Of course, he began working for the US after he built the V1 and V2, which the US couldn't match at the time. Since the US already has cruise missiles, I suspect the reception will be rather cooler.
One good reason would be the fact that he wants to build cruise missiles. If you hire him, your neighbors might suddenly start asking unpleasant questions about your objectives in building the things.
... and any government that's not one is also usually not allowed to possess such missiles thanks to international embargos...
But that's the whole point. They can't buy such missiles from the US, but they could very well have the resources Simpson needs to build one for them. This is particularly true for countries (like Pakistan or India) who have WMDs but need better ways to deliver them.
Now the enemy is Islamic fundamentalists, and none of them are going to compete in a race to Mars.
Well, neither are the Islamic fundamentalists a superpower in any real sense of the term.
China, on the other hand, is gearing up economically, and has a stated desire to expand its space program. A Chinese landing on moon would cement their superpower status, so a US mission to Mars is the logical step in a (potential) space race with them.
And of course if the EU ever manages to form into a cohesive body (possibly a political counterweight to the US), it could also become a competitor in space.
But in any case, compromising the physical security surrounding someone priveleged to access the protected system is probably easier than breaking the system itself.
I know that it its technically possible to break the key by using large number of computers chugging away at the problem, but I don't the government has the time or the resources to do so.
If the government is just curious - I have no idea. I would assume that, even if, say, the NSA had the resources to break the encryption in a reasonable time, they would be tied up doing higher-priority messages.
If the government truly believed that you were about to do something Evil(tm), they probably wouldn't bother decrypting, since it would be easier just to arrest you and force you to give them the keys, or put a keylogger in your machine, or use any other method of bypassing the encryption altogether.
Do you really think that European intelligence agencies don't spy on the US (or at least haven't tried to do so)?
In international politics, allies have a way of becoming enemies when it serves their purposes; as long as the tiniest possibility of a conflict exists, countries will always look after their own interests first, and those of their (current) allies second.
Rubber-hose cryptography against someone with access to the key generally works quite well in situations like these (since obviously someone must be able to decrypt this stuff for it to be of practical interest).
Well, you're assuming that these robots are intended to actually deal with an attack. But suppose some terrorists were to dump toxins into the water supply. Which of these do you think would be a more effective response for avoiding a national panic:
(1) SPOKESMAN: It's perfectly safe to drink water. The toxins are so diluted it won't harm you anyways.
or:
(2) SPOKESMAN: It's perfectly safe to drink water. Our advanced robots are already dealing with the problem.
The biggest threat to the USA in the future is terrorism.
Terrorism may be the most psychologically frightening threat, and the most unpredictable and difficult to prevent one, but it is certainly not the biggest:
US casualties due to actual warfare (1941-1945): 291,557 killed, 671,846 injured. US casualties due to actual warfare (1950-1953): 33,686 killed, 103,284 injured.
[from the Department of Veterans Affairs]
Certainly looks like there are bigger threats than terrorism to me.
Why do people think that the command line is *not* "user friendly"?
Two obvious reasons:
1. Although it's great for system administration (and writing books), there are a number of important tasks for which the command line is not a good interface: image editing, 3D modeling, fps games, and others. The common element here is that all of these try to deal with 2- or 3-dimensional interactions, while command lines are generally 1-dimensional and linear (do A, then do B, then do C). I suppose it would be possible to have, say, a command-line image editor, but it seems that having a point-and-click interface is more intuitive for that type of problem.
2. There is a deep psychological aversion to command line interfaces in the minds of the general public. This is partially the fault of things like awk, perl, *sh, etc, which have become associated with command lines. The average user sees a clever perl script once, cannot understand one bit of it, and automatically assumes that the rest of the interface is as abstruse.
Meanwhile, by modularizing everything, you can PROVE that it is actually perfect.
Umm, no. Modular design is great for theoretical process correctness, i.e. if a certain input is made to the running program, will it provably produce a certain output. The main problem with this, of course, is it assumes that the program is physically running the whole time.
The systems (I assume) are being used here have to deal with more ephemeral and unpredictable conditions: failing hardware, CPUs going offline in the middle of instructions, random electric interference, etc. The main issue is that the program may not be able to run in its original state, and attempting to recover usually deals with potential data loss, which prevents good theoretical proofs.
This is exactly the same as software in my industry (HVAC fire/security systems for large buildings), where if you lose communication to a subsystem or the field, you have to raise alarms all over the place.
And perhaps the software in question also tries to do that. However, there are any number of reasons it could still fail.
