1. How will this work on a Linux machine?
With the security that is the hallmark of a Linux box, how do law enforcement officials
You're assuming that the software will be running on the persons computer in the first place. If they're doing anything that interesting with their computer, chances are pretty good that they're doing it across the Internet. So you go to the ISP and demand that whatever piece of spyware is installed. It's an Aussie equivalent of Echelon/Carnivore, with the bonus that law enforcement is legally entitled to use it, the system is legally entitled to exist and thus law enforcement can be fairly open about having done so should a court case come up.
How exactly the system works, however, remains a secret.
In the UK, many years ago, politicians frequently held other jobs, or got into politics through having strong beliefs in something. The "old" Labour (supposedly Socialist, but hasn't been in some years) party was a good example of this.
Apparently, some people weren't happy because they were concerned that the politicians were being too distracted by their day jobs to help run the country.
So now we have politicians who are no more than full time politicians, with little or no experience in doing anything else. Previously, it wasn't a disaster, personally speaking, if their political career collapsed. They'd still have something to fall back on.
However, when you're only qualified to do one job, it makes sense to pour all your work-time resources into that job. Specifically, into whatever makes money. Such efforts may be recognised by promotion, and even if they're not you've helped ensure the organisation has money to pay your wages.
So now, as a politician, your job is twofold:
1. Influence the next round of elections as best you can. 2. Ensure that money continues to roll in through whatever means.
The General Public don't make generous political donations. Companies do.
I can well believe it. Older versions of word had this awkward tendency to crash if a document was corrupt, usually when paginating the point where the corruption occurred.
As anyone who's written in C will tell you, "interesting" things can happen if your program hits something in memory which doesn't match expected values.
IMO, it's not an IT problem. It's an information security problem.
The two things are subtly different. It's easy to explain to someone that there may be paper on your desk which has confidential information on it which must be securely disposed of. Failure to keep such information secure can in many businesses lead to disciplinary action. This is something which has been the case for some time, it's why shredders exist.
It's not a great leap to explain that the computer system gives access to equally sensitive information and thus must be similarly protected. The IT department can do some things about this but they can't physically stop you writing down your password on a post-it. Therefore, not only does there need to be a formal security policy, it needs buy-in from management and HR.
To put it another way, if the accounts department thought you were regularly trying to fiddle your expenses, they wouldn't approach you directly. They'd go to your manager, who would speak to HR etc etc. You'd expect management to take such allegations seriously, investigate and take action as appropriate. Similarly, a security policy needs management acceptance so a similar procedure can be followed.
I'm not suggesting you try and get everyone who uses their surname as a password sacked - you'd have nobody left if you did that - but a combination of education together with the ability to back up any statement of company policy regarding secure passwords will help.
the DCCA seems to be suing a company that caters to the most loyal DVD purchasers in the world. Such a misguided move can only have negative effects upon the DVD industry.
Not at all. They're simply taking business lessons from Darl McBride.
Every time someone writes something "ontopic" that isn't pleasant for Americans and doesn't agree with their American point of view, he gets modded down as "offtopic", "redundant" or even "troll" or "flamebait".
Does anyone else see the irony that this was modded "offtopic"?
Part of IBM is smart; they're getting out of the hardware business and morphing into a service provider, where they can make big $$$. The stupid part of IBM (the mini/mainframe side) is still trying to charge $200k for an AS/400 --- sorry, "iServer" --- that is comparable to a $5k HP Linux box.
means that part of ibm is smart (the part getting out of the laptop business). The stupid part he is referring to is the part that continues to sell their server hardware.
Except that there are a number of server divisions within IBM:
xSeries: x86 based, generally runs Linux or Windows.
pSeries: POWER based midrange kit, generally runs AIX though Linux is an option.
iSeries: What was the AS/400. Mainframes. Expensive and poor bang per buck, but there are applications out there which won't run on much else.
zSeries: IIRC, what was the S/390. Anyone care to confirm?
The problem is simple: The low end server hardware doesn't carry a great profit margin. The high end mainframe kit has a good profit margin but demand is low, particularly considering that comparable if not better performance can be achieved with a relatively low end server. Cluster a few together carefully, and you can get pretty damn good reliability too.
However, IBM has found a solution to this problem: sell the consultancy and support to tie it all together into a complete solution.
