the net admins, as soon as they start blocking one thing, instantly become responsible for all of the activity on their networks. I'll guarantee there aren't many college net admins who'd want to track down all of the pr0n copyright violations, illegal software pirating, napster use, etc etc etc.... they're busy enough with students who don't know the first thing about networking.
i was on the residential network support team at school, and believe me, we were up to our ears in crummy 3com windows drivers, shitty old hardware (yes we did support windows 3.1!) and students who didn't know how to install their NICs.
I'm fed up with all of these "free-market" neo-liberals whining that "if only the gov't quite meddling, we all could live better lives full of freedom and liberty."
Here's what they really mean:
"If we had the gov't out of the way (we already have the people out of the way), we could exploit labor, the environment, perople's privacy (even more than we do now) other countries, etc.. way more than we do now for wayyyyy more money, and get away with it more than we do now."
FACE IT PEOPLE, BUSINESS IS MORE OF AN ENEMY TO THE AVERAGE JOE THAN THE GOVERNMENT - they are smarter and have even less of a conscience towards mankind.
Business knows its them against us, that they're winning, and that they need to do everything in their power to keep their power, since in reality it's people that hand power over to them on a silver platter.
We've given it to them, and we'll have to take it back if we want it. Otherwise, expect to see people tattooed with sponsors' logos when they're born in 50 years so the parents can afford the hospital bills! How's that for privacy?
Of course, export restrictions make it tough to get OpenBSD if you're in the US (Which is why they are based in Canada), but you can always smuggle a copy across the border, as long as you don't look like a terrorist.
Wow all i had to do was order 2.7 from their web site.
I'm a security freak, and I'd love to run OpenBSD... but I *need* SMP support and applications to run on top of it.
Whoa there I can't think of one security-minded application of OpenBSD that needs SMP. Run it as a firewall? 233MHz +64MB of RAM is plenty for NAT and IPF. Single-proc systems have all of the horsepower you'd need for "security-freak" apps that OpenBSD excels at. It's not really meant to be a desktop OS first.
I've tried Opera for Linux, and despite it's alpha stage, it runs faster and better than Netscape ever has. When it catches up to the windows version, it will most certainly be worth the price.
Now, is every Internet site a firewall, or are there other sites, that, say, are webservers, mail servers, ftp servers, etc? Would you want SMP for any of these?
Of course you'd want SMP for extremely high-traffic servers, but you'd also want them behind a firewall, hopefully running OpenBSD. Cdrom.com, the busiest ftp site on the Net, has a single-processor machine, running FreeBSD, which I think says more about the importance of the infrastructure surrounding a machine (the internet connection, the RAM, the processor cache) than the number of processors. I'm not aware if it's behind any kind of firewall or not.
Could you give an example of an exploit that cannot be blocked by a plain ol packet filter that a stateful filter can?
If I remember correctly, the main reason for keeping state on a TCP session is to prevent session hijacking and/or spoofing. The firewall can remember which packets belong to sessions that are valid (i.e. originating from internal clients to external hosts (outbound conections only), if that is your policy). A stateful firewall can also help in DoS attacks, because it can determine the 'valid' SYN packets from the invalid ones ued in the attack. This is why after slashdot.org was DoSed they installed a bridging FreeBSD server running IPFilter to try to prevent this scenario in the future.
OpenBSD natively supports IPSec out of the box, which is the standard protocol for creating encrypted VPNs (Win2K, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc... all in one way or another support IPSec) CIPE, on the other hand, is Linux only.
SMP is not useful in a firewall/gateway device, which does not require a lot of horsepower. You might think encryption does, but OpenBSD supports some hardware encryption cards. Granted, if one needs a super high performance Internet server they should use FreeBSD or Linux, behind an OpenBSD firewall:-)
Last, but not least, IPFilter is a true stateful firewall package, whilst ipchains is not, by default. If an admin doesn't know why this is important, they shouldn't be in the business of securing a box.
