Did you read the article? (Yeah, I know, this is Slashdot.)
Dude was effectively talking about a dictionary attack on the blurred information; he was treating it as a one-way hash and was at no time attempting to decrypt the information. What he was doing was reencrypting (reblurring) every possible combination possible on the image in question and seeing which one was closest. For a mosaic effect like the one he described (which is used quite frequently), it seems to be pretty effective.
Who cares? Of the stories I've seen from him so far, to me they've been fairly interesting. And personally, I like talking about interesting cases even if I'm not a lawyer.
Well technically, all intellectual material is automatically copyrighted at the moment of creation, even if a copyright notice is not present. That said, I don't think that defense has worked in any form of court discovery thus far.;^)
...some very important questions which I will soon detail, but ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I'd first like you consider one other detail.
*points to large photo on billboard*
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
I'm confused as to who, exactly, is going to pay for these servers of which you speak.;^)
I don't think the point of this is to save the game; I think the point is to open the code, so others can learn from it and use it for their own projects.
The baby Bells, for the most part, have reached the size I like to call the "fuck the customer" stage; the stage in which the company is large enough that the business will continue to generate enough profit even if they piss off a fifth of their customers, usually because the customers have few alternatives. I'm convinced that once a business gets above a certain size it's very difficult to stop it from getting to this stage.
I posted on his blog that he was about to be Slashdotted and he protected the post, probably so he wouldn't receive an assload of comments, which is fair. For context, though, here's the full post as I got there before it was protected:
Apparently my last post about the problems I experienced with the new MBTA web site punched some people in the goolies or something. Apparently my complaints about the site aren't valid because I like using the Opera browser. Apparently I shouldn't be using Opera because, as someone on the Universal Hub said, "Opera is only.6% of the internet population. Opera is also known for being buggy." (Firefox is known for memory leaks; IE is known for being susceptible to exploits. What's your point?)
And Mac Daniel, who apparently gets paid to blog for the Globe, has this apparently helpful pearl of wisdom for me, nicely writ up with the Imperial First Person Plural:
Then there's this guy who uses the Opera browser and doesn't like things one bit. Our suggestion? Stop using Opera.
Wow! Awesome! Thanks for that helpful nugget of advice there, chief! That kind of knee-jerk bullshit response is about as annoying as the zealots on certain tech boards who answer every question about a Windows problem with "INSTALL LINUX, PROBLEM SOLVED." Basically it means "I have nothing helpful to contribute, but I just thought I'd act like a douchebag anyway."
Not that I've ever had any experience with that before.
So, uh, got any more advice for me, Mac? You were so helpful with the technical problems I wonder if you can help me out with other things in my life. Should I wear the black pants, or the brown? Which Law & Order series should I follow? Should I put the 60-watt bulb in this lamp, or go for the 75-watt? What wine would you recommend with this steak? I have dropped my glass of water on the floor (I am terribly sorry), what should I do? Is that strange high-pitched buzz coming from the fluorescent lighting, or something outside?
I don't give two whoops about the "percentage of the Internet population" or whatever. I don't care if a website works on someone else's choice of browser; I care if it works or not on my choice of browser. It's a modern browser, it's in active development, and it's free. Once dev stops on the Opera browser and the last version becomes outdated and unable to support newer Web innovations, then I'll "stop using it." How's that, Chuckles?
I've been following the development of this browser since 2001. I found its interface clean, it was the first browser I saw that featured tabbed browsing, and I enjoy some of its more interesting navigational features (mouse gestures are somewhat helpful, but using mouse button combinations to move back or forward a page is just great.) I've tried Firefox before. I've tried it at several times during its development cycle, actually, from when it leaked memory like a sieve to when it merely dripped memory like a leaky faucet. It looked okay, but it wasn't for me. I didn't want to have to search through acres of plugins to find the ones that would make Firefox do what Opera already did out of the box.
Let's get back to the point: I think the MBTA website redesign has a lot of great new features. It's a far cry better than the version they had up before. The Google map integration is excellent, and I like the detailed information on the stations and stops (with all connections listed and stuff.)
The site just doesn't play well with all browsers. Sure, you can't guarantee your new website with up-to-date features will work well with every browser (You'll notice Adam Gaffin tried the site in lynx before I got the chance to) but I'm sorry. Opera is a valid, "modern" browser. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean nobody should.
