A red title bar signifies a "subscriber-only" story. Notice that the timestamp is for 8:15am -- a time in the future. That is when the story will (or should) debut for non-subscribing Slashdot members.
There seems to be a glitch in the Mat^H^H^HSlashdot system, or perhaps they are attempting to lure more subscribers by showing off the features of the system.
It was a group of Dutch and German businessmen who were upset because the King of Sealand had refused a business deal they had proposed. They assaulted the island while the King was away and took the Prince (the King's son, obviously) hostage. Eventually the King returned and led a counter-assault on the island with the assistance of several friends. They held the businessmen as prisoners of war for several weeks and only released the German after an envoy from the German government was sent to negotiate. This was basically de facto recognition of Sealand's soveriegnty, and is highly touted in their historical records.
By the way, for my final project for AP Speech class I did a 40 minute presentation on Sealand from the viewpoints of 5 different (well 6 including the introduction) characters. It was pretty awesome. I'd post it online if I wasn't afraid of someone totally ripping it off.
Why do we jump to have the government certify our electronic devices, standards, and protocols? Why can't we merely rely on the private sector to develop sound products? Why don't we fight for LESS government and LESS government intervention? How much control over your daily lives do you want the government to have?
Many Slashdot readers are "liberal" or "left-leaning" and are opposed to the War on Drugs and drug laws in general. If you don't like the government telling you what you can and cannot put in your body, why are you so eager to have the government tell you what it thinks the best and worst products are? Let the private sector handle this.
This would seem to be rather analagous to the whole DeCSS fiasco. If a user purchases a DVD, he should be able to watch it on whatever platform he chooses - Win32 or *nix. Similarly, if a user purchases an iPod, he should be able to use it on whatever platform he chooses - MacOS or Win32.
Apple certainly might *try* to sue, and they might be successful in a legal sense, but the geek backlash would not be conducive to their bottom line.
Also, does anyone know if Apple is taking a loss on the iPod? That might be likely, if they're counting on racking up additional hardware sales... just like MS/Sony selling their consoles at a loss, obviously expecting to make the money up when people purchase games.
Looks like a virus too. Take notice of the bill's odd tendency to morph itself into new acronyms, each one character larger. I am positive the eventual anagram will be: "AAAAAHAHAHAWEWINJAILTHEGEEKSTHEYAREWEENIES".
A for-profit system would be more efficient, better equipped, and far more capable to deal with medical situations than any government agency. A for-profit system is NOT bad.
Introducing a profit motive is NOT bad. Introducing a profit motive would be the best thing that could happen to Canadians. They would have businesses COMPETING for their money. The company that could offer the best services for the best price would be successful.
(God knows Windows isn't the dream it's being portrayed as... or haven't you helped a new person learn Windows lately?)
I find it is more important to give new people a smack on the butt, a thorough bath, a warm towel, and a bottle. Otherwise, I doubt they'd live long enough to even learn what a window was.
Oddly enough, Mozilla crashed and burned after I installed the 0.9.7 release (win32). It gave me an error when I first tried to launch it that "a device attached to the system is not functioning" and that there was a file missing "linked to export XPCOM.DLL."
So I installed Linux. Haha, no. I first searched the bug database and didn't find anything on either of the error messages. Uninstalled via Control Panel, which gave me another error, something about an uninstall log and the Registry. I said, screw it, and just deleted the c:\program files\mozilla.org folder. Wasn't ready to give up yet, so I went to mozilla.org and downloaded the latest nightly build.
Installed that and Mozilla has been working perfectly. It's fantastic, and my father-in-law, who was very fond of Netscape and has suffered the past year and a half with IE, absolutely loves it.
I'm not sure what the differences between the 0.9.7 release and the nightly build I downloaded are; I'm just happy I got the browser to work -- it's fantastic. If it's of any interest, when I was first downloading Mozilla, I used the 209kb net installer. It said it found CRC errors when it was verifying the files, but redownloaded them. Perhaps my problems stemmed from that... but the nightly is holding its own with IE right now (IMHO).
Could I hack this to let my video output cable for my Dreamcast plug into the LCD screen? I currently have the two audio cables from the DC going into my hi-fi system... adding an LCD would rawk. Is this even remotely possible?
