Lots of people have talked about this sort of system (pay $.01 per email you send, receive the same per email you get), but it's good to see someone writing it finally.
A question remains: my Social Implications teacher also teaches Telecommunications Law. She maintains that this sort of thing will open a floodgate of per-use fees on our internet access that we won't want.
I guess that by having a third party do it (instead of the ISP), we can get around that problem for now. Does anyone have any idea if she's right, and if so if it could affect this as well?
Well, if we take a quick look at reasoning.com we get.. Illuma identifies defects that cause application crashes and data corruption. Examples of the C/C++ error classes covered include:
Memory leak: a reference to allocated memory is lost.
NULL pointer dereference: a dereference of an expression that is a NULL pointer.
Bad deallocation: a deallocation is inappropriate for type of data.
Out of bounds array access: an expression accesses a value beyond the end of an array.
Uninitialized variable: a variable is not initialized prior to use.
Looks like your standard memory checker. We also get: Illuma is hardware-independent, does not require running code or test cases, and does not affect code size or execution speed.
It's a code analyzer that watches your variables. The question is, is code analyzing enough? I have a feeling that other methodology (ie. Cleanroom) may bring better results. The Meta-Level Compilation referenced by the parent post looks neat as well (though the two are radiacally different).
Does anyone else have an opinion about reducing number of bugs?
This is a Good Thing. The W3C should patent most of it's standards so that assholes can't. It raises the issue, though, of trusting the W3C members to not be those assholes that this protects against. An explicit policy on how they deal with patents can assure us that the patents won't be abused.
One question is, how binding is this? If a member of the W3C patents a process then starts telling people to pay up (a few years down the line, maybe), is this really any protection?
By Mary Jo Foley
Microsoft's newest shared source license seems to be inching closer -- at least in spirit -- to the GNU GPL.
The open-source faithful have been harsh critics of Microsoft's shared source licensing plan and justifiably so. They have claimed that Microsoft has attempted to ride the coattails of the GNU General Public License (GPL), while simultaneously slamming the GPL as contaminating everything in its path.
Even some of Microsoft's own employees, such as David Stutz, the former Microsoft manager in charge of Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) Shared Source program, have expressed frustration with Microsoft's licensing rhetoric.
But is there a case to be made that Redmond is slowly but surely learning from its past mistakes?
Exhibit No. 1: Instead of trying to blur the lines between open source and shared source, this week, Microsoft is presenting (against a back drop of open-source protest) its shared source program as an "alternative" to the GPL at the Washington, D.C. e-Government pow-wow on open standards and open source.
Exhibit No. 2: With no fanfare, the company recently has added a new shared source licensing option to its stable that removes some (but definitely not all of the more onerous licensing clauses from Microsoft's contracts.
The new license -- called simply, the "ASP.Net Starter Kit License" -- is much streamlined and simplified, weighing in at a single page in length. Under the licensing terms, developers and users are permitted to download the ASP.Net Starter Kit source code for free, to develop on and around the code and redistribute it, commercially or internally, without paying Microsoft any royalties.
ASP.Net Starter Kit licensees do not need to return to Microsoft any changes they make to the code, Microsoft execs say. Under the GPL license, developers are obligated to submit back to the community any changes they make to the code base.
But don't start thinking that The 'Soft has gone soft on open source. There is wording in the ASP.Net Starter Kit license that prevents developers or customers from GPLing the Microsoft code, according to Microsoft execs.
"You are not allowed to combine or distribute the (ASP.Net Starter Kit) Software with other software that is licensed under terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be provided in source code form, licensed to others to allow the creation or distribution of derivative works, or distributed without charge," reads Microsoft's new license.
What's your take? Do you think Microsoft is genuinely interested in adopting some of the positives from the open source model? Or is the company hiding behind seemingly more liberal terms and conditions? Write me at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and give me your two cents.
Big fuckin' whoop. You've turned your nice expensive sound card into a 2 channel card. No rear channel, no midi, no digital, nothing. The sound on your motherboard would do the same thing.
You're using the line out and the firewire port. That was sure worth the $100+ for the card, right?
