Intellectual Property is a VIRUS. Once you accept the notion that you can license an idea, algorithm, or way of doing something (as opposed to the very narrow to a novel mechanical device), you've already given in.
I'm all for the concept of protecting an author's right to prevent others from directly profiting from their work, but the whole concept of IP as something to be locked up is wrong, and I'll go so far as to say that it's a VIRUS, an evil MEME.
Those who would allow patenting of software, math, etc... are just short sighted, and will eventually get reap what they sow.
Ok, so it was meant as a sarcastic commment, but within lies the solution to this problem. If we totally deregulate the airwaves except, we'd have problems for a while, but eventually it would FORCE efficient allocation of the spectrum, ala CDMA or other means, as the only way to reliably get a signal through the newly created mass of noise. It would be like throwing the creative force of the universe at the problem, and there would be many novel, and useful answers to fall out.
The specs say 7k * 4k pixels, but the JPEG files don't go anywhere near that. Also, they talk about the pixels being binned 4*4. So... what's the real resolution?
This is probably a place that has never heard of a humidifier... I once did a service call at a local univeristy office, they had steam heat, and I was getting ZAPPED with inch long arcs (~30KV). I wasn't surprised at all when attempts to connect printers to a switchbox resulted in problems, anytime the switch was moved, something went wrong. I left the case before it was resolved.
If you're running ANY electronics in an environment like that, you'll see it die, eventually, if not sooner. It doesn't matter what you connect, once you put a wire outside of the computer, it's another route for things to get zapped.
Everyone assumes that there was some actual bug recording keystrokes. I don't make that assumption.
<ConspiracyTheory>
I choose instead to believe that some FBI agent talked to a buddy with the NSA, and they picked the PGP key for him, with the understanding that the "keyboard logger" cover story would be used.
Now that things have gone in the dumpster, there IS NO KEYBOARD LOGGER to disclosed the details of. </ConspiracyTheory>
Besides, anyone with a DigiKey catalog and some time could build a VERY sweet keyboard logger, with remote dump via radio, etc. We should have a contest to see how few PIC chips it takes.
Well, Intel Pentium processors do support tagging memory as either code or data, with many permutions designed to allow for a properly secure OS to be built on top of it. So, I can't blame Intel on this one.
The OS should know better than to allow code to be self modifying, and it should abort anything that attempts to do so.
What OS in it's right mind allows code in the Stack Segment to be executed? If it's stack, it's obviously not a valid instruction, and should have been trapped.
If the system is known to have a problem with buffer overflows, why not test it yourself before someone else exploits the hole? Why not test ALL of the software this way?
This, "the most expensive computer virus in the history of the Internet" is a mere wake up call. Someone, somewhere, is going to learn from this, and other sources, and do something nastier and far more damaging. It will be more subtle, harder to detect, and will slowly take over all versions of windows, or it might be a blinding flash, splitting up the work to take over everything, hooking in multiple places, distributing its attack methods to make it harder to get a list of ALL of it's methods.
Things are still very insecure, we're all going to get hacked, it's just a question of when, how we respond, and what we learn, in the end.
I hope everyone has a nice, complete, MD5 hash/Binary compare checked backup of their files.
It's going to be obsolete as soon as they get it working, so why go with bleeding edge (expensive) hardware? Why can't they crank it back a bit, use cheap 1Ghz processors, and have 3-4 times as many of them? It seems they could get twice the bang for the buck that way.
Attention is money, welcome to the true new economy.
Perhaps system administrators have other things to do other than keep applying patch after patch to the rubber dinghy Microsoft built as a web server. As long as we have good backups, why bother until something goes wrong? It's a waste of attention to keep patching things, not to mention the odd service pack disasters that make things worse than before.
Don't go blaming the system administrators who have better things to do, put the blame right where it belongs, in the developers lap. They should test their code, and not count on us as their test lab.
Trying to replicate something and failing is NOT the same as proving it never happened. That's why I don't care about negative results.
If someone can debunk the original experiment, and find a more conventional cause for things, then I do care.
As for the touchy aspect of things, let's go back the beginnings of research of a similarly touchy phenomenon back in the 1940s.
Physicists had just learned of the nature of nuclear fission, and had hypothesized about a "chain reaction", which would be self sustaining, if a critical mass of fissionable material could be gathered, with a moderator to slow down the neutrons enough to be captured.
The Germans tried using graphite as a moderator, and came to the conclusion that it was unsuitable, and thus devoted all of their energy to using heavy water as a moderator.