I think this TLD is alot more useful than many people say it is..info,.aero, and.biz all seem useless and trivial, but it appears like.museum can actually provide a good, up-to-date index of museums. I was disappointed my town's museum isn't online yet (http://indianapolis.museum), but it'll be interesting to see it once it goes up.
index.museum looks like it's been implemented pretty well so far, and it'd be even better with a search feature. I hope they continue to improve on it.
Well, it started out innocently enough. I popped up Slashdot and read the top story. Something about censorship. Clicked the news article and got taken to some LATimes article. Was reading it and then noticed "Anarchist's Cookbook."
I'd heard of it before, but never actually read it. My curiosity was piqued and I fed in the info to Google. Luckily enough, they have a section devoted solely to this compiliation. I managed to find it after the second or third link.
After agreeing not to use the information improperly, I found it laying before me... the Anarchist's Cookbook, in its entirety, along with an added bonus of the Terrorist's Cookbook.
I soon found myself thinking rather nasty thoughts and reading up on interesting sections in the Anarchist's Cookbook.
By chance, I happened to look outside my window and noticed three police cars, lights flashing, less than 50 yards from my house.
They weren't there for me, but the effect was chilling enough. I swear I have never ALT-F4'd, deleted my History, and cleared my browser location bar so quickly in my life.
That many people are now robbed of their right to free speech may utlimately cause a renaissance for free speech. I've heard stories from Russia, how during the Breshjnev period, there were lots of underground theater groups. Profound books were written, criticizing the regime. Protest singers were among the most popular artists. There was this guy singing about the wolfs, running through the woods with the wolfs biting at his heels. The song was really about the regime.
Because of the censorship, they had to hide their messages, using creative images and fables. The people knew instinctively that these messages were important and they craved them.
Then Glasnost came about, and eventually the Iron Carpet came down. Suddenly the people were free. Starved of free speech, there was a short flurry of popular political activity, with large political meetings, marches and what not.
Then things settled down, and one day they woke up. All this new stuff they had been denied all these years was now available. What a disappointment it must have been to them to discover that although the political messages in the western press might be of a different color, most of the stuff was ads, tabloid reporting on celebrities, porn, worthless fiction, stupid game shows, and soap operas. We fought all these years to hear the message from the other side, and all they have to tell us is "Drink Coca Cola?"
If I was Russion, I'd drown myself in vodka, too.
And what has this to do with the DMCA? Just the fact that it will force U.S citizens to be vigilant (break the DMCA laws) in order to have their free speech. By being in opposition to the ruling regime (the megacorps), U.S citizens can enjoy the excitement of getting their free speech, in spite of the regime. Now it's worth something. Hard to come by free speech is valuable. Gratis free speech is worthless.
For North American skywatchers, Earth will enter the heavier parts of the stream at about 11 p.m. EST on Saturday, Nov. 17. Activity will peak around 5 a.m. Sunday morning, when as many as 13 meteors per minute could be visible, likely for a stretch of time that lasts less than 1 hour. The peak corresponds to 4 a.m. CST, 3 a.m. MST and 2 a.m. PST.
Not surprisingly, a lot of Slashdoters doubt PayPal...which is understandable, since it's so difficult to believe that any pure-play dot com can survive these days.
However, I've had the pleasure of working closely with many of PayPal's senior management over the past two years, back since they merged with X.com. I can tell you three very important things:
1. The P2P space is actually a loss leader. Most of their profit is made in the B2B and B2C space - not pure P2P as most people believe. They do very well in these spaces and recent analysts predict that their revenue was between $80 and $100mil last year. That's a heck of a lot better than most of the not-coms we've seen over the past several years.
2. They have an incredibly intelligent, dedicated and savvy staff that understands their market and industry.
3. They have a business model that works.
In my opinion, these three items equal success.
I love their service and I enjoy working with the company. If I didn't enjoy my current job so much, I'd probably apply for a job with them.
It seems to me that the problem with previous micropayment schemes was not the scheme itself, but that there was never a situation in which the convenience of using the system outweighed the risks associated with trusting an outside party with your money and transactions.
eBay provided the fluid marketplace that created the situation where that convenience overrode the inherent mistrust of a newcomer like PayPal.
eBay brought the idea of the auction as a sales model to the forefront of the net, they also pioneered community based trust mechanisms that let their model survive even though they don't back transactions directly (something that would have quickly invalidated their business model).
What was supposed to be a concept that allowed high-brow concepts like online media micropayments seems to have come about largely because of the requirements of some people to sell $5 pens and beany babies.
