Does the FBI view the theft of a computer as a "computer crime" (therefore adding that to the sum total of their figures) or activities within WANs and the Internet that are a result of criminal intention? I see no clear line drawn here. P2P downloaders/uploaders, Copyright Violators [wait, what if I published information on a webpage in my book, is that Computer crime?], Intentional Crackers/Black Hats, Organised Computer Crime Teams (possibly government funded) - all of them fall into this umbrella. Unfortunately one needs to define and segregate. Crime will be committed on all media possible wherever transaction and communication take place. Hijacking Mobile phone accounts is also considered Computer Crime as the billing system is run by some PC/Workstation. I see a clear lack of definition which needs to be worked on and narrowed down. IANAL, and therefore am unaware of laws if they do clearly define what is and what is not "Computer Crime."
Evaluating the amount of losses due to a security break where information might have been stolen (when the perpetrator was found, but no evidence of stolen data was found) was initially in vogue during the big "Hacker Crackdown". In some cases evidence of stolen credit card numbers were found, and in that case, evaluating the losses again is an elusive task depending on how these numbers were used. The RIAA and MPIAA crack at uploaders, assuming they have the capability to assist infinite number of downloaders and therefore evaluate the losses at some skyrocketing unearthly sum. There have already been debates about a ceiling for such losses particularly when a P2P crackdown is on. Recently there was someone who used an anonymous remailer to create a bombscare in the Indian parliament. Anonymous remailers are possible due to the very RFC that allows email and most usually can't be traced back (not that easily unless the perpetrator was too careless to have used unencrypted remailers.) Obviously there is no easy "damage evaluation" except the cost of the Bomb squad deployment, cost of Halt of Parliamentary business (this happens not just due to bomb scares too). But the perpetrator will be prosecuted under an "Anti-Terror" law, and therefore in most likelihood won't be just fined. I see the following in tandem
Defining Computer Crime and Classifying it
A procedure for accurately Evaluating possible losses on a case-by-case basis
The second being dependant on the first. So FBI, CIA or name the agency, name the country, a proper crackdown is going to be very difficult until definition and procedures are established. Trouble is red tape or Ph.D, hire either group and you will have to wait for these procedures and definitions to come in. Until then, Law firms will define things in whatever way they choose, the same way they handle other criminal investigations. SPAM perpetrators - should they be fined for the volume of network traffic they generated (and therefore choked others, infringing on others rights) which can be mathematically calculated should you recover intact evidence. I believe Anti-SPAM laws in some countries are slowly coming in play and they do have a proper definition and a procedure for evaluating losses and severity of the crime. These numbers are hardly indicative of malicious activity or of any potential threat. Warranted products (like Microsoft Windows) having known/unknown security holes in them that create problems to consumers should obviously be dealt with using consumer-friendly laws where the company is unable to provide timely solutions. This is a hornet's nest, and one has to clearly separate a lot of variables before attempting to define crimes, severity, liability and all responsible entities.
The one thing about Corporate Blogging is a company (anyone, not just on the F500 list) doesn't need a blog unless it serves as a useful and quick forum to get information to/from customers. Traditional corporate companies which get successful, at some point of time get their support equation right besides the product(s) themselves. So, unless the Blogs were a forum to communicate to Customers, Shareholders and also add one more channel of reaching out safely, both Moderated and Unmoderated blogs would be unnecessary. Some companies use Customer support forums/message-boards quite successfully where both employees and customers interact. I find not much difference between Corporate Blogging and having a Forum with Press Releases and all except for the newfangled terminology. So long as companies find ways and means to interact with the customer faster over the net (Blogs or Forums or Message Boards or IRC channels) which can be logged for review, and the Customer/Consumer ultimately gets some extra benefits, this is a good thing. Otherwise its just much ado about terminology.
Demonstrating "Self Awareness" is one thing, but defining it is probably the first step. I don't think there is a commonly accepted definition for this. The ability of two perfectly identical twins (hypothetically) to distinguish themselves, IMO is not self awareness, that's self identification. If a robot can identify itself in a group photograph, standing besides several other model look-alikes accurately (I wonder how this could be done), then that is self identification. I have trouble identifying one chimp from another, but no trouble distinguishing one human from another, sometimes even identical twins. Humans can identify their dog from a group of dogs of the same breed as theirs - clearly that's not "self-awareness". The same can be said for other pets or those working closely with wild animals. I believe there should be a different term used here.
The full circle of arts and sciences; a comprehensive summary
of knowledge, or of a branch of knowledge; esp., a work in
which the various branches of science or art are discussed
separately, and usually in alphabetical order; a cyclopedia.
[1913 Webster]
This is what it was supposed to mean, but this slowly graduated or became synonymous to "a reference work". Encyclopaedias can contain errors and are themselves not good choices for citations [being summaries themselves], Wikipedia due to the flat and non-moderated editing model more so. In both cases, they serve as informative sources. No source of information or knowledge or facts can be deemed authentic unless they concurr with other sources. If facts from any set of resources are found to be contradictory, then one has a hard time to check out the "truth" (which is again questionable.)
There are encyclopaedias that are specific to subjects, which are then certified to be quoted for research purposes. The direction to create a reliable information resource from Wikipedia would be quite easy and simple. The content is published under a "Free Document License", so anyone should be able to take this content, validate it and put up a more static or moderated source of information that can be cited with credibility assured by an authority for that particular instance taken. As for resources, All the universities complaining about their students citing Wikipedia can actually help out in validating and creating a content resource that can be cited.
