Years ago I arrived on Frankfurt airport on a flight from Bangkok. On arrival, it turned out that the local computer systems responsible for running all the gate assignments and platform traffic were down, and were not going to be up in the comming hours. As it turns out, the local airport staff had a complete paper based system in place still and managed to keep the place running with relatively little delay, thanks to tons of paper forms, and an obviously well thought out system that worked regardless of those computers (tho it is probably a lot cheaper and more efficient to run it with computers of course)
In other words, if your system is simply too complex to manage then you may have a problem right there. Throwing computer power at it to better keep track is no alternative to thinking up a better system, it is just a good tool for making it more efficient.
Of course using a more efficient system opens up new possibilities, thats not the point, but no number of computers is going to reduce 1000 forms to a more managable number by itself.
Hehe, well I missed that indeed, but really, would you be surprised if a spyware company actually tried what you wrote? Because if you don't care about ethics anyway, it makes perfect sense to do.
Well, you could start by making the browser just another applet that runs alongside other applets in one or multiple VMs.. Reminds me of Sun's hotjava browser somehow...
But really, the Eolas patent should be dismissed as obvious, too bad the legal definition of obvious nowadays has little to do with the intentions of patent law, let alone with what the dictionary meaning of the word is.
Gator's more in-depth tracking can get better clicking rates. The information their program gleams is in addition to the website's adds.........
The one thing you don't mention is that people generally find this to be intrusive and annoying and as a result are less likely to actually click on an ad. Annoying people is generally not a very efficient way to get them to buy your product. Annoyed you ask? I was looking for info on "x" and the ad distracts me with its attempt to push "y" onto me.
Well, that wasn't exactly France. The Franks were actually a Germanic tribe living in what is now south western Germany and Belgium which later expanded into what is now France. An important part of French history for sure, but to claim that 'France' won that one is somewhat of a rewriting of history imho. On a sidenote, a Flamish or Dutch speaking person who has seen some mideval texts in his own language will notice that early mideval 'French' literature looks strangely familiar.
The issue with the model that Claria uses is that there is a simpler, more effective, and less intrusive way to serve relevant ads to people: make sure they are related to the page they are displayed on. No user tracking required and a much better clickthrough rate.
The best thing to do for that kind of use is probably have the filter write to a RAM drive, and sync this with the Flash filesystem periodically (say, every day).
Definitely helps.
With 64MB or 128MB of RAM there's a bit to play with.
With 127mb there would be some room to play with indeed, 64 is likely not going to offer the room for this.
When using automated 'learning' suh as for example spam assassin offers, you easily end up with multiple writes for each mail. How many mails you get depends a lot on what you run the mailserver/spam filter for of course, but on the server that runs my personal domains that is already into the hundreds/hour.
Even without that, modern Flash gets around 1,000,000 rewrite cycles - and that's not factoring in wear-leveling). Assuming you updated your database every hour it would last for 114 hours. Since you are probably not going to be deleting the whole thing and then re-writing it - just appending new information - most of the time, it should last a bit longer.
Hmm, how did you get from 1000000 writes to 114 hours with one update every hour? and yes, the filesystem I typically use on such a system does wear leveling (jfs2). For the application of spam filtering I'd still rather have a cheap usb harddisk and not have to worry too much about either amount of storage or number of writes.. For an application that has a more static dataset I'd definitely go for the advantage of not having mechanical parts and the silence of flash memory of course.
Hmm, sounds like a pretty neat device and something I am definitely going to look into.
That said..
It solves the storage issue only with regards to amount of storage, the limited number of writes can become a real issue depending on the actual application, even when using a flash optimized filesystem. If you do something that is going to result in many writes (ie, a bayes filter with auto learning or some form of automatic report handling for a spam filter) you simply do not want to use flash for it.
First of all, "duh." I never suggested that the recovery software was replaced by a flash. I did suggest that the fact that you couldn't replace the recovery software was at least one reason why a EULA might apply.
I did not need the recovery software to flash any of the WRT54Gs I have around, so I don't see how an EULA on it would apply to begin with (tho one can of course use the recovery software to flash the device, someone who is going to do this on a somewhat larger scale is definitely going to open up the device and use a programmer).
I NEVER said that it would be illegal to replace the firmware on the router. However, it could very well be a breach of the sales contract and/or EULA to resell the router to someone else after you've replaced the firmware.
