I agree with your post - and really wonder what people are doing with binary data in their XML files anyway. But I digress from what I wanted to ask about:
Converting values between binary and string format is an enormously painful process, one that frankly I'm astonished hasn't received CPU acceleration at this point.
This initially strikes me as a brilliant idea, but as I got to reply, I'm wondering how useful it would really be. Many if not all of things we accelerate today (e.g. FPU and matrix operations) have have significant uses in loops which do not require significant access to memory - which is the bottleneck in a typical PC.
Under the assumption that XML is being used for I/O of some sort, I would guess that the network, disk or memory is already the bottleneck. I can't envision a small loop that could swamp the CPU with conversion (like a scientific simulation could swamp a CPU without an FPU because the calculations don't necessarily drive heavy memory access)
I'm thinking out loud here, but can you think of a conversion case (XML or not) where the conversion speedup wouldn't just cause a greater bottleneck on the memory bus?
Such a repository would end up as no more than a garbage collection.
I fear that this is a significant problem, but disagree some of the rest of your analysis.
If someone has already created test data for your specific problem, they have probably already solved your problem! Enter respositories like CPAN and SourceForge.
You have a powerful point, but that one solution may not work for everyone. It may not be in a suitable programming language or it might be an unusable license. Also, just because one issue with a file format has been solved (playing an mp3, for example) doesn't mean they all have (modifying the ID3 tags, for example) [In other words, while the very specific test data may not be reusable, more general files are reusable across a domain of problems]
On the other hand, to add to Jahz's point: One other challenge is that the "debugging" of a library of test files (to determine the "right" answer) may take longer than explicitly building unit tests. The library of files would need to be well documented or well supported; and would have to contain both positive and negative examples of good files. This makes it a greater challenge than just having a list of files of a given file format.
Isn't this why AT&T was forcibly seperated from the Regional Bell Operating Companies?
Warning: IANAL.
There are a few points to be cleared up here. First is that tying (definitely illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust act) and bunding (selling two products together) are NOT synonymous.
Tying occurs when a company with significant market power (a monopolist) packages its monopolized product with one of its other products AND customers must also buy the other product to get the monopolized product.
Note there is a significant difference between tying (being forced to buy something inferior) and bundling (getting the inferior thing for a discount). Since they are not requiring you to buy the service to have Windows, then it is not tying. Note Microsoft was accused of bundling IE, not tying IE and Windows.
The question really becomes whether the bundle (presumably pre-shipping Outlook on Windows?) gives an unfair advantage due to the significant barriers to entry produced. That is still up for debate in the courts, as the Microsoft case never really settled the issue. So this is certainly not an open-and-shut case. Since there are other services available and the world has changed since the 1990s, their activities may not be considered all that bad.
Can the plaintiff in a civil matter subpoena the defendant's phone logs? Or is that something limited to criminal prosecutors?
Sorry for the failure to properly articulate my point. I was referring to Apple's corporate phone logs, if the particular tipster was dumb enough to call from work (which many of them are - I forget the company, but a while back a guy was calling the NY Times from his office and was caught at it)
Tackhead: Privacy is dead. Get over it. But if you don't like it, don't look to the constitution for a right to it, because it ain't there.
Of course not. Here's the Supreme Court's words on it, for anyone who continues to disagree with you:
From Katz v. United States: The Fourth Amendment cannot be translated into a general constitutional "right to privacy." That Amendment protects individual privacy against certain kinds of governmental intrusion, but its protections go further, and often have nothing to do with privacy at all. Other provisions of the Constitution protect personal privacy from other forms of governmental invasion. But the protection of a person's general right to privacy - his right to be let alone by other people - is, like the protection of his property and of his very life, left largely to the law of the individual States.
We CAN look to is STATE law. NYS law states that electronic communication does NOT include any communication through a tracking device. This then limits any argument based on similarities to telecommunications (as tracking devices are specifically excluded). Other than VERY limited and focused rights of privacy, New York State doesn't have a general provision for privacy.