This is an interesting question. Most large companies have at least a few gloriously incompetent people who really should have gone long ago but for whatever reason haven't.
However, I don't know any reports which consider Total Cost of Ownership Assuming Your IT Department Is A Bunch of Blathering Idiots. Most seem to assume a certain degree of competence.
Started life as Acorn RISC machine, designed by people from Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, UK and Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino. Wikipedia has an excellent article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_RISC_Machine
powerpc - PowerPC vendor neutral name
The name may be vendor neutral, the technology certainly isn't. Most of its history can be traced to a company you may have heard of called IBM.
They had all the little stickers and it was impossible to tell the difference. M$ did not care, they took him to court and that cost him years and plenty of money to win.
IANAL but in the UK, is it possible/likely that the prosecutor would be ordered to pay the defences costs in the event of them losing? Or would the defendant have to sue?
"We don't care if you inadvertantly purchased a computer with unlicensed software. These things happen, you purchased in good faith. Frankly, that's only one lost sale. What we care about is the person who sold you it with unlicensed software. That's potentially hundreds of lost sales.
If, however, you continued to purchase unlicensed software because you're a dirty pirate - well, guess what? We'll know all about that when we subpoena your suppliers records!"
Not sure this would work. Anyone who's worked in IT for any length of time knows that something like this is likely...
You entered caseydonovan.com.
Due to a printing error, it is likely you really want caseydonovan.com.au. You won't bother reading this anyway - nobody ever does, they always click "yes" anyhow. So why we've gone to the hassle of setting it up I don't know.
From the site: This extension adds a menu to switch the user agent of the browser.
I use it myself and it works like a charm on about 95% of sites which demand a specific browser (the other 5% do something smarter than just checking the User-Agent string).
I'm supposed to believe that "just go home are a reasonable hour" never occurred to them?
When you get a little older, young grasshopper, you will learn that sometimes you are expected to stay late and just get the job done. If your company expects this to happen every day - it's a crappy company. But unless the entire staff can be persuaded by a colleague to leave at a reasonable hour, any one person is going to see this as a career limiting manouver.
I'm supposed to believe that "it's Friday night, see you on Monday" never occurred to them?
See previous comment.
I'm supposed to believe that "go work somewhere else" never occurred to them?
Grasshopper, you assume that alternative jobs are just waiting to be plucked from the trees. Many aren't long out of college. Without experience, finding a job is considerably harder. Finding the time to conduct a job hunt isn't easy if you're working 80 hours a week. And resigning is an excellent way to ensure you get no unemployment benefits in many countries.
Back before the Internet became popular, I used to preach about backups, about how the "easy" way was to listen to me; the "hard" way was to lose something vital.
All smiles, nods, agreement. Not a single person acted on this though.
I gave up when I realised that most people simply Do Not Learn the "easy" way.
UK have stated that FOSS is a viable alternative for government deployment and should be considered alongside commerical alternatives
Not sure about France, but while the UK are saying that the Department for Trade and Industry recently invited me to a talk where they can brainwash me into how wonderful Patents are.
It never ceases to amaze me that politicians and those in even vaguely political institutions are unable to grasp that organisations tend to favour things which are in their financial interest.
Right. So, AIUI, by using all the other claims (which between them effectively describe what a compiler is and does), Microsoft are ensuring that no other compiled language can implement an equivalent operator?
That kind of behaviour could set back computer science 20 years.
Nosotros cortafuego de la voluntad sus soldados en la fuente. Los bloquearemos en su puerta, nosotros los bloquearemos en su base, nosotros los bloquearemos en sus campos de entrenamiento.
Slashdot Mirror
1. How will this work on a Linux machine?
With the security that is the hallmark of a Linux box, how do law enforcement officials
You're assuming that the software will be running on the persons computer in the first place. If they're doing anything that interesting with their computer, chances are pretty good that they're doing it across the Internet. So you go to the ISP and demand that whatever piece of spyware is installed. It's an Aussie equivalent of Echelon/Carnivore, with the bonus that law enforcement is legally entitled to use it, the system is legally entitled to exist and thus law enforcement can be fairly open about having done so should a court case come up.
How exactly the system works, however, remains a secret.