When the scientists at the U of C here in Chicago did the same experiment, they came to the conclusion that it was marginal as a moderator. Fortunately for them, Leo Szilard knew that Boron (which absorbs MANY neutrons) was used in the commercial production of Graphite in the US. Once they had that impurity out of the way, we did what the Germans knew was impossible, on December 2, 1942, and had our very own sustained nuclear chain reaction.
I suspect there are similar effects at work in Cold fusion, and in the experiments we're discussing here. Failure to replicate an experiment, does not invalidate it.
They crammed a large amount of energy into a small amount of space and time, and got an interesting effect, which they suspect might be some sort of gravitational pulse. The pulse seems to be quite capable of going through electromagnetic shielding, and even 6 meters of wall and free air, with some steel along the way.
They have theories as to why it is, but they're not sure, and they want other people to try it too, which is why they spend so much time explaining EXACTLY what they did.
I'm very interested in seeing someone get a positive result replicating this, don't care much about negative results becuase it's probably fairly touchy, like semicondutors, superconductors, cold fusion, etc.
There's nothing in the known observed laws of physics which says that gravity can't be a repulsive force. The earth (or any large mass) creates a bit of shadow, and that imbalance acts to pull you towards it, formulas still work, and you can't tell the difference... until you move away from the center of the masses, towards the edge of the universe, then everything pushes outward... which explains "inflation", and the red shift, quite nicely.
I could be right, I could be wrong, 50% odds either way right now.
Actually... it's more along the lines of the Aztecs and the Conquistadors... right now we have the ability to revolt and kick them out... but we're losing ground, fast.
I see this as a very similar situation to the Indians and Eupopeans in early america... we're the Indians, who share the land, and think of ourselves as belonging to the land, and can't even concieve of owning it. The corporations are the invaders, and will do everything they can, including passing out blankets with smallpox, to get rid of us.
It's like this... a search is a single shot event... much like a parked State Trooper on the highway. You watch for him, slow down, and all is well. Everyone accepts this as a way of making revenue for the agencies, and a reasonable trade off in keeping drunks down to a low roar.
A wiretap (or in this case some other form of bug) is like having the police put a monitor in your car, monitoring your speed and location until they come and pick it up.
If you know the police are watching, you act accordingly. Would you really want to get a ticket for every single time you went more than the posted limit? Would you want to live in a country that allowed it?
The bill of rights is a restraint on government, because it's better to let ten guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one innocent man.
The bias against the persons involved is irrelevant, innocent until proven guilty. The bug was illegal.
Where did the non-monkeys on the planet come from? If they only had chimps on the ship, and not so many people...
1. Why are there all species of ape on this planet?
When was the last time two monkies bred and produced a Gorilla? Uhmmm... never!
2. Why are there all distict races of people on this planet?
If they were truely all descendants of the original crew, much more uniform tribe
--Mike--
"remove end-user access" - Microspeak for deleting the menu items and icons (the pointer) and keeping the bundled software (the bloat) in place. It's a corporate enforced memory leak!
Microsoft is trying to side step the real issue, which isn't the startup, desktop or icons, it's the BUNDLING of software. If I'm a manufacturer, and I think that Opera is a better browser, then I should be able to just put it into the standard distribution, no fuss, no corporate legal threats, etc.
If they insist on moving the help, etc.. to HTML format then they should make sure it works in the browsers that are available.
Allowing competition into the market will allow (gasp) innovation to be present, possibly forcing M$ to do something new for a change, like make a better product.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm all for the concept of protecting an author's right to prevent others from directly profiting from their work, but the whole concept of IP as something to be locked up is wrong, and I'll go so far as to say that it's a VIRUS, an evil MEME.
Those who would allow patenting of software, math, etc... are just short sighted, and will eventually get reap what they sow.
--Mike--
I don't believe in firewalls, but this might change my mind.
--Mike--
--Mike--
Ok, so it was meant as a sarcastic commment, but within lies the solution to this problem. If we totally deregulate the airwaves except, we'd have problems for a while, but eventually it would FORCE efficient allocation of the spectrum, ala CDMA or other means, as the only way to reliably get a signal through the newly created mass of noise. It would be like throwing the creative force of the universe at the problem, and there would be many novel, and useful answers to fall out.
Let's do it!
--Mike--
What's a star?
--Mike--
If you're running ANY electronics in an environment like that, you'll see it die, eventually, if not sooner. It doesn't matter what you connect, once you put a wire outside of the computer, it's another route for things to get zapped.
--Mike--
--Mike--
<ConspiracyTheory>
I choose instead to believe that some FBI agent talked to a buddy with the NSA, and they picked the PGP key for him, with the understanding that the "keyboard logger" cover story would be used.