So that's useless (again, IANAL)
However, let's revisit the federal privacy issue. In Katz (and later Kyollo) employ: the Court tried to discover what the expectation of privacy would
have been absent the use of the technology in question. Therefore, to determine the
reasonable expectation of privacy in the case of location-tracking technology, one can ask
these three questions: (1) Would it have been possible to obtain the same information
without using the technology?; (2) If so, would it have been possible to use the data
without additional computer processing?; and (3) If the alternate means of obtaining this
information had been employed, or if the additional data processing had been performed,
would either have constituted unreasonable surveillance?
In fact, in a case involving Ralph Nader (yes, him) [quoting from the above epic link]: The court recognized that there is a difference between merely observing someone who happens to be in public and invading
that person's privacy. Citing the example of someone who tailed Nader into a bank and
watched him withdraw cash:
A person does not automatically make public everything he does merely by being
in a public place, and the mere fact that Nader was in a bank did not give anyone
the right to try to discover the amount of money he was withdrawing. On the
other hand, if [Nader] acted in such a way as to reveal that fact to any casual
observer, then it may not be said that the appellant intruded into his private
sphere.
Clearly there is a pronounced difference between observing, even deliberately
following, someone who happens to be in public and "intruding" into one's "private
sphere." In Nader, the court recognized that an invasion of privacy can happen in
public as well as in private.
So this is complicated. It might seem the government did a reasonable thing (tailing on a road); at the same time, the New York Court fails to account that "A person does not automatically make public everything he does merely by being in a public place". At the same time, the travel is more public than the bank transaction cited as an example. While I'm worried about this (I don't like the behavior), I also wonder what there really is to stop it (unless it gets widely used out of control - which some judges on the court then said changes the privacy issue - see Katz)
Based on the little evidence I have been given, I see no legal stance from Apple that will hold up in court.
I agree (but IANAL). But do they care?
At this point, they actually know WHO he is... therefore, they can now go through phone logs to see if he's ever actually talked to anyone at Apple. While most, if not all, of the items may have been anonymous submission, if more of a concrete relationship was formed (rather than semi-anonymous bits from home), then Apple may get what it wants, albeit indirectly.
Please note that under Japanese law, there is a provision for employees to be compensated for exceptional performance (which I would hope few people would deny was true of Nakamura's discovery).
BJH, Interesting.
Thanks for the correction.
Here is one article for people who don't want to do the digging into how Japanese patent law works.
and Here is a white paper that suggests some changes to the law (which really don't seem to solve the ambiguity any!). This second one also talks about British law and how it differs.
Could be there was a loophole in his agreement and he took advantage of it.
Which frankly, if true, puts him in a worse ethical light than the company that provided a $200 bonus for the discovery.
While I realize that "looking for the loophole" is a classical American sport, no one is "in the right" in this case. They both deserve to lose, it's just too bad the spoils go to the lawyers.
So if you consider that he worked for the company at the time does your opinion change?
The problem here is that he has set the precedent that your salary is if you do nothing; if you invent something cool, you sue the company to get MORE. The result will be money to lawyers and those whose ethical standards lead them to freely sue their employer... lowering salaries generally (as companies hold back reserves to handle these situations). This will take money away from the consistent and average employee.
Please keep in mind I DO work for a large company who owns my inventions, I DO have patents in my name but assigned to my employer, and I WON'T sue my company even if they make millions from it and I don't see a dime... they compensated me for that time and effort - that's what my salary is.
E-mail messages are most certainly expressions of an idea in a tangible medium, therefore the owner, or their surviving family, should be given the e-mails as Yahoo has little legal claim to them
NO, NO, NO. You're confusing the issue. If I run into an author (say Stephen King, for example) and I'm carrying a copy of one of his books, can he demand the book from me because he owns the copyright? Absolutely NOT. I own the physical book, he owns the copyright to the material. I can't publish it, present it, make derivatives, or anything within the control of copyright law, but he DOESN'T OWN THE COPY and CAN'T DEMAND THE COPY from me. Anything less than a clear distinction between those two ideas starts to really mess with the doctrine of first sale and other issues which are fundamental to operating a reasonably private, capatilistic society.