I really find this debate of whether Wikipedia can be cited in papers and research work pointless as the content is dynamic and every student of research knows that citations have to specify the source accurately. If a journal/article is cited, the edition, author and other details are provided to ensure that a different work is not confused with. Comparing this with the way the Linux Kernel is moderated and other Open Source projects that go unmoderated and try to survive due to user interest, its easy to see that collaboration without moderation has a higher likelihood of being unreliable (in software, buggy.) I don't see individual's moral responsibility coming in the way. Further most "Open/Free/Libre" content is contributed by about 10% of the actual populace that consumes it. Now where's the moral guardian out there against leeching? I don't see everyone whining because not more than 10% of the user community would be contributing to a project such as Wikipedia (either the engine, or the content.)
The most relevant fact here is that the risk of damage to any infrastructure (or resource) is directly proportional to the dependance on the resource. Bringing down telecommunications networks (mobile phone towers et al despite all failsafe mechanisms) before a terrorist attack can aid in adding to terror and confusion. Breaking down the only highway link out of a city (speculating) and then initating terror attacks can add to the terror. So, as we get more and more dependent on the internet, slowing down or causing mass DoS attacks all over the internet can send the international community (not just a country, as the internet pervades borders) into a terror mode. Inducing panic and terror in larger communities or population seems to be one of the key objectives of terrorists. In today's context the percentage of internet "dependant" populace in both developed and developing nations is not saturated nor does it encompass large volumes (as of recent internet usage and pc accessibility surveys pertaining to the digital divide.)
Few like slashdotters would probably depend entirely on the net for news updates, sports updates, weather updates, travel bookings, commerce (name it). But as more people start transacting both goods and information over the net, breaking it down will induce panic and terror by itself. The attacks may not be restricted to DoS (Denial of Service) but may also include falsifying transactions, harrassment, defacing individuals and so forth. Recent harrassment against a relative of mine using anonymous remailers was untraceable (which was possible through the internet). Unfortunately no investigating authority or institution was able to help out. So it is time that one anticipates and starts building up a defense system against a really plausible threat. Method and Procedure however (against cybercrime and cracking) have always been questionable; as has been the competence of the enforcing authorities.
And someone is looking for ideas to blame this on the USA. The 1985 James Bond flick A View to a Kill came up with this idea of pumping water from a lake into a fault (with a Nuke - obsession of most Bond villains with Nukes) elsewhere close to the San Diego fault to destroy Silicon Valley. There is a little scientific salt in this idea, pumping fluid (although not in small quantities) into an existing fault could initiate seismic activity. Now someone says a single sky scraper can do this with just 700,000 tonnes. Other than becoming an idea for some B-grade movie, I don't see any useful implication here. The global weather cycle is interesting, El Nino seems to be delivering lesser heat this year and there's lots more interesting changes happening. Indonesia for all the quakes has about 76 active volcanoes, the highest for a single nation. So no one was correlating recent seismic and volcanic activity with the point that Indonesia was on its way to attempt to construct the world's tallest building. Now some Taiwanese scientists have the luxury to think about tall buildings and link them to possible impending earthquakes. This is a wake up call for the real scientists, before these people start naming it the "Tower of Babel" effect. Scientific news in the media and magazines are really lacking. Popular Science reports in media is almost always a publicity stunt.
smedwi-2 (not quite a catchy name is it?) is in the line of the next aging inhibition, youth sustenance attempts that humanity is so fond of. I wonder what happend to the Telomerase craze of the past. So when genetic modification drugs (probably virii) are going to make a huge entry into the pharma market, we'll be seeing the likes of this one the list. On the positive side, perhaps degenerative diseases like Parkinsons' and like geriatric disorders do have stronger solutions coming up.
Agreed that most Entrepreneurs would like to have more creative control of their own creations. But considering the number of years SuSE has been around in the past and the plans it has adopted in its growth, tools built, the AMD-SuSE collaboration, the huge KDE developer sustenance by SuSE over quite a long time, I would hardly believe that he's the "start something and move on" type. SuSE was also much larger than Novell's earlier acquisition "Ximian" who seem to be very much at home at Novell. This is definitely indicative of the lack of consensus between Novell's management and SuSE's traditional way of doing things. 600 Layoffs and a recent explanation that the intention was to "Managing Geeks as small teams" by Novell's CEO didn't seem quite a srong explanation. Layoffs are indicative of trouble with having running/working capital, after all a company is not too much more than the people who make it. Novell used a once "cash-rich" situation to go after acquisitions in a bid to stay competitive (or rather stay alive), perhaps the financials went too far on the wrong side of the balance sheet. On the other hand, I see this as a step by SuSE's CEO to show that he would probably try to float with the 600 who are probably SuSE employees in all likelihood and maybe start over, in which case - yes, his qualities of Entrepreneurship is showing up.
Platform Independent Desktop Applications: Google?
on
Google Desktop 2 Live
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I've always wanted to try out Google's desktop, but running it on wine on my linux box just doesn't convince me enough. Google has been labelling themselves a "Digital Services Infrastructure Company" (Stahlman) and provide a good number of services accessible through a browser. I do understand that facilitating a desktop search requires native access to the platform making a completely browser based solution unsuitable or insecure. However, it would be nice to see Google at least provide a framework or API if not actually write a portable application usable across platforms. Gnome users would probably be banking on beagle performing the same roles and KDE users may have to wait a while before a strong equivalent (Tenor) comes in.
While it is true that Google doesn't seem to have put a foot wrong yet, I do notice that many of their applications (Picasa et al) seem to be tailored for Microsoft platforms. For the moment this is in line with their attempt in becoming an all-pervasive "digital infrastructure" company. I wonder if many GNU/Linux enthusiasts find it a bit frustrating not to be able to try out these applications (or am I missing a link somewhere..?)