I signed no contract, there was no EULA the box, and I do not need to turn the device on and do anything with the embedded software to flash new firmware on it (sure, as a typical consumer you do use the original firmware for the reflash, but as already said, there are better ways to do that esp. when doing this on a larger scale), so not even a clickthrough license. If you are not going to debate hypothetical terms of an EULA that may or may not exist, I understand, but please excuse me if I am going to laugh at you if a few lines after that you are debating the possible terms of a sales contract or EULA that may or may not exist, and at is very unlikely at best to apply in any way.
And as you jump on the reply button scream "I gotcha!" consider that there's a big difference between Joe eBay selling his router and Joe's Routers eBaying several hundred routers. There is also the potential for a trademark enforcement problem, but proper marketing and labeling can eliminate that issue.
Yep, trademark issues, lack of warranty from Linksys and such are potential issues, both quite solvable but something to think about.
You obviously lack reading comprehension skills, among others (such as spelling).
Ah, very intelligent response to someone calling you clueless indeed.
I comprehend the actual process, since I've done it myself. Who is to say that you understand it, "Bart"?
You may have flashed a router, that doesn't mean you understand the process, it just means you can execute it. Did you write your own bootstrap code for the device? or a driver for the flash hardware?
You are right of course that untill the day a court decides so, we have no way to be absolutely sure, but when I go into a shop, buy a box without having to sign any contract, then can open it up, do not find any kind of shrinkwrap license either, take the device out of the box, open it up, and connect it to my flash programmer and flash new firmware to it, I see no way for Linksys or any of their suppliers to have any kind of case against me, regardless of if I am going to resell the device after that.
Who may have a case with me are my local equivalent to the FCC due to radio interference caused by modifications to the radio settings.
Both have already been done. OpenWRT basicly allows you to run Debian/mips packages and I had my wrt54g run such services for a while. Issue with mail becomes local storage, first of al the amount of it, and second the fact that its flash rom and can be written a limited number of times only.
For this kind of purpose I'd suggest looking into the Asus W500L instead, which has a USB port so you can connect an external harddisk for example, and runs virtually the same firmware.
First of all you don't replace the recovery software when flashing the device, alltho in some specific cases you may be using it. The EULA would have to specifically limit this usage to Linksys provided firmware or such to have any effect on this situation whatsoever, and then only in very specific cases.
Second, I'd really think Linksys released this WRT54GL because of it beign illegal to replace the firmware with your own eh? I have heard about companies suing their own customers before, but I doubt one (and especially this one) would be as stupid as to sell a device to their customers for the specific purpose of being able to sue them later.
You may be an IP attorney (or not, who is to say, mr. anonymous), but you obviously lack some common sense and/or understanding of the actual process of hacking this hardware.
First of all, I think it is more lack of diversity that is causing it being hard to find generic books on the subject.
Next, while I'd prefer a book like you describe, for many people that is something that they are not even going to start on, they want something practical that allows them to get somewhat direct result. Many people I know who use either Photoshop or the Gimp while not being a graphics professional do so with some very specific purposes in mind (ie, my girlfriend uses it for manipulating and somewhat enhancing pictures of things she makes. While showing the concept behind layers was a kind of revelation to her, and is something she uses when it makes sense now, most things she does is simply following a 'guide' for getting a specific kind of effect or enhancement.
What did help her a lot more with getting a better result in the end was a semi professional camera and some practical photography experience and explanation, including some general theory of picture composition and lighting. Worked better because well, a better source is a great help in getting a better result (tho you can still mess it up badly later of course), is something of which cause and effect are relatively easy to demonstrate without needing too deep an understanding of the underlying theory, and of course it simply reduces the need to use things like photoshop beyond making a proper cut or maybe some sharpening or softening.
At any rate, I'd investigate what the intended use of the book is for your friend, your idea may be very good, but could as well end up on a bookshelf without ever serving its real purpose.
What should be relevant according to the constitution is wether patents promote usefull inventions. It should be pretty easy to understand that when patents actually hinders innovation, this conflicts with the explicit purpose of patents. Who invented the thing has no relevance for this at all.
You are right that some things take a huge investment and lots of research, but that doesn't always work the way people think. For that you could take a look at the invention of television (also very interesting with regards to patents and how they can hold up things as well as protect a small but strongheaded inventor, gives a nice bit of insight in the pros and cons of the system)
It is completely irrelevant that those scientists are working for big companies, patents are not supposed to serve those companies, rather they are supposed to be an incentive to invent new things. Since they actually hinder inventions in this case, they should not be possible.
Will keep that in mind whenever I happen to want to run FC4 again with Skype. As someone else pointed out, there is a nice wrapper script to get around the problem, from which I gather that I am not alone in having seen this issue. At any rate, I normally run FreeBSD, and there it works fine. (and no, not because Skype didn't run on FC4, but that is another story)
So, maybe Sony is just stupid and inept. After all, look at the trinitron monitors, with that horizontal wire ~ 1/3 of the way from the bottom;
Blahblahblah...
