The actual error isn't terribly worrying, but the process failure that led to the breach of their contract, especially for something that could have been complied with quite easily, is not the sort of thing you want to see going on at a company that makes closed source voting machines.
It's not the sort of thing you want to see going on with ANY company which provides closed-source solutions - either software, hardware or a combination of the two.
Now what would happen if a medical equipment manufacturer tried to pull a stunt like that?
Very true. Perhaps maybe there is a point to this.
If criminals formed a union, they would be in a much stronger position - think of it, if the worst came to the worst they could go on strike and then where would we be?
Software isn't an end product with only a limited number of accepted uses - unlike a car.
It's more like a toolbox - and there are some tools in there that you look at and think "what on earth would anyone want one of those for?", and some tools which it's easy to misuse, resulting in damaging the thing you're working on.
A large proportion of the population - including those who we pay to fight our cases in court - doesn't understand a number of basic scientific principles.
I don't mean things like "water boils at 100 degrees celcius".
I mean things like "In science, the word 'theory' is applied to a hypothesis which fits all available evidence, for which there is no contradicting evidence yet cannot be proven - whereas the colloquial use of the word 'theory' implies 'it's an idea which may or may not be correct, we don't really know'".
I would even extend this to more simple concepts like "No test is 100% accurate". And "It is easy to cock up a test, making its results completely worthless".
As soon as you start blinding people with science, a lot of people will just say "oh, it must be right then".
Sometimes it seems like justice is impossible unless there's something like a criminals union, or at least a defendants union
There is. It's called a lawyer.
The only small issue is that the legal process isn't about justice - it's about both sides getting together and having a supposedly-independent third party decide who has the best lawyer.
If Apple wanted to just sell the phone, they could sell it without a contract through their usual retail channels. (A number of the iPhone's features depend on the network supporting them, so it wouldn't have been such an easy sell, but that's Apple's problem). But instead they approached a number of telcos across the world and asked them to sell the phone with a contract attached to it. Every telco had the option of reading the contract and replying to the effect that what Apple wanted to do in a particular market was illegal, and thus they could not sign the contract.
But mobile telephone companies tend to be large organisations that consider themselves if not completely above the law, certainly in a position where it's fairly negotiable.
Maybe not in the US, but they certainly do in the UK. Stolen IMEIs are put on a blacklist and the blacklist is checked when the phone attempts to register with the network. The same blacklist is shared amongst all the network operators.
There was talk about extending this blacklist to other countries, but I don't know how far it is down the line.
Any significant IT department will either order systems pre-imaged to their requirements (Dell offer such a service), or re-image systems with their own company-specific image before they're sent out.
The big killer has always been driver support. Once the likes of HP, Lenovo and Dell are shipping PCs with significantly better driver support in Vista than in XP, then we shall see more adoption of Vista.
You ever heard the saying "In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"?
It applies within governments as well as anywhere else. Frequently more so, as governments tend to outsource systems development to outside companies - who sometimes work with departments to turn requirements into something which can be sensibly implemented, but as often as not nod their heads and implement whatever they're told.
I can easily imagine how such a system could come into being.
A manager who couldn't do something once because some aspect of the network was unavailable dictates that the requirements for a given piece of software include "must function offline" - which immediately implies a thick client caching some or all of a database.
The team developing the product consider encrypting the data outside the scope of their product - makes far more sense for the end user to have something on their PC which does that transparently to the application. They might note this in the documentation, but it'll be a single mention buried in hundreds of pages of somewhat dry prose.
The team handling desktop software management were never involved in development - they're just told to install the software. They never even notice "hey, it still works even though we're not on the network anymore" because they only run and check equipment connected to the network.
The developer contracted to develop the product should make more of a point that in order to protect privacy, either they don't cache data locally or some sort of encryption must be employed. But without legislation to that effect, there's no incentive to develop a policy which states "This group of people is responsible for ensuring that we comply with appropriate legislation, and all systems designs must be discussed with them".
A very good friend of mine unwittingly gave me an insight which I think explains it very nicely.
As far as I can tell, his source of news is "whatever the headlines in the mainstream media are this week". When the corrections come out much more quietly six months later, buried underneath an advert for a home course in Swahili, he misses them entirely.
As far as he's concerned, Osama bin Laden is from Afghanistan (and is probably still living in a cave there), Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and Jean Charles de Menzes was wearing a heavy coat and running away from men shouting "Armed police, stop!". None of which are true, but all of which were reported as such when the news first broke.
And in a military setting where a central authority has complete control over all systems from end to end, you'd expect it to work. Clearly it hasn't here though...
1. Effective DRM is impossible. 2. By definition, there is no such thing as DRM against printed documents.
I reckon the next big thing will be some sort of software which puts the fear of God into those who may wish to leak documents - by making the leaker identifiable. Specifically, watermarking them. Where two spellings of a word are equally acceptable, use one in the version sent to person A and another in the version sent to person B. Change the spacing slightly. Tweak letter shapes here and there.