With so many security holes cropping up in the past, it would be more prudent for Microsoft to have a honeypot setup. This event (article) is closer to a marketing show (call in white hats, black hats, anybody) for a new release. Microsoft does have the resources to put up such a "Challenge" machine and try to keep it online by fixes, lure the real black hats to crack it. Fixing that would really help them work on their security (if they are truly concerned.) There are reports of independent Honeypot projects setup for assessing network security. It's high time Microsoft tried it at their expense for the benefit of their customers.
Personally, I believe space research may be vital for us for research and experiments which cannot be performed within the earth's atmosphere, but provide vital clues to theoretical physicists to validate theories. The most successful space programmes have been "unmanned" including the Voyager series (no not the Star Trek one you see on TV), Galileo, Ulysses to name a few. The Mars Rovers that gave us quite a lot of detail from Martian terrain were "un-manned", and yet provided necessary scientific information.
Even Carl Sagan would agree that a "manned" mission under current conditions is more of a publicity stunt and a splurge of tax money. MIT's robotics labs believe they could have clustered robots (or swarm robots) programmed to search for vital mineral resources on unexplored planet terrain providing clues for life or proto-life. The Space Research programmes (be it USA or erstwhile USSR or China or even India in the future) are in the most part publicity stunts. Part of it is because of political control over the immense amount of funding required in Space research. I am not sure that one would want to spend billions of $$$s to boost public morale and achieve far too little in scientifically. I often wonder how ancient astronomy progressed significantly without the use of much equipment, but on the basis of pure observation and correlation. Some day science would be the turf for scientists, for now so long as BIG funds are necessitated, publicity stunts and "manned" missions will be inevitable.
I can't imagine humans going to the moon to collect debris and bring them 'home' for analysis when we have the technology to avoid this. No one walks into a volcanic vent to collect geological data, into which we have robots going where no man has gone before. They do provide useful scientific data, which can be scientifically analysed in non-realtime. I am not aware of a situation where a significant "realtime" response is required to have a "manned" mission to the moon (or into a volcanic vent), enough to justify endangering the life of the astronauts. (This is not about the "thrill" of space tourism.) Of the few "manned" successes was "Hubble" and the Orbital Space Stations which too can be assembled today with lesser human intervention.
Delhi was the first city in India to have in-car GPS map systems available to the consumer. Further, an extremely detailed map of all locations in Delhi is available from several other sources. The only concern here is the resolution of the maps, Google Earth can provide. The potential hazard seems to be the ability to identify independent buildings which are usually less accessible. However, for maps from aerial photographs and satellite photographs, there are companies who claim to have had access to such information and provided services from them like Ridings India.
For one, yes - a Terrorist organisation would have had some difficulty in obtaining relevant maps of locations they target. Dr. Kalam believes that the issue is ease and speed of access to the maps of higher detail than normally available commercially, which might assist terrorists. There was a foiled attack on the Indian Parliament during the tenure of the last Government (in 2001) which was ill-planned.
However one can take a tour of the Parliament building and premises when it is not in session and therefore map it with sufficient ease, though he'll have to wait for sessions to be off. As for residential locations of the President (Rashtrapathi Bhavan) or Parliamentarians or Government Officers, they are almost known to anyone in Delhi. The trouble in a terrorist attack is usually penetrating the "Z-Class" security cover provided to those who are potential targets.
While strategic maps may be significant weapons in an openly declared war (particularly of military installations), in covert warfare methods used by terrorist operatives other factors including "surprise" and "stealth" play more importance; requiring intelligence operatives to monitor any possibilities and be prepared. Another recent attack on a Hindu Shrine in Ayodhya was also foiled due to tight security and collaboration between military, civilian and paramilitary security groups (although the miscreants had access to the maps). Satellite Maps of Ayodhya are yet to be provided on "Google Earth". I am quite surprised that Dr.Kalam has come up with such a comment, having been a scientist for ISRO and DRDO prior.
One of the early companies focusing on Mobile Phones was Fathammer. Initially they started out with a ports of Doom engine based classics; now seem to have a nice collection. I believe the stronger driver of applications on phone platforms is the phone hardware. Java 3D API is one more trial at luring in more applications by providing easy-to-use API. But even if Handspring and Palm were to provide 3D programming API for their Treo series (or anyone else does likewise), it still depends on the hardware. Things one would be bothered about would be battery times and audio which actually adds on to gaming experience (and already no one wants to hear loud ringtones everywhere!)
Nokia airs an ad in India which almost drives in a message saying "phones are for talking" while showing a model with a vidcam and video playback. I wonder how many people find time to use the "other" applications on the phone apart from a PIM (Phonebook/Calendar). Further, with 3D games what about an added issue of people getting something akin to Doom Induced Motion Sickness(DIMS)? I have found controls for a 3D game (on my Treo) pretty difficult to use for a 3D racer game, which kind of kills the experience. I wonder how many people play 3D games on their phones comfortably, and where they get them from!
Teaching an audience about the OSS community through lectures (be it on business models, or on the collaborative tools used) may not be very easy. I have been working for a company that encourages new entrants to first start off or join or maintain an orphaned OSS project. So initially we show them where to look for licensing information and on collaborative tools, and further on mailing list etiquette. Assuming the audience/candidates have a sound theoretical background they should be able to understand and begin participating. Participation, being the best university, is what should be encouraged through the lectures. In most part, the audience/candidate has to understand the community process, the way it works. Further, this differs from one OSS project to another. Some may be purely meritocracies (when it's a small and specific product), while in the case of projects like the Linux Kernel, there may be tons of other issues affecting it. These can only be experienced, not explained. This is my point of view, others may tend to differ.