Not wanting to spoil your day, but I think I should inform you there is another wire at about 1/3 from the top as well. Neither are a messup, more like a consequence of the trinitron design that was difficult if not impossible to avoid at the time.
You do not really need to decrypt things, you just have to get your favorite trojan to install some software to either send you the session keys or just the decrypted audio/chat data.
Modern computers add a whole lot of possibilities to communicate securel, but few peopel know how to operate things in such a way as to not open up many more new opertunities for would be evesdroppers to follow your communications.
Well, on my FC4 system, Skype works exactly once for a voice call. After that it fails making calls claiming it cannot open the audio device. restarting skype fixes this for another call. Not very usable at all. When it works the quality is ok tho.
Funny enough, it works perfectly fine on my freebsd system.
Interesting then how the Linux version runs fine on FreeBSD (which does somethign a lot closer to OSS and not ALSA) and how it is being an utter pain on my FC4 based system with ALSA.. I have wondered so far if it supports ALSA at all.. Not to mention there uis a Windows version around.. so at any rate, a bit more then Linux/ALSA eh?
Audio is poor quality: only 8KHz 1 channel 8 bit sampling.
Oh it is? on a crappy 28k8 line it indeed is. Sound quality is not anywhere near 'hifi', but on a decent connection it is pretty good. Not as good as a nice clear phoneline, a lot better then the typical mobile phone however.
Encryption not turned on by default.
Interesting, maybe you have another program calling itself Skype then.. because I cannot turn it off in the version I use here, let alone it being off by default.
User interface uses harsh, unfriendly colours.
Compared to what? It shines compared to kphone, but hey, it could use some improvement indeed.
The ringing sound is kind of loud, and surprises you when you're not expecting it because you forgot to set your status to not interrupt you
As someone else pointed out, you can replace it. Alternatively, you could turn down the volume a bit
Slashdot Mirror
Years ago I arrived on Frankfurt airport on a flight from Bangkok. On arrival, it turned out that the local computer systems responsible for running all the gate assignments and platform traffic were down, and were not going to be up in the comming hours. As it turns out, the local airport staff had a complete paper based system in place still and managed to keep the place running with relatively little delay, thanks to tons of paper forms, and an obviously well thought out system that worked regardless of those computers (tho it is probably a lot cheaper and more efficient to run it with computers of course)
In other words, if your system is simply too complex to manage then you may have a problem right there. Throwing computer power at it to better keep track is no alternative to thinking up a better system, it is just a good tool for making it more efficient.
Of course using a more efficient system opens up new possibilities, thats not the point, but no number of computers is going to reduce 1000 forms to a more managable number by itself.
Hehe, well I missed that indeed, but really, would you be surprised if a spyware company actually tried what you wrote? Because if you don't care about ethics anyway, it makes perfect sense to do.
Well, you could start by making the browser just another applet that runs alongside other applets in one or multiple VMs.. Reminds me of Sun's hotjava browser somehow...
But really, the Eolas patent should be dismissed as obvious, too bad the legal definition of obvious nowadays has little to do with the intentions of patent law, let alone with what the dictionary meaning of the word is.
Gator's more in-depth tracking can get better clicking rates. The information their program gleams is in addition to the website's adds. ........
The one thing you don't mention is that people generally find this to be intrusive and annoying and as a result are less likely to actually click on an ad. Annoying people is generally not a very efficient way to get them to buy your product. Annoyed you ask? I was looking for info on "x" and the ad distracts me with its attempt to push "y" onto me.
Well, that wasn't exactly France. The Franks were actually a Germanic tribe living in what is now south western Germany and Belgium which later expanded into what is now France. An important part of French history for sure, but to claim that 'France' won that one is somewhat of a rewriting of history imho. On a sidenote, a Flamish or Dutch speaking person who has seen some mideval texts in his own language will notice that early mideval 'French' literature looks strangely familiar.
The issue with the model that Claria uses is that there is a simpler, more effective, and less intrusive way to serve relevant ads to people: make sure they are related to the page they are displayed on. No user tracking required and a much better clickthrough rate.
The best thing to do for that kind of use is probably have the filter write to a RAM drive, and sync this with the Flash filesystem periodically (say, every day).
Definitely helps.
With 64MB or 128MB of RAM there's a bit to play with.
With 127mb there would be some room to play with indeed, 64 is likely not going to offer the room for this.