Of course, then you get anti-anti-leak. Rather than publish the original document, you publish an OCR'd version.... but DeCSS hasn't stopped DVDs being shipped with CSS encryption, and it hasn't dissuaded the likes of Macrovision.
Grandma was pulled over by the sheriff Coming home from our house Christmas eve. Cops say microwaves can be used safely, But as for me and Grandpa, we disbelieve.
After all, if they want us to hear them, either they want to talk, or they want to get rid of us. It seems like a lot of work to try to get rid of things you don't even know are there, doesn't it? Inefficient. And it doesn't fit the mold...
The only way the BPI could analyse the traffic from torrents without actually joining them would be to be to sniff traffic directly on the ISPs network - which is what encrypted bittorrent is designed to protect.
But my understanding was that they had developed custom torrent software which joins the swarm and logs a fair bit of detail about every IP address it downloads from. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't implement encryption in that software and away they go - gather all the data they like on encrypted traffic because as far as bittorrent is concerned, they're connected just like any other user.
Absolutely right. After all, we all know how hard a time Microsoft will have finding people who can wring every last bit of performance out of Windows.
BBC has apparently ignored openly published industry standards.
Well, the BBC is more or less obliged at this point in time to use DRM because practically everything they produce is a labyrinth of licensing and contracts - contracts with the writer, record labels for background music, actors, directors.
So, exactly what openly published industry standard which implements DRM would you propose they choose, hmmm?
The bit you're missing is iPlayer, which allows you to view more or less anything the BBC has put out over the course of the last (week? month? Some time period).
The streaming media is straight unencrypted WMV or RealAudio, which is why you can play it.
iPlayer is a VB wrapper around Windows Media Player and requires the DRM functionality offered by WMP.
Is it possible that a byzantine set of coincidences coupled with his completely weird and kooky behaviour, accompanied by Tom Clancy-nesque plots by the Russian Mob, hitherto unknown serial killers and Houdini-like spiteful wives all conspired to make poor Hans look like a murderer? Sure, but in my view that is just a tiny, wee bit improbable.
I would point out that in criminal cases, the burden of proof is "beyond reasonable doubt". The only people who have a right to judge that are the judge and jury when the case reaches court.
FWIW, IMO Hans Reiser is guilty at the very least of being bloody stupid. If his marriage was falling apart and he knew he was likely to lose his temper with his wife, then hanging around any more than is strictly necessary is damn foolish.
Slashdot Mirror
... which the IT department know nothing about, which gets broken with the next upgrade.
The actual error isn't terribly worrying, but the process failure that led to the breach of their contract, especially for something that could have been complied with quite easily, is not the sort of thing you want to see going on at a company that makes closed source voting machines.
It's not the sort of thing you want to see going on with ANY company which provides closed-source solutions - either software, hardware or a combination of the two.
Now what would happen if a medical equipment manufacturer tried to pull a stunt like that?
Very true. Perhaps maybe there is a point to this.
If criminals formed a union, they would be in a much stronger position - think of it, if the worst came to the worst they could go on strike and then where would we be?
Actually, you do. Unless you're some sort of alien.
There is a small amount of breast tissue found in men, and cancer does sometimes develop there. It's nowhere near as common as in women, though.
(IANAD but my g/f is a therapeutic radiographer)
Software isn't an end product with only a limited number of accepted uses - unlike a car.
It's more like a toolbox - and there are some tools in there that you look at and think "what on earth would anyone want one of those for?", and some tools which it's easy to misuse, resulting in damaging the thing you're working on.
It's not even as complicated as that.
A large proportion of the population - including those who we pay to fight our cases in court - doesn't understand a number of basic scientific principles.
I don't mean things like "water boils at 100 degrees celcius".
I mean things like "In science, the word 'theory' is applied to a hypothesis which fits all available evidence, for which there is no contradicting evidence yet cannot be proven - whereas the colloquial use of the word 'theory' implies 'it's an idea which may or may not be correct, we don't really know'".
I would even extend this to more simple concepts like "No test is 100% accurate". And "It is easy to cock up a test, making its results completely worthless".
As soon as you start blinding people with science, a lot of people will just say "oh, it must be right then".
Sometimes it seems like justice is impossible unless there's something like a criminals union, or at least a defendants union
There is. It's called a lawyer.
The only small issue is that the legal process isn't about justice - it's about both sides getting together and having a supposedly-independent third party decide who has the best lawyer.
Sue Apple for calling the shots here
No. Doesn't make any sense.
If Apple wanted to just sell the phone, they could sell it without a contract through their usual retail channels. (A number of the iPhone's features depend on the network supporting them, so it wouldn't have been such an easy sell, but that's Apple's problem). But instead they approached a number of telcos across the world and asked them to sell the phone with a contract attached to it. Every telco had the option of reading the contract and replying to the effect that what Apple wanted to do in a particular market was illegal, and thus they could not sign the contract.
But mobile telephone companies tend to be large organisations that consider themselves if not completely above the law, certainly in a position where it's fairly negotiable.