Consider the following scenario: one software component (a proccess, if you will) is responsible for synchronizing the data between the remote testing station and the local data storage. Another pulls the locally stored data and displays it to the user. The natural place to check for lost comm is in the first component; but if, for some reason, the lost comm causes that component to fail, the second one may not be aware that the locally cached data is not being refreshed (a silly mistake, but I've seen it happen). Furthermore, the user will be unaware that the link failed because the process responsible for generating the notification will no longer be running.
a look at history will show that the Microsofts of the past were vilified by the public at large, and no one thought they were "just conducting good business."
You're in pretty murky waters semantically here. Certainly the "public at large" vilified the monopolies - but the owners/shareholders/executives of the monopolies themselves were usually in favor of crushing competitors.
There is a distinction between what is considered "good" and what is effective for achieving certain goals, at least in the short term. Take the history of Venice, for instance. They were universally hated and vilified by most other states in Europe; but by ruthlessly destroying anyone who competed with them, they became the continent's richest city, which made the citizens of Venice very happy.
What not have the Federal Trade Commission declare Microsoft OS defective and pull it from shelves?
IANAL, but I believe that a product can only be pulled if it poses a (physical) danger to its users. Buggy as Windows may be, I hardly think software poses that kind of threat (unless it is used in life-threatening environments, which the EULA specifically prohibits, anyways).
In any case, there's a difference between going after a company for its behavior and removing products from the market for political reasons. Nobody should be forced to buy Windows; but if I want to use it, there's no reason I should be prevented from doing so, either.
Judges should act quicker and allow for much less delay is anti-trust cases, because time plays against the ones they're trying to defend.
Innocent until proven guilty, remember? There's no reason that someone accused of anti-trust violations should have less of an opportunity to defend themselves than anyone else.
Having said that, I agree that the length of time most (not just anti-trust) trials take is riduculous, especially when you count the years of appeals. The obvious solution would be to create some special court to hear the appeals in such cases (rather than having them go through several levels of appeals), but that would require messy changes to the judicial system.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES...
So, while the GPL is intended primarily to cover distribution, it also explicitly protects the copyright holders from lawsuits, regardless of whether the claimant is distributing the software or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, he began working for the US after he built the V1 and V2, which the US couldn't match at the time. Since the US already has cruise missiles, I suspect the reception will be rather cooler.
Well, they're right next to each other. I think cruise missiles would be more useful to them than ICBMs ;)
One good reason would be the fact that he wants to build cruise missiles. If you hire him, your neighbors might suddenly start asking unpleasant questions about your objectives in building the things.
... and any government that's not one is also usually not allowed to possess such missiles thanks to international embargos...
But that's the whole point. They can't buy such missiles from the US, but they could very well have the resources Simpson needs to build one for them. This is particularly true for countries (like Pakistan or India) who have WMDs but need better ways to deliver them.
Now the enemy is Islamic fundamentalists, and none of them are going to compete in a race to Mars.
Well, neither are the Islamic fundamentalists a superpower in any real sense of the term.
China, on the other hand, is gearing up economically, and has a stated desire to expand its space program. A Chinese landing on moon would cement their superpower status, so a US mission to Mars is the logical step in a (potential) space race with them.
And of course if the EU ever manages to form into a cohesive body (possibly a political counterweight to the US), it could also become a competitor in space.
Sorry, I was speaking in general terms ;)
But in any case, compromising the physical security surrounding someone priveleged to access the protected system is probably easier than breaking the system itself.
I know that it its technically possible to break the key by using large number of computers chugging away at the problem, but I don't the government has the time or the resources to do so.
If the government is just curious - I have no idea. I would assume that, even if, say, the NSA had the resources to break the encryption in a reasonable time, they would be tied up doing higher-priority messages.
If the government truly believed that you were about to do something Evil(tm), they probably wouldn't bother decrypting, since it would be easier just to arrest you and force you to give them the keys, or put a keylogger in your machine, or use any other method of bypassing the encryption altogether.
Do you really think that European intelligence agencies don't spy on the US (or at least haven't tried to do so)?
In international politics, allies have a way of becoming enemies when it serves their purposes; as long as the tiniest possibility of a conflict exists, countries will always look after their own interests first, and those of their (current) allies second.
Rubber-hose cryptography against someone with access to the key generally works quite well in situations like these (since obviously someone must be able to decrypt this stuff for it to be of practical interest).
Well, you're assuming that these robots are intended to actually deal with an attack. But suppose some terrorists were to dump toxins into the water supply. Which of these do you think would be a more effective response for avoiding a national panic:
(1) SPOKESMAN: It's perfectly safe to drink water. The toxins are so diluted it won't harm you anyways.
or:
(2) SPOKESMAN: It's perfectly safe to drink water. Our advanced robots are already dealing with the problem.
"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin
The biggest threat to the USA in the future is terrorism.
Terrorism may be the most psychologically frightening threat, and the most unpredictable and difficult to prevent one, but it is certainly not the biggest:
International casualties due to terrorism (1968-1997): 7,427 killed, 29,427 injured.