When using automated 'learning' suh as for example spam assassin offers, you easily end up with multiple writes for each mail. How many mails you get depends a lot on what you run the mailserver/spam filter for of course, but on the server that runs my personal domains that is already into the hundreds/hour.
Even without that, modern Flash gets around 1,000,000 rewrite cycles - and that's not factoring in wear-leveling). Assuming you updated your database every hour it would last for 114 hours. Since you are probably not going to be deleting the whole thing and then re-writing it - just appending new information - most of the time, it should last a bit longer.
Hmm, how did you get from 1000000 writes to 114 hours with one update every hour? and yes, the filesystem I typically use on such a system does wear leveling (jfs2). For the application of spam filtering I'd still rather have a cheap usb harddisk and not have to worry too much about either amount of storage or number of writes.. For an application that has a more static dataset I'd definitely go for the advantage of not having mechanical parts and the silence of flash memory of course.
Hmm, sounds like a pretty neat device and something I am definitely going to look into.
That said..
It solves the storage issue only with regards to amount of storage, the limited number of writes can become a real issue depending on the actual application, even when using a flash optimized filesystem. If you do something that is going to result in many writes (ie, a bayes filter with auto learning or some form of automatic report handling for a spam filter) you simply do not want to use flash for it.
First of all, "duh." I never suggested that the recovery software was replaced by a flash. I did suggest that the fact that you couldn't replace the recovery software was at least one reason why a EULA might apply.
I did not need the recovery software to flash any of the WRT54Gs I have around, so I don't see how an EULA on it would apply to begin with (tho one can of course use the recovery software to flash the device, someone who is going to do this on a somewhat larger scale is definitely going to open up the device and use a programmer).
I NEVER said that it would be illegal to replace the firmware on the router. However, it could very well be a breach of the sales contract and/or EULA to resell the router to someone else after you've replaced the firmware.
I signed no contract, there was no EULA the box, and I do not need to turn the device on and do anything with the embedded software to flash new firmware on it (sure, as a typical consumer you do use the original firmware for the reflash, but as already said, there are better ways to do that esp. when doing this on a larger scale), so not even a clickthrough license. If you are not going to debate hypothetical terms of an EULA that may or may not exist, I understand, but please excuse me if I am going to laugh at you if a few lines after that you are debating the possible terms of a sales contract or EULA that may or may not exist, and at is very unlikely at best to apply in any way.
And as you jump on the reply button scream "I gotcha!" consider that there's a big difference between Joe eBay selling his router and Joe's Routers eBaying several hundred routers. There is also the potential for a trademark enforcement problem, but proper marketing and labeling can eliminate that issue.
Yep, trademark issues, lack of warranty from Linksys and such are potential issues, both quite solvable but something to think about.
You obviously lack reading comprehension skills, among others (such as spelling).
Ah, very intelligent response to someone calling you clueless indeed.
I comprehend the actual process, since I've done it myself. Who is to say that you understand it, "Bart"?
You may have flashed a router, that doesn't mean you understand the process, it just means you can execute it. Did you write your own bootstrap code for the device? or a driver for the flash hardware?
You are right of course that untill the day a court decides so, we have no way to be absolutely sure, but when I go into a shop, buy a box without having to sign any contract, then can open it up, do not find any kind of shrinkwrap license either, take the device out of the box, open it up, and connect it to my flash programmer and flash new firmware to it, I see no way for Linksys or any of their suppliers to have any kind of case against me, regardless of if I am going to resell the device after that.
Who may have a case with me are my local equivalent to the FCC due to radio interference caused by modifications to the radio settings.
Both have already been done. OpenWRT basicly allows you to run Debian/mips packages and I had my wrt54g run such services for a while. Issue with mail becomes local storage, first of al the amount of it, and second the fact that its flash rom and can be written a limited number of times only.
For this kind of purpose I'd suggest looking into the Asus W500L instead, which has a USB port so you can connect an external harddisk for example, and runs virtually the same firmware.
First of all you don't replace the recovery software when flashing the device, alltho in some specific cases you may be using it. The EULA would have to specifically limit this usage to Linksys provided firmware or such to have any effect on this situation whatsoever, and then only in very specific cases.
Second, I'd really think Linksys released this WRT54GL because of it beign illegal to replace the firmware with your own eh? I have heard about companies suing their own customers before, but I doubt one (and especially this one) would be as stupid as to sell a device to their customers for the specific purpose of being able to sue them later.
You may be an IP attorney (or not, who is to say, mr. anonymous), but you obviously lack some common sense and/or understanding of the actual process of hacking this hardware.
Really I'de also like to know what Linksys corporates feeling on this is.
I'd say this 'new' WRT54GL answers that question somewhat no?
