So so, someone tagged the whole web as "2.0" in the worldwide global CVS-REPO! I guess that repo is not the Wayback Machine (that's too spotty and doesn't maintain the whole revision history of the Web since gopher/veronica)...
Who says Al Quaida will have to use their own brainwahsed thugs? They don't need to fly them in at all. All they have to do is to pay hitmen and other mafia types in US to commit terrorist acts (by proxy). CAPPS and similar programs would be utterly useless in this case. Screening internal and international money transfers would.
The story just becomes "Why is it a service mark in the first place?"
Actually no. The real story still is: "Why did they slam a small non-profit (!) conference organizer in Europe (!) with a cease-and-desist letter?"
When even open-source supporting publishers like O'Reilly start alienating the very community they rely upon, things have really gone down the drain. Personally, I don't care who owns rights to a trademark or service mark, or if "Web 2.0" should of shouldn't be such a mark... let'em own it, if it makes them feel important! It's not nearly as relevant as the deep change at O'Reilly towards a pure soul-less marketing machine. This is what's really distressing here, IMHO.
O'Reilly used to be a very good company, and they generated a lot of good-will (and, of course, a lot of excellent books!) in the past; but how long will they remain the champion of the community? A few more blunders like this one, and they will be on the best way to loose their reputation (if they didn't already) to other, less corporatized, free publishers. O'Reilly: you're on a slithering downward slope here. Watch out where you're heading!
and boycott any O'Reilly publications that have "Web 2.0" in the title.
While I'm against a boycott of O'Reilly books in general (they're too good for this, and the authors shouldn't be made to pay for their publishers' fuckups); boycotting everything "Web 2.0"-related is not such a bad idea; at least for now. O'Reilly, like everyone else, need to remember that they're only in business, because, we, the Community, support them on a free-will basis. As soon as they start slamming small non-profit organizers (and they ARE the Community, after all!) with cease-and-desist letters (the most unpleasant letters one can receive!), they've sold their soul. I'm hugely disappointed by Tim: I would never have imagined that he would condone such a behavior, especially after he stood firm on our (the Community's) side against Amazon's One Click patent back then! Shame on you, Tim!
A few emacs key bindings would suffice for most people to feel at home. Of course, once you get the hang of writing Elisp functions, things are *much* more difficult to emulate in vi/nvi/vim...!
The problem is that in the 1990s, the Patent Office was made to be self-supporting. This made it in their best interests to approve every patent they can.
Eww, that's flawed indeed. From there, it's just a matter of time until the USPTO would have to accept sponsorships from the very same companies they're accepting patents from: This patent was brought to you, courtesy of our generous sponsor insert your favorite sponsor here. For example:
This IBM Linux filesystem patent was brought to you, courtesy of our generous exclusive sponsor SCO. -- The USPTO.
So seti@home was successful after all! I can't wait to see all those new DELL PCs with true alien tech! Any Linux port to this new alien arch yet? It should be hard to get the spec from such a distant vendor!
Asimov's Laws do not actually exist....any more than his 'positronic brain' does
That's actually the reason why these Army robots violate the First Law of Robotics! Who allowed the Army to develop robots with mundane electronic ICs instead of the incredibly complex positronic brains that should have been used in the first place?
Source code is no panacea here
on
No Backdoor in Vista
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Gnupg is open source, so you can verify there are no backdoors
Yes, absolutely. If you're going to use encryption semi-seriously or even professionally, you have no choice but to use open source crypto libraries and apps!
But source code alone is no panacea here: you (or anyone skilled enough -- a.k.a. the community) could discover obvious backdoors, but what about backdoors in some crypto algorithms themselves? Having the source code for this won't help you much. Nothing could really prevent the NSA from working with a crypto implementer to slightly weaken an algorithm, so they could decrypt stuff with less effort than usual. Unless you were a very talented cryptographer, you won't notice the difference.
They chose not to exercise control just like common carriers choose not to exercise control
Yes, that's a valid point. But common carriers are heavily regulated and licensed by the state before they can go online, while Razorback2 was not (heavily regulated, that is). With the new EU directive, common carriers will also be forced to keep a huge backlog of transactions for traffic analysis while Razorback2 probably kept all their connection data in RAM (did they?). The bottom line is, that it's sadly not the same situation.