Re:not a C/C++ compiler
on
RMS Turns 50
·
· Score: 1
Not to brag, but the school I go to requires a class in compiler writing, where the language is on par with C (some years it is C). That's right, requires you to write a compiler in a small group, just to get your BS of CS.
www.google.com -> "MainActor" The first 2 links are in German, the third is MainActor delivers, needs a better cast" from Linuxworld.com.au
Re:If i'm not mistaken...
on
SuSE 8.2 Announced
·
· Score: 3, Informative
From the writeup: Amongst other nifty features, KDE 3.1 apparently includes tabbed browsing, the ability to sync with Exchange servers, a new administration tool called "Desktop sharing" that allows remote control of other desktops,
From the parent: If i'm not mistaken... the "Desktop Sharing" feature is part of KDE 3.1, so any one who upgrades to that version gets that particular functionality - not just those on SuSE 8.2. SuSE is a great distro, but credit where credit is due, please.
I've heard of not reading the article, but not reading the/. writeup? Come on!
As an aside, I swear I'm going to install KDE 3.1 one of these days when I have time, it looks nice (shiny!)
Those don't conflict at all. If you write a crypto algorithm and "open source" it (let people read it), experts will look at it and find the flaws. I refer you to sci.crypt and it's subgroups.
"Closed Source" crypto is called snake-oil most of the time. If it only works because no one knows what it does, it's wrong.
If you read his summary, you would notice that anyone who gets the new feature will be paying $15-20/year on only 10 ad-free pages a day. Why would they cut that cost in half for inifinite pages a day?
Now, I could see $20 / year for say 20 ad-free pages a day. That would work for me...
Hey, Taco, how do you feel about group pay-accounts? I'm thinking where I work could use one.
Your 16 year old friend is an artist. Artists rely on things like imagination and dexterity (matters on the art, of course). Thus, he can carry out his art and not know how to spell.
Bush is our president. The office of president is a job based on communications, both in the country and to officials of other countries. As the "leader" of out country, he represents us. We are being represented as illiterates. Our president is not capable of carrying out his duties to the country if he cannot spell or speak properly.
HPR: The MPAA has backed several bills mandating copy prevention technologies. Critics have lambasted these bills for curbing consumer's "fair use" rights, including the ability to make back-up copies. How can we balance the interests of consumers and the movie industry?
JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.
If you were prepping someone like JV for a interview like this (you know he had help coming up with answers), wouldn't you tell him not to lie blatantly?
When you download the google bar, you're taken to a page that explains quite clearly what PageRank is, how it works, and the privacy implications. Then you can click "give me the PageRank version" or "no, I'm scared. Give me one without".
The term "spyware" implies that you didn't know about it, and/or you didn't have a choice.
Well, it's a dorm, so there's not much space. Computer, bigass monitor, bigger speakers, and books. 3 shelves of books. 2 bunked beds, and some stuff of the roommate's.
Wow, a full 14 lawsuits in ~17 years. 4 of those are AGAINST Nintendo. One is against a company selling CDs of pirated Nintendo games. Why is this a big deal?
MS files that many or more suits a month, I imagine.
They're not a monopoly for games
on
Microsoft Buys Rare
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Please, people, stop saying "they're abusing their power of monopoly!" Nintendo and Sony have been kicking the crap out of MS in the console arena. They can play the same marketing games that everyone else does as long as their console isn't most of the console market.
Re:I wonder what slashdot's percentages are....
on
Netscape 7.0 is Out
·
· Score: 1
Konqueror is the only browser on this planet that reopens all the links just like they were yesterday when I logged out. All on the right desktop with the right window-dimensions.
OR, you could have a schedule like my next semester. 9-5 each day, plus a few hours of homework each day, plus 20 hours a week of work to pay for food. Let's see...
Add in midterms, finals, and prep for those, where most of us don't get 8 hours a night because of the homework, that's 4 weeks each 4 months.
Oh, and for all but 20 of those hours a week, I'm PAYING for it. I go to an inexpensive school and the average cost per year is $10k for classes/dorm/food.
I can't wait for summer to start so I can take it easy with a full time job.
I work at a college Computing Center, so we have lots of machines to watch over. Each room has a theme (disney cartoon characters, planets, cars) and the machines in that room have those names (bullwinkle, jupiter, delorean). It's semi-easy to remember what is where.
Hipcrime is a usenet bot that makes it easy to do mass cancels and other really irritating things. It is used en masse as a censorship tool. A google search can tell you more.
Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".
