in a conventional antenna, rather than using it as the driven element. That's something the military would probably love (stealthy antennas) but that wouldn't have much practical use for WiFi.
I can't remember the specific issue, but there was an article in Car and Driver some time in the last year or two where a guy built a monowheel (actually a series of them) where the driver and motor set -inside- the diameter of the wheel. I seem to remember all of them had the motor ahead of the driver, and the whole thing running on some kind of big bearing structure. He sold them in kit form for about $8000 as I remember.
The killer was the Monster version that had one of those tiny Buick V8's driving it. From what I remember of the article, he bailed it at something like 50 once...
There have been a LOT of these things built over the years. Check out:
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/ mo torwhl/motorwhl.htm
Now, as for this specific machine . . . I'm not sure I want my ass hanging out in FRONT of the rest of my vehicle like that. A motorcycle is bad enough with only a little overhang between you and the rest of the world. This thing just seems suicidal...
I agree with you for most of it. He did seem to shoot relatively straight, and I give the MPAA folks a lot more credibility than the RIAA will ever have again. But I disagree on one point here.
"If you don't have permission to watch a copyrighted work, then it's not ok to make digital copies to circumvent the encryption and watch that work. You'll have to find a legal and authorized means to view the content"
While I agree with your statement, the fact of the matter is that if I buy or rent a DVD, I have permission to view the content. That's what the license on the media states. I won't try and quote it from memory, but it's essentially "You own the media, and we own the content. By buying the media, we give you a license to watch it at home."
Since I do have permission, the rest of the argument doesn't follow. The license doesn't specify what specific technologies I MUST use. Further, it's a logical argument that using something like DeCSS isn't illegal circumvention since I am using the "tool" to exercise rights the media owner has already granted me.
We're not talking about illegal sharing here. Just the right to use what I've paid for.
Oh, and to follow onto someone's comment about "GM making it illegal to use Fram oil filters in their cars" there are specific laws that FORBID just that sort of thing. I wonder why no one's tried to apply them here...
I'm guessing you meant the G you feel at the -bottom- of the drop, which depends on the coaster, but I seem to remember is limited to under 2.5G for safety reasons. (I'm sure a coaster fan can confirm or correct this)
When you drop off the top, you get to accelerate at a little less than 1G (freefall minus any drag in the coaster), which, coincidentally, is about what it takes to make it to 60 MPH (~27M/sec) in 3 seconds.
So, in that regard you're more or less right.
Of course, the sad thing is that a decent sport bike can still beat it to 60, and some of them can give it a run for its money up to about 200.
You're describing an open circuit, where he's describing a closed circuit. They are both classified as "cooling towers" since it's the "tower" part (either as a simple evaporative cooling stack, or as a liquid to liquid heat exchanger) that makes them "cooling towers." The pillars of steam you see coming off the cooling towers at power plants are (usually) cooling water evaporating off the tower/heat exchanger. Your working fluid is enclosed in pipes in the tower, and cooling water flows over the outer surface of the exchanger cooling it.
You're both right?
Here's a link to the cooling technology institute.
Now, on a side note, Rolls Royce (or possibly Napier - memory is a little fuzzy here) experimented with evaporative cooling on some of their aero engines back int he 30's and early 40's. They let the coolant boil off in the block, and had large condensers out in the wings to return it to liquid and run it back through the engine. I could see a similar system working in this application, but there'd be some obvious problems with closing the circuit, etc.
Now, from a fire fighting perspective, this stuff seems like a godsend. Sprinklers cause water damage. Halon causes ozone damage. This stuff seems to kill both birds with the same stone.
I agree, the author of this article seems to think that D&D rulesets were invented overnight on a whim by a bunch of people with no clue, for the sole purpose of selling rulebooks.
Have you read some of the 1st and 2nd generation RPG rules? Not just D&D, but any of the plethora of games that came out in the early days. The "written over night, on a whim, with an eye to making money" is actually a pretty good description. Fortunately, most games from that generation are long forgotten.
I'm sure selling rulebooks is an important buiness issue, but creating a solid game experience comes in to that as well, and you sell more rulebooks by steadily refining and improving the rules, than by randomly changing stuff for the sake of changing it.
Selling rulebooks isn't as important as selling supplinments and resource books. In the Computer Game world, it's sometimes the same, where you buy "The Game" then shell out 2/3 as much for each expansion pack. Examples are numerous in both the Pencil and Paper and Computer worlds.
Probably the saddest example of it is the White Wolf "Storyteller" rulesets. All the WoD rules should be compatible, since they use the same basic rules, but each genra gets its own little tweaks that either make the game incompatible with the others, or require some gymnastics on the part of the players or GM.
Also the idea that people can handle complicated rules better than a computer seems a little bizzare too.
Computers can't make decisions like "You know, let's forget the Ancient's Vs Giant Arachnids table, and just use the Phases of the Moon for this fight, ok?" based on experience, game play, and what makes a good story. Machines can handle the math better, and keep track of what applies where and when, but RP isn't about numbers: It's about telling stories. Computers are really bad at making things up on the fly - which is sometimes vital to telling a good story.
Have you ever seen a CRPG where you could go "Screw it. I don't care about this city or these people. I'm the hell out of here!" In a live game, your GM can either bulldoze you back into the prepared story, OR they can, if they're good, adjust on the fly so everyone can have fun.
The original article, as far as I can tell, was pointing out the simple fact that what works well for a pencil and paper game (AD&D, D20, Hero, GURPS, Storyteller, etc.) may suck horribly as the bases for a CRPG.
I'm sorry, Citizen. You are not allowed to know that you are playing a game. Please report to the Computer for routing debriefing and clone incrementation.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
The computer is your friend.
(You know, I seem to remember someone doing a text adventure of Paranoia...)