This is not racism but we do lack a word for discrimination based on faith, don't we?
Are you suggesting that they are targetting christian religions?
Hmmm... what about catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland? Going back on topic: should ID cards there contain a reference to religion or not? Wouldn't that be abused sooner or later? There's no need to talk about muslims and jews being targeted, the problem runs much deeper than this. It's about what exactly belongs to an identity and ought to be recorded as such? DNA signatures perhaps? Everything else, including religion and nationality, color of hairs, political affiliation, whatever,... could change. So what's the essence itself of identity?
Well, I'm not sure we do. History bears many examples of societies that were highly ethical, just to suddenly (within a few years) fall into deepest babarian behavior. It seems that technological growth is a strictly monotoneously increasing function, but ethical maturity does have its ups and downs.
Now what would happen if a mature society with high-tech surveilliance devices like RFID implants and... who knows... though regulation/control gizmos, suddenly turns bad? It happend before, let's not forget it. With all such surveilliance technology in place, will that society every be able to resist dictatorship and restore freedom later?
AFAIK federal authorities have no say in Guantanamo Bay, unless it falls under U.S. jurisdiction. Does it? Right now, only the US Navy assumes authority over this base. Are they considered federal authority?
Well, yes, sort of. But while China is moving (slowly) towards democracy, where are we heading? Are we giving up more and more rights until we meet in the middle? Is that a good idea? I don't want to blame Google, CCP or anybody else; it's just saddening to see how fast rights we thought acquired being slowly eroding away. Not in China, but here at home. Is Google's compromising attitude towards censorship still such a good idea?
Absolutely! Nothing beats good old XML data, with interchangeable XSL files to generate static content of any kind! I used to prefer pure ASCII text files, but (sparingly) throwing in some XML structure improved usability quite a lot. You also don't have to dump everything (XML, Stylesheets, Images etc...) into MYSQL or ZODB -- even though it could be done if need be and the infrastructure permits it.
At least, Python code would be much more maintainable... Please don't get me wrong here: I like Perl very much, but most code you write today ends up being maintained by some poor other guy who has to pry apart what you've coded yesterday. I've wrote some Perl code a few years ago, and, frankly, it's difficult to follow today. OTOH, old Python code is still perfectly understandable as it was back then.
I honestly did not know it wasn't allowed to drive without this "license" thingy and run over children while drunk. I don't own a TV, and nobody told me when I bought the car. Does that mean I'm off the hook according to you?
Exactly! Pleading innocence because you're ignoring the law will be rejected by every court in the world, not just the US. This is a universal principle of law and the hardest to argue against.
That being said, some laws are so utterly complicated and written in a way that not even law experts fully agree on their meaning, that it is difficult for judges or juries not to allow excuses like: "that was not the way I've read it!" After all, laws SHOULD be written in a way that EVERYBODY understands them, at least the gist of them. But hoping for absolutely crystal clear laws will always remain a pipe dream.
Now add to non-understable law texts the whole body of jurisprudence (esp. in countries with an English Common Law heritage as opposed to Roman Law tradition), and you've got a mess no lawyer would really be able to clean up without proper in-depth research.
Re:Trusted Computing could actually FIX this probl
on
RIAA vs Linux and DVDs
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· Score: 1
you could write a very very tiny little program (probably kernel module) that would be distributed as a signed binary, but also available as source (recompiling it wouldn't help, but you could verify what it does)
Sorry, but that doesn't make sense (if I understand fully what you mean) to security-aware people. Either the source code compiles to the *very* *same* *binary* (the one that's signed), or it doesn't. If it does, okay. If it doesn't, how would you know that the binary does the same things that the source is insinuating?
So it all bascially boils down to this: either you trust the vendor of that binary blob, or you don't. I don't want to trust them anymore than necessary, that's why I always run untrusted binaries from within thin FreeBSD jails, just in case the binary wrecks havoc with the system. But if they include and require kernel module blobs, the best jail won't help you at all:(. Unless you can run it under some virtualizer like qemu or xen...