The guy manning the abuse desk is serious BOFH material. If you've got a valid complaint, it is taken as such, and accounts do get cancelled. Now, if you're forging posts by someone in order to get them in trouble (an all too common ocurrence), then it's different, though I'm not sure what the policy is then.
Usenet can easily be made useful until you get people like cotse.
I now just filter out everything that is posted from a cotse address because they simply won't stop their users from posting hipcrime floods, binary floods, massive crossposting etc. Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".
I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.
First, I must disclaim I have a COTSE webmail account. This is because I know Steve, the guy who runs the site.
The above comment is blatantly false. One by one:
You can't run hipcrime through the COTSE interface.
There's a limit on binary size. It was 4 MB with the last system, not sure what it is now.
The remailers have a limit of 5 newsgroups per post.
The abuse department at COTSE (not Steve) will cancel accounts. It has been done for high BI (aka, spamming). Steve just told me that anyone running hipcrime-like floods (if they could figure out how) or binary floods would quickly lose their account, if reported, or if anyone there noticed. John, the abuse desk head, just confirmed that for me.
Now, as for blocking COTSE content, there's a problem with that. All (well, most) of what the COTSE newsgroup poster is is a front end to a few mail2news remailers. So, you (or your ISP) could block those. But, people can post to newsgroups with an @cotse.com address without posting through COTSE, and that's probably the source of those hipcrime/binary/crosspost floods. The same people could use hotmail addresses, yahoo addresses, etc.
Also, for help with abuse issues, we've been working on a post authenticator, since so many people forge COTSE posts just to get COTSE in trouble (no joke). Of course, they can look in their recent posts and prove one way or another, but it takes a lot of time.
In my opinion, Steve and COTSE are doing a great thing by letting people make usenet posts anonymously. Some people use it to get around cancel bots run on their names, bizarre forms of censorship, or to say things that aren't safe to say with a name attached. Anyone who has ever needed privacy or anonymity thanks him.
How about instant messages? I don't know anything on this, but can say aol read your aol ims? Or how about the next step, could you encypt your instant messages? just wondering
Get out a packet sniffer. Your IMs are plaintext HTML. They go from you to AOL to your Buddy(tm). How hard is it? Not much. I could pull out (write) a program to be placed on a computer with ethernet access at your ISP that would keep logs of all your conversations.
But I still use it. Why? Because I'm not doing anything that I care about others seeing. Me talking to my girlfriend about henna or what we'll do this weekend isn't important enough for me to encrypt, get her to encrypt, etc. It's a matter of priorities.
Slashdot Mirror
Lots of people have talked about this sort of system (pay $.01 per email you send, receive the same per email you get), but it's good to see someone writing it finally.
A question remains: my Social Implications teacher also teaches Telecommunications Law. She maintains that this sort of thing will open a floodgate of per-use fees on our internet access that we won't want.
I guess that by having a third party do it (instead of the ISP), we can get around that problem for now. Does anyone have any idea if she's right, and if so if it could affect this as well?
Hehe, here's a 401 Authorization Required you might like.
Well, if we take a quick look at reasoning.com we get..
Illuma identifies defects that cause application crashes and data corruption. Examples of the C/C++ error classes covered include:
Looks like your standard memory checker. We also get:
Illuma is hardware-independent, does not require running code or test cases, and does not affect code size or execution speed.
It's a code analyzer that watches your variables. The question is, is code analyzing enough? I have a feeling that other methodology (ie. Cleanroom) may bring better results. The Meta-Level Compilation referenced by the parent post looks neat as well (though the two are radiacally different).
Does anyone else have an opinion about reducing number of bugs?
Their bandwidth is pretty low, so here's my copy.
/me wonders how the school server will respond to the /. monster
This is a Good Thing. The W3C should patent most of it's standards so that assholes can't. It raises the issue, though, of trusting the W3C members to not be those assholes that this protects against. An explicit policy on how they deal with patents can assure us that the patents won't be abused.
One question is, how binding is this? If a member of the W3C patents a process then starts telling people to pay up (a few years down the line, maybe), is this really any protection?
Is The 'Soft Going Soft on Open Source?
By Mary Jo Foley
Microsoft's newest shared source license seems to be inching closer -- at least in spirit -- to the GNU GPL.
The open-source faithful have been harsh critics of Microsoft's shared source licensing plan and justifiably so. They have claimed that Microsoft has attempted to ride the coattails of the GNU General Public License (GPL), while simultaneously slamming the GPL as contaminating everything in its path.
