This worries me particularly, since I've spent the last few years of my life developing something which should, in my opinion (aka, earnest hope), become a useful world standard.
I won't say what, because I have neither interest in showboating, nor, and this is more important, the money to reimburse my free web host, a personal friend, for the slashdotting that might occur. In my small, and somewhat specialised field, what needs to be known will be.
back on point...
If powerful companies can hijack standards authorities at will, and years of sweat and tears can be beaten by the dollar alone, then academics like myself, who are just starting out, stand no chance, no matter how good our research is.
The in-state tuition bill is not about keeping illegal immigrants out of school, it is about charging illegal immigrants the same tuition at State colleges that legal residents would pay
So this assumes they have the same level of wages? Because as far as I can tell, this is not usually the case.
Mind you, in that case I'd probably feel the same way. I worked my way through university, and it wasn't easy.
How is this criminal? This is like a perfect example of a civil offense.
Seems to me the guy doesn't make many good decisions. From his Wikipedia page:
# voted against the Clean Indoor Air Act of 2007 (HB359) # voted against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in 2007 (HB6) # voted against the Healthy Air Act in 2006 (SB154)
If the guy doesn't want you to breath clean air, or teach illegal immigrants (after all, being literate obviously wouldn't help them at all..), then this seems pretty much par for the course.
Perhaps, but university graduates end up working at the major corporations, so we are ultimately talking about the same people.
I'm an academic myself, one who is finding that academic success bizarrely doesn't mean an escape from low wages, so I wouldn't personally be convinced that academia is any assurance of moral and ethical superiority. We all have to pay bills...
I've been writing software for 30 years, I can assure you there's no way to make totally secure software
The closest I ever got to totally secure software was writing in the online user manual for my open source project 'if you run this software as root you are batshit insane...'.
I took it out though, as I have to be respectable these days...
Please explain how a distributed pen and paper system breaks as the number of voters increases.
Please post as something other than AC to make me feel I should answer your question.
Since you are using the internet, and visiting slashdot, I assume you aren't a technophobe, so get with it, get an account or uncheck the 'Post Anonymously' box. Then I'll debate.
And so, I'm supposed to trust "big companies" with my vote....why, exactly? I realize we may have to do something along your suggestion to fix the voting system, but the examples you chose hardly inspire confidence..
I wasn't talking about how well those systems are run. I live in the UK, where we pay that nasty, socialist national insurance, and have health care assured free at point of provision, no matter what ails us, and regardless of previous health conditions. Apparently this means we also breed terrorists, since one of your senators recently claimed that government run health care promotes such things, but I digress.
My point is, properly run or not, you still let it happen (and you do let it happen, there are 300 million of you, it's not as if they could say no if you all objected at once...).
Given this precedent, and provided it is done in a non profit way, my proposed system might actually work.
However, population size is increasing. Ok, a lot of people don't vote (for reasons that escape me...). Assuming the option of making voting compulsory, which I am in favor of (after all, a lot of people ended up dead last century making sure we could, its a tragedy that so many people don't even seem to be aware of what happened...), then you'd very quickly have a system close to the breaking point.
All we need is a secure and reliable electronic voting system, free of commercial restraint.
The problem is that paper based elections are no more secure, and if the physical ballots are lost, you're screwed. Accidents do happen, so you can't say they never would be. We need a better voting system that takes advantage of our new computing technology.
I'm not saying that the current electronic systems are a good idea though.
The primary flaw of the currently available voting machines is that they are all proprietary. This means a company has a commercial interest in hiding flaws, and is more likely to push out a device with flaws (or fight to prevent their discovery), if they convince themselves that fixing the flaws isn't worth it, in view of the profit reduction that would result.
We need a voting machine system which is impartial, and not run as a for profit exercise.
I think the best method would be to set up a consortium of major technology corporations to create the voting machines, and have them run it as a tax break, with rental fee's going to charities, not to the corporations themselves. After all, they have all the smart people working for them, and if profit is not a factor, and no single company has control, the system is less likely to be flawed.
Before anyone starts foaming at the mouth about big companies I say this. They already run your health system, your financial institutions, your currency, transportation systems, and your food supply. It's not such a big leap. Plus, co-operation is already happening with software technology.
I've often wondered about these people who freeze themselves when they die, hoping to be revised when there is a cure.
Two thoughts occurred to me in relation to this.
1: A cure for being dead? Um....