Information On PGP Client: http://www.pgp.com/asp_set/products/tns/pgpvpncl ient_intro.asp
To quote their page:
PGP MIT Freeware Downloads PGP is the world's defacto standard for email encryption and authentication, with over 6 million users. PGP 6.5.1 MIT freeware supports RSA, PGP email and secure client-to-client connections using PGP certificates. It is available for non-commercial use only.
The commercial PGP VPN Client is available from Network Associates and is fully IPSec compliant with support for X.509 certificates from industry leaders such as VeriSign, Entrust and Net Tools, and VPN gateway support to create encrypted network connections to your company for secure remote access. The commercial client also includes PGPdisk for lightning fast disk, file and directory encryption and authentication in addition to technical support!
-------------------------------------------
Use the OpenBSD mailing list archives, man pages, and faqs for info on how to set up this scenario (VPNs with X.509 certificates).
The default installation of OpenBSD is secure - it takes a careless sysadmin to mess it up. If anyone is truly concerned with security, this is the easiest and best choice.
Features:
Proactive Security - a team of programmers audits the software for bugs which may or may not be exploits. In this way problems are fixed before they are serious problems.
Integrated strong crypography in passwords, secure shell, pseudo-random number generation (even the process IDs are random!), etc...
Included security technologies like IPFilter (true stateful firewalling) and IPSec.
Jon, do you believe that someone has the right to own something? If so, then you cannot condone illegal copying of music on the 'Net, pure and simple.
This music is Metallica's PROPERTY. They own it. This is not open-source music.
Maybe we'll move beyond this idea of personal ownership someday, and I think the free software phenomenon is the very first baby steps, but for now people own things. If you don't like it, get some free music or make your own. That's more in tune with the 'Net and OSS philosophy anyway.
I've yet to hear the Free/Closed software discussion veer in the direction of property in general. Really what's being asked here is whether people have the right to property in general. Software, not being limited in quantity as one can copy it and still have the original, is logically the first item in which property rights is questioned. Once people realize that logically this can be extended to all aspects of life, since humankind left scarcity behind a while ago (when you think about it, technology has put people in a situation where basic needs for all can be met), then real change may occur.
Of course, it may be that people will always be greedy bastards that want more than anyone else, but I hope not....
Did any of you F2k viewers who are also familiar with the Firebird notice if the piece was cut (perhaps at the Berceuse)?
Quite a bit of the original suite was cut out, leaving only the "Princess" scene, the Infernal dance, the Berceuse (also cut itself) and the Finale. If you compare the movie to the *entire* Firebird, then more the %75 was cut out. Of course, the same thing happend to the Rite of Spring in the original, and that one even had it's order re-arranged.
They also left out one of the sections of the Pines of Rome as well.
I would hope all Fantasia viewers go out and buy recordings of the *complete* works so they can hear everything.
Anyone have any idea how they select what pieces to set the film to? Why no Mozart? Why no baroque music? No Brahms, no Bach, no Handel, no Hyden, no Mozart. The truly great ones were left out.
Last I remember, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which is in the first Fantasia and arranged by Stokowski, is by Bach. I would hope that the people who choose the music give Fantasia the opportunity to expose people to some music they wouldn't normally hear, like the Shostakovich in F2K or the Rite of Spring in Fantasia.
What bothered me about F2K was a lack of a completely abstract anamation sequence, like the Bach in the original. Sure, the Beethoven in F2K was kind of abstract, but it had definite visual representaion (butterflies) combined with a quasi-religious theme.
.. does it seem that, now that the world is sort of a global village (or an asylum, if you ask me), there are more and more international treaties, organisations and such that try to impose the most stupid US ways and laws upon the rest of the world (like Wassenaar, WTO) ?
Replace the bourgeoisie with America in the following:
The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
That's why we have the WTO, and why the world is a "global market", or asylum, as you put it so well. Pretty insightful for something written 151 years ago (you know by whom).