It is true that the movies this summer were indeed not the best of the lot. I am sure that the movie industry has seen similar figures in prior years. Perhaps with all the technology available to be able to watch Video or Programmes or Movies on Demand, film makers can try out "Creating Movies on Demand" which could improve consumer participation in proposing the content, subject or theme of what is created. There are creative film makers who come up with themes that everyone likes and these sometimes take to the blockbuster category or move on to the Oscars.
Keeping them aside you can still have the average movie showing something that people wanted to see by letting them propose subjects/books/themes to work on. This is definitely set to happen sometime; now seems to be a good time. The Motion Picture Industry seems to disregard direct consumer reach both in distribution and feedback which will work against them in the long run. Most Futuristic scenarios predict the demise of pre-programmed television as a norm, with the consumer driving what they see and what they want to see. Although this might improve consumption of new movies, this will potentially a strong factor (among others) that decides the success of a movie (in possible alternate consumer retail channels or the traditional box office.)
Nothing beats professional Legal advise, so if you can avail it take it. This largely depends on your "employment agreement" or "contract agreement" with your employee in place.
You might want to draft an exclusive Copyright Assignment agreement that assigns copyright for all software written during the term of your employment contract to you. This is usually acceptable in circumstances where the company's core business does not depend on software 'IP' or the company wishes to allow employees to contribute to Open Source. It is best to have this done, even if your contract/employment agreement does not specify any clauses related to software created during the term of employment. Licensing the software you write, be they shell scripts or whatever else, is the next step (once you have gained copyright.)
That's my $.02
Creative Labs already had MP3 players out in the market way back in early 2002. A search for patents "assigned to" creative labs results in the following. Those who have read the links on the article can see that creative (including the Nomad) has been selling MP3 players since 2000.
I don't see the absence of creativity here for being the first to move from CD-ROM MP3 players to Solid State and Hard drive based MP3 players and therefore the very early browsing interfaces. Some of my friends who have used the player have commented that the UI itself was clumsy and difficult to get through. The iPod, has achieved better looking design (Apple always does that!) and a neat easily usable User Interface.
The article by BBC is at best vague, what "Patent #" has been awarded, and where is it applicable? are questions that are not answered by an article addressing these issues.
While the basic issue of patents on User Interfaces and File systems may be questioned (and even considered invalid), Creative has been a pioneer in Audio, later in MP3 handheld players who lost out to competitors later after their innovation spark fizzled out. Just because everyone sees iPods playing Music today (which have a better business model) is no reason to ignore Apple's patents nor criticise Creative Labs for filing for patents (and being awarded them) while they introduced their products first.
Had I received this mail, I'm sure my dual combo of Bogofilter and SpamAssassin (call that paranoid), would've done their job. My BMI would've remained the same. Installing SPAM filters would've just about ended all this "scientific" [duh?] research. Remember the times when advertisers put in motivational messages every 24 frames in TV ads and it was "statistically" (and subconsciously) supposed to work. What about studying Stress and Loss of Productivity resulting from Spam? (spending time deleting all those mails without a filter.) I hope no one comes up with a study saying that'd be a nice stress buster.
Can people owning Motorola A7xx 'linux' phones request to download (at least) the linux kernel [patches and all] running on their phone?
The GPL does offer the right to anyone using the software (on the phone) to read the code. The distribution and apps from Trolltech (and others) may not be licensed so. Either way there's got to be enough GNU tools used, so the non-average user can try and tweak it the way they like it (voiding warranty of course.)
If there are such possibilities than calling out "linux,linux,linux" might have some significance. Else, I'd rather not care about the OS/Platform/Chipset and just hope that the phone delivers the features it promises.
The chip manufacturer guys (think Intel, TI, Motorola,...) are paranoid about the security of their architectures "until they release them." And then they start trying to get every soul who can use it, to try and write software on it, or better still build a product around it. The lifecycle of their products and the penalty for failure seems to justify their paranoia.
Coming to the 'webbed' guys: Was google paranoid with pageranking before they launched it? Any web product is about communicating and reaching out (however secret the insides might be), so showing up early helps.
The Business 'Game' can be played with many a strategy. Stealth being just one of them, Surprise being another (offshoot of stealth?) One cannot generalise from the type of market or the size or the nature of products or services, which strategy works best. Better still, the system being dynamic and complex, you know what works only after it works.
... and it's just started. The good blogs are anchoring for a longer stay, the boring ones (and all those with fewer users) are getting left out. It's just like there are search engines around (a good number of them), there are directories around - on the net, but call this "natural selection"; which is what is happening in the Blogging World. I'm pretty sure Blogging is here to stay, and you've only see it begin. And what makes me think the title is from the history books - The Rise and the Fall of (Rome|The Third Reich|...) and yet, we're talking about something in the present.
If municipal WiFi is possible, does any municipal council provide free internet access by wire within its perimeters? I do understand free hotspots by coffee shops (and the like); the reason seemingly promotional. If there is a nice and balanced way for citizens to get their net access this way as a basic service, instead of through a commercial network service provider it might be a great thing for the 'developing' nations. Do people see something nice out of it or is it just "socialism"?
Most people including me don't think this is a smart idea. Not even if this means no frisking at the airport and shorter delays. I'm hoping Honda, Sony and a whole lot of Robotics manufacturers fill the world with Robotic security guards with a mind of their own. And then, we can leave security to the "machines." (I wouldn't know which is the more scary option.)