The D&D systems/rulesets are always robust and mature, having been in the making for the better part of forty years. Furthermore, they always translate very well to any medium, be it paper and pencil or PC video game.
Come again? The D&D rules have, historically, had a large following but a lousy game mechanic. They ALWAYS had a lousy game mechanic, all the way back to the original Dungeons and Dragons and the "Three book set" that came before. D&D worked as a game system more because of the extensive source material and the huge number of pre-packaged modules than because it was actually any good. D20 is a little better than old versions, but it's still a Level and Hit Point based system - at least in it's AD&D incarnation.
I would say that it is a much better idea to use the tried-and-true D&D rulesets than to create your own on the fly. Heck, for starters, it saves you a huge amount of time.
Actually, since the programmers have to implement it, there are a number of considerably better and more versatile systems that would make a good base for a CRPG.
Considering that any CRPG that's run by the machine (rather than an active GM, as you could get in, say, NwN) lacks the dynamic "Rules Bender" called the Game Master (A good GM makes the STORY run the game, not the DICE. CRPG's don't know when to fudge a roll so the hero can survive, or kill a monster, or whatever is needed to tell a good story.) they're ALL going to basically suck.
Personally, the hypothetical "best" CRPG would allow GM interaction at whatever level was required. A fast and clean implementation. And a good way to make characters ballance within the rules. Any game that tries to port the inherently unbalanced AD&D rules over is going to have holes.
Interesting comment, and I suppose your "There's a propeller thing on the back that might be a generator" works just as well, but it takes as many words and makes you sound like you know, well, more than you seem to, actually.
What does "so it swims up and down to make it spin" mean, anyway?
And, to answer your specific question here: "What would be a large diameter generator on a never before seen prototype? And what does being on the center-middle-top have to do with it?"
A large diameter turbine, in this context, would be closer in diameter to the beam of the structure. Everything being relative, and all.
As for what being on the "center-middle-top" has to do with it, I'll go with the small words short description since you don't seem to like technical explanations.
It's on top so it will be further up in the current where the water flow is smoother. It's in the middle so the load it transfers to the structure is well supported, and it's less likely to tip over.
Happier?
Oh, and it would be Naval Architect or Marine Engineer, not Marine Physicist.
Sorry you didn't like the technical description, mate. Next time, use your mod points...
While they don't say so in the article, it would appear from the picture of the device that there is a medium diameter horizontal axis generator on the dorsal surface, and the six foils are going to generate the downforce required to anchor the device to the bottom.
This is just from looking at it, obviously not from the plans. One of the challenges they would face with any form of tidal or current energy device is how to keep the thing in place. With the foils, I can see issues with keeping it in position, but it does seem like that's what they're trying to do.
There's probably also a hard mooring to keep it from drifitng away at slack tide, which would also allow it to change facing when the tides change direction or the currant shitfs.
You seem not to have read me response to you. The constitution is a fine document, but you cited what, five amendments? Only one of which could possibly have applied (the 4th regarding unlawful search and siezure) without any reason for citing them.
ADVERTISING is NOT protected free speech. And the original post did not state (or even imply) seizing a spammer's assets just because they were -accused- of being a spammer. The assumption is that forfieture of assets is a viable penalty for someone convicted of spamming.
Check my posting history. You'll see I'm a pretty rabid supporter of the Constitution of the United States. But if you're going to let the spammers (or any other criminal for that matter) hide behind it, please make sure you know how it could apply.
You still haven't said how seizing the assets of a convicted spammer is unconstitutional - let alone how it violates _FIVE_ of the articles.
If you want to make a dent in spamming, just violate the first, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth amendments. Simple!
1st Amendment: Spam is not protected free speech. Commercial speech, which the vast majority of spam is, isn't covered here. We are talking about people who are selling you herbal viagra and the like. Unless you somehow want to include SPAM in a religious context?
4th Amendment: While I certainly don't support pressing the fourth amendment, the government has already set numerous precedents with the (failed) War on Drugs when it comes to seizing property. Ask any boat owner who lost their boat because one of the crew snuck a joint on board, and they got pegged with the Coastie's Zero Tolerance policy. Personally, I find drug dealers less offensive than spammers. People GO TO drug dealers for their product. Spammers force themselves into your in-box and around your filters.
Note that the government can say it's OK to seize spammer's assets - like they did with drug dealers, and the seizure then becomes lawful in any case.
5th Amendment: How are you applying it here? The 4th amendment covers search and siezure. The 5th would only apply if we assumed no process.
6th Amendment: Doesn't appear to apply here. The original comment about seizing spammer's
8th Amendment: Define "excessive" in this context? Is it somehow OK for a spamemr to send out 5 million bulk emails to people who didn't want them, using machiens that were compromised, on someone elses network? Would, say, ten cents per spam for bail be adequate?
I seem to remember the precept that "Illegally acquired" assets are forfiet. Since spam is, in many cases (and we would assume that we are not going after "legit" marketers here) illegal under one law or another, it's a safe bet that the spammer's assets would count as "illegaly acquired."
The constitution is a great document, and it's already suffering a lot of abuse at the hands of the (past, present and future) administration. But siezing a spammer's assets doesn't count as abusing the spammer's constitutional rights. It counts as letting the punishment fit the crime, and serving justice in the public interest.
One comment on the original post: "Its nice to see the staduim sponsor offering more than just the name sake of their business."
Unlike many "Corporate named parks" Pacific Bell Park (as it was originally known) was originally built AS Pacific Bell Park because Pacific Bell was heavily involved in its construction etc. Changing the name to SBC Park was because "The historic merger" (translation "We bought ya'll") essentially sucked PacBell into the Vortex that is SBC.
Now, I do think it's exceptionally cool that they're going to open up a hotspot at the park. But it's really no wonder that they're going to start -charging- for access once the first season is up.