Wait for the MacOS port. Simple. Looks like it'll be done soon. Or have you read their page?
How about Alpha Linux?
How many people do you know running Alpha Linux? Also, don't they have Netscape? With Opera's ports it will be able to reach the vast majority of computer users, and the Linux version should be simple to port (basically re-compile) to other hardware platforms.
Where's the source code?
After reading Slashdot for three years, I've grown so tired of this statement. People do not realize that closed-source software often fills a need where OSS hasn't provided. I'm not talking about Windows, MS Office or products like that. I'm talking about software like Opera, Accelerated-X, games in general, MacOS, BeOS and others that fill a certain need that only a concentrated, well-organized effort can provide, and only (unfortunately) currently can happen in a situation in which profit ($$) is a motive. Anyone who says that Linux development (I'm not talking about just the kernel) is well-organized and concentrated is looney. OSS may eventually provide a product superior in performance and features to Opera, and other niche closed-source products, but it doesn't right now.
I too paid for Opera after using it on Win32. Student rates at $17. Fast, fast, fast. HTML compliant (or as colse as you can get). Did I mention fast? Products like this prove that, yes, closed-source products can be (and are) superior to their OSS counterparts. AS long as they aren't priced out of existence, the only question becomes that of user preference and performance.
Finally, someone with the insight to use those two words to describe linux.
Another communist aspect of linux is the *complete* lack of property involved. Nobody has ownership of any aspect of the OS, including any intellectual aspects. OSS (GPL) is just about the only truly free useful human product on the planet.
open source economics might play a big factor in the physical economy too
Let's all hope we see this day before we destroy our world trying to get richer with globalization, at the expense of workers, the environment, human rights, etc.........
By skipping the innumerable inevitable appeals Microsoft would follow, we'll all save a few bucks by them going straight to the top. Plus, we'll all know the answer sooner.
[corporate BS deleted] said it had created a router -- the equipment that directs traffic from one segment of a network to another -- capable of delivering 10 terabits, or trillion bits, of data per second, 10 times that of rival products.
Now, it may not be apparent how Lucent looks at packets with mirrors in order to route them correctly, but if you take them at their literal word (a risky idea for a new product) then yes, they say twice in the release it is a router.
The smoke is the most important part in determing the destination address when routing anyway.........
If only more people realized this should be the way for these OSs to go, then we as PC users could have the best of both worlds.
People who use both OSs (including myself) realize that one OS makes up for the other in some way. I like the raw power inherent in both, but while BeOS makes little sense in a multi-user server environment (or are they working on that?) linux is too complex for Joe user (and should remain that way, if you ask me - work on improving linux's accessibility to the general public is taking away from adding more useful functionality to the OS.). Each OS has a niche, and each fills that niche extremely well (MacOS is another exmple of a great niche product).
The one-size-fits-all OS concept should be thrown out for good.
This is the same guy that when asked about how lengthy his Hours download was he replied something like, "But it only takes a few minutes at my house." Bowie's perspective is always going to be a rich man looking in regardless of how hard he tries to get in touch with the common bloke.
It's also pretty laughable to see that he (as do many of our 'caring' politicians) thinks the disparity in technology access is of utmost concern for the 'have-nots' of this world.
Of course the have's and have-nots where technology is concerned is also very worrying. A third of the world will have access to knowledge while the rest of the world will languish in ignorance and that is a very dangerous situation.
No David, a dangerous situation is where the wealthiest country in the world can't afford to give health insurance to 40 million of it's citizens. A dangerous situation is where millions of people worry about food and clean water each day. Your techno-prophecizing means nothing to the majority of the people on this planet. Go back to your mansion and appreciate your fast download times; you're obviously completely out-of-touch with real people.
The one thing that bothers me though, is that free entreprise and Capitalism are supposed to be a system where anybody can make as much money as they want, if their product is superior.