2: Why, when we can make millions of new people a day through highly enjoyable and natural (if somewhat sticky) methods, would we be wanting to defrost some dead people and try to bring them back? It's not like they'd be needed or anything.
'Islands in the Sky' Blew me away when I first read it as a child, I still consider it to be one of the most prophetic of all SF books. I recently spent rather a lot of money of a 1952 paperback edition of same.
Anti-virus software does get on my nerves though. After all, it does it's job largely without requiring user interaction, so why do so many have pointless 'scanning your pc' dialogs. I'm using avg, because I got fed up with the symantec experience, and that insists on interrupting me whenever it does an update. I mean, why? Just do it, don't show it to me. I'm on the lookout for a replacement, but finances are tight, and I don't want an 'everything plus the kitchen sink' security suite, which most AV sellers seem to offer.
Whole systems scans should not need to be performed more than once, on install. After that, every vector to infection should be checked by the AV as something comes in. I get rather irritated that all AV products insist on doing a full scan so often. It kind of says' we don't know what we're doing' to me. It shouldn't be needed. Indeed, I don't recall ever finding a virus on one of these routine scans (although I have found some on full scans I initiated on some machines, once the AV was updated). All they do is slow my pc down.
The only product in this class that didn't annoy me was prevx, and that because it saved my ass once when my machine was used to access sites I wouldn't usually go near by a bloody warez are k00l moron, and got trojen'd. It was the only one that sorted the problem. I'm not sure if I can just use that instead of proper AV though.
If this gets thrown out, it will really dent future attempts to use methods like this to shield shoddy products.
If you ask me, Sequoia has been given some very bad legal advice. Didn't anyone stop to think about the public relations nightmare this would cause? Not to mention damage to their business.
If their software was so superior, why did WordPerfect die?
They, just like Microsoft, were more interested in making money then they ever were in providing consumer choice, or making it easier for us to transfer information. There was nothing stopping them keeping their product active.
I used to use WordPerfect. It was great. Then Microsoft outmaneuvered them, and they lost. Boohoo, get over it. Care to try and convince me that they wouldn't have done exactly the same thing to microsoft, given half a chance?
Don't bother, I wouldn't believe you anyway.
People were shifting between companies all the time back then. Microsoft weren't some alien group, they were people with exactly the same goals and level of experience as the competition. They just had the superior business model for the day. Back then things were nasty, but they were nasty all round, it's just fashionable to only remember microsofts bad deeds.
Anyone who routinely runs Windows using the admin account is an idiot, as is anyone who routinely runs Linux as root. There is no distinction.
Windows security model is so bad in part because most windows machines come with a user set up that has full admin rights, and that's what new computer users will just use without ever considering it as a bad idea, after all, that's how their machine was delivered...
Given that many users wouldn't even realise this is a problem, let alone know how to change it, this is a serious flaw. Microsoft sell to home users, they know this, it is their responsibility.
There are no major spam bots for linux because linux just doesn't have that all important desktop install base. However infected linux servers are frequently used to admin botnets. Badly configured linux servers are like treasure to the botnet guys..
Microsoft don't have more bots and virii in windows because their stuff is closed source, they have it because the underlying security model of windows is, and always has been, pretty poor. For years, normal users have run windows boxes in admin mode by default. This is INSANE!!, and yet it persists. Adding UAC hasn't helped. It was implemented so badly that people just click through the new dialogs without reading the warnings most of the time. This wouldn't happen if it didn't question almost everything you do.
The sony rootkit couldn't be detected because of a flaw in windows that allowed it to hide even from most AV products.
Most AV companies don't 'take bribes' to keep bots going, they just aren't very good these days. The way virii are fought on the desktop needs to change, and that change is very slow in coming.
Slashdot Mirror
This worries me particularly, since I've spent the last few years of my life developing something which should, in my opinion (aka, earnest hope), become a useful world standard.
I won't say what, because I have neither interest in showboating, nor, and this is more important, the money to reimburse my free web host, a personal friend, for the slashdotting that might occur. In my small, and somewhat specialised field, what needs to be known will be.
back on point...
If powerful companies can hijack standards authorities at will, and years of sweat and tears can be beaten by the dollar alone, then academics like myself, who are just starting out, stand no chance, no matter how good our research is.
The in-state tuition bill is not about keeping illegal immigrants out of school, it is about charging illegal immigrants the same tuition at State colleges that legal residents would pay
So this assumes they have the same level of wages? Because as far as I can tell, this is not usually the case.