Probably important not to forget that no matter how large the venture capital some firm gets to change the internet, most likely it won't succeed unless we decide it will.
It's astonishing how easily a basic civil right such as the right to counsel is taken away!
I would love to see how the right to counsel is being taken away. As far as I can tell, the only 'right' being taken away is that of privacy, which is automatically given up when you're a federal detainee. You should have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Now, if you'd like to discuss how attorney-client privelege is being taken away, that'd be something different. But please don't spread FUD that civil rights to counsel are being taken away. That's absolutely ludicrous.
Please, also note how exactly the information is going to be used.
"No information that is protected by attorney-client privilege may be used for prosecution," the statement said. "There is not protection however, for communications related to the client's ongoing or contemplated illegal acts."
There's massive differences between the two. Get them straight before you whine about terrorist's rights being taken away.
This is an amazing poem.
----------
Neutrinos, they are small.
They have no charge, they have no mass.
They do not interact at all.
The Earth is just a silly ball
to them through which they simply pass
Like photons through a sheet of glass
Or dustmaids down a drafty hall.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass
And pass, like tall and painless guillotines,
through you and me into the grass.
At night they enter Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
from underneath the bed.
You call it wonderful? I call it crass.
...unless you, the people, fight like grim death against it.
Here in Australia we had a proposal for the `Australia Card' -- basically the same as this proposal, only not as technologically sophisticated. It was put to the people's vote (referendum or an election issue? I don't remember) and the people's response was to tell the proposers how to fold it into sharp corners, and where to stick it afterwards. That's Ok, though, because then they introduced the Tax File Number, which is a wannabe SSN -- you need it to earn an income (failure to provide a TFN is not illegal, but automatically results in you being taxed at 49.5%), to open a bank account, or just about anywhere else where you are using money in a non-trivial way.
The TFN was possible because we (the Australian population) had just fought furiously and won against a more draconian scheme, and were tired. Also, this almost slipped under the radar without comment, as the parliament rushed it through with very little debate, in the house or in public.
This may turn out to be another High Aim Tactic. Ask for something which is absolutely ridiculous, and let yourself be beaten back to what you wanted in the first place. Even if Ellison is serious (surely not...?) his overtures can -- and probably will -- be used by others with the same barrow to push.
The question is where to draw the line. How much freedom from surveillance do you want? Once you have figured that out, don't settle for one jot less! As soon as you rationalise that `I don't really need to be able to X' and bargain away the right to be able to do so, then you have just lost something precious which you will never get back.
Of course, things are rarely that simple, and some things are obviously stupid. (Such as, eg, `I demand the right to stockpile Anthrax spores'.) But the apparatchiks will use these examples to persuade you that the right to freely assemble, for example, is just too dangerous for you to have. It will not be put to you like that. It will be that some travel may have to be restricted, or that restrictions based on profiling [Hmm, you have travelled in the middle east, your family name is arabic, and you talk funny...] will be instituted `for the time being'.
If history teaches us anything, it is that `for the time being' can be translated `for the foreseeable future', and that just means `until it is no longer profitable to do so'.
Wasn't it a Founding Father who said `the Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance'?
Here is a list of states suing microsoft (courtesy of Microsoft's "freedom to Innovate Network"):
California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Utah, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin
Here's what I sent to the Attorney General in my state:
"
I believe that any settlement that would have a chance of restoring competition to the computer industry would require at least the following:
1) All terms must be enforced by a non-Microsoft party with full access to all Microsoft resources, including source code. Microsoft cannot be trusted to voluntarily comply with any agreement.
2) All communication protocols used by all microsoft products must be fully documented. Such documents must be made available to any and all parties for any reason. Microsoft is not allowed to change their protocols until 90 days after documentation of such changes are made available to any parties requesting them.
3) The previous term must also apply to all Microsoft APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
4) Microsoft may not keep agreements secret. In particular, the terms of the current OEM agreements, currently protected as "trade secrets" must be disclosed.
5) Microsoft may not use agreements with Computer OEMs to restrict in any way the addition of other software to the computers, along with Microsoft products. In particular, OEMs are not to be prohibited from selling "dual-boot" systems,
where the system can be booted into Windows or into some other operating system, such as Linux or a form of BSD or BeOS.
6) Microsoft may not use their licensing terms to stop users or developers from using Open Source software or Free Software.
7) Microsoft may not meddle in the the legislative processes of Fderal, State or local governemnts or bodies that make recommendations to them, with their work on UCITA being a prime model of behaviour that is prohibited to them as a
monopoly.