The result is that Yahoo! cannot do anything related to the exclusive control provided in copyright (such as releasing the e-mails) without the permission of the copyright holder. However, deletion or destruction of a copy - especially when explicitly declared in the terms of service - has NOTHING WHAT-SO-EVER to do with copyright law, because copyright law doesn't provide any limit on destruction of a copy.
Yahoo! has NOT claimed ownership of the resulting expressions in the text. It probably does claim ownership of the bits on its hard drives (since it DOES own the drives), and the right to destroy those bits in relation to the terms of service. Nothing in copyright law can prevent them from deleting the material if they so choose.
I quit reading the.pdf after that. There's no Constitutional right to protect a revenue stream
Too bad you stopped reading. It shows just how closed minds have become on this particular issue that when a simple statement of fact is made; it is interpreted as "loaded".
It's actually a pretty good article, which is not limited to legal analysis. It shows they probably tapped some of the knowledge in their moderately good business school there at Harvard (yes, that's facetious).
The article never said there was a constitutional right to protect the revenue stream, and actually brings up how different potential models may benefit the actual content creators while threatening the labels and industry associations. The point the article was making where you lost your interest was that P2P networks (by facilitating distribution) and compression (by reducing the size of files and therefore also facilitating distribution) threaten the existing revenue models (where the label's revenue is derived solely from the distribution of the copyrighted work). Whether the impact will cause problems is actually an issue left open by the article, it stresses that the behavior is a threat ([n.] One that is regarded as a possible danger - source www.dictionary.com; emphasis added), and we need to understand more about potential ways to deal with the danger if it arrives (or even sitestep the risks altogether) before government takes action.
Monopoly (n.): Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service; from www.dictionary.com
Do they EXCLUSIVELY control the acquisition of music by consumers? Do they EXCLUSIVELY control the sale of portable hardware on which you can transport and play music? Do they EXCLUSIVELY control the personal computer business?
The answer to all of these is HARDLY; and any claim otherwise means you fail to understand anti-trust law, and certainly didn't follow the Microsoft anti-trust case. A LARGE amount of effort in that case was spent defining the "market". Defining the market for portable music as only including iPod and iTunes is ignorant, at best.
Perhaps your question is a result of poor writing (or perhaps explanation) skills on my part.
If "cracked" (sorry, loose use of that term on my part) through theft or luck, the others aren't "vulnerable", per se. If one key is discovered brute force, then, yes, the others can be done the same way, but it may not be quick. If the algorithm is cracked (making it computationally feasible to run in reverse), then, yes, the entire security system gets compromised.
They've done a decent level of design on this one.
The key appears to be symmetric; it's just blazingly complicated to calculate the actual device key... and allows for multiple derivative keys from a master key stored in the hardware of the device. Masks included in the decode area on the disk provide the path to get the unique key to decode the disk... which (from a 30 minute review of the technical document) could theoretically(?) be used to provide different derivative keys per disc, so even if you capture one of those, it may only help with that print run of that disc. The key is getting back to a master key and its seed; the problem (to the crackers, at least) is that once that is done, the licensing association can disable that key without killing any consumer devices.
The amount of computation back to the original keys makes any attack against the system imprudent at best, and the use of derivative keys and multiple master keys per device means that even if one were cracked, the others in the device would continue to allow consumer devices to function... which avoids consumer backlash.
From my (semi-educated) analysis, it looks "good" (for the *AA) so far.
I guess that's the best title for what he does, but his position doesn't really fit the "manager" role to a T..
He's not anyones boss, he can't "fire" a kernel hacker, or direct them, he can just decide to accept or not accept patches.