Mind you, in that case I'd probably feel the same way. I worked my way through university, and it wasn't easy.
How is this criminal? This is like a perfect example of a civil offense.
Seems to me the guy doesn't make many good decisions. From his Wikipedia page:
# voted against the Clean Indoor Air Act of 2007 (HB359)
# voted against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in 2007 (HB6)
# voted against the Healthy Air Act in 2006 (SB154)
If the guy doesn't want you to breath clean air, or teach illegal immigrants (after all, being literate obviously wouldn't help them at all..), then this seems pretty much par for the course.
After all, the polarity of the audience will reverse in the next two million years anyway.
I have no incentive to post as other than AC. It is your argument which is weakened by your refusal to provide a valid premise.
My argument is weak? At least I don't hide from the consequences of my statements.
If YOU are the ISP, and YOUR actions are causing ME to not be able to get to SOMEONE ELSE, then my lawyers will try to hold YOU responsible.
Are you a coder? It's just that your post resembles an SQL statement.
Replace corporation with Universities
Perhaps, but university graduates end up working at the major corporations, so we are ultimately talking about the same people.
I'm an academic myself, one who is finding that academic success bizarrely doesn't mean an escape from low wages, so I wouldn't personally be convinced that academia is any assurance of moral and ethical superiority. We all have to pay bills...
I've been writing software for 30 years, I can assure you there's no way to make totally secure software
The closest I ever got to totally secure software was writing in the online user manual for my open source project 'if you run this software as root you are batshit insane...'.
I took it out though, as I have to be respectable these days...
Your post is most interesting.
Would you mind cloning yourself a few million times so you could get this implemented?
Seriously though, I like. You should send the idea to your representative.
Please explain how a distributed pen and paper system breaks as the number of voters increases.
Please post as something other than AC to make me feel I should answer your question.
Since you are using the internet, and visiting slashdot, I assume you aren't a technophobe, so get with it, get an account or uncheck the 'Post Anonymously' box. Then I'll debate.
And so, I'm supposed to trust "big companies" with my vote....why, exactly? I realize we may have to do something along your suggestion to fix the voting system, but the examples you chose hardly inspire confidence..
I wasn't talking about how well those systems are run. I live in the UK, where we pay that nasty, socialist national insurance, and have health care assured free at point of provision, no matter what ails us, and regardless of previous health conditions. Apparently this means we also breed terrorists, since one of your senators recently claimed that government run health care promotes such things, but I digress.
My point is, properly run or not, you still let it happen (and you do let it happen, there are 300 million of you, it's not as if they could say no if you all objected at once...).
Given this precedent, and provided it is done in a non profit way, my proposed system might actually work.
Why? What's wrong with pen and paper?
Nothing, nothing at all.
However, population size is increasing. Ok, a lot of people don't vote (for reasons that escape me...). Assuming the option of making voting compulsory, which I am in favor of (after all, a lot of people ended up dead last century making sure we could, its a tragedy that so many people don't even seem to be aware of what happened...), then you'd very quickly have a system close to the breaking point.
All we need is a secure and reliable electronic voting system, free of commercial restraint.
The problem is that paper based elections are no more secure, and if the physical ballots are lost, you're screwed. Accidents do happen, so you can't say they never would be. We need a better voting system that takes advantage of our new computing technology.
I'm not saying that the current electronic systems are a good idea though.
The primary flaw of the currently available voting machines is that they are all proprietary. This means a company has a commercial interest in hiding flaws, and is more likely to push out a device with flaws (or fight to prevent their discovery), if they convince themselves that fixing the flaws isn't worth it, in view of the profit reduction that would result.
We need a voting machine system which is impartial, and not run as a for profit exercise.
I think the best method would be to set up a consortium of major technology corporations to create the voting machines, and have them run it as a tax break, with rental fee's going to charities, not to the corporations themselves. After all, they have all the smart people working for them, and if profit is not a factor, and no single company has control, the system is less likely to be flawed.
Before anyone starts foaming at the mouth about big companies I say this. They already run your health system, your financial institutions, your currency, transportation systems, and your food supply. It's not such a big leap.
Plus, co-operation is already happening with software technology.
My P2P traffic is capped as well, I say we should blame Ca..
Oh wait..
I've often wondered about these people who freeze themselves when they die, hoping to be revised when there is a cure.
Two thoughts occurred to me in relation to this.
1: A cure for being dead? Um....