"
It looks like everyone has already brought up the point that the danger in putting a "self-destruct" mechanism in a nanite. With millions or billions of nanites, even if the odds of one of them surviving that self-destruction are one in a million, those odds are too high. And if that nanite is designed to construct other nanites (or, worst case, copies of itself) then you have a problem on your hands.
If nanotechnology ever reaches the total control of matter, self-replicating machine, Diamond Age "Seed" level (I don't have enough information to argue either way, but it seems to me that it'd be easier to create macroscopic Von Neumann machines than microscopic ones, and we haven't even done that yet) we're going to need more protection than a self destruct mechanism.
What I'd like to see, in a world swarming with potential nanotech viruses, is an analogous nanotech immune system to take care of them, nanites which can be set to recognize and rip apart other nanites which meet certain parameters. Got a rogue oil-spill cleaning nanite ripping up asphalt in San Francisco? Get the standby security nanites in Oakland to kill it.
There was an interview with a somewhat apocalyptic tech giant (a veep at Sun? I forget) who believed that the ever increasing technological power available to humanity (nanotech, biotech, and AI being three examples I remember) would cause the world to be ripped apart by terrorism in the coming century. He likened it to an airplane in which every passenger had a "Crash" button in front of their seat, and only one psycho was necessary to bring everyone down with him.
I don't think it will be that way. With nanotechnology specifically, if our available defenses are kept up to the level that our potential offenses would require, then having a small set of nanites go rogue wouldn't be a concern; they would be overwhelmed by their surroundings. Going back to that analogy, if everybody had a "Crash" button in front of their airplane seat, but the plane was guaranteed to survive unless 50% of the passengers voted to crash, that would be the safest flight in history.
Slashdot Mirror
There seems to be a glitch in the Mat^H^H^HSlashdot system, or perhaps they are attempting to lure more subscribers by showing off the features of the system.
It was a group of Dutch and German businessmen who were upset because the King of Sealand had refused a business deal they had proposed. They assaulted the island while the King was away and took the Prince (the King's son, obviously) hostage. Eventually the King returned and led a counter-assault on the island with the assistance of several friends. They held the businessmen as prisoners of war for several weeks and only released the German after an envoy from the German government was sent to negotiate. This was basically de facto recognition of Sealand's soveriegnty, and is highly touted in their historical records.
By the way, for my final project for AP Speech class I did a 40 minute presentation on Sealand from the viewpoints of 5 different (well 6 including the introduction) characters. It was pretty awesome. I'd post it online if I wasn't afraid of someone totally ripping it off.
Why do we jump to have the government certify our electronic devices, standards, and protocols? Why can't we merely rely on the private sector to develop sound products? Why don't we fight for LESS government and LESS government intervention? How much control over your daily lives do you want the government to have?
Many Slashdot readers are "liberal" or "left-leaning" and are opposed to the War on Drugs and drug laws in general. If you don't like the government telling you what you can and cannot put in your body, why are you so eager to have the government tell you what it thinks the best and worst products are? Let the private sector handle this.
This would seem to be rather analagous to the whole DeCSS fiasco. If a user purchases a DVD, he should be able to watch it on whatever platform he chooses - Win32 or *nix. Similarly, if a user purchases an iPod, he should be able to use it on whatever platform he chooses - MacOS or Win32.
Apple certainly might *try* to sue, and they might be successful in a legal sense, but the geek backlash would not be conducive to their bottom line.
Also, does anyone know if Apple is taking a loss on the iPod? That might be likely, if they're counting on racking up additional hardware sales... just like MS/Sony selling their consoles at a loss, obviously expecting to make the money up when people purchase games.
Looks like a virus too. Take notice of the bill's odd tendency to morph itself into new acronyms, each one character larger. I am positive the eventual anagram will be: "AAAAAHAHAHAWEWINJAILTHEGEEKSTHEYAREWEENIES".
Take note: SSSCA, CBDTPA.
Ahh, you see! Fight back!
when Fox is THE ONLY news outlet to have carried an editorial explaining why the SSSCA was bad, in layman's terms nonetheless.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,47296,00.html
Come on Michael. You can do better.
A for-profit system would be more efficient, better equipped, and far more capable to deal with medical situations than any government agency. A for-profit system is NOT bad.