Ron Newman has no problems with the site when he views it in Opera (are you using a Mac or PC, Ron?) so there's hope there. Maybe there's a problem with the XP version. Maybe there a
I dunno, I thought Rodney was alright in season one, but in season two, with all the other changes they made to the direction of the show (more focus on war than on exploration, Ronin instead of Aiden, etc., can you tell I don't think they're great?), it seemed like they wrote Rodney to be just a total ass in any social interactions. They seem to be letting up a bit now but I still think it's way over the top how he seems to dislike everyone he talks to.
Not saying you're wrong or anything, but I've rarely had problems with it. You need to have at least as much free HDD space as you have RAM so it can write the image, but beyond that it's been pretty stable, at least for me, and I run tons of apps.
There is one issue I had at one point which is that my nVidia video drivers would BSOD on resuming, but updating them fixed that and I'm pretty sure they've fixed it completely in their newer cards.
C:\Documents and Settings\Jamie>nslookup blackbox1.org *** Can't find server name for address 192.168.0.1: Non-existent domain *** Default servers are not available Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.0.1
C:\Documents and Settings\Jamie>nslookup blackboxvoting.org *** Can't find server name for address 192.168.0.1: Non-existent domain *** Default servers are not available Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.0.1
They are not on the same server, they are just both hosted by Rackspace. It would be easy for someone to setup a server on the same host to make it look like they were the same organization.
The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australasia, and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.
In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference. This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths. War has in fact changed its character. More exactly, the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their order of importance. Motives which were already present to some small extent in the great wars of the early twentieth century have now become dominant and are consciously recognized and acted upon.
To understand the nature of the present war -- for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war -- one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces. Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants. Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death. In any case each of the three super-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for labour power. Between the frontiers of the su
Business identity validation SSL certificates have been around for a long time. The only thing different about VeriSign's offering is that they're partnering with Microsoft to have the bar turn green if their more expensive cert is detected, to the disadvantage of all other SSL providers. This is an attempt by VeriSign to make it effectively necessary for businesses to use their cert so customers won't think that their site is insecure.
There's so much wrong with this attempt to gain a monopoly without adding anything of value to the market... but par for the course for VeriSign.
Inevitably that would be read by some sleazy corporate types as saying that the software is effectively public domain and that they could do what they wanted with it, since they didn't have to agree to the GPL.
We both know this is incorrect and that the GPL is still binding on distribution, not usage, but it would generally cause trouble.
And if Intel and AMD did not also create low-power CPUs and Transmeta indeed had a fully enforced monopoly on their patented technology, what reason would they have to innovate at all during the lifetime of their patents?
The only reason this lawsuit exists is because Transmeta sees these flawed patent laws as an easy way to make a quick buck.
This is why business logic patents either shouldn't last nearly as long, especially technological patents, or (preferably) shouldn't exist at all. I don't remember Transmeta doing anything to advance the useful arts and sciences using these technologies, yet Intel has done so and made quite a bit of money in the meantime.
Competition drives technology forward. Patents effectively outlaw competition. Therefore, patents kill the need for the company holding the patent to advance their own technology any further.
The only reason these sorts of patents still exist are because some very powerful corporations can effectively stunt the market using them; by default nobody can compete on the same playing field since to do so they would have to have licenses to use the technologies in question, and companies like Intel and IBM own literally thousands of patents on just about everything. So they license their patent libraries among themselves, forming a sort of corporate clique in which outsiders are persona non grata.
Maybe once enough of these patents bite companies like Intel in the ass, things will change. Unfortunately I think it'll take a while for that to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you read the article? (Yeah, I know, this is Slashdot.)
Dude was effectively talking about a dictionary attack on the blurred information; he was treating it as a one-way hash and was at no time attempting to decrypt the information. What he was doing was reencrypting (reblurring) every possible combination possible on the image in question and seeing which one was closest. For a mosaic effect like the one he described (which is used quite frequently), it seems to be pretty effective.
Who cares? Of the stories I've seen from him so far, to me they've been fairly interesting. And personally, I like talking about interesting cases even if I'm not a lawyer.
Oh, of course, Google would never think of doing something like having a cookie that tracks you across all sites using Adsense... ;^)
Well technically, all intellectual material is automatically copyrighted at the moment of creation, even if a copyright notice is not present. That said, I don't think that defense has worked in any form of court discovery thus far. ;^)
...some very important questions which I will soon detail, but ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I'd first like you consider one other detail.
*points to large photo on billboard*
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
Guaranteed victory.
I'm confused as to who, exactly, is going to pay for these servers of which you speak. ;^)
I don't think the point of this is to save the game; I think the point is to open the code, so others can learn from it and use it for their own projects.
I think you're confusing them with bears.