But wait... when people are asked to name the managers we like best, we DON'T name administrators (which is the hire/fire abilities you describe and the financial ones implicit in that), we name our LEADERS. Linus made the list because of his leadership skills in accomplishing a task (herding cats, I guess) and the scope of control he must manage there; not for his budgetary or administrative skills.
...the legendary "Space Elevator" idea. It sounds great in theory, but how do you protect such visible targets...?
I can tell from your post you're thoughtful, but not quite putting that to work being creative. Put it on a Pacific Atoll or a moveable platform (akin to an oil platform) that can dodge weather or another place that is generally out-of-the-way. It's not like anyone wants it in Washington, DC.
Funding challenges, et al.
The governments aren't going to be the ones to do it. Government did its part with the Apollo program and the Shuttle. It is not getting to the point where commercial entities will be doing the heavy lifting, because they are so much more efficient than government. Discover magazine did a piece earlier this year. Venture caps can EASILY raise the $10B necessary to build one once the scientists involved find ways to reduce the risk of failure. It's the risk, NOT the cost that is holding the space elevator up. By the time government acts, it will already be done. The only reason the US Government will build one is for the DoD.
World Community Grid is making technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. As part of our commitment to advancing human welfare, all results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.
I don't see what's the point of sending data through the air when you have to make connections to the bricks anyways. Each brick has to have a power connection and that isn't through the air. They could easily just add a high speed serial interface to that connector.
The high speed connection is something you simply don't want anywhere near the power connection. Power is noisy beyond any comprehension when you're talking high speed communications and data integrity. So you don't want the second connection.
Besides, the point behind wireless is not having to connect and disconnect items... the management of the wires is itself a pain, since in large bundles they need to be labeled and only the proper one disconnected. Allowing the devices to communicate with each other without a central switch changes that management dynamic. The equivalent (using wires without a central switch) would be four or six wires per box (one to each of its neighbors, 4 or 6 depending on # of dimensions used) and that gets to be a rat's nest (and requires innovative design or prohibits you from using the 3rd dimension because it requires a connection location for a cable)
They also talk about water cooling this system. Those connections are even harder to deal with. Hoses are always going to be thicker and more difficult to handle and there's the possibility of leaks, especially when connecting and disconnecting hoses.
Water cooling != hoses. It did in the old S/390 mainframes, but there are modern systems (Apple G5s) that use liquid cooling without most people realizing it.
Because the way to hurt MS is to take the profit out of Office, as well as keep Windows from moving up the value stack into high-end servers.
Porting KDE stacks, while it will make some apps run under Windows, won't affect Office (since OO already runs under Windows) or Windows itself. Does it facilitate a move to Linux? Perhaps over the long term.
But this whole discussion is fighting over a niche, and competely misses the point of how to "attack" Microsoft (if that is your desire). Many people got Windows machines early on because they used it at work. When you get Linux or OpenOffice on the desktop at non-IT companies, that's when the exodus might start.
You see, while I agree with the zones idea (and do that myself; though I have a 4th 'work' zone, too, since the admins can probably get to my password on some of the systems), I have a problem. Here at work, I have [grabs post-it note] a whopping 20 userid/password combinations. So I promise if you get to my desk [which, BTW, is through the badged doorway and the lock on my door] you find a post-it note in the drawer... with a key of 'x*[y|n]' indicating the password for each system.
X is a letter of the alphabet. The y or n indicates whether I have done substitution (zero for o, etc) in the password. The letter tells me the first letter of the password, the * tells me the # of characters (almost always forced to 8). So you can get a hint, and it provides a small limit on the number of passwords (can't have two the same length with the same start letter). It's the best I can do to balance security with my inability to remember so many userid/password combinations. If you can guess the password before the system locks you out (the important ones only give you 3 tries), you deserve the reward.
My secure ('high') passwords? Good luck. I've been accused of making passwords where I was accused of "banging my head on the keyboard and using the result."
No, but the nation intends to inflate it's way out of the debt by letting the relative value of the dollar drop vs. other currencies. It was bound to happen eventually. This effect is great for those who have the fixed interest rate debt (the government), and awful for those who are being repaid. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of reducing the standard of living in the USA, since it makes imported products more expensive.