"Job one" for SBC was, when I left PacBell, "Increase shareholder value." Which usually translates into "Charge more. Give less. Stick it to the employees and the customers."
You may well be right here, in that there's no prohibition on actually writing the code - but with the current law enforcement environment in the US, it seems like they would be able to take a potentially "dangerous" chunk of code "you" wrote and run with "intent" and "probable cause" to make your life miserable.
I was mearly replying to the original poster's supposition that they could track down and punish the original authors.
Personally, I agree that on free speech grounds, if nothing else, I should be able to write whatever code I want. As long as I'm not unleashing it on people, it's "art." Though (for example) I suspect they could take some clause in the DMCA and whack me if, say, I was writing something (for my own experimentation) that could decrypt DVD's or strip the DRM from a Word document.
Yes, there are laws against writing malicious code. They apply if the authors happen to be in a country that respects the USAPatriot Act or whatever other laws may be applied. Your actual chances of catching these folks are slim to none.
Even with 100 "Ground Zero" hosts, you won't get anything from/etc/passwd since these are Windows boxen, and don't HAVE an/etc/passwd file.
Personally, I suspect the timing of the "destructive" release of this worm was based on the impending alerts about the 'sploit. I seriously doubt the creation of the worm happened after the public knowledge of the release. It's very likely that folks "in the know" were using the 'sploit for weeks to months before it was publicly acknowledged. The worm was "Spoil our fun, will you? Ha! Chew on this!"
The destructive payload was certainly viscious, but I would worry that there were exploited (with this particular 'sploit) boxen out there LONG before anyone knew there was a hole in RealSecure and BlackICE.
While it may well be vaporware, I suspect the "Maximize the amount of photons" terminology is an effect of the translation. This is a Swedish company after all. We've all seen bad (or convoluted) translations before, and if you want to throw a little marketing spin on something, why not make it sound cooler than "Lots of visible light with little waste heat."
The reason those projectors get so hot is that a lot of the light is in the Infrared band. Effectively just more photons, but at a useless wavelength.
Add the word 'useful' between OF and PHOTONS and "Maximize the amount of photons" makes more sense, eh?
Somehow I think "Boxy" or whatever the robot dog in Battlestar Galactica counts as "Prior art" in the patent department. Never mind it was -actually- a chimp in a robomutt costume, the idea of a robot dog was there.
It's nice to see someone at least trying to get something from this Law, since it did such a good job of crippling the stricter state level laws. While I agree that a single national level law is a good idea, they took it in the shorts with this one. CAN-SPAM was a waste of paper.
The sad thing is during a recent review of my spam trap account (11800+ email in 3 months) a grand total of 30 of them were from "legitimate" business. The rest were for your usual run of penis pills, bad mortgages, "Stop spam now" software, and herbal vi@gra.
Now, if I could collect on each and every one of them, I'd be a wealthy man. But the vast majority are coming in through open proxies or trojaned Windows boxen, and are annoyingly difficult to track back to their source - which is often off-shore and out of reach of the CAN-SPAM act in any case.
Going after a legitimate" company like this is may put a slight damper on SPAM sent by "real" companies, but it does little or nothing to stem the flood tide of crap we get from the low lifes who are at the root of the problem.
In other news, bread manufacturers are providing lots of evidence that the Atkins diet is crap.
Cute. But there -are- a lot of nutritionists who've said the Atkins diet is crap. Just because the source of a given report benefits from a particular outcome does not, by default, mean the results are biased and should be discarded.
ARRL says it interferes. The power company says it doesn't. Duh. I'd like to see some objective studies on this.
Also note the amature operators don't stand to make money by showing broadband over power lines interferes. The power companies, however, stand to gain quite a bit here. You want to presume bias? Ok. Then apply it here and decide who's more likely to bias their studies.
Maybe the studies are there - if they are, great. But I haven't seen any that aren't sponsored by either amateur radio groups or energy companies.
They are. I gave you the URL if you'd care to look. But see my first comment. The methodology used in the ARRL survey is well documented and, unlike a bazillion user bread study, is something you can duplicate yourself. You're kind of taking the "I haven't visited the moon myself, or seen a picture of the LEM on the surface by anyone but the US government, so the landings were probably a hoax" stance.
Don't believe it causes interference?
Grab a receiver that covers the HAM bands, and go someplace where they're trying this out. You want objective studies, then DO them. Radio isn't rocket science.
Amen. The interference this service causes on the amature bands is well documented at the ARRL website. I know there is the usual cry that Amature Radio is dead, and isn't useful, and what have you. But the fact is the amature radio service is a vital emergency service, and has a large population of experienced old-school hardware hackers who are still experimenting and adding to the art.
Disecting definitions word by word doesn't work. A sentence is the sum of its parts, not individual words. Meaning comes from the whole, but to do it your way...
"Unlawful" - definitely meets this word.
Indeed. Spreading Virii, trojans, what have you, is illegal. Of course, it was illegal long before the passage of the abomination that is the Patriot act.
"force or violence" - sort of like forced entry into their tv system and forcing the system do something they weren't suppose to do... I'll buy it.
You can buy it. I won't. If he had taken a crowbar and broken down their door to get into the house and then ripped into the WebTV box with a claw hammer, I might buy it. Same if he'd gotten in their face and screamed "I'll kill you if you don't run this script!" But deceiving someone into running a script counts as neither force or violence.
"against people or property" - seems to meet
Only if you accept the second part.
We agree on the final part and your conclusion: This was a guy being a rat bastich, not someone engaging in Cyber Terrorism. If this guy is convicted it will set a very dangerous precedent. Of course, the current administration has probably set more bad precedents than any administration in the last century.