Many companies seem apprehensive of allowing publicly accessible employee blogs. This follows from the fact that most company PR is regulated and "meant" to be positive for the company. It takes only one rogue employee to tarnish reputation in an "unmoderated" blog. When it gets moderated it almost becomes another launching pad (which most people don't want to read.)
Those companies that have managed to do this see no harm in trying out publicly accessible Wikis too. However such companies usually are small sized and in most likelihood populated by code monkeys. I don't see many medium and large companies successfully launching unmoderated blogs and/or publicly accessible Wikis. If you've ever tried managing a company you'll know the "risks."
The most successful internet mailing system: "Hotmail", is now MSN Hotmail. The most popularly used internet search engine "Google" will not exist in the next e^(x-2*(a+b)) years. Does this indicate:
- MSN Search (will use google as the backend)
OR
- MSN will buy Google
Either way, I hope google will archive all the pages henceforth and give us a clear picture of how things went.
Slashdot Mirror
Evaluating the amount of losses due to a security break where information might have been stolen (when the perpetrator was found, but no evidence of stolen data was found) was initially in vogue during the big "Hacker Crackdown". In some cases evidence of stolen credit card numbers were found, and in that case, evaluating the losses again is an elusive task depending on how these numbers were used. The RIAA and MPIAA crack at uploaders, assuming they have the capability to assist infinite number of downloaders and therefore evaluate the losses at some skyrocketing unearthly sum. There have already been debates about a ceiling for such losses particularly when a P2P crackdown is on. Recently there was someone who used an anonymous remailer to create a bombscare in the Indian parliament. Anonymous remailers are possible due to the very RFC that allows email and most usually can't be traced back (not that easily unless the perpetrator was too careless to have used unencrypted remailers.) Obviously there is no easy "damage evaluation" except the cost of the Bomb squad deployment, cost of Halt of Parliamentary business (this happens not just due to bomb scares too). But the perpetrator will be prosecuted under an "Anti-Terror" law, and therefore in most likelihood won't be just fined. I see the following in tandem
The second being dependant on the first. So FBI, CIA or name the agency, name the country, a proper crackdown is going to be very difficult until definition and procedures are established. Trouble is red tape or Ph.D, hire either group and you will have to wait for these procedures and definitions to come in. Until then, Law firms will define things in whatever way they choose, the same way they handle other criminal investigations. SPAM perpetrators - should they be fined for the volume of network traffic they generated (and therefore choked others, infringing on others rights) which can be mathematically calculated should you recover intact evidence. I believe Anti-SPAM laws in some countries are slowly coming in play and they do have a proper definition and a procedure for evaluating losses and severity of the crime. These numbers are hardly indicative of malicious activity or of any potential threat. Warranted products (like Microsoft Windows) having known/unknown security holes in them that create problems to consumers should obviously be dealt with using consumer-friendly laws where the company is unable to provide timely solutions. This is a hornet's nest, and one has to clearly separate a lot of variables before attempting to define crimes, severity, liability and all responsible entities.
The one thing about Corporate Blogging is a company (anyone, not just on the F500 list) doesn't need a blog unless it serves as a useful and quick forum to get information to/from customers. Traditional corporate companies which get successful, at some point of time get their support equation right besides the product(s) themselves. So, unless the Blogs were a forum to communicate to Customers, Shareholders and also add one more channel of reaching out safely, both Moderated and Unmoderated blogs would be unnecessary. Some companies use Customer support forums/message-boards quite successfully where both employees and customers interact. I find not much difference between Corporate Blogging and having a Forum with Press Releases and all except for the newfangled terminology. So long as companies find ways and means to interact with the customer faster over the net (Blogs or Forums or Message Boards or IRC channels) which can be logged for review, and the Customer/Consumer ultimately gets some extra benefits, this is a good thing. Otherwise its just much ado about terminology.
Demonstrating "Self Awareness" is one thing, but defining it is probably the first step. I don't think there is a commonly accepted definition for this. The ability of two perfectly identical twins (hypothetically) to distinguish themselves, IMO is not self awareness, that's self identification. If a robot can identify itself in a group photograph, standing besides several other model look-alikes accurately (I wonder how this could be done), then that is self identification. I have trouble identifying one chimp from another, but no trouble distinguishing one human from another, sometimes even identical twins. Humans can identify their dog from a group of dogs of the same breed as theirs - clearly that's not "self-awareness". The same can be said for other pets or those working closely with wild animals. I believe there should be a different term used here.
There are encyclopaedias that are specific to subjects, which are then certified to be quoted for research purposes. The direction to create a reliable information resource from Wikipedia would be quite easy and simple. The content is published under a "Free Document License", so anyone should be able to take this content, validate it and put up a more static or moderated source of information that can be cited with credibility assured by an authority for that particular instance taken. As for resources, All the universities complaining about their students citing Wikipedia can actually help out in validating and creating a content resource that can be cited.
I really find this debate of whether Wikipedia can be cited in papers and research work pointless as the content is dynamic and every student of research knows that citations have to specify the source accurately. If a journal/article is cited, the edition, author and other details are provided to ensure that a different work is not confused with. Comparing this with the way the Linux Kernel is moderated and other Open Source projects that go unmoderated and try to survive due to user interest, its easy to see that collaboration without moderation has a higher likelihood of being unreliable (in software, buggy.) I don't see individual's moral responsibility coming in the way. Further most "Open/Free/Libre" content is contributed by about 10% of the actual populace that consumes it. Now where's the moral guardian out there against leeching? I don't see everyone whining because not more than 10% of the user community would be contributing to a project such as Wikipedia (either the engine, or the content.)