Hate to break it to ya, but the is one of the biggest flaws of capitalism. Those making the most money are hardly ever those who make superior products, but those who are able to fool the most people into buying their stuff. It's a giant game for profits where people lose out, and this case is the creme de la creme.
This whole situation also shows just how ignorant and uninformed the average American consumer is about their purchases - mostly due to sneaky advertising and business practices but also to a lack of time and resources to fully inform themselves. Advertising is set up specifically to hide the truth about the quality of a product. Microsoft just happened to provide the perfect example of how things would be in a true laissez faire world.
Slashdot Mirror
THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN POSTED!
I remember reading about Mercury telescopes within the past week.
Lame.
the net admins, as soon as they start blocking one thing, instantly become responsible for all of the activity on their networks. I'll guarantee there aren't many college net admins who'd want to track down all of the pr0n copyright violations, illegal software pirating, napster use, etc etc etc.... they're busy enough with students who don't know the first thing about networking.
i was on the residential network support team at school, and believe me, we were up to our ears in crummy 3com windows drivers, shitty old hardware (yes we did support windows 3.1!) and students who didn't know how to install their NICs.
I'm fed up with all of these "free-market" neo-liberals whining that "if only the gov't quite meddling, we all could live better lives full of freedom and liberty."
Here's what they really mean:
"If we had the gov't out of the way (we already have the people out of the way), we could exploit labor, the environment, perople's privacy (even more than we do now) other countries, etc.. way more than we do now for wayyyyy more money, and get away with it more than we do now."
FACE IT PEOPLE, BUSINESS IS MORE OF AN ENEMY TO THE AVERAGE JOE THAN THE GOVERNMENT - they are smarter and have even less of a conscience towards mankind.
Business knows its them against us, that they're winning, and that they need to do everything in their power to keep their power, since in reality it's people that hand power over to them on a silver platter.
We've given it to them, and we'll have to take it back if we want it. Otherwise, expect to see people tattooed with sponsors' logos when they're born in 50 years so the parents can afford the hospital bills! How's that for privacy?Of course, export restrictions make it tough to get OpenBSD if you're in the US (Which is why they are based in Canada), but you can always smuggle a copy across the border, as long as you don't look like a terrorist.
Wow all i had to do was order 2.7 from their web site.
Securing Linux:
I'm a security freak, and I'd love to run OpenBSD... but I *need* SMP support and applications to run on top of it.
Whoa there I can't think of one security-minded application of OpenBSD that needs SMP. Run it as a firewall? 233MHz +64MB of RAM is plenty for NAT and IPF. Single-proc systems have all of the horsepower you'd need for "security-freak" apps that OpenBSD excels at. It's not really meant to be a desktop OS first.
I've tried Opera for Linux, and despite it's alpha stage, it runs faster and better than Netscape ever has. When it catches up to the windows version, it will most certainly be worth the price.
Check it out at: Opera for Linux
Now, is every Internet site a firewall, or are there other sites, that, say, are webservers, mail servers, ftp servers, etc? Would you want SMP for any of these?
Of course you'd want SMP for extremely high-traffic servers, but you'd also want them behind a firewall, hopefully running OpenBSD. Cdrom.com, the busiest ftp site on the Net, has a single-processor machine, running FreeBSD, which I think says more about the importance of the infrastructure surrounding a machine (the internet connection, the RAM, the processor cache) than the number of processors. I'm not aware if it's behind any kind of firewall or not.
Could you give an example of an exploit that cannot be blocked by a plain ol packet filter that a stateful filter can?
If I remember correctly, the main reason for keeping state on a TCP session is to prevent session hijacking and/or spoofing. The firewall can remember which packets belong to sessions that are valid (i.e. originating from internal clients to external hosts (outbound conections only), if that is your policy). A stateful firewall can also help in DoS attacks, because it can determine the 'valid' SYN packets from the invalid ones ued in the attack. This is why after slashdot.org was DoSed they installed a bridging FreeBSD server running IPFilter to try to prevent this scenario in the future.