Now, what would you do? Right: just avoid this binary crap, and insist on completely open source software that *you* can audit and compile with your own tools from scratch. Everything less than this should mean to the content provider: "thanks, but no thanks." and perhaps even a class action suit for discrimination (perhaps not in the US, but who knows, maybe other countries have better anti-discrimination laws anyway?).
Insist on open source. No binary blobs! (ATI, nVidia et al: hint, hint!)
You would not expect anyone to hear you with your windows shut.
While this may be a legalistic argument, it is technically untrue. Laser bugs directed at (closed) windows can very easily fetch all the vibrations from inside the room. This is widely known, and there are some devices you can attach to the glass to introduce enough interference. Oh, and these devices are not very effective, since laser bug experts often just focus/direct the beam towards other reflective surfaces within the room itself (mirrors etc...).
So, people may not expect it, but they leak a lot of physical information to the outside of their rooms; and what would prevent anyone from capturing that? Physically nothing at all. Legally, well... perhaps, with the right legislation.
If it were really so, we would already have World War III, which we don't. There are over 1.2 billion muslims. Even if we conservatively assume that 10% of them were devout, that's still 120 millions of them worldwide. That would be, according to your logic, a lot of extremely dangerous enraged pitbulls. Where are they all? The so called "war on terror" has been triggered by a handful of extremists; not by those hordes that exist only in the imagination of a frightul, poorly informed population, which has lost all sense for the right proportions.
Slashdot Mirror
So so, someone tagged the whole web as "2.0" in the worldwide global CVS-REPO! I guess that repo is not the Wayback Machine (that's too spotty and doesn't maintain the whole revision history of the Web since gopher/veronica)...
Who says Al Quaida will have to use their own brainwahsed thugs? They don't need to fly them in at all. All they have to do is to pay hitmen and other mafia types in US to commit terrorist acts (by proxy). CAPPS and similar programs would be utterly useless in this case. Screening internal and international money transfers would.
The story just becomes "Why is it a service mark in the first place?"
Actually no. The real story still is: "Why did they slam a small non-profit (!) conference organizer in Europe (!) with a cease-and-desist letter?"
When even open-source supporting publishers like O'Reilly start alienating the very community they rely upon, things have really gone down the drain. Personally, I don't care who owns rights to a trademark or service mark, or if "Web 2.0" should of shouldn't be such a mark... let'em own it, if it makes them feel important! It's not nearly as relevant as the deep change at O'Reilly towards a pure soul-less marketing machine. This is what's really distressing here, IMHO.
O'Reilly used to be a very good company, and they generated a lot of good-will (and, of course, a lot of excellent books!) in the past; but how long will they remain the champion of the community? A few more blunders like this one, and they will be on the best way to loose their reputation (if they didn't already) to other, less corporatized, free publishers. O'Reilly: you're on a slithering downward slope here. Watch out where you're heading!
and boycott any O'Reilly publications that have "Web 2.0" in the title.
While I'm against a boycott of O'Reilly books in general (they're too good for this, and the authors shouldn't be made to pay for their publishers' fuckups); boycotting everything "Web 2.0"-related is not such a bad idea; at least for now. O'Reilly, like everyone else, need to remember that they're only in business, because, we, the Community, support them on a free-will basis. As soon as they start slamming small non-profit organizers (and they ARE the Community, after all!) with cease-and-desist letters (the most unpleasant letters one can receive!), they've sold their soul. I'm hugely disappointed by Tim: I would never have imagined that he would condone such a behavior, especially after he stood firm on our (the Community's) side against Amazon's One Click patent back then! Shame on you, Tim!
Don't forget "Learning Litigation" and "Litigation 2.0" (Upps, couldn't resist!). What kind of cover animals will they use for those?
A few emacs key bindings would suffice for most people to feel at home. Of course, once you get the hang of writing Elisp functions, things are *much* more difficult to emulate in vi/nvi/vim...!