2: Why, when we can make millions of new people a day through highly enjoyable and natural (if somewhat sticky) methods, would we be wanting to defrost some dead people and try to bring them back? It's not like they'd be needed or anything.
It can only be attributable to human error.
I'm sorry SIGALRM, I can't let you post that.
True
'Islands in the Sky' Blew me away when I first read it as a child, I still consider it to be one of the most prophetic of all SF books. I recently spent rather a lot of money of a 1952 paperback edition of same.
To date, I've never been bitten by any viruses
That you know of...
Anti-virus software does get on my nerves though. After all, it does it's job largely without requiring user interaction, so why do so many have pointless 'scanning your pc' dialogs. I'm using avg, because I got fed up with the symantec experience, and that insists on interrupting me whenever it does an update. I mean, why? Just do it, don't show it to me. I'm on the lookout for a replacement, but finances are tight, and I don't want an 'everything plus the kitchen sink' security suite, which most AV sellers seem to offer.
Whole systems scans should not need to be performed more than once, on install. After that, every vector to infection should be checked by the AV as something comes in. I get rather irritated that all AV products insist on doing a full scan so often. It kind of says' we don't know what we're doing' to me. It shouldn't be needed. Indeed, I don't recall ever finding a virus on one of these routine scans (although I have found some on full scans I initiated on some machines, once the AV was updated). All they do is slow my pc down.
The only product in this class that didn't annoy me was prevx, and that because it saved my ass once when my machine was used to access sites I wouldn't usually go near by a bloody warez are k00l moron, and got trojen'd. It was the only one that sorted the problem. I'm not sure if I can just use that instead of proper AV though.
"Free Software" suggests there are no patent traps to be concerned about, and that's certainly not true with anything involving Mono.
Are you sure? I always thought that Mono was a completely independent implementation. At least that was what I was told at uni.
If this gets thrown out, it will really dent future attempts to use methods like this to shield shoddy products.
If you ask me, Sequoia has been given some very bad legal advice. Didn't anyone stop to think about the public relations nightmare this would cause? Not to mention damage to their business.
You read the article??!! What are you, some kind of damned troublemaker?! :-)
Yeah! lets grab our pitchforks and storm his castle before this gets out of hand. He might be a communist too....
If their software was so superior, why did WordPerfect die?
They, just like Microsoft, were more interested in making money then they ever were in providing consumer choice, or making it easier for us to transfer information. There was nothing stopping them keeping their product active.
I used to use WordPerfect. It was great. Then Microsoft outmaneuvered them, and they lost. Boohoo, get over it. Care to try and convince me that they wouldn't have done exactly the same thing to microsoft, given half a chance?
Don't bother, I wouldn't believe you anyway.
People were shifting between companies all the time back then. Microsoft weren't some alien group, they were people with exactly the same goals and level of experience as the competition. They just had the superior business model for the day. Back then things were nasty, but they were nasty all round, it's just fashionable to only remember microsofts bad deeds.
Anyone who routinely runs Windows using the admin account is an idiot, as is anyone who routinely runs Linux as root. There is no distinction.
Windows security model is so bad in part because most windows machines come with a user set up that has full admin rights, and that's what new computer users will just use without ever considering it as a bad idea, after all, that's how their machine was delivered...
Given that many users wouldn't even realise this is a problem, let alone know how to change it, this is a serious flaw. Microsoft sell to home users, they know this, it is their responsibility.
Quite honestly, if they want to track my internet usage, and exert some control over my online experience, then they can.
In return, I want high speed internet access to be provided free of change, with no download limit.
Sound fair?
how marvelously uninformed..
There are no major spam bots for linux because linux just doesn't have that all important desktop install base. However infected linux servers are frequently used to admin botnets. Badly configured linux servers are like treasure to the botnet guys..
Microsoft don't have more bots and virii in windows because their stuff is closed source, they have it because the underlying security model of windows is, and always has been, pretty poor. For years, normal users have run windows boxes in admin mode by default. This is INSANE!!, and yet it persists.
Adding UAC hasn't helped. It was implemented so badly that people just click through the new dialogs without reading the warnings most of the time. This wouldn't happen if it didn't question almost everything you do.
The sony rootkit couldn't be detected because of a flaw in windows that allowed it to hide even from most AV products.
Most AV companies don't 'take bribes' to keep bots going, they just aren't very good these days. The way virii are fought on the desktop needs to change, and that change is very slow in coming.