[from the Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism]
US casualties due to actual warfare (1941-1945): 291,557 killed, 671,846 injured.
US casualties due to actual warfare (1950-1953): 33,686 killed, 103,284 injured.
[from the Department of Veterans Affairs]
Certainly looks like there are bigger threats than terrorism to me.
Why do people think that the command line is *not* "user friendly"?
Two obvious reasons:
1. Although it's great for system administration (and writing books), there are a number of important tasks for which the command line is not a good interface: image editing, 3D modeling, fps games, and others. The common element here is that all of these try to deal with 2- or 3-dimensional interactions, while command lines are generally 1-dimensional and linear (do A, then do B, then do C). I suppose it would be possible to have, say, a command-line image editor, but it seems that having a point-and-click interface is more intuitive for that type of problem.
2. There is a deep psychological aversion to command line interfaces in the minds of the general public. This is partially the fault of things like awk, perl, *sh, etc, which have become associated with command lines. The average user sees a clever perl script once, cannot understand one bit of it, and automatically assumes that the rest of the interface is as abstruse.
the system will fail gracefully and safely.
A mission-critical system, by definition, cannot fail "safely", since it must not fail at all.
Meanwhile, by modularizing everything, you can PROVE that it is actually perfect.
Umm, no. Modular design is great for theoretical process correctness, i.e. if a certain input is made to the running program, will it provably produce a certain output. The main problem with this, of course, is it assumes that the program is physically running the whole time.
The systems (I assume) are being used here have to deal with more ephemeral and unpredictable conditions: failing hardware, CPUs going offline in the middle of instructions, random electric interference, etc. The main issue is that the program may not be able to run in its original state, and attempting to recover usually deals with potential data loss, which prevents good theoretical proofs.
This is exactly the same as software in my industry (HVAC fire/security systems for large buildings), where if you lose communication to a subsystem or the field, you have to raise alarms all over the place.
And perhaps the software in question also tries to do that. However, there are any number of reasons it could still fail.
Consider the following scenario: one software component (a proccess, if you will) is responsible for synchronizing the data between the remote testing station and the local data storage. Another pulls the locally stored data and displays it to the user. The natural place to check for lost comm is in the first component; but if, for some reason, the lost comm causes that component to fail, the second one may not be aware that the locally cached data is not being refreshed (a silly mistake, but I've seen it happen). Furthermore, the user will be unaware that the link failed because the process responsible for generating the notification will no longer be running.
According to the SimCity model of economics, buying water is cheaper in the short run, but then your neighbors will start raising prices on you...
a look at history will show that the Microsofts of the past were vilified by the public at large, and no one thought they were "just conducting good business."
You're in pretty murky waters semantically here. Certainly the "public at large" vilified the monopolies - but the owners/shareholders/executives of the monopolies themselves were usually in favor of crushing competitors.
There is a distinction between what is considered "good" and what is effective for achieving certain goals, at least in the short term. Take the history of Venice, for instance. They were universally hated and vilified by most other states in Europe; but by ruthlessly destroying anyone who competed with them, they became the continent's richest city, which made the citizens of Venice very happy.
Well, we already have a framework for such communication in the form of the Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite.
Perhaps we need to revise it to allow poo flinging, though.
McBride: When I look at our case, I think anyone who has a rational mind would come down to the same conclusions I do.
Notice how he carefully avoids stating what conclusions he came to...
King Feature Syndicates claims Star Wars is "nonliteral implementation" of Flash Gordon, sues Lucasfilm for $10 billion.
What not have the Federal Trade Commission declare Microsoft OS defective and pull it from shelves?
IANAL, but I believe that a product can only be pulled if it poses a (physical) danger to its users. Buggy as Windows may be, I hardly think software poses that kind of threat (unless it is used in life-threatening environments, which the EULA specifically prohibits, anyways).
In any case, there's a difference between going after a company for its behavior and removing products from the market for political reasons. Nobody should be forced to buy Windows; but if I want to use it, there's no reason I should be prevented from doing so, either.
Judges should act quicker and allow for much less delay is anti-trust cases, because time plays against the ones they're trying to defend.
Innocent until proven guilty, remember? There's no reason that someone accused of anti-trust violations should have less of an opportunity to defend themselves than anyone else.
Having said that, I agree that the length of time most (not just anti-trust) trials take is riduculous, especially when you count the years of appeals. The obvious solution would be to create some special court to hear the appeals in such cases (rather than having them go through several levels of appeals), but that would require messy changes to the judicial system.
1. Crush competition.
2. Get sued for monopoly abuse.
3. ???
4. Profit!
Guaranteed to work!
So, while the GPL is intended primarily to cover distribution, it also explicitly protects the copyright holders from lawsuits, regardless of whether the claimant is distributing the software or not.