Maybe their productivity shot up when they got out from the IBM mandate that everyone in the company use Lotus Notes.
Quit blowing BS. Any quick search of the calendar will show that the acquisition of Lotus came FOUR YEARS after the spinoff of Lexmark.
Speaking of non-strategic underperforming dogs, I wonder when IBM is going to jettison Lotus.
Another search will show you Lotus Notes is still successful and being used widely outside of IBM. Lotus has had its challenges, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide value to IBM. There are also other reasons why IBM maintains Lotus beyond the core Lotus Notes product.
Apparently, you intend to use your post to bash Lotus, by drawing inappropriate connections between data. History did show Lexmark was more successful after being spun out of IBM, but it had nothing to do with Lotus.
Slashdot Mirror
Converting values between binary and string format is an enormously painful process, one that frankly I'm astonished hasn't received CPU acceleration at this point.
This initially strikes me as a brilliant idea, but as I got to reply, I'm wondering how useful it would really be. Many if not all of things we accelerate today (e.g. FPU and matrix operations) have have significant uses in loops which do not require significant access to memory - which is the bottleneck in a typical PC.
Under the assumption that XML is being used for I/O of some sort, I would guess that the network, disk or memory is already the bottleneck. I can't envision a small loop that could swamp the CPU with conversion (like a scientific simulation could swamp a CPU without an FPU because the calculations don't necessarily drive heavy memory access)
I'm thinking out loud here, but can you think of a conversion case (XML or not) where the conversion speedup wouldn't just cause a greater bottleneck on the memory bus?
I fear that this is a significant problem, but disagree some of the rest of your analysis.
If someone has already created test data for your specific problem, they have probably already solved your problem! Enter respositories like CPAN and SourceForge.
You have a powerful point, but that one solution may not work for everyone. It may not be in a suitable programming language or it might be an unusable license. Also, just because one issue with a file format has been solved (playing an mp3, for example) doesn't mean they all have (modifying the ID3 tags, for example) [In other words, while the very specific test data may not be reusable, more general files are reusable across a domain of problems]
On the other hand, to add to Jahz's point: One other challenge is that the "debugging" of a library of test files (to determine the "right" answer) may take longer than explicitly building unit tests. The library of files would need to be well documented or well supported; and would have to contain both positive and negative examples of good files. This makes it a greater challenge than just having a list of files of a given file format.
Warning: IANAL.
There are a few points to be cleared up here. First is that tying (definitely illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust act) and bunding (selling two products together) are NOT synonymous.
Tying occurs when a company with significant market power (a monopolist) packages its monopolized product with one of its other products AND customers must also buy the other product to get the monopolized product.
Note there is a significant difference between tying (being forced to buy something inferior) and bundling (getting the inferior thing for a discount). Since they are not requiring you to buy the service to have Windows, then it is not tying. Note Microsoft was accused of bundling IE, not tying IE and Windows.
The question really becomes whether the bundle (presumably pre-shipping Outlook on Windows?) gives an unfair advantage due to the significant barriers to entry produced. That is still up for debate in the courts, as the Microsoft case never really settled the issue. So this is certainly not an open-and-shut case. Since there are other services available and the world has changed since the 1990s, their activities may not be considered all that bad.
Sorry for the failure to properly articulate my point. I was referring to Apple's corporate phone logs, if the particular tipster was dumb enough to call from work (which many of them are - I forget the company, but a while back a guy was calling the NY Times from his office and was caught at it)
Tackhead: Privacy is dead. Get over it. But if you don't like it, don't look to the constitution for a right to it, because it ain't there.
Of course not. Here's the Supreme Court's words on it, for anyone who continues to disagree with you:
From Katz v. United States: The Fourth Amendment cannot be translated into a general constitutional "right to privacy." That Amendment protects individual privacy against certain kinds of governmental intrusion, but its protections go further, and often have nothing to do with privacy at all. Other provisions of the Constitution protect personal privacy from other forms of governmental invasion. But the protection of a person's general right to privacy - his right to be let alone by other people - is, like the protection of his property and of his very life, left largely to the law of the individual States.