I can only hope the jury convicts him of "Mallicious Mischief" rather than Terrorism. THAT is what he's done here. But then, this is the Federal Government we're talking about here. Logic, Justice, and Rational Thought have about as much meaning as "Ecstatic" does to someone on Prozium II.
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We're at least still somewhat on-topic, and this is certainly an interesting conversation.
That's not correct. The analogy is not exact, but that's approximately the way GPS works.
Well, actually, if you look at what I said, it is correct. You're not going to get range from the phase. GPS works (horribly over-simplified here, obviously) with each satellite in the constellation saying "I am here now" and the receiver being able to work out the trig based on the time and location for each bird it's watching.
It's just like focusing in the optical domain- you can focus a phased array a fixed distance away, rather than at infinity.
Yes, you can - at least with some phased arrays (for example the LoJack array I mentioned earlier is a phased array that would be steerable, but not focusable - sort of. You're really just rotating the lobes and nulls of your antenna's pattern). Though the device shown wasn't a phased array, but a reflector that replaced some of the usually metallic elements with the plasma tubes.
You seem to be thinking that the phased array can only focus at infinity, but that is not in fact the case, and focusing it at the appropriate distance gives more discrimination for the antenna.
I think we're getting at two separate points. Phase descrimination will give you a line of position on the source. Array focus could then be used to bring in the strongest signal and from there extrapolate the range. Much like an inexpensive optical range-finder, or even the focusing ring on a decent film camera.
Note please that you're focusing on signal strength, not phase. Two separate componants. Computationally, it should be marginally more efficient - and more accurate - to use separate arrays a fixed distance apart instead of running focusing calculations.
Going back to the original topic, it's unclear whether this would be 'secure'- it's theoretically possible to arrange for the signals that arrive at the antenna to have the same phase as an antenna that is close to the array but from further away, but it's a whole heap of hassle and unlikely to be practical in most cases.
It's quite clear it wouldn't be secure. Unencrypted wireless is insecure. You're using an insecure medium, and without encryption people will be able to eavesdrop on the "conversation." Optical frequency (Laser mostly) are considerably more secure, and even they suffer from backscatter problems.
As for the phase, I'm not sure I follow where you're going. Antenna's, in of themselves, don't have phase. Antennas are resonators. Signals have phase. Antennas have polarity, resonant frequency(ies), gain, etc., but not phase.
I think you're referring to having several signals coming in together and either amplifying or cancelling each other out. With harmonics like that there will be locations that are "in phase" and thus have a strong signal, and places that will be "out of phase" and have virtually none. I believe that's what you mean there. If I understand you correctly, you're certainly right in that it's more hassle than it's worth.
I guess the bottom line is if you want security, forget wireless. If you absolutely MUST have wireless, use encryption, because you're not going to get it just from a nifty antenna.
You still seem to be missing the point- this system is electronically steerable. Sure there are other ways to do that with switchable antennas, or physical steering, but this is another way.
No, no. I got the point. You're missing mine - that an electronically steerable plasma grating is more exotic than a conventional antenna array.
Didn't say it wasn't cool or wouldn't work. I said it's hungry in both computing power and energy consumption, and simpler solutions exist.
It's cool, but it's not especially useful for WiFi. Remember that the original thread was how this new technology would improve security on wireless networks? It's not particularly useful for that.
Inside a building you can used fixed antennas to limit your coverage to specific areas - so don't need the steerable aspect. Outside, or in large areas inside, the steerable aspect is good, but relying on signal coverage for security is a Bad Thing (tm).
For security, encryption is the only real solution.
For improving bandwidth at a hotspot or something by using steerable antennas, you still have the problem of multiple users in the same space. It's not something this technology is going to work around.
It certainly can do; when the antenna subtends a large angle to the client; the point is that the phase at the elements of the antenna is not uniform across the antenna for the relatively small distances typically seen in WiFi.
That gives you a bearing, yes. The larger the aperature of your array, the more accurate your bearing will be. Unless your array is large enough (and has enough elements) to get multiple relative bearings on the same source, you're not going to get a range simply from the signal's phase. If I have two or more arrays a known distance apart (they could be parts of the same suitably large array) I can triangulate on a signal. Without the seperation, I'm not going to get it.
Measuring the phase difference give you the difference in time between the signal hitting Element A and Element B. That gives you a line of position (though not which way along that line!) on the source of the signal. Extra elements give you more points of compareson and tell you which direction along the line the your source lays.
Yes, but with normal phased array, you need other switcheable electronics to introduce phase delays on the signal which you don't need here; they may well be expensive, and will consume power as well. I expect you are correct that the plasma solution is more power hungry, although I'd need to check. But in any case I'm quite unclear that power is a bottleneck for this application in most circumstances. I mean, a PC is taking 300 watts, and laptops are perhaps 60 watts; unless you are talking kilowatts, it probably goes in the 'who cares' category.
A phased array is not a particularly complex device. In fact, it's something you can make from a wiring diagram and a handful of parts from the local Radio Shack. I can almost guarantee the electronics to control plasma generators at GHz frequencies are vastly more complex and expensive than what goes into a simple Phased Array.
And the point with power consumption isn't the absolute magnitude, but the relative magnitude. Even if it's only another 10 watts, it's power and heat wasted.
As a side note on "Who cares" with the power consumption, I've read somewhere that all those VCR clocks blinking 12:00 in the US consume more power than the total consumed by several African nations.
I'm sure there are some valid, and very cool, applications for this technology. The developers website lists several, including military radars and communication systems. WiFi seems to be an afterthought. It's a possible application for this technology, but not an especially good one.
If you think about it, the wavefront from the trasnmitter has to hit the different parts of the antenna at the 'right' time- it's critically phase dependent- the wavelength of 2.5Ghz is about 15cm, so you can measure the distance to within a fraction of that.