Introducing a profit motive is NOT bad. Introducing a profit motive would be the best thing that could happen to Canadians. They would have businesses COMPETING for their money. The company that could offer the best services for the best price would be successful.
There is no competition with the government.
(God knows Windows isn't the dream it's being portrayed as... or haven't you helped a new person learn Windows lately?)
I find it is more important to give new people a smack on the butt, a thorough bath, a warm towel, and a bottle. Otherwise, I doubt they'd live long enough to even learn what a window was.
Oddly enough, Mozilla crashed and burned after I installed the 0.9.7 release (win32). It gave me an error when I first tried to launch it that "a device attached to the system is not functioning" and that there was a file missing "linked to export XPCOM.DLL."
So I installed Linux. Haha, no. I first searched the bug database and didn't find anything on either of the error messages. Uninstalled via Control Panel, which gave me another error, something about an uninstall log and the Registry. I said, screw it, and just deleted the c:\program files\mozilla.org folder. Wasn't ready to give up yet, so I went to mozilla.org and downloaded the latest nightly build.
Installed that and Mozilla has been working perfectly. It's fantastic, and my father-in-law, who was very fond of Netscape and has suffered the past year and a half with IE, absolutely loves it.
I'm not sure what the differences between the 0.9.7 release and the nightly build I downloaded are; I'm just happy I got the browser to work -- it's fantastic. If it's of any interest, when I was first downloading Mozilla, I used the 209kb net installer. It said it found CRC errors when it was verifying the files, but redownloaded them. Perhaps my problems stemmed from that... but the nightly is holding its own with IE right now (IMHO).
Could I hack this to let my video output cable for my Dreamcast plug into the LCD screen? I currently have the two audio cables from the DC going into my hi-fi system... adding an LCD would rawk. Is this even remotely possible?
I think this TLD is alot more useful than many people say it is. .info, .aero, and .biz all seem useless and trivial, but it appears like .museum can actually provide a good, up-to-date index of museums. I was disappointed my town's museum isn't online yet (http://indianapolis.museum), but it'll be interesting to see it once it goes up.
index.museum looks like it's been implemented pretty well so far, and it'd be even better with a search feature. I hope they continue to improve on it.
Well, it started out innocently enough. I popped up Slashdot and read the top story. Something about censorship. Clicked the news article and got taken to some LATimes article. Was reading it and then noticed "Anarchist's Cookbook."
I'd heard of it before, but never actually read it. My curiosity was piqued and I fed in the info to Google. Luckily enough, they have a section devoted solely to this compiliation. I managed to find it after the second or third link.
After agreeing not to use the information improperly, I found it laying before me... the Anarchist's Cookbook, in its entirety, along with an added bonus of the Terrorist's Cookbook.
I soon found myself thinking rather nasty thoughts and reading up on interesting sections in the Anarchist's Cookbook.
By chance, I happened to look outside my window and noticed three police cars, lights flashing, less than 50 yards from my house.
They weren't there for me, but the effect was chilling enough. I swear I have never ALT-F4'd, deleted my History, and cleared my browser location bar so quickly in my life.
Whew.
That many people are now robbed of their right to free speech may utlimately cause a renaissance for free speech. I've heard stories from Russia, how during the Breshjnev period, there were lots of underground theater groups. Profound books were written, criticizing the regime. Protest singers were among the most popular artists. There was this guy singing about the wolfs, running through the woods with the wolfs biting at his heels. The song was really about the regime.
Because of the censorship, they had to hide their messages, using creative images and fables. The people knew instinctively that these messages were important and they craved them.
Then Glasnost came about, and eventually the Iron Carpet came down. Suddenly the people were free. Starved of free speech, there was a short flurry of popular political activity, with large political meetings, marches and what not.
Then things settled down, and one day they woke up. All this new stuff they had been denied all these years was now available. What a disappointment it must have been to them to discover that although the political messages in the western press might be of a different color, most of the stuff was ads, tabloid reporting on celebrities, porn, worthless fiction, stupid game shows, and soap operas. We fought all these years to hear the message from the other side, and all they have to tell us is "Drink Coca Cola?"
If I was Russion, I'd drown myself in vodka, too.
And what has this to do with the DMCA? Just the fact that it will force U.S citizens to be vigilant (break the DMCA laws) in order to have their free speech. By being in opposition to the ruling regime (the megacorps), U.S citizens can enjoy the excitement of getting their free speech, in spite of the regime. Now it's worth something. Hard to come by free speech is valuable. Gratis free speech is worthless.