Half-knowledge is always so funny to witness. But there's always some truth to it, even if it's deeply buried inside. E.g.:
It looks like the terrorists are trying to overload the router with IP addresses.
What about disabling IP fast switching by filling the caches with junk? Normal traffic would be cpu-switched for a while, slowing things down.
hey're using a level 4 encryption algorhythm
Perhaps they meant RC4?
use some of the bandwidth from the FBI servers to help break the encryption!
Oh yeah, the bandwidth between CPU and RAM.. ;-)
The problem is that in the 1990s, the Patent Office was made to be self-supporting. This made it in their best interests to approve every patent they can.
Eww, that's flawed indeed. From there, it's just a matter of time until the USPTO would have to accept sponsorships from the very same companies they're accepting patents from: This patent was brought to you, courtesy of our generous sponsor insert your favorite sponsor here. For example:
This IBM Linux filesystem patent was brought to you, courtesy of our generous exclusive sponsor SCO. -- The USPTO.
What a scary thought!
So seti@home was successful after all! I can't wait to see all those new DELL PCs with true alien tech! Any Linux port to this new alien arch yet? It should be hard to get the spec from such a distant vendor!
Asimov's Laws do not actually exist....any more than his 'positronic brain' does
That's actually the reason why these Army robots violate the First Law of Robotics! Who allowed the Army to develop robots with mundane electronic ICs instead of the incredibly complex positronic brains that should have been used in the first place?
Gnupg is open source, so you can verify there are no backdoors
Yes, absolutely. If you're going to use encryption semi-seriously or even professionally, you have no choice but to use open source crypto libraries and apps!
But source code alone is no panacea here: you (or anyone skilled enough -- a.k.a. the community) could discover obvious backdoors, but what about backdoors in some crypto algorithms themselves? Having the source code for this won't help you much. Nothing could really prevent the NSA from working with a crypto implementer to slightly weaken an algorithm, so they could decrypt stuff with less effort than usual. Unless you were a very talented cryptographer, you won't notice the difference.
They chose not to exercise control just like common carriers choose not to exercise control
Yes, that's a valid point. But common carriers are heavily regulated and licensed by the state before they can go online, while Razorback2 was not (heavily regulated, that is). With the new EU directive, common carriers will also be forced to keep a huge backlog of transactions for traffic analysis while Razorback2 probably kept all their connection data in RAM (did they?). The bottom line is, that it's sadly not the same situation.
This is not racism but we do lack a word for discrimination based on faith, don't we?
Are you suggesting that they are targetting christian religions?
Hmmm... what about catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland? Going back on topic: should ID cards there contain a reference to religion or not? Wouldn't that be abused sooner or later? There's no need to talk about muslims and jews being targeted, the problem runs much deeper than this. It's about what exactly belongs to an identity and ought to be recorded as such? DNA signatures perhaps? Everything else, including religion and nationality, color of hairs, political affiliation, whatever, ... could change. So what's the essence itself of identity?
we are becoming more ethically mature with time
Well, I'm not sure we do. History bears many examples of societies that were highly ethical, just to suddenly (within a few years) fall into deepest babarian behavior. It seems that technological growth is a strictly monotoneously increasing function, but ethical maturity does have its ups and downs.
Now what would happen if a mature society with high-tech surveilliance devices like RFID implants and ... who knows ... though regulation/control gizmos, suddenly turns bad? It happend before, let's not forget it. With all such surveilliance technology in place, will that society every be able to resist dictatorship and restore freedom later?
AFAIK federal authorities have no say in Guantanamo Bay, unless it falls under U.S. jurisdiction. Does it? Right now, only the US Navy assumes authority over this base. Are they considered federal authority?
which ignites the blocks of thermite attached to your hard disks
Of course, not every machine has a console. To kill the raid arrays in colocated servers, you need a software solution too:
You'd better not confuse -p (powerdown) with -P (permament self-destruct) though...
China is already moving in that direction.
Well, yes, sort of. But while China is moving (slowly) towards democracy, where are we heading? Are we giving up more and more rights until we meet in the middle? Is that a good idea? I don't want to blame Google, CCP or anybody else; it's just saddening to see how fast rights we thought acquired being slowly eroding away. Not in China, but here at home. Is Google's compromising attitude towards censorship still such a good idea?