Yes, sort of, that's how we can use a phased array to get a line of position. We have several physical antennas in an array and can calculate the direction of an incomming signal based on the phase difference between the antennas. You can see an example of this on any police car equipped with a LoJack receiver - an array of five antennas on the roof. One central, then four in a square around it. This is not done with a single antenna though, or between the "front and back" of a single antenna - but between different antennas in an array. There's a difference.
This technique does not give a range. Only a direction. We can calculate a range either by calculating signal strength or by drawing multiple lines of position. The former works only if we have a good idea of the signal strength at the source, and the latter works only if our base station is moving and the portable is stationary. I suppose we could get some sort of pulse ranging using ping times or something, but the accuracy would be abysimal. We could get relative range based on signal strength and LOP for a moving portable, but not an absolute range.
You're right in that a larger array will give you more accuracy - but only in so much as your determining a line of position. Now, given two (or more) base stations you could triangulate.
Not really. The radio power is limited by the FCC, but the base station power isn't. I mean, flourescents aren't particularly thirsty- and you only need a very small flourescent for this kind of thing.
My point is that your base station will have to consume X power for the RF section, and Y power for the processing section regardless of antenna type. A plasma antenna will add Z power to drive the plasma generator which strikes me as being considerably more power hungry than the X+Y power of existing base stations.
The flourescent light doesn't burn much. But flourescent + AP is still more than AP alone.
That's much more complex, notionally, it requires microwave frequency digital signal processing; the reflector system lets the antenna act as a spatial directional filter without any further processing.
Um, no. Sorry. You're going to spend as much computational power steering your virtual antenna as you will calculating phase angles between fixed antennas - which, incidently, is what you're talking about at the start of this.
The antenna pictured isn't a phased array. It appears to be a simple reflector made out of plasma filled glass tubes rather than a metal mesh. From the article, it appears they control the plasma in the tubes to change the characteristics of the reflector - which is going to take processing power.
It's certainly more complex than a phased array direction finder.
It's a reflective diffraction grating you can change on the fly. It de/reflects the signal back into a detector. It's not particularly exotic.
It's decidedly more exotic than the 18 element Yagi I've used for 2.4 gig work, or the 5 element phased array I've used fox hunting.
Not rocket science, maybe. But not the Marine Corps intelligence test either.
No, because the portable devices effectively have huge big directional virtual antennas pointed at them- so both send and receive are improved- only if the clients are very close together will there be problems.
If the clients are close enough to hear each other's signal there will be a problem. We won't even go into signal hetrodyning. The only place I can see this sort of beast having a real advantage is in some kind of out door setting where you could steer your signals onto multiple dispersed clients. In a case like that, a couple of conventional direct
Well, I think it's a bit better than that- a base station with this technology can probably work out the distance as well as the angle- the antenna forms a spatially distributed antenna and hence can measure the phase and intensity and show where the user is.
Base stations would be the logical place to use these things, yes, but how is it going to work out the range? You can get a line of position from your phased array, but that alone won't give you a range. You could, I suppose, ballpark it from relative signal strength - based on the FCC's maximum x Microvolts at y Range - but that's only a ballpark estimate and won't be able to compensate (without either manual intervention or more expensive componentry) for a directional antenna on the other end. Even a few dB of gain on the portable would throw the calculation off.
It's not a problem for a base station though- and that's where I see this technology going.
But it is still a problem. You still have an increased power requirement. Looking back at the article, it would appear the working gas is contained - so the fuel requirement isn't there, but you still need to ionize it. Without detail I can't confirm it, but I suspect there's considerably more power going into ionizing the "antenna" than is going into radiating signal. That's just wasteful.
As for the shielding, I was referring to the need to shield the plasma itself - the glass tube of a flourescent bulb, if you will. Chances are my plasma tube will actually be larger than a wire antenna.
The main advantage of this system is that the highly directional antenna can actually permit two users to use the same bands without interference (since they are distinguished by their location, the base stations would be relatively deaf to any users not associated with them)- this greatly multiplies up the bandwidth of a WIFI network.
Yes and no. First, we can get the same effect with a physical antenna array. It doesn't require an exotic plasma antenna (which still looks like a reflector to me from the pics, not a radiator) to tell which direction your users lay. And you'll only realize a bandwidth advantage if the remote signals don't interfear with each other - which would requre them to also be highly directional, which brings us back to trying to get these things working on a portable device.
Also remember you're limited by the processing power of the base station itself, and the inherent limitations of available bandwidth on any given freq.
Cheers.
It certainly seems like a cool technology, but I'm not sure how it would apply to WiFi - or even Ham for that matter. Yes, a tight beam antenna will provide some slight level of added security (while not substituting for encryption) there is the issue of power requirement - you need to create that plasma - fuel requirement - the gas you're ionizing - and the shielding requirements. The first one is a killer for portable devices (the usual application for this technology - if you're running a desktop, wires are dramatically more secure), while the second two add size and weight to the device. Both Bad Things (tm) for a portable device.
For an amature radio application, I'm not sure where it was frequency agile. Being able to alter the pattern and available bandwidth don't mean it's also changing it's resonant length - which is what we're usually concerned with when setting up a multi-band antenna. 1/4 wavelength at 20M is still a 5M antenna. Plasma or not, it's gonna be fairly big.
From the pictures in the article, it looked like they were using the plasma to replace the reflector in a conventional antenna, rather than using it as the driven element. That's something the military would probably love (stealthy antennas) but that wouldn't have much practical use for WiFi.
I can't remember the specific issue, but there was an article in Car and Driver some time in the last year or two where a guy built a monowheel (actually a series of them) where the driver and motor set -inside- the diameter of the wheel. I seem to remember all of them had the motor ahead of the driver, and the whole thing running on some kind of big bearing structure. He sold them in kit form for about $8000 as I remember.