The most relevant fact here is that the risk of damage to any infrastructure (or resource) is directly proportional to the dependance on the resource. Bringing down telecommunications networks (mobile phone towers et al despite all failsafe mechanisms) before a terrorist attack can aid in adding to terror and confusion. Breaking down the only highway link out of a city (speculating) and then initating terror attacks can add to the terror. So, as we get more and more dependent on the internet, slowing down or causing mass DoS attacks all over the internet can send the international community (not just a country, as the internet pervades borders) into a terror mode. Inducing panic and terror in larger communities or population seems to be one of the key objectives of terrorists. In today's context the percentage of internet "dependant" populace in both developed and developing nations is not saturated nor does it encompass large volumes (as of recent internet usage and pc accessibility surveys pertaining to the digital divide.)
Few like slashdotters would probably depend entirely on the net for news updates, sports updates, weather updates, travel bookings, commerce (name it). But as more people start transacting both goods and information over the net, breaking it down will induce panic and terror by itself. The attacks may not be restricted to DoS (Denial of Service) but may also include falsifying transactions, harrassment, defacing individuals and so forth. Recent harrassment against a relative of mine using anonymous remailers was untraceable (which was possible through the internet). Unfortunately no investigating authority or institution was able to help out. So it is time that one anticipates and starts building up a defense system against a really plausible threat. Method and Procedure however (against cybercrime and cracking) have always been questionable; as has been the competence of the enforcing authorities.
And someone is looking for ideas to blame this on the USA. The 1985 James Bond flick A View to a Kill came up with this idea of pumping water from a lake into a fault (with a Nuke - obsession of most Bond villains with Nukes) elsewhere close to the San Diego fault to destroy Silicon Valley. There is a little scientific salt in this idea, pumping fluid (although not in small quantities) into an existing fault could initiate seismic activity. Now someone says a single sky scraper can do this with just 700,000 tonnes. Other than becoming an idea for some B-grade movie, I don't see any useful implication here. The global weather cycle is interesting, El Nino seems to be delivering lesser heat this year and there's lots more interesting changes happening. Indonesia for all the quakes has about 76 active volcanoes, the highest for a single nation. So no one was correlating recent seismic and volcanic activity with the point that Indonesia was on its way to attempt to construct the world's tallest building. Now some Taiwanese scientists have the luxury to think about tall buildings and link them to possible impending earthquakes. This is a wake up call for the real scientists, before these people start naming it the "Tower of Babel" effect. Scientific news in the media and magazines are really lacking. Popular Science reports in media is almost always a publicity stunt.
smedwi-2 (not quite a catchy name is it?) is in the line of the next aging inhibition, youth sustenance attempts that humanity is so fond of. I wonder what happend to the Telomerase craze of the past. So when genetic modification drugs (probably virii) are going to make a huge entry into the pharma market, we'll be seeing the likes of this one the list. On the positive side, perhaps degenerative diseases like Parkinsons' and like geriatric disorders do have stronger solutions coming up.
Agreed that most Entrepreneurs would like to have more creative control of their own creations. But considering the number of years SuSE has been around in the past and the plans it has adopted in its growth, tools built, the AMD-SuSE collaboration, the huge KDE developer sustenance by SuSE over quite a long time, I would hardly believe that he's the "start something and move on" type. SuSE was also much larger than Novell's earlier acquisition "Ximian" who seem to be very much at home at Novell. This is definitely indicative of the lack of consensus between Novell's management and SuSE's traditional way of doing things. 600 Layoffs and a recent explanation that the intention was to "Managing Geeks as small teams" by Novell's CEO didn't seem quite a srong explanation. Layoffs are indicative of trouble with having running/working capital, after all a company is not too much more than the people who make it. Novell used a once "cash-rich" situation to go after acquisitions in a bid to stay competitive (or rather stay alive), perhaps the financials went too far on the wrong side of the balance sheet. On the other hand, I see this as a step by SuSE's CEO to show that he would probably try to float with the 600 who are probably SuSE employees in all likelihood and maybe start over, in which case - yes, his qualities of Entrepreneurship is showing up.
I've always wanted to try out Google's desktop, but running it on wine on my linux box just doesn't convince me enough. Google has been labelling themselves a "Digital Services Infrastructure Company" (Stahlman) and provide a good number of services accessible through a browser. I do understand that facilitating a desktop search requires native access to the platform making a completely browser based solution unsuitable or insecure. However, it would be nice to see Google at least provide a framework or API if not actually write a portable application usable across platforms. Gnome users would probably be banking on beagle performing the same roles and KDE users may have to wait a while before a strong equivalent (Tenor) comes in.
..?)
While it is true that Google doesn't seem to have put a foot wrong yet, I do notice that many of their applications (Picasa et al) seem to be tailored for Microsoft platforms. For the moment this is in line with their attempt in becoming an all-pervasive "digital infrastructure" company. I wonder if many GNU/Linux enthusiasts find it a bit frustrating not to be able to try out these applications (or am I missing a link somewhere
With so many security holes cropping up in the past, it would be more prudent for Microsoft to have a honeypot setup. This event (article) is closer to a marketing show (call in white hats, black hats, anybody) for a new release. Microsoft does have the resources to put up such a "Challenge" machine and try to keep it online by fixes, lure the real black hats to crack it. Fixing that would really help them work on their security (if they are truly concerned.) There are reports of independent Honeypot projects setup for assessing network security. It's high time Microsoft tried it at their expense for the benefit of their customers.