Even some of Microsoft's own employees, such as David Stutz, the former Microsoft manager in charge of Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) Shared Source program, have expressed frustration with Microsoft's licensing rhetoric.
One More Time: Stutz's 'Sanitized' Goodbye Note
But is there a case to be made that Redmond is slowly but surely learning from its past mistakes?
Exhibit No. 1: Instead of trying to blur the lines between open source and shared source, this week, Microsoft is presenting (against a back drop of open-source protest) its shared source program as an "alternative" to the GPL at the Washington, D.C. e-Government pow-wow on open standards and open source.
Check Out the e-Government Agenda Here
Exhibit No. 2: With no fanfare, the company recently has added a new shared source licensing option to its stable that removes some (but definitely not all of the more onerous licensing clauses from Microsoft's contracts.
The new license -- called simply, the "ASP .Net Starter Kit License" -- is much streamlined and simplified, weighing in at a single page in length. Under the licensing terms, developers and users are permitted to download the ASP .Net Starter Kit source code for free, to develop on and around the code and redistribute it, commercially or internally, without paying Microsoft any royalties.
ASP .Net Starter Kit licensees do not need to return to Microsoft any changes they make to the code, Microsoft execs say. Under the GPL license, developers are obligated to submit back to the community any changes they make to the code base.
But don't start thinking that The 'Soft has gone soft on open source. There is wording in the ASP .Net Starter Kit license that prevents developers or customers from GPLing the Microsoft code, according to Microsoft execs.
"You are not allowed to combine or distribute the (ASP .Net Starter Kit) Software with other software that is licensed under terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be provided in source code form, licensed to others to allow the creation or distribution of derivative works, or distributed without charge," reads Microsoft's new license.
For the Whole Text of the New License, Click Here
What's your take? Do you think Microsoft is genuinely interested in adopting some of the positives from the open source model? Or is the company hiding behind seemingly more liberal terms and conditions? Write me at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and give me your two cents.
Big fuckin' whoop. You've turned your nice expensive sound card into a 2 channel card. No rear channel, no midi, no digital, nothing. The sound on your motherboard would do the same thing.
You're using the line out and the firewire port. That was sure worth the $100+ for the card, right?
Not to brag, but the school I go to requires a class in compiler writing, where the language is on par with C (some years it is C). That's right, requires you to write a compiler in a small group, just to get your BS of CS.
I love this place
Call me the google Bot...
www.google.com -> "MainActor"
The first 2 links are in German, the third is MainActor delivers, needs a better cast" from Linuxworld.com.au
From the writeup:
Amongst other nifty features, KDE 3.1 apparently includes tabbed browsing, the ability to sync with Exchange servers, a new administration tool called "Desktop sharing" that allows remote control of other desktops,
From the parent:
If i'm not mistaken... the "Desktop Sharing" feature is part of KDE 3.1, so any one who upgrades to that version gets that particular functionality - not just those on SuSE 8.2.
SuSE is a great distro, but credit where credit is due, please.
I've heard of not reading the article, but not reading the /. writeup? Come on!
As an aside, I swear I'm going to install KDE 3.1 one of these days when I have time, it looks nice (shiny!)
Those don't conflict at all. If you write a crypto algorithm and "open source" it (let people read it), experts will look at it and find the flaws. I refer you to sci.crypt and it's subgroups.
"Closed Source" crypto is called snake-oil most of the time. If it only works because no one knows what it does, it's wrong.
If you read his summary, you would notice that anyone who gets the new feature will be paying $15-20/year on only 10 ad-free pages a day. Why would they cut that cost in half for inifinite pages a day?
Now, I could see $20 / year for say 20 ad-free pages a day. That would work for me...
Hey, Taco, how do you feel about group pay-accounts? I'm thinking where I work could use one.
Here, have a free clue.
Your 16 year old friend is an artist. Artists rely on things like imagination and dexterity (matters on the art, of course). Thus, he can carry out his art and not know how to spell.
Bush is our president. The office of president is a job based on communications, both in the country and to officials of other countries. As the "leader" of out country, he represents us. We are being represented as illiterates. Our president is not capable of carrying out his duties to the country if he cannot spell or speak properly.