Maybe not in the US, but they certainly do in the UK. Stolen IMEIs are put on a blacklist and the blacklist is checked when the phone attempts to register with the network. The same blacklist is shared amongst all the network operators.
There was talk about extending this blacklist to other countries, but I don't know how far it is down the line.
And you don't think they register which phone was sold to which customer at the point of purchase?
Twaddle.
Any significant IT department will either order systems pre-imaged to their requirements (Dell offer such a service), or re-image systems with their own company-specific image before they're sent out.
The big killer has always been driver support. Once the likes of HP, Lenovo and Dell are shipping PCs with significantly better driver support in Vista than in XP, then we shall see more adoption of Vista.
It applies within governments as well as anywhere else. Frequently more so, as governments tend to outsource systems development to outside companies - who sometimes work with departments to turn requirements into something which can be sensibly implemented, but as often as not nod their heads and implement whatever they're told.
I can easily imagine how such a system could come into being.
The developer contracted to develop the product should make more of a point that in order to protect privacy, either they don't cache data locally or some sort of encryption must be employed. But without legislation to that effect, there's no incentive to develop a policy which states "This group of people is responsible for ensuring that we comply with appropriate legislation, and all systems designs must be discussed with them".
A very good friend of mine unwittingly gave me an insight which I think explains it very nicely.
As far as I can tell, his source of news is "whatever the headlines in the mainstream media are this week". When the corrections come out much more quietly six months later, buried underneath an advert for a home course in Swahili, he misses them entirely.
As far as he's concerned, Osama bin Laden is from Afghanistan (and is probably still living in a cave there), Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and Jean Charles de Menzes was wearing a heavy coat and running away from men shouting "Armed police, stop!". None of which are true, but all of which were reported as such when the news first broke.
And in a military setting where a central authority has complete control over all systems from end to end, you'd expect it to work. Clearly it hasn't here though...
... will be the Next Big Thing.
Given:
1. Effective DRM is impossible.
2. By definition, there is no such thing as DRM against printed documents.
I reckon the next big thing will be some sort of software which puts the fear of God into those who may wish to leak documents - by making the leaker identifiable. Specifically, watermarking them. Where two spellings of a word are equally acceptable, use one in the version sent to person A and another in the version sent to person B. Change the spacing slightly. Tweak letter shapes here and there.
Of course, then you get anti-anti-leak. Rather than publish the original document, you publish an OCR'd version.... but DeCSS hasn't stopped DVDs being shipped with CSS encryption, and it hasn't dissuaded the likes of Macrovision.
If you're going to do that, why stop there? What would be cool would be to change the music to something like.... ooh, let's say "Barbie Girl".
Grandma was pulled over by the sheriff
Coming home from our house Christmas eve.
Cops say microwaves can be used safely,
But as for me and Grandpa, we disbelieve.
BURMA SHAVE
Because there was most likely a very good reason for the mice that they are afraid of cats and large things that can eat them..
I'd imagine the reason is that they might get eaten.
To you, "dual core" is what you've got left over after you've eaten two apples.
After all, if they want us to hear them, either they want to talk, or they want to get rid of us. It seems like a lot of work to try to get rid of things you don't even know are there, doesn't it? Inefficient. And it doesn't fit the mold...
Dude, haven't you seen Mars Attacks?
The only way the BPI could analyse the traffic from torrents without actually joining them would be to be to sniff traffic directly on the ISPs network - which is what encrypted bittorrent is designed to protect.
But my understanding was that they had developed custom torrent software which joins the swarm and logs a fair bit of detail about every IP address it downloads from. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't implement encryption in that software and away they go - gather all the data they like on encrypted traffic because as far as bittorrent is concerned, they're connected just like any other user.
Absolutely right. After all, we all know how hard a time Microsoft will have finding people who can wring every last bit of performance out of Windows.
BBC has apparently ignored openly published industry standards.
Well, the BBC is more or less obliged at this point in time to use DRM because practically everything they produce is a labyrinth of licensing and contracts - contracts with the writer, record labels for background music, actors, directors.
So, exactly what openly published industry standard which implements DRM would you propose they choose, hmmm?
The bit you're missing is iPlayer, which allows you to view more or less anything the BBC has put out over the course of the last (week? month? Some time period).
The streaming media is straight unencrypted WMV or RealAudio, which is why you can play it.
iPlayer is a VB wrapper around Windows Media Player and requires the DRM functionality offered by WMP.
Is it possible that a byzantine set of coincidences coupled with his completely weird and kooky behaviour, accompanied by Tom Clancy-nesque plots by the Russian Mob, hitherto unknown serial killers and Houdini-like spiteful wives all conspired to make poor Hans look like a murderer? Sure, but in my view that is just a tiny, wee bit improbable.
I would point out that in criminal cases, the burden of proof is "beyond reasonable doubt". The only people who have a right to judge that are the judge and jury when the case reaches court.
FWIW, IMO Hans Reiser is guilty at the very least of being bloody stupid. If his marriage was falling apart and he knew he was likely to lose his temper with his wife, then hanging around any more than is strictly necessary is damn foolish.