Personally, I believe space research may be vital for us for research and experiments which cannot be performed within the earth's atmosphere, but provide vital clues to theoretical physicists to validate theories. The most successful space programmes have been "unmanned" including the Voyager series (no not the Star Trek one you see on TV), Galileo, Ulysses to name a few. The Mars Rovers that gave us quite a lot of detail from Martian terrain were "un-manned", and yet provided necessary scientific information.
Even Carl Sagan would agree that a "manned" mission under current conditions is more of a publicity stunt and a splurge of tax money. MIT's robotics labs believe they could have clustered robots (or swarm robots) programmed to search for vital mineral resources on unexplored planet terrain providing clues for life or proto-life. The Space Research programmes (be it USA or erstwhile USSR or China or even India in the future) are in the most part publicity stunts. Part of it is because of political control over the immense amount of funding required in Space research. I am not sure that one would want to spend billions of $$$s to boost public morale and achieve far too little in scientifically. I often wonder how ancient astronomy progressed significantly without the use of much equipment, but on the basis of pure observation and correlation. Some day science would be the turf for scientists, for now so long as BIG funds are necessitated, publicity stunts and "manned" missions will be inevitable.
I can't imagine humans going to the moon to collect debris and bring them 'home' for analysis when we have the technology to avoid this. No one walks into a volcanic vent to collect geological data, into which we have robots going where no man has gone before. They do provide useful scientific data, which can be scientifically analysed in non-realtime. I am not aware of a situation where a significant "realtime" response is required to have a "manned" mission to the moon (or into a volcanic vent), enough to justify endangering the life of the astronauts. (This is not about the "thrill" of space tourism.) Of the few "manned" successes was "Hubble" and the Orbital Space Stations which too can be assembled today with lesser human intervention.
Delhi was the first city in India to have in-car GPS map systems available to the consumer. Further, an extremely detailed map of all locations in Delhi is available from several other sources. The only concern here is the resolution of the maps, Google Earth can provide. The potential hazard seems to be the ability to identify independent buildings which are usually less accessible. However, for maps from aerial photographs and satellite photographs, there are companies who claim to have had access to such information and provided services from them like Ridings India.
For one, yes - a Terrorist organisation would have had some difficulty in obtaining relevant maps of locations they target. Dr. Kalam believes that the issue is ease and speed of access to the maps of higher detail than normally available commercially, which might assist terrorists. There was a foiled attack on the Indian Parliament during the tenure of the last Government (in 2001) which was ill-planned.
However one can take a tour of the Parliament building and premises when it is not in session and therefore map it with sufficient ease, though he'll have to wait for sessions to be off. As for residential locations of the President (Rashtrapathi Bhavan) or Parliamentarians or Government Officers, they are almost known to anyone in Delhi. The trouble in a terrorist attack is usually penetrating the "Z-Class" security cover provided to those who are potential targets.
While strategic maps may be significant weapons in an openly declared war (particularly of military installations), in covert warfare methods used by terrorist operatives other factors including "surprise" and "stealth" play more importance; requiring intelligence operatives to monitor any possibilities and be prepared. Another recent attack on a Hindu Shrine in Ayodhya was also foiled due to tight security and collaboration between military, civilian and paramilitary security groups (although the miscreants had access to the maps). Satellite Maps of Ayodhya are yet to be provided on "Google Earth". I am quite surprised that Dr.Kalam has come up with such a comment, having been a scientist for ISRO and DRDO prior.
One of the early companies focusing on Mobile Phones was Fathammer. Initially they started out with a ports of Doom engine based classics; now seem to have a nice collection. I believe the stronger driver of applications on phone platforms is the phone hardware. Java 3D API is one more trial at luring in more applications by providing easy-to-use API. But even if Handspring and Palm were to provide 3D programming API for their Treo series (or anyone else does likewise), it still depends on the hardware. Things one would be bothered about would be battery times and audio which actually adds on to gaming experience (and already no one wants to hear loud ringtones everywhere!)
Nokia airs an ad in India which almost drives in a message saying "phones are for talking" while showing a model with a vidcam and video playback. I wonder how many people find time to use the "other" applications on the phone apart from a PIM (Phonebook/Calendar). Further, with 3D games what about an added issue of people getting something akin to Doom Induced Motion Sickness(DIMS)? I have found controls for a 3D game (on my Treo) pretty difficult to use for a 3D racer game, which kind of kills the experience. I wonder how many people play 3D games on their phones comfortably, and where they get them from!
Teaching an audience about the OSS community through lectures (be it on business models, or on the collaborative tools used) may not be very easy. I have been working for a company that encourages new entrants to first start off or join or maintain an orphaned OSS project. So initially we show them where to look for licensing information and on collaborative tools, and further on mailing list etiquette. Assuming the audience/candidates have a sound theoretical background they should be able to understand and begin participating. Participation, being the best university, is what should be encouraged through the lectures. In most part, the audience/candidate has to understand the community process, the way it works. Further, this differs from one OSS project to another. Some may be purely meritocracies (when it's a small and specific product), while in the case of projects like the Linux Kernel, there may be tons of other issues affecting it. These can only be experienced, not explained. This is my point of view, others may tend to differ.
It is true that the movies this summer were indeed not the best of the lot. I am sure that the movie industry has seen similar figures in prior years. Perhaps with all the technology available to be able to watch Video or Programmes or Movies on Demand, film makers can try out "Creating Movies on Demand" which could improve consumer participation in proposing the content, subject or theme of what is created. There are creative film makers who come up with themes that everyone likes and these sometimes take to the blockbuster category or move on to the Oscars.