How about some basic info on where to watch, eh?
Gleened from Space.com [space.com]
For North American skywatchers, Earth will enter the heavier parts of the stream at about 11 p.m. EST on Saturday, Nov. 17. Activity will peak around 5 a.m. Sunday morning, when as many as 13 meteors per minute could be visible, likely for a stretch of time that lasts less than 1 hour. The peak corresponds to 4 a.m. CST, 3 a.m. MST and 2 a.m. PST.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoo m/0,,51_104_608,00.html
That link includes a pretty roadmap graphic. It also shows the Barton design following the Thoroughbred release.
Not surprisingly, a lot of Slashdoters doubt PayPal...which is understandable, since it's so difficult to believe that any pure-play dot com can survive these days.
However, I've had the pleasure of working closely with many of PayPal's senior management over the past two years, back since they merged with X.com. I can tell you three very important things:
1. The P2P space is actually a loss leader. Most of their profit is made in the B2B and B2C space - not pure P2P as most people believe. They do very well in these spaces and recent analysts predict that their revenue was between $80 and $100mil last year. That's a heck of a lot better than most of the not-coms we've seen over the past several years.
2. They have an incredibly intelligent, dedicated and savvy staff that understands their market and industry.
3. They have a business model that works.
In my opinion, these three items equal success.
I love their service and I enjoy working with the company. If I didn't enjoy my current job so much, I'd probably apply for a job with them.
It seems to me that the problem with previous micropayment schemes was not the scheme itself, but that there was never a situation in which the convenience of using the system outweighed the risks associated with trusting an outside party with your money and transactions.
eBay provided the fluid marketplace that created the situation where that convenience overrode the inherent mistrust of a newcomer like PayPal.
eBay brought the idea of the auction as a sales model to the forefront of the net, they also pioneered community based trust mechanisms that let their model survive even though they don't back transactions directly (something that would have quickly invalidated their business model).
What was supposed to be a concept that allowed high-brow concepts like online media micropayments seems to have come about largely because of the requirements of some people to sell $5 pens and beany babies.
Probably important not to forget that no matter how large the venture capital some firm gets to change the internet, most likely it won't succeed unless we decide it will.
I would love to see how the right to counsel is being taken away. As far as I can tell, the only 'right' being taken away is that of privacy, which is automatically given up when you're a federal detainee. You should have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Now, if you'd like to discuss how attorney-client privelege is being taken away, that'd be something different. But please don't spread FUD that civil rights to counsel are being taken away. That's absolutely ludicrous.
Please, also note how exactly the information is going to be used.
- "No information that is protected by attorney-client privilege may be used for prosecution," the statement said. "There is not protection however, for communications related to the client's ongoing or contemplated illegal acts."
There's massive differences between the two. Get them straight before you whine about terrorist's rights being taken away.This is an amazing poem.
----------
Neutrinos, they are small.
They have no charge, they have no mass.
They do not interact at all.
The Earth is just a silly ball
to them through which they simply pass
Like photons through a sheet of glass
Or dustmaids down a drafty hall.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass
And pass, like tall and painless guillotines,
through you and me into the grass.
At night they enter Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
from underneath the bed.
You call it wonderful? I call it crass.
- John Updike
On the other hand, the faster it goes into effect, the less time M$ will have to try to get it based on hailstorm. Thats all we need:
terrorist: "Just a few bits of code, and a buffer overflow, and my name changes from Achmed bin Muhammed, terrorist to George Johnson, stock analyst."
Microsoft: This tragedy was not our fault, we blame BUGTRAQ for releasing news of this vulnerability to the public.
...unless you, the people, fight like grim death against it.
Here in Australia we had a proposal for the `Australia Card' -- basically the same as this proposal, only not as technologically sophisticated. It was put to the people's vote (referendum or an election issue? I don't remember) and the people's response was to tell the proposers how to fold it into sharp corners, and where to stick it afterwards. That's Ok, though, because then they introduced the Tax File Number, which is a wannabe SSN -- you need it to earn an income (failure to provide a TFN is not illegal, but automatically results in you being taxed at 49.5%), to open a bank account, or just about anywhere else where you are using money in a non-trivial way.
The TFN was possible because we (the Australian population) had just fought furiously and won against a more draconian scheme, and were tired. Also, this almost slipped under the radar without comment, as the parliament rushed it through with very little debate, in the house or in public.