We CAN look to is STATE law. NYS law states that electronic communication does NOT include any communication through a tracking device. This then limits any argument based on similarities to telecommunications (as tracking devices are specifically excluded). Other than VERY limited and focused rights of privacy, New York State doesn't have a general provision for privacy. So that's useless (again, IANAL)
However, let's revisit the federal privacy issue. In Katz (and later Kyollo) employ: the Court tried to discover what the expectation of privacy would have been absent the use of the technology in question. Therefore, to determine the reasonable expectation of privacy in the case of location-tracking technology, one can ask these three questions: (1) Would it have been possible to obtain the same information without using the technology?; (2) If so, would it have been possible to use the data without additional computer processing?; and (3) If the alternate means of obtaining this information had been employed, or if the additional data processing had been performed, would either have constituted unreasonable surveillance?
In fact, in a case involving Ralph Nader (yes, him) [quoting from the above epic link]: The court recognized that there is a difference between merely observing someone who happens to be in public and invading that person's privacy. Citing the example of someone who tailed Nader into a bank and watched him withdraw cash: A person does not automatically make public everything he does merely by being in a public place, and the mere fact that Nader was in a bank did not give anyone the right to try to discover the amount of money he was withdrawing. On the other hand, if [Nader] acted in such a way as to reveal that fact to any casual observer, then it may not be said that the appellant intruded into his private sphere. Clearly there is a pronounced difference between observing, even deliberately following, someone who happens to be in public and "intruding" into one's "private sphere." In Nader, the court recognized that an invasion of privacy can happen in public as well as in private.
So this is complicated. It might seem the government did a reasonable thing (tailing on a road); at the same time, the New York Court fails to account that "A person does not automatically make public everything he does merely by being in a public place". At the same time, the travel is more public than the bank transaction cited as an example. While I'm worried about this (I don't like the behavior), I also wonder what there really is to stop it (unless it gets widely used out of control - which some judges on the court then said changes the privacy issue - see Katz)
I agree (but IANAL). But do they care?
At this point, they actually know WHO he is... therefore, they can now go through phone logs to see if he's ever actually talked to anyone at Apple. While most, if not all, of the items may have been anonymous submission, if more of a concrete relationship was formed (rather than semi-anonymous bits from home), then Apple may get what it wants, albeit indirectly.
BJH, Interesting. Thanks for the correction.
Here is one article for people who don't want to do the digging into how Japanese patent law works.
and Here is a white paper that suggests some changes to the law (which really don't seem to solve the ambiguity any!). This second one also talks about British law and how it differs.
Which frankly, if true, puts him in a worse ethical light than the company that provided a $200 bonus for the discovery.
While I realize that "looking for the loophole" is a classical American sport, no one is "in the right" in this case. They both deserve to lose, it's just too bad the spoils go to the lawyers.
The problem here is that he has set the precedent that your salary is if you do nothing; if you invent something cool, you sue the company to get MORE. The result will be money to lawyers and those whose ethical standards lead them to freely sue their employer... lowering salaries generally (as companies hold back reserves to handle these situations). This will take money away from the consistent and average employee.
Please keep in mind I DO work for a large company who owns my inventions, I DO have patents in my name but assigned to my employer, and I WON'T sue my company even if they make millions from it and I don't see a dime... they compensated me for that time and effort - that's what my salary is.
You are missing the point on the power that copyright provides. See my other comment on this matter.
NO, NO, NO. You're confusing the issue. If I run into an author (say Stephen King, for example) and I'm carrying a copy of one of his books, can he demand the book from me because he owns the copyright? Absolutely NOT. I own the physical book, he owns the copyright to the material. I can't publish it, present it, make derivatives, or anything within the control of copyright law, but he DOESN'T OWN THE COPY and CAN'T DEMAND THE COPY from me. Anything less than a clear distinction between those two ideas starts to really mess with the doctrine of first sale and other issues which are fundamental to operating a reasonably private, capatilistic society.