/ mo torwhl/motorwhl.htm
The killer was the Monster version that had one of those tiny Buick V8's driving it. From what I remember of the article, he bailed it at something like 50 once...
There have been a LOT of these things built over the years. Check out:
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT
Now, as for this specific machine . . . I'm not sure I want my ass hanging out in FRONT of the rest of my vehicle like that. A motorcycle is bad enough with only a little overhang between you and the rest of the world. This thing just seems suicidal...
I agree with you for most of it. He did seem to shoot relatively straight, and I give the MPAA folks a lot more credibility than the RIAA will ever have again. But I disagree on one point here.
"If you don't have permission to watch a copyrighted work, then it's not ok to make digital copies to circumvent the encryption and watch that work. You'll have to find a legal and authorized means to view the content"
While I agree with your statement, the fact of the matter is that if I buy or rent a DVD, I have permission to view the content. That's what the license on the media states. I won't try and quote it from memory, but it's essentially "You own the media, and we own the content. By buying the media, we give you a license to watch it at home."
Since I do have permission, the rest of the argument doesn't follow. The license doesn't specify what specific technologies I MUST use. Further, it's a logical argument that using something like DeCSS isn't illegal circumvention since I am using the "tool" to exercise rights the media owner has already granted me.
We're not talking about illegal sharing here. Just the right to use what I've paid for.
Oh, and to follow onto someone's comment about "GM making it illegal to use Fram oil filters in their cars" there are specific laws that FORBID just that sort of thing. I wonder why no one's tried to apply them here...
I'm guessing you meant the G you feel at the -bottom- of the drop, which depends on the coaster, but I seem to remember is limited to under 2.5G for safety reasons. (I'm sure a coaster fan can confirm or correct this)
When you drop off the top, you get to accelerate at a little less than 1G (freefall minus any drag in the coaster), which, coincidentally, is about what it takes to make it to 60 MPH (~27M/sec) in 3 seconds.
So, in that regard you're more or less right.
Of course, the sad thing is that a decent sport bike can still beat it to 60, and some of them can give it a run for its money up to about 200.
You're describing an open circuit, where he's describing a closed circuit. They are both classified as "cooling towers" since it's the "tower" part (either as a simple evaporative cooling stack, or as a liquid to liquid heat exchanger) that makes them "cooling towers." The pillars of steam you see coming off the cooling towers at power plants are (usually) cooling water evaporating off the tower/heat exchanger. Your working fluid is enclosed in pipes in the tower, and cooling water flows over the outer surface of the exchanger cooling it.
You're both right?
Here's a link to the cooling technology institute.
Now, on a side note, Rolls Royce (or possibly Napier - memory is a little fuzzy here) experimented with evaporative cooling on some of their aero engines back int he 30's and early 40's. They let the coolant boil off in the block, and had large condensers out in the wings to return it to liquid and run it back through the engine. I could see a similar system working in this application, but there'd be some obvious problems with closing the circuit, etc.
Now, from a fire fighting perspective, this stuff seems like a godsend. Sprinklers cause water damage. Halon causes ozone damage. This stuff seems to kill both birds with the same stone.
I agree, the author of this article seems to think that D&D rulesets were invented overnight on a whim by a bunch of people with no clue, for the sole purpose of selling rulebooks.
Have you read some of the 1st and 2nd generation RPG rules? Not just D&D, but any of the plethora of games that came out in the early days. The "written over night, on a whim, with an eye to making money" is actually a pretty good description. Fortunately, most games from that generation are long forgotten.
I'm sure selling rulebooks is an important buiness issue, but creating a solid game experience comes in to that as well, and you sell more rulebooks by steadily refining and improving the rules, than by randomly changing stuff for the sake of changing it.
Selling rulebooks isn't as important as selling supplinments and resource books. In the Computer Game world, it's sometimes the same, where you buy "The Game" then shell out 2/3 as much for each expansion pack. Examples are numerous in both the Pencil and Paper and Computer worlds.
Probably the saddest example of it is the White Wolf "Storyteller" rulesets. All the WoD rules should be compatible, since they use the same basic rules, but each genra gets its own little tweaks that either make the game incompatible with the others, or require some gymnastics on the part of the players or GM.
Also the idea that people can handle complicated rules better than a computer seems a little bizzare too.
Computers can't make decisions like "You know, let's forget the Ancient's Vs Giant Arachnids table, and just use the Phases of the Moon for this fight, ok?" based on experience, game play, and what makes a good story. Machines can handle the math better, and keep track of what applies where and when, but RP isn't about numbers: It's about telling stories. Computers are really bad at making things up on the fly - which is sometimes vital to telling a good story.
Have you ever seen a CRPG where you could go "Screw it. I don't care about this city or these people. I'm the hell out of here!" In a live game, your GM can either bulldoze you back into the prepared story, OR they can, if they're good, adjust on the fly so everyone can have fun.
The original article, as far as I can tell, was pointing out the simple fact that what works well for a pencil and paper game (AD&D, D20, Hero, GURPS, Storyteller, etc.) may suck horribly as the bases for a CRPG.
I'm sorry, Citizen. You are not allowed to know that you are playing a game. Please report to the Computer for routing debriefing and clone incrementation.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
The computer is your friend.
(You know, I seem to remember someone doing a text adventure of Paranoia...)
The D&D systems/rulesets are always robust and mature, having been in the making for the better part of forty years. Furthermore, they always translate very well to any medium, be it paper and pencil or PC video game.
Come again? The D&D rules have, historically, had a large following but a lousy game mechanic. They ALWAYS had a lousy game mechanic, all the way back to the original Dungeons and Dragons and the "Three book set" that came before. D&D worked as a game system more because of the extensive source material and the huge number of pre-packaged modules than because it was actually any good. D20 is a little better than old versions, but it's still a Level and Hit Point based system - at least in it's AD&D incarnation.