Keeping them aside you can still have the average movie showing something that people wanted to see by letting them propose subjects/books/themes to work on. This is definitely set to happen sometime; now seems to be a good time. The Motion Picture Industry seems to disregard direct consumer reach both in distribution and feedback which will work against them in the long run. Most Futuristic scenarios predict the demise of pre-programmed television as a norm, with the consumer driving what they see and what they want to see. Although this might improve consumption of new movies, this will potentially a strong factor (among others) that decides the success of a movie (in possible alternate consumer retail channels or the traditional box office.)
Nothing beats professional Legal advise, so if you can avail it take it. This largely depends on your "employment agreement" or "contract agreement" with your employee in place.
You might want to draft an exclusive Copyright Assignment agreement that assigns copyright for all software written during the term of your employment contract to you. This is usually acceptable in circumstances where the company's core business does not depend on software 'IP' or the company wishes to allow employees to contribute to Open Source. It is best to have this done, even if your contract/employment agreement does not specify any clauses related to software created during the term of employment. Licensing the software you write, be they shell scripts or whatever else, is the next step (once you have gained copyright.) That's my $.02
Creative Labs already had MP3 players out in the market way back in early 2002. A search for patents "assigned to" creative labs results in the following. Those who have read the links on the article can see that creative (including the Nomad) has been selling MP3 players since 2000.
I don't see the absence of creativity here for being the first to move from CD-ROM MP3 players to Solid State and Hard drive based MP3 players and therefore the very early browsing interfaces. Some of my friends who have used the player have commented that the UI itself was clumsy and difficult to get through. The iPod, has achieved better looking design (Apple always does that!) and a neat easily usable User Interface.
The article by BBC is at best vague, what "Patent #" has been awarded, and where is it applicable? are questions that are not answered by an article addressing these issues.
While the basic issue of patents on User Interfaces and File systems may be questioned (and even considered invalid), Creative has been a pioneer in Audio, later in MP3 handheld players who lost out to competitors later after their innovation spark fizzled out. Just because everyone sees iPods playing Music today (which have a better business model) is no reason to ignore Apple's patents nor criticise Creative Labs for filing for patents (and being awarded them) while they introduced their products first.
Had I received this mail, I'm sure my dual combo of Bogofilter and SpamAssassin (call that paranoid), would've done their job. My BMI would've remained the same. Installing SPAM filters would've just about ended all this "scientific" [duh?] research. Remember the times when advertisers put in motivational messages every 24 frames in TV ads and it was "statistically" (and subconsciously) supposed to work. What about studying Stress and Loss of Productivity resulting from Spam? (spending time deleting all those mails without a filter.) I hope no one comes up with a study saying that'd be a nice stress buster.
The GPL does offer the right to anyone using the software (on the phone) to read the code. The distribution and apps from Trolltech (and others) may not be licensed so. Either way there's got to be enough GNU tools used, so the non-average user can try and tweak it the way they like it (voiding warranty of course.)
If there are such possibilities than calling out "linux,linux,linux" might have some significance. Else, I'd rather not care about the OS/Platform/Chipset and just hope that the phone delivers the features it promises.
Coming to the 'webbed' guys: Was google paranoid with pageranking before they launched it? Any web product is about communicating and reaching out (however secret the insides might be), so showing up early helps.
The Business 'Game' can be played with many a strategy. Stealth being just one of them, Surprise being another (offshoot of stealth?) One cannot generalise from the type of market or the size or the nature of products or services, which strategy works best. Better still, the system being dynamic and complex, you know what works only after it works.
... and it's just started. The good blogs are anchoring for a longer stay, the boring ones (and all those with fewer users) are getting left out. It's just like there are search engines around (a good number of them), there are directories around - on the net, but call this "natural selection"; which is what is happening in the Blogging World. I'm pretty sure Blogging is here to stay, and you've only see it begin. And what makes me think the title is from the history books - The Rise and the Fall of (Rome|The Third Reich|...) and yet, we're talking about something in the present.
If municipal WiFi is possible, does any municipal council provide free internet access by wire within its perimeters? I do understand free hotspots by coffee shops (and the like); the reason seemingly promotional. If there is a nice and balanced way for citizens to get their net access this way as a basic service, instead of through a commercial network service provider it might be a great thing for the 'developing' nations. Do people see something nice out of it or is it just "socialism"?
Most people including me don't think this is a smart idea. Not even if this means no frisking at the airport and shorter delays. I'm hoping Honda, Sony and a whole lot of Robotics manufacturers fill the world with Robotic security guards with a mind of their own. And then, we can leave security to the "machines." (I wouldn't know which is the more scary option.)
Many companies seem apprehensive of allowing publicly accessible employee blogs. This follows from the fact that most company PR is regulated and "meant" to be positive for the company. It takes only one rogue employee to tarnish reputation in an "unmoderated" blog. When it gets moderated it almost becomes another launching pad (which most people don't want to read.)
Those companies that have managed to do this see no harm in trying out publicly accessible Wikis too. However such companies usually are small sized and in most likelihood populated by code monkeys. I don't see many medium and large companies successfully launching unmoderated blogs and/or publicly accessible Wikis. If you've ever tried managing a company you'll know the "risks."
The most successful internet mailing system: "Hotmail", is now MSN Hotmail. The most popularly used internet search engine "Google" will not exist in the next e^(x-2*(a+b)) years. Does this indicate: - MSN Search (will use google as the backend) OR - MSN will buy Google Either way, I hope google will archive all the pages henceforth and give us a clear picture of how things went.