The baby Bells, for the most part, have reached the size I like to call the "fuck the customer" stage; the stage in which the company is large enough that the business will continue to generate enough profit even if they piss off a fifth of their customers, usually because the customers have few alternatives. I'm convinced that once a business gets above a certain size it's very difficult to stop it from getting to this stage.
I dunno, I thought Rodney was alright in season one, but in season two, with all the other changes they made to the direction of the show (more focus on war than on exploration, Ronin instead of Aiden, etc., can you tell I don't think they're great?), it seemed like they wrote Rodney to be just a total ass in any social interactions. They seem to be letting up a bit now but I still think it's way over the top how he seems to dislike everyone he talks to.
Not saying you're wrong or anything, but I've rarely had problems with it. You need to have at least as much free HDD space as you have RAM so it can write the image, but beyond that it's been pretty stable, at least for me, and I run tons of apps.
There is one issue I had at one point which is that my nVidia video drivers would BSOD on resuming, but updating them fixed that and I'm pretty sure they've fixed it completely in their newer cards.
Did anyone else just get an image of a guy running around with a syringe laughing maniacally?
C:\Documents and Settings\Jamie>nslookup blackbox1.org
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.0.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.0.1
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: blackbox1.org
Address: 72.32.2.234
C:\Documents and Settings\Jamie>nslookup blackboxvoting.org
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.0.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.0.1
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: blackboxvoting.org
Address: 72.3.135.10
They are not on the same server, they are just both hosted by Rackspace. It would be easy for someone to setup a server on the same host to make it look like they were the same organization.
Oh man, if they do that, that will be awesome. Especially for those of us who have our own ways to "obtain" Ultimate or Professional keys. ;^)
Chapter III
War is Peace
The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australasia, and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.
In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference. This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths. War has in fact changed its character. More exactly, the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their order of importance. Motives which were already present to some small extent in the great wars of the early twentieth century have now become dominant and are consciously recognized and acted upon.
To understand the nature of the present war -- for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war -- one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces. Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants. Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death. In any case each of the three super-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for labour power. Between the frontiers of the su
GoDaddy High Assurance SSL.
Comodo Trusted SSL.
GeoTrust True BusinessID.
Business identity validation SSL certificates have been around for a long time. The only thing different about VeriSign's offering is that they're partnering with Microsoft to have the bar turn green if their more expensive cert is detected, to the disadvantage of all other SSL providers. This is an attempt by VeriSign to make it effectively necessary for businesses to use their cert so customers won't think that their site is insecure.
There's so much wrong with this attempt to gain a monopoly without adding anything of value to the market... but par for the course for VeriSign.
Those of us who want to do lots of tweaking know where to find our copy when the time comes. ;^)
(NB: I probably won't upgrade to Vista anyway, it doesn't seem worth it.)
Oh God, don't get me started on fucking heart. I mean, what kind of shit power is that? Exactly what can that dude do, love his enemies to death?
If I got heart as a power, I'd say fuck it, I'm moving to Mars.
Inevitably that would be read by some sleazy corporate types as saying that the software is effectively public domain and that they could do what they wanted with it, since they didn't have to agree to the GPL.
We both know this is incorrect and that the GPL is still binding on distribution, not usage, but it would generally cause trouble.
Mwehehe, virtual +1 funny (insightful).
*gasp* You left out Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing! I'm afraid I have to revoke your gamer license.
(PS: Watch the video review for that game. It's frigging hilarious.)
And if Intel and AMD did not also create low-power CPUs and Transmeta indeed had a fully enforced monopoly on their patented technology, what reason would they have to innovate at all during the lifetime of their patents?
The only reason this lawsuit exists is because Transmeta sees these flawed patent laws as an easy way to make a quick buck.
This is why business logic patents either shouldn't last nearly as long, especially technological patents, or (preferably) shouldn't exist at all. I don't remember Transmeta doing anything to advance the useful arts and sciences using these technologies, yet Intel has done so and made quite a bit of money in the meantime.
Competition drives technology forward.
Patents effectively outlaw competition.
Therefore, patents kill the need for the company holding the patent to advance their own technology any further.
The only reason these sorts of patents still exist are because some very powerful corporations can effectively stunt the market using them; by default nobody can compete on the same playing field since to do so they would have to have licenses to use the technologies in question, and companies like Intel and IBM own literally thousands of patents on just about everything. So they license their patent libraries among themselves, forming a sort of corporate clique in which outsiders are persona non grata.
Maybe once enough of these patents bite companies like Intel in the ass, things will change. Unfortunately I think it'll take a while for that to happen.
See, I learned this a long time ago: The only solution is for everyone to become pirates.
Then everyone's happy! Yarrr!
Will Microsoft make it install itself as the default browser?