I would say that it is a much better idea to use the tried-and-true D&D rulesets than to create your own on the fly. Heck, for starters, it saves you a huge amount of time.
Actually, since the programmers have to implement it, there are a number of considerably better and more versatile systems that would make a good base for a CRPG.
Considering that any CRPG that's run by the machine (rather than an active GM, as you could get in, say, NwN) lacks the dynamic "Rules Bender" called the Game Master (A good GM makes the STORY run the game, not the DICE. CRPG's don't know when to fudge a roll so the hero can survive, or kill a monster, or whatever is needed to tell a good story.) they're ALL going to basically suck.
Personally, the hypothetical "best" CRPG would allow GM interaction at whatever level was required. A fast and clean implementation. And a good way to make characters ballance within the rules. Any game that tries to port the inherently unbalanced AD&D rules over is going to have holes.
That's the fact.
Interesting comment, and I suppose your "There's a propeller thing on the back that might be a generator" works just as well, but it takes as many words and makes you sound like you know, well, more than you seem to, actually.
What does "so it swims up and down to make it spin" mean, anyway?
And, to answer your specific question here: "What would be a large diameter generator on a never before seen prototype? And what does being on the center-middle-top have to do with it?"
A large diameter turbine, in this context, would be closer in diameter to the beam of the structure. Everything being relative, and all.
As for what being on the "center-middle-top" has to do with it, I'll go with the small words short description since you don't seem to like technical explanations.
It's on top so it will be further up in the current where the water flow is smoother. It's in the middle so the load it transfers to the structure is well supported, and it's less likely to tip over.
Happier?
Oh, and it would be Naval Architect or Marine Engineer, not Marine Physicist.
Sorry you didn't like the technical description, mate. Next time, use your mod points...
Cheers.
While they don't say so in the article, it would appear from the picture of the device that there is a medium diameter horizontal axis generator on the dorsal surface, and the six foils are going to generate the downforce required to anchor the device to the bottom.
This is just from looking at it, obviously not from the plans. One of the challenges they would face with any form of tidal or current energy device is how to keep the thing in place. With the foils, I can see issues with keeping it in position, but it does seem like that's what they're trying to do.
There's probably also a hard mooring to keep it from drifitng away at slack tide, which would also allow it to change facing when the tides change direction or the currant shitfs.
You seem not to have read me response to you. The constitution is a fine document, but you cited what, five amendments? Only one of which could possibly have applied (the 4th regarding unlawful search and siezure) without any reason for citing them.
ADVERTISING is NOT protected free speech. And the original post did not state (or even imply) seizing a spammer's assets just because they were -accused- of being a spammer. The assumption is that forfieture of assets is a viable penalty for someone convicted of spamming.
Check my posting history. You'll see I'm a pretty rabid supporter of the Constitution of the United States. But if you're going to let the spammers (or any other criminal for that matter) hide behind it, please make sure you know how it could apply.
You still haven't said how seizing the assets of a convicted spammer is unconstitutional - let alone how it violates _FIVE_ of the articles.
If you want to make a dent in spamming, just violate the first, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth amendments. Simple!
1st Amendment: Spam is not protected free speech. Commercial speech, which the vast majority of spam is, isn't covered here. We are talking about people who are selling you herbal viagra and the like. Unless you somehow want to include SPAM in a religious context?
4th Amendment: While I certainly don't support pressing the fourth amendment, the government has already set numerous precedents with the (failed) War on Drugs when it comes to seizing property. Ask any boat owner who lost their boat because one of the crew snuck a joint on board, and they got pegged with the Coastie's Zero Tolerance policy. Personally, I find drug dealers less offensive than spammers. People GO TO drug dealers for their product. Spammers force themselves into your in-box and around your filters.
Note that the government can say it's OK to seize spammer's assets - like they did with drug dealers, and the seizure then becomes lawful in any case.
5th Amendment: How are you applying it here? The 4th amendment covers search and siezure. The 5th would only apply if we assumed no process.
6th Amendment: Doesn't appear to apply here. The original comment about seizing spammer's
8th Amendment: Define "excessive" in this context? Is it somehow OK for a spamemr to send out 5 million bulk emails to people who didn't want them, using machiens that were compromised, on someone elses network? Would, say, ten cents per spam for bail be adequate?
I seem to remember the precept that "Illegally acquired" assets are forfiet. Since spam is, in many cases (and we would assume that we are not going after "legit" marketers here) illegal under one law or another, it's a safe bet that the spammer's assets would count as "illegaly acquired."
The constitution is a great document, and it's already suffering a lot of abuse at the hands of the (past, present and future) administration. But siezing a spammer's assets doesn't count as abusing the spammer's constitutional rights. It counts as letting the punishment fit the crime, and serving justice in the public interest.
One comment on the original post: "Its nice to see the staduim sponsor offering more than just the name sake of their business."
Unlike many "Corporate named parks" Pacific Bell Park (as it was originally known) was originally built AS Pacific Bell Park because Pacific Bell was heavily involved in its construction etc. Changing the name to SBC Park was because "The historic merger" (translation "We bought ya'll") essentially sucked PacBell into the Vortex that is SBC.
Now, I do think it's exceptionally cool that they're going to open up a hotspot at the park. But it's really no wonder that they're going to start -charging- for access once the first season is up.
"Job one" for SBC was, when I left PacBell, "Increase shareholder value." Which usually translates into "Charge more. Give less. Stick it to the employees and the customers."
Me. Bitter? Nahhhhh.
You may well be right here, in that there's no prohibition on actually writing the code - but with the current law enforcement environment in the US, it seems like they would be able to take a potentially "dangerous" chunk of code "you" wrote and run with "intent" and "probable cause" to make your life miserable.