Absolutely! Nothing beats good old XML data, with interchangeable XSL files to generate static content of any kind! I used to prefer pure ASCII text files, but (sparingly) throwing in some XML structure improved usability quite a lot. You also don't have to dump everything (XML, Stylesheets, Images etc...) into MYSQL or ZODB -- even though it could be done if need be and the infrastructure permits it.
Does somebody have an idea about this price ?
How much is MSFT currently worth?
It doesn't have to be Perl:
LAMP-ng: Linux, Apache, MySQL and...Python!
At least, Python code would be much more maintainable... Please don't get me wrong here: I like Perl very much, but most code you write today ends up being maintained by some poor other guy who has to pry apart what you've coded yesterday. I've wrote some Perl code a few years ago, and, frankly, it's difficult to follow today. OTOH, old Python code is still perfectly understandable as it was back then.
They confused Gaia and Trantor...
I honestly did not know it wasn't allowed to drive without this "license" thingy and run over children while drunk. I don't own a TV, and nobody told me when I bought the car. Does that mean I'm off the hook according to you?
Exactly! Pleading innocence because you're ignoring the law will be rejected by every court in the world, not just the US. This is a universal principle of law and the hardest to argue against.
That being said, some laws are so utterly complicated and written in a way that not even law experts fully agree on their meaning, that it is difficult for judges or juries not to allow excuses like: "that was not the way I've read it!" After all, laws SHOULD be written in a way that EVERYBODY understands them, at least the gist of them. But hoping for absolutely crystal clear laws will always remain a pipe dream.
Now add to non-understable law texts the whole body of jurisprudence (esp. in countries with an English Common Law heritage as opposed to Roman Law tradition), and you've got a mess no lawyer would really be able to clean up without proper in-depth research.
you could write a very very tiny little program (probably kernel module) that would be distributed as a signed binary, but also available as source (recompiling it wouldn't help, but you could verify what it does)
Sorry, but that doesn't make sense (if I understand fully what you mean) to security-aware people. Either the source code compiles to the *very* *same* *binary* (the one that's signed), or it doesn't. If it does, okay. If it doesn't, how would you know that the binary does the same things that the source is insinuating?
So it all bascially boils down to this: either you trust the vendor of that binary blob, or you don't. I don't want to trust them anymore than necessary, that's why I always run untrusted binaries from within thin FreeBSD jails, just in case the binary wrecks havoc with the system. But if they include and require kernel module blobs, the best jail won't help you at all :(. Unless you can run it under some virtualizer like qemu or xen...
Now, what would you do? Right: just avoid this binary crap, and insist on completely open source software that *you* can audit and compile with your own tools from scratch. Everything less than this should mean to the content provider: "thanks, but no thanks." and perhaps even a class action suit for discrimination (perhaps not in the US, but who knows, maybe other countries have better anti-discrimination laws anyway?).
Insist on open source. No binary blobs! (ATI, nVidia et al: hint, hint!)
You would not expect anyone to hear you with your windows shut.
While this may be a legalistic argument, it is technically untrue. Laser bugs directed at (closed) windows can very easily fetch all the vibrations from inside the room. This is widely known, and there are some devices you can attach to the glass to introduce enough interference. Oh, and these devices are not very effective, since laser bug experts often just focus/direct the beam towards other reflective surfaces within the room itself (mirrors etc...).
So, people may not expect it, but they leak a lot of physical information to the outside of their rooms; and what would prevent anyone from capturing that? Physically nothing at all. Legally, well... perhaps, with the right legislation.
THAT'S ISLAM
If it were really so, we would already have World War III, which we don't. There are over 1.2 billion muslims. Even if we conservatively assume that 10% of them were devout, that's still 120 millions of them worldwide. That would be, according to your logic, a lot of extremely dangerous enraged pitbulls. Where are they all? The so called "war on terror" has been triggered by a handful of extremists; not by those hordes that exist only in the imagination of a frightul, poorly informed population, which has lost all sense for the right proportions.