HPR: The MPAA has backed several bills mandating copy prevention technologies. Critics have lambasted these bills for curbing consumer's "fair use" rights, including the ability to make back-up copies. How can we balance the interests of consumers and the movie industry?
JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.
If you were prepping someone like JV for a interview like this (you know he had help coming up with answers), wouldn't you tell him not to lie blatantly?
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
Are you paying any attention to what you click?
When you download the google bar, you're taken to a page that explains quite clearly what PageRank is, how it works, and the privacy implications. Then you can click "give me the PageRank version" or "no, I'm scared. Give me one without".
The term "spyware" implies that you didn't know about it, and/or you didn't have a choice.
Well, it's a dorm, so there's not much space. Computer, bigass monitor, bigger speakers, and books. 3 shelves of books. 2 bunked beds, and some stuff of the roommate's.
Ah, but to have more than 11'x10' of space...
Wow, a full 14 lawsuits in ~17 years. 4 of those are AGAINST Nintendo. One is against a company selling CDs of pirated Nintendo games. Why is this a big deal?
MS files that many or more suits a month, I imagine.
Please, people, stop saying "they're abusing their power of monopoly!" Nintendo and Sony have been kicking the crap out of MS in the console arena. They can play the same marketing games that everyone else does as long as their console isn't most of the console market.
Galeon does this if you're using tabs.
Yeah.
OR, you could have a schedule like my next semester. 9-5 each day, plus a few hours of homework each day, plus 20 hours a week of work to pay for food. Let's see...
9-5 is 8 hours.
8x5 = 40 (class time)
2x5 = 10 (homework)
20 (work)
4 (typical weekend homework)
-----------
74 hours a week.
Add in midterms, finals, and prep for those, where most of us don't get 8 hours a night because of the homework, that's 4 weeks each 4 months.
Oh, and for all but 20 of those hours a week, I'm PAYING for it. I go to an inexpensive school and the average cost per year is $10k for classes/dorm/food.
I can't wait for summer to start so I can take it easy with a full time job.
I work at a college Computing Center, so we have lots of machines to watch over. Each room has a theme (disney cartoon characters, planets, cars) and the machines in that room have those names (bullwinkle, jupiter, delorean). It's semi-easy to remember what is where.
Hipcrime is a usenet bot that makes it easy to do mass cancels and other really irritating things. It is used en masse as a censorship tool. A google search can tell you more.
Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".
The guy manning the abuse desk is serious BOFH material. If you've got a valid complaint, it is taken as such, and accounts do get cancelled. Now, if you're forging posts by someone in order to get them in trouble (an all too common ocurrence), then it's different, though I'm not sure what the policy is then.
Usenet can easily be made useful until you get people like cotse.
I now just filter out everything that is posted from a cotse address because they simply won't stop their users from posting hipcrime floods, binary floods, massive crossposting etc. Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".
I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.
First, I must disclaim I have a COTSE webmail account. This is because I know Steve, the guy who runs the site.
The above comment is blatantly false. One by one:
Now, as for blocking COTSE content, there's a problem with that. All (well, most) of what the COTSE newsgroup poster is is a front end to a few mail2news remailers. So, you (or your ISP) could block those. But, people can post to newsgroups with an @cotse.com address without posting through COTSE, and that's probably the source of those hipcrime/binary/crosspost floods. The same people could use hotmail addresses, yahoo addresses, etc.
Also, for help with abuse issues, we've been working on a post authenticator, since so many people forge COTSE posts just to get COTSE in trouble (no joke). Of course, they can look in their recent posts and prove one way or another, but it takes a lot of time.
In my opinion, Steve and COTSE are doing a great thing by letting people make usenet posts anonymously. Some people use it to get around cancel bots run on their names, bizarre forms of censorship, or to say things that aren't safe to say with a name attached. Anyone who has ever needed privacy or anonymity thanks him.
How about instant messages? I don't know anything on this, but can say aol read your aol ims? Or how about the next step, could you encypt your instant messages? just wondering
Get out a packet sniffer. Your IMs are plaintext HTML. They go from you to AOL to your Buddy(tm). How hard is it? Not much. I could pull out (write) a program to be placed on a computer with ethernet access at your ISP that would keep logs of all your conversations.
But I still use it. Why? Because I'm not doing anything that I care about others seeing. Me talking to my girlfriend about henna or what we'll do this weekend isn't important enough for me to encrypt, get her to encrypt, etc. It's a matter of priorities.