I was mearly replying to the original poster's supposition that they could track down and punish the original authors.
Personally, I agree that on free speech grounds, if nothing else, I should be able to write whatever code I want. As long as I'm not unleashing it on people, it's "art." Though (for example) I suspect they could take some clause in the DMCA and whack me if, say, I was writing something (for my own experimentation) that could decrypt DVD's or strip the DRM from a Word document.
Ok, I'll bite. . .
/etc/passwd since these are Windows boxen, and don't HAVE an /etc/passwd file.
Yes, there are laws against writing malicious code. They apply if the authors happen to be in a country that respects the USAPatriot Act or whatever other laws may be applied. Your actual chances of catching these folks are slim to none.
Even with 100 "Ground Zero" hosts, you won't get anything from
Personally, I suspect the timing of the "destructive" release of this worm was based on the impending alerts about the 'sploit. I seriously doubt the creation of the worm happened after the public knowledge of the release. It's very likely that folks "in the know" were using the 'sploit for weeks to months before it was publicly acknowledged. The worm was "Spoil our fun, will you? Ha! Chew on this!"
The destructive payload was certainly viscious, but I would worry that there were exploited (with this particular 'sploit) boxen out there LONG before anyone knew there was a hole in RealSecure and BlackICE.
While it may well be vaporware, I suspect the "Maximize the amount of photons" terminology is an effect of the translation. This is a Swedish company after all. We've all seen bad (or convoluted) translations before, and if you want to throw a little marketing spin on something, why not make it sound cooler than "Lots of visible light with little waste heat."
.
The reason those projectors get so hot is that a lot of the light is in the Infrared band. Effectively just more photons, but at a useless wavelength.
Add the word 'useful' between OF and PHOTONS and "Maximize the amount of photons" makes more sense, eh?
Even if it may still be vaporware . .
Somehow I think "Boxy" or whatever the robot dog in Battlestar Galactica counts as "Prior art" in the patent department. Never mind it was -actually- a chimp in a robomutt costume, the idea of a robot dog was there.
Professional courtesy, perhaps?
It's nice to see someone at least trying to get something from this Law, since it did such a good job of crippling the stricter state level laws. While I agree that a single national level law is a good idea, they took it in the shorts with this one. CAN-SPAM was a waste of paper.
The sad thing is during a recent review of my spam trap account (11800+ email in 3 months) a grand total of 30 of them were from "legitimate" business. The rest were for your usual run of penis pills, bad mortgages, "Stop spam now" software, and herbal vi@gra.
Now, if I could collect on each and every one of them, I'd be a wealthy man. But the vast majority are coming in through open proxies or trojaned Windows boxen, and are annoyingly difficult to track back to their source - which is often off-shore and out of reach of the CAN-SPAM act in any case.
Going after a legitimate" company like this is may put a slight damper on SPAM sent by "real" companies, but it does little or nothing to stem the flood tide of crap we get from the low lifes who are at the root of the problem.
In other news, bread manufacturers are providing lots of evidence that the Atkins diet is crap.
Cute. But there -are- a lot of nutritionists who've said the Atkins diet is crap. Just because the source of a given report benefits from a particular outcome does not, by default, mean the results are biased and should be discarded.
ARRL says it interferes. The power company says it doesn't. Duh. I'd like to see some objective studies on this.
Also note the amature operators don't stand to make money by showing broadband over power lines interferes. The power companies, however, stand to gain quite a bit here. You want to presume bias? Ok. Then apply it here and decide who's more likely to bias their studies.
Maybe the studies are there - if they are, great. But I haven't seen any that aren't sponsored by either amateur radio groups or energy companies.
They are. I gave you the URL if you'd care to look. But see my first comment. The methodology used in the ARRL survey is well documented and, unlike a bazillion user bread study, is something you can duplicate yourself. You're kind of taking the "I haven't visited the moon myself, or seen a picture of the LEM on the surface by anyone but the US government, so the landings were probably a hoax" stance.
Don't believe it causes interference?
Grab a receiver that covers the HAM bands, and go someplace where they're trying this out. You want objective studies, then DO them. Radio isn't rocket science.
Amen. The interference this service causes on the amature bands is well documented at the ARRL website. I know there is the usual cry that Amature Radio is dead, and isn't useful, and what have you. But the fact is the amature radio service is a vital emergency service, and has a large population of experienced old-school hardware hackers who are still experimenting and adding to the art.
Broadband is good.
Broadband over powerlines - not so good.
Disecting definitions word by word doesn't work. A sentence is the sum of its parts, not individual words. Meaning comes from the whole, but to do it your way...
"Unlawful" - definitely meets this word.
Indeed. Spreading Virii, trojans, what have you, is illegal. Of course, it was illegal long before the passage of the abomination that is the Patriot act.
"force or violence" - sort of like forced entry into their tv system and forcing the system do something they weren't suppose to do... I'll buy it.
You can buy it. I won't. If he had taken a crowbar and broken down their door to get into the house and then ripped into the WebTV box with a claw hammer, I might buy it. Same if he'd gotten in their face and screamed "I'll kill you if you don't run this script!" But deceiving someone into running a script counts as neither force or violence.
"against people or property" - seems to meet
Only if you accept the second part.
We agree on the final part and your conclusion: This was a guy being a rat bastich, not someone engaging in Cyber Terrorism. If this guy is convicted it will set a very dangerous precedent. Of course, the current administration has probably set more bad precedents than any administration in the last century.
I can only hope the jury convicts him of "Mallicious Mischief" rather than Terrorism. THAT is what he's done here. But then, this is the Federal Government we're talking about here. Logic, Justice, and Rational Thought have about as much meaning as "Ecstatic" does to someone on Prozium II.