In the UK, many years ago, politicians frequently held other jobs, or got into politics through having strong beliefs in something. The "old" Labour (supposedly Socialist, but hasn't been in some years) party was a good example of this.
Apparently, some people weren't happy because they were concerned that the politicians were being too distracted by their day jobs to help run the country.
So now we have politicians who are no more than full time politicians, with little or no experience in doing anything else. Previously, it wasn't a disaster, personally speaking, if their political career collapsed. They'd still have something to fall back on.
However, when you're only qualified to do one job, it makes sense to pour all your work-time resources into that job. Specifically, into whatever makes money. Such efforts may be recognised by promotion, and even if they're not you've helped ensure the organisation has money to pay your wages.
So now, as a politician, your job is twofold:
1. Influence the next round of elections as best you can.
2. Ensure that money continues to roll in through whatever means.
The General Public don't make generous political donations. Companies do.
I can well believe it. Older versions of word had this awkward tendency to crash if a document was corrupt, usually when paginating the point where the corruption occurred.
As anyone who's written in C will tell you, "interesting" things can happen if your program hits something in memory which doesn't match expected values.
IMO, it's not an IT problem. It's an information security problem.
The two things are subtly different. It's easy to explain to someone that there may be paper on your desk which has confidential information on it which must be securely disposed of. Failure to keep such information secure can in many businesses lead to disciplinary action. This is something which has been the case for some time, it's why shredders exist.
It's not a great leap to explain that the computer system gives access to equally sensitive information and thus must be similarly protected. The IT department can do some things about this but they can't physically stop you writing down your password on a post-it. Therefore, not only does there need to be a formal security policy, it needs buy-in from management and HR.
To put it another way, if the accounts department thought you were regularly trying to fiddle your expenses, they wouldn't approach you directly. They'd go to your manager, who would speak to HR etc etc. You'd expect management to take such allegations seriously, investigate and take action as appropriate. Similarly, a security policy needs management acceptance so a similar procedure can be followed.
I'm not suggesting you try and get everyone who uses their surname as a password sacked - you'd have nobody left if you did that - but a combination of education together with the ability to back up any statement of company policy regarding secure passwords will help.
the DCCA seems to be suing a company that caters to the most loyal DVD purchasers in the world. Such a misguided move can only have negative effects upon the DVD industry.
Not at all. They're simply taking business lessons from Darl McBride.
Every time someone writes something "ontopic" that isn't pleasant for Americans and doesn't agree with their American point of view, he gets modded down as "offtopic", "redundant" or even "troll" or "flamebait".
Does anyone else see the irony that this was modded "offtopic"?
Watch this post get modded right down as well.
Part of IBM is smart; they're getting out of the hardware business and morphing into a service provider, where they can make big $$$. The stupid part of IBM (the mini/mainframe side) is still trying to charge $200k for an AS/400 --- sorry, "iServer" --- that is comparable to a $5k HP Linux box.
means that part of ibm is smart (the part getting out of the laptop business). The stupid part he is referring to is the part that continues to sell their server hardware.
Except that there are a number of server divisions within IBM:
xSeries: x86 based, generally runs Linux or Windows.
pSeries: POWER based midrange kit, generally runs AIX though Linux is an option.
iSeries: What was the AS/400. Mainframes. Expensive and poor bang per buck, but there are applications out there which won't run on much else.
zSeries: IIRC, what was the S/390. Anyone care to confirm?
The problem is simple: The low end server hardware doesn't carry a great profit margin. The high end mainframe kit has a good profit margin but demand is low, particularly considering that comparable if not better performance can be achieved with a relatively low end server. Cluster a few together carefully, and you can get pretty damn good reliability too.
However, IBM has found a solution to this problem: sell the consultancy and support to tie it all together into a complete solution.
Software patents are illegal in the UK anyway
Unfortunately, this hasn't stopped the UK patent office granting them.
http://swpat.ffii.org/players/uk/index.en.html
This is an interesting question. Most large companies have at least a few gloriously incompetent people who really should have gone long ago but for whatever reason haven't.
However, I don't know any reports which consider Total Cost of Ownership Assuming Your IT Department Is A Bunch of Blathering Idiots. Most seem to assume a certain degree of competence.
'liberated from their oppressive, and despotic government'
Who said anything about Norway liberating America? I thought it was the other way around.