This may turn out to be another High Aim Tactic. Ask for something which is absolutely ridiculous, and let yourself be beaten back to what you wanted in the first place. Even if Ellison is serious (surely not...?) his overtures can -- and probably will -- be used by others with the same barrow to push.
The question is where to draw the line. How much freedom from surveillance do you want? Once you have figured that out, don't settle for one jot less! As soon as you rationalise that `I don't really need to be able to X' and bargain away the right to be able to do so, then you have just lost something precious which you will never get back.
Of course, things are rarely that simple, and some things are obviously stupid. (Such as, eg, `I demand the right to stockpile Anthrax spores'.) But the apparatchiks will use these examples to persuade you that the right to freely assemble, for example, is just too dangerous for you to have. It will not be put to you like that. It will be that some travel may have to be restricted, or that restrictions based on profiling [Hmm, you have travelled in the middle east, your family name is arabic, and you talk funny...] will be instituted `for the time being'.
If history teaches us anything, it is that `for the time being' can be translated `for the foreseeable future', and that just means `until it is no longer profitable to do so'.
Wasn't it a Founding Father who said `the Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance'?
http://www.templetons.com/brad/oracard.html
There's a nice prototype of the national id card.
Here is a list of states suing microsoft (courtesy of Microsoft's "freedom to Innovate Network"):
California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Utah, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin
Here's what I sent to the Attorney General in my state:
"
I believe that any settlement that would have a chance of restoring competition to the computer industry would require at least the following:
1) All terms must be enforced by a non-Microsoft party with full access to all Microsoft resources, including source code. Microsoft cannot be trusted to voluntarily comply with any agreement.
2) All communication protocols used by all microsoft products must be fully documented. Such documents must be made available to any and all parties for any reason. Microsoft is not allowed to change their protocols until 90 days after documentation of such changes are made available to any parties requesting them.
3) The previous term must also apply to all Microsoft APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
4) Microsoft may not keep agreements secret. In particular, the terms of the current OEM agreements, currently protected as "trade secrets" must be disclosed.
5) Microsoft may not use agreements with Computer OEMs to restrict in any way the addition of other software to the computers, along with Microsoft products. In particular, OEMs are not to be prohibited from selling "dual-boot" systems,
where the system can be booted into Windows or into some other operating system, such as Linux or a form of BSD or BeOS.
6) Microsoft may not use their licensing terms to stop users or developers from using Open Source software or Free Software.
7) Microsoft may not meddle in the the legislative processes of Fderal, State or local governemnts or bodies that make recommendations to them, with their work on UCITA being a prime model of behaviour that is prohibited to them as a
monopoly.
"
http://www.licensing.philips.com/information/mtr/d ocuments103.html
Wow, Linux is a supporter. Cool.
It looks like everyone has already brought up the point that the danger in putting a "self-destruct" mechanism in a nanite. With millions or billions of nanites, even if the odds of one of them surviving that self-destruction are one in a million, those odds are too high. And if that nanite is designed to construct other nanites (or, worst case, copies of itself) then you have a problem on your hands.
If nanotechnology ever reaches the total control of matter, self-replicating machine, Diamond Age "Seed" level (I don't have enough information to argue either way, but it seems to me that it'd be easier to create macroscopic Von Neumann machines than microscopic ones, and we haven't even done that yet) we're going to need more protection than a self destruct mechanism.
What I'd like to see, in a world swarming with potential nanotech viruses, is an analogous nanotech immune system to take care of them, nanites which can be set to recognize and rip apart other nanites which meet certain parameters. Got a rogue oil-spill cleaning nanite ripping up asphalt in San Francisco? Get the standby security nanites in Oakland to kill it.
There was an interview with a somewhat apocalyptic tech giant (a veep at Sun? I forget) who believed that the ever increasing technological power available to humanity (nanotech, biotech, and AI being three examples I remember) would cause the world to be ripped apart by terrorism in the coming century. He likened it to an airplane in which every passenger had a "Crash" button in front of their seat, and only one psycho was necessary to bring everyone down with him.
I don't think it will be that way. With nanotechnology specifically, if our available defenses are kept up to the level that our potential offenses would require, then having a small set of nanites go rogue wouldn't be a concern; they would be overwhelmed by their surroundings. Going back to that analogy, if everybody had a "Crash" button in front of their airplane seat, but the plane was guaranteed to survive unless 50% of the passengers voted to crash, that would be the safest flight in history.