The result is that Yahoo! cannot do anything related to the exclusive control provided in copyright (such as releasing the e-mails) without the permission of the copyright holder. However, deletion or destruction of a copy - especially when explicitly declared in the terms of service - has NOTHING WHAT-SO-EVER to do with copyright law, because copyright law doesn't provide any limit on destruction of a copy.
Yahoo! has NOT claimed ownership of the resulting expressions in the text. It probably does claim ownership of the bits on its hard drives (since it DOES own the drives), and the right to destroy those bits in relation to the terms of service. Nothing in copyright law can prevent them from deleting the material if they so choose.
Greenland looks pretty damn big on my globe. And it's only a mile or so deep in ice.
Melting that would cause a sea-level rise.
I quit reading the .pdf after that. There's no Constitutional right to protect a revenue stream
Too bad you stopped reading. It shows just how closed minds have become on this particular issue that when a simple statement of fact is made; it is interpreted as "loaded".
It's actually a pretty good article, which is not limited to legal analysis. It shows they probably tapped some of the knowledge in their moderately good business school there at Harvard (yes, that's facetious).
The article never said there was a constitutional right to protect the revenue stream, and actually brings up how different potential models may benefit the actual content creators while threatening the labels and industry associations. The point the article was making where you lost your interest was that P2P networks (by facilitating distribution) and compression (by reducing the size of files and therefore also facilitating distribution) threaten the existing revenue models (where the label's revenue is derived solely from the distribution of the copyrighted work). Whether the impact will cause problems is actually an issue left open by the article, it stresses that the behavior is a threat ([n.] One that is regarded as a possible danger - source www.dictionary.com; emphasis added), and we need to understand more about potential ways to deal with the danger if it arrives (or even sitestep the risks altogether) before government takes action.
Do they EXCLUSIVELY control the acquisition of music by consumers? Do they EXCLUSIVELY control the sale of portable hardware on which you can transport and play music? Do they EXCLUSIVELY control the personal computer business?
The answer to all of these is HARDLY; and any claim otherwise means you fail to understand anti-trust law, and certainly didn't follow the Microsoft anti-trust case. A LARGE amount of effort in that case was spent defining the "market". Defining the market for portable music as only including iPod and iTunes is ignorant, at best.
If "cracked" (sorry, loose use of that term on my part) through theft or luck, the others aren't "vulnerable", per se. If one key is discovered brute force, then, yes, the others can be done the same way, but it may not be quick. If the algorithm is cracked (making it computationally feasible to run in reverse), then, yes, the entire security system gets compromised.
The key appears to be symmetric; it's just blazingly complicated to calculate the actual device key ... and allows for multiple derivative keys from a master key stored in the hardware of the device. Masks included in the decode area on the disk provide the path to get the unique key to decode the disk... which (from a 30 minute review of the technical document) could theoretically(?) be used to provide different derivative keys per disc, so even if you capture one of those, it may only help with that print run of that disc. The key is getting back to a master key and its seed; the problem (to the crackers, at least) is that once that is done, the licensing association can disable that key without killing any consumer devices.
The amount of computation back to the original keys makes any attack against the system imprudent at best, and the use of derivative keys and multiple master keys per device means that even if one were cracked, the others in the device would continue to allow consumer devices to function... which avoids consumer backlash.
From my (semi-educated) analysis, it looks "good" (for the *AA) so far.
He's not anyones boss, he can't "fire" a kernel hacker, or direct them, he can just decide to accept or not accept patches.
But wait... when people are asked to name the managers we like best, we DON'T name administrators (which is the hire/fire abilities you describe and the financial ones implicit in that), we name our LEADERS. Linus made the list because of his leadership skills in accomplishing a task (herding cats, I guess) and the scope of control he must manage there; not for his budgetary or administrative skills.