Oh, wait...
arm ("arm" - ARM , Ltd.)
Started life as Acorn RISC machine, designed by people from Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, UK and Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino. Wikipedia has an excellent article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_RISC_Machine
powerpc - PowerPC vendor neutral name
The name may be vendor neutral, the technology certainly isn't. Most of its history can be traced to a company you may have heard of called
IBM.
Is there a big market for legitimate NES games in your part of the world? The original NES died a looong time ago.
If the market is small, why bother paying lawyers?
They had all the little stickers and it was impossible to tell the difference. M$ did not care, they took him to court and that cost him years and plenty of money to win.
IANAL but in the UK, is it possible/likely that the prosecutor would be ordered to pay the defences costs in the event of them losing? Or would the defendant have to sue?
"...our goal is to get to the source".
Translation: Our goal is future upgrade revenue.
I disagree. My translation is:
"We don't care if you inadvertantly purchased a computer with unlicensed software. These things happen, you purchased in good faith. Frankly, that's only one lost sale. What we care about is the person who sold you it with unlicensed software. That's potentially hundreds of lost sales.
If, however, you continued to purchase unlicensed software because you're a dirty pirate - well, guess what? We'll know all about that when we subpoena your suppliers records!"
Until someone noticed that it was printed out by a color printer.
Then get hold of a plotter, load it up with pantbrushes and use that.
Not sure this would work. Anyone who's worked in IT for any length of time knows that something like this is likely...
You entered caseydonovan.com.
Due to a printing error, it is likely you really want caseydonovan.com.au. You won't bother reading this anyway - nobody ever does, they always click "yes" anyhow. So why we've gone to the hassle of setting it up I don't know.
Are you sure?
YES NO
You may find this helpful:
n tswitcher
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/userage
From the site: This extension adds a menu to switch the user agent of the browser.
I use it myself and it works like a charm on about 95% of sites which demand a specific browser (the other 5% do something smarter than just checking the User-Agent string).
taco got ./ed
/.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people can't spell
OK, so I'm feeding the trolls:
I'm supposed to believe that "just go home are a reasonable hour" never occurred to them?
When you get a little older, young grasshopper, you will learn that sometimes you are expected to stay late and just get the job done. If your company expects this to happen every day - it's a crappy company. But unless the entire staff can be persuaded by a colleague to leave at a reasonable hour, any one person is going to see this as a career limiting manouver.
I'm supposed to believe that "it's Friday night, see you on Monday" never occurred to them?
See previous comment.
I'm supposed to believe that "go work somewhere else" never occurred to them?
Grasshopper, you assume that alternative jobs are just waiting to be plucked from the trees. Many aren't long out of college. Without experience, finding a job is considerably harder. Finding the time to conduct a job hunt isn't easy if you're working 80 hours a week. And resigning is an excellent way to ensure you get no unemployment benefits in many countries.
Make sure you unplug it before you cut the plug off.
(yes, I made a similar mistake once...)
Back before the Internet became popular, I used to preach about backups, about how the "easy" way was to listen to me; the "hard" way was to lose something vital.
All smiles, nods, agreement. Not a single person acted on this though.
I gave up when I realised that most people simply Do Not Learn the "easy" way.
Claim four covers any system wherein the compiler comprises a scanner, parser, analyzer, and executable generator (regardless of language).
So that'll be pretty much any compiled language in the whole history of computing, yeah?
UK have stated that FOSS is a viable alternative for government deployment and should be considered alongside commerical alternatives
Not sure about France, but while the UK are saying that the Department for Trade and Industry recently invited me to a talk where they can brainwash me into how wonderful Patents are.
It never ceases to amaze me that politicians and those in even vaguely political institutions are unable to grasp that organisations tend to favour things which are in their financial interest.
Right. So, AIUI, by using all the other claims (which between them effectively describe what a compiler is and does), Microsoft are ensuring that no other compiled language can implement an equivalent operator?
That kind of behaviour could set back computer science 20 years.
Sr Bush,
Nosotros cortafuego de la voluntad sus soldados en la fuente. Los bloquearemos en su puerta, nosotros los bloquearemos en su base, nosotros los bloquearemos en sus campos de entrenamiento.
Todo nuestro amor,
MPAA
(with apologies to Steve Heckler).