Now that things have gone in the dumpster, there IS NO KEYBOARD LOGGER to disclosed the details of.
</ConspiracyTheory>
Besides, anyone with a DigiKey catalog and some time could build a VERY sweet keyboard logger, with remote dump via radio, etc. We should have a contest to see how few PIC chips it takes.
--Mike--
--Mike--
Well, Intel Pentium processors do support tagging memory as either code or data, with many permutions designed to allow for a properly secure OS to be built on top of it. So, I can't blame Intel on this one.
The OS should know better than to allow code to be self modifying, and it should abort anything that attempts to do so.
--Mike--
If the system is known to have a problem with buffer overflows, why not test it yourself before someone else exploits the hole? Why not test ALL of the software this way?
This, "the most expensive computer virus in the history of the Internet" is a mere wake up call. Someone, somewhere, is going to learn from this, and other sources, and do something nastier and far more damaging. It will be more subtle, harder to detect, and will slowly take over all versions of windows, or it might be a blinding flash, splitting up the work to take over everything, hooking in multiple places, distributing its attack methods to make it harder to get a list of ALL of it's methods.
Things are still very insecure, we're all going to get hacked, it's just a question of when, how we respond, and what we learn, in the end.
I hope everyone has a nice, complete, MD5 hash/Binary compare checked backup of their files.
--Mike--
--Mike--
Perhaps system administrators have other things to do other than keep applying patch after patch to the rubber dinghy Microsoft built as a web server. As long as we have good backups, why bother until something goes wrong? It's a waste of attention to keep patching things, not to mention the odd service pack disasters that make things worse than before.
Don't go blaming the system administrators who have better things to do, put the blame right where it belongs, in the developers lap. They should test their code, and not count on us as their test lab.
--Mike--
If someone can debunk the original experiment, and find a more conventional cause for things, then I do care.
As for the touchy aspect of things, let's go back the beginnings of research of a similarly touchy phenomenon back in the 1940s.
Physicists had just learned of the nature of nuclear fission, and had hypothesized about a "chain reaction", which would be self sustaining, if a critical mass of fissionable material could be gathered, with a moderator to slow down the neutrons enough to be captured.
The Germans tried using graphite as a moderator, and came to the conclusion that it was unsuitable, and thus devoted all of their energy to using heavy water as a moderator.
When the scientists at the U of C here in Chicago did the same experiment, they came to the conclusion that it was marginal as a moderator. Fortunately for them, Leo Szilard knew that Boron (which absorbs MANY neutrons) was used in the commercial production of Graphite in the US. Once they had that impurity out of the way, we did what the Germans knew was impossible, on December 2, 1942, and had our very own sustained nuclear chain reaction.
I suspect there are similar effects at work in Cold fusion, and in the experiments we're discussing here. Failure to replicate an experiment, does not invalidate it.
--Mike--
They have theories as to why it is, but they're not sure, and they want other people to try it too, which is why they spend so much time explaining EXACTLY what they did.
I'm very interested in seeing someone get a positive result replicating this, don't care much about negative results becuase it's probably fairly touchy, like semicondutors, superconductors, cold fusion, etc.
--Mike--
I could be right, I could be wrong, 50% odds either way right now.
--Mike--
--Mike--
It's war... undeclared, but war, none the less.
--Mike--
there are many more possible questions on this path... the path to Windows NT servers that never crash.
--Mike--
A wiretap (or in this case some other form of bug) is like having the police put a monitor in your car, monitoring your speed and location until they come and pick it up.
If you know the police are watching, you act accordingly. Would you really want to get a ticket for every single time you went more than the posted limit? Would you want to live in a country that allowed it?
The bill of rights is a restraint on government, because it's better to let ten guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one innocent man.
The bias against the persons involved is irrelevant, innocent until proven guilty. The bug was illegal.
--Mike--
Where did the non-monkeys on the planet come from? If they only had chimps on the ship, and not so many people...
1. Why are there all species of ape on this planet?
When was the last time two monkies bred and produced a Gorilla? Uhmmm... never!
2. Why are there all distict races of people on this planet?
If they were truely all descendants of the original crew, much more uniform tribe
--Mike--
On the act locally front, I stopped buying new CDs when Napster went away, and I strongly urge everyone else to do the same.
--Mike--
--Mike--
If they insist on moving the help, etc.. to HTML format then they should make sure it works in the browsers that are available.
Allowing competition into the market will allow (gasp) innovation to be present, possibly forcing M$ to do something new for a change, like make a better product.
--Mike--