You mean like this trial starting later this month?
I can tell from your post you're thoughtful, but not quite putting that to work being creative. Put it on a Pacific Atoll or a moveable platform (akin to an oil platform) that can dodge weather or another place that is generally out-of-the-way. It's not like anyone wants it in Washington, DC.
Funding challenges, et al.
The governments aren't going to be the ones to do it. Government did its part with the Apollo program and the Shuttle. It is not getting to the point where commercial entities will be doing the heavy lifting, because they are so much more efficient than government. Discover magazine did a piece earlier this year. Venture caps can EASILY raise the $10B necessary to build one once the scientists involved find ways to reduce the risk of failure. It's the risk, NOT the cost that is holding the space elevator up. By the time government acts, it will already be done. The only reason the US Government will build one is for the DoD.
From the WCG site
The high speed connection is something you simply don't want anywhere near the power connection. Power is noisy beyond any comprehension when you're talking high speed communications and data integrity. So you don't want the second connection.
Besides, the point behind wireless is not having to connect and disconnect items... the management of the wires is itself a pain, since in large bundles they need to be labeled and only the proper one disconnected. Allowing the devices to communicate with each other without a central switch changes that management dynamic. The equivalent (using wires without a central switch) would be four or six wires per box (one to each of its neighbors, 4 or 6 depending on # of dimensions used) and that gets to be a rat's nest (and requires innovative design or prohibits you from using the 3rd dimension because it requires a connection location for a cable)
They also talk about water cooling this system. Those connections are even harder to deal with. Hoses are always going to be thicker and more difficult to handle and there's the possibility of leaks, especially when connecting and disconnecting hoses.
Water cooling != hoses. It did in the old S/390 mainframes, but there are modern systems (Apple G5s) that use liquid cooling without most people realizing it.
Porting KDE stacks, while it will make some apps run under Windows, won't affect Office (since OO already runs under Windows) or Windows itself. Does it facilitate a move to Linux? Perhaps over the long term.
But this whole discussion is fighting over a niche, and competely misses the point of how to "attack" Microsoft (if that is your desire). Many people got Windows machines early on because they used it at work. When you get Linux or OpenOffice on the desktop at non-IT companies, that's when the exodus might start.
X is a letter of the alphabet. The y or n indicates whether I have done substitution (zero for o, etc) in the password. The letter tells me the first letter of the password, the * tells me the # of characters (almost always forced to 8). So you can get a hint, and it provides a small limit on the number of passwords (can't have two the same length with the same start letter). It's the best I can do to balance security with my inability to remember so many userid/password combinations. If you can guess the password before the system locks you out (the important ones only give you 3 tries), you deserve the reward.
My secure ('high') passwords? Good luck. I've been accused of making passwords where I was accused of "banging my head on the keyboard and using the result."
No, but the nation intends to inflate it's way out of the debt by letting the relative value of the dollar drop vs. other currencies. It was bound to happen eventually. This effect is great for those who have the fixed interest rate debt (the government), and awful for those who are being repaid. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of reducing the standard of living in the USA, since it makes imported products more expensive.
Quit blowing BS. Any quick search of the calendar will show that the acquisition of Lotus came FOUR YEARS after the spinoff of Lexmark.
Speaking of non-strategic underperforming dogs, I wonder when IBM is going to jettison Lotus.
Another search will show you Lotus Notes is still successful and being used widely outside of IBM. Lotus has had its challenges, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide value to IBM. There are also other reasons why IBM maintains Lotus beyond the core Lotus Notes product.
Apparently, you intend to use your post to bash Lotus, by drawing inappropriate connections between data. History did show Lexmark was more successful after being spun out of IBM, but it had nothing to do with Lotus.
[laughing out loud]
In July 2003, Gartner predicted 10% of all IT jobs (at vendors) and 5% in enterprises would disappear by December 2004. When they show the data on how accurate THAT prediction was, I'll consider being worried about the new results from their dart board.