First of all, I think it is more lack of diversity that is causing it being hard to find generic books on the subject.
Next, while I'd prefer a book like you describe, for many people that is something that they are not even going to start on, they want something practical that allows them to get somewhat direct result. Many people I know who use either Photoshop or the Gimp while not being a graphics professional do so with some very specific purposes in mind (ie, my girlfriend uses it for manipulating and somewhat enhancing pictures of things she makes. While showing the concept behind layers was a kind of revelation to her, and is something she uses when it makes sense now, most things she does is simply following a 'guide' for getting a specific kind of effect or enhancement.
What did help her a lot more with getting a better result in the end was a semi professional camera and some practical photography experience and explanation, including some general theory of picture composition and lighting. Worked better because well, a better source is a great help in getting a better result (tho you can still mess it up badly later of course), is something of which cause and effect are relatively easy to demonstrate without needing too deep an understanding of the underlying theory, and of course it simply reduces the need to use things like photoshop beyond making a proper cut or maybe some sharpening or softening.
At any rate, I'd investigate what the intended use of the book is for your friend, your idea may be very good, but could as well end up on a bookshelf without ever serving its real purpose.
Ugh? Gartner making sense? Oh well, it is bloody obvious what they are saying of course..
How is it irrelivent?
What should be relevant according to the constitution is wether patents promote usefull inventions. It should be pretty easy to understand that when patents actually hinders innovation, this conflicts with the explicit purpose of patents. Who invented the thing has no relevance for this at all.
You are right that some things take a huge investment and lots of research, but that doesn't always work the way people think. For that you could take a look at the invention of television (also very interesting with regards to patents and how they can hold up things as well as protect a small but strongheaded inventor, gives a nice bit of insight in the pros and cons of the system)
It is completely irrelevant that those scientists are working for big companies, patents are not supposed to serve those companies, rather they are supposed to be an incentive to invent new things. Since they actually hinder inventions in this case, they should not be possible.
Will keep that in mind whenever I happen to want to run FC4 again with Skype. As someone else pointed out, there is a nice wrapper script to get around the problem, from which I gather that I am not alone in having seen this issue. At any rate, I normally run FreeBSD, and there it works fine. (and no, not because Skype didn't run on FC4, but that is another story)
So do I (having some 5 of them around, the biggest being at around 28", and using oen right now).
Some people are bothered by those 2 wires however.. and I found it funny to see someone complaining about the bottom one but not the top one...
So, maybe Sony is just stupid and inept. After all, look at the trinitron monitors, with that horizontal wire ~ 1/3 of the way from the bottom;
Blahblahblah...
Not wanting to spoil your day, but I think I should inform you there is another wire at about 1/3 from the top as well.
Neither are a messup, more like a consequence of the trinitron design that was difficult if not impossible to avoid at the time.
Was usign the kernel that came with FC4.
The mountains are high and the emperor is far (away). If you don't understand, ask one of your chinese friends to explain.
You do not really need to decrypt things, you just have to get your favorite trojan to install some software to either send you the session keys or just the decrypted audio/chat data.
Modern computers add a whole lot of possibilities to communicate securel, but few peopel know how to operate things in such a way as to not open up many more new opertunities for would be evesdroppers to follow your communications.
Hey thanks :)
Well, on my FC4 system, Skype works exactly once for a voice call. After that it fails making calls claiming it cannot open the audio device. restarting skype fixes this for another call. Not very usable at all. When it works the quality is ok tho.
Funny enough, it works perfectly fine on my freebsd system.
Only Linux/ALSA is supported.
Interesting then how the Linux version runs fine on FreeBSD (which does somethign a lot closer to OSS and not ALSA) and how it is being an utter pain on my FC4 based system with ALSA.. I have wondered so far if it supports ALSA at all.. Not to mention there uis a Windows version around.. so at any rate, a bit more then Linux/ALSA eh?
Audio is poor quality: only 8KHz 1 channel 8 bit sampling.
Oh it is? on a crappy 28k8 line it indeed is. Sound quality is not anywhere near 'hifi', but on a decent connection it is pretty good. Not as good as a nice clear phoneline, a lot better then the typical mobile phone however.
Encryption not turned on by default.
Interesting, maybe you have another program calling itself Skype then.. because I cannot turn it off in the version I use here, let alone it being off by default.
User interface uses harsh, unfriendly colours.
Compared to what? It shines compared to kphone, but hey, it could use some improvement indeed.
The ringing sound is kind of loud, and surprises you when you're not expecting it because you forgot to set your status to not interrupt you
As someone else pointed out, you can replace it.
Alternatively, you could turn down the volume a bit