OpenBSD natively supports IPSec out of the box, which is the standard protocol for creating encrypted VPNs (Win2K, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc... all in one way or another support IPSec) CIPE, on the other hand, is Linux only.
SMP is not useful in a firewall/gateway device, which does not require a lot of horsepower. You might think encryption does, but OpenBSD supports some hardware encryption cards. Granted, if one needs a super high performance Internet server they should use FreeBSD or Linux, behind an OpenBSD firewall :-)
Last, but not least, IPFilter is a true stateful firewall package, whilst ipchains is not, by default. If an admin doesn't know why this is important, they shouldn't be in the business of securing a box.
Server: OpenBSD
l ient_intro.asp
Client: NAI Labs PGP Client
Information On PGP Client:
http://www.pgp.com/asp_set/products/tns/pgpvpnc
To quote their page:
PGP MIT Freeware Downloads
PGP is the world's defacto standard for email encryption and authentication, with over 6 million users. PGP 6.5.1 MIT freeware supports RSA, PGP email and secure client-to-client connections using PGP certificates. It is available for non-commercial use only.
The commercial PGP VPN Client is available from Network Associates and is fully IPSec compliant with support for X.509 certificates from industry leaders such as VeriSign, Entrust and Net Tools, and VPN gateway support to create encrypted network connections to your company for secure remote access. The commercial client also includes PGPdisk for lightning fast disk, file and directory encryption and authentication in addition to technical support!
-------------------------------------------
Use the OpenBSD mailing list archives, man pages, and faqs for info on how to set up this scenario (VPNs with X.509 certificates).
~ $
everything else is just chrome......
"Secure by Default"
The default installation of OpenBSD is secure - it takes a careless sysadmin to mess it up. If anyone is truly concerned with security, this is the easiest and best choice.
Features:
Jon, do you believe that someone has the right to own something? If so, then you cannot condone illegal copying of music on the 'Net, pure and simple.
This music is Metallica's PROPERTY. They own it. This is not open-source music.
Maybe we'll move beyond this idea of personal ownership someday, and I think the free software phenomenon is the very first baby steps, but for now people own things. If you don't like it, get some free music or make your own. That's more in tune with the 'Net and OSS philosophy anyway.
I've yet to hear the Free/Closed software discussion veer in the direction of property in general. Really what's being asked here is whether people have the right to property in general. Software, not being limited in quantity as one can copy it and still have the original, is logically the first item in which property rights is questioned. Once people realize that logically this can be extended to all aspects of life, since humankind left scarcity behind a while ago (when you think about it, technology has put people in a situation where basic needs for all can be met), then real change may occur.
Of course, it may be that people will always be greedy bastards that want more than anyone else, but I hope not....
Did any of you F2k viewers who are also familiar with the Firebird notice if the piece was cut (perhaps at the Berceuse)?
Quite a bit of the original suite was cut out, leaving only the "Princess" scene, the Infernal dance, the Berceuse (also cut itself) and the Finale. If you compare the movie to the *entire* Firebird, then more the %75 was cut out. Of course, the same thing happend to the Rite of Spring in the original, and that one even had it's order re-arranged.
They also left out one of the sections of the Pines of Rome as well.
I would hope all Fantasia viewers go out and buy recordings of the *complete* works so they can hear everything.
Anyone have any idea how they select what pieces to set the film to? Why no Mozart? Why no baroque music? No Brahms, no Bach, no Handel, no Hyden, no Mozart. The truly great ones were left out.
Last I remember, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which is in the first Fantasia and arranged by Stokowski, is by Bach. I would hope that the people who choose the music give Fantasia the opportunity to expose people to some music they wouldn't normally hear, like the Shostakovich in F2K or the Rite of Spring in Fantasia.
What bothered me about F2K was a lack of a completely abstract anamation sequence, like the Bach in the original. Sure, the Beethoven in F2K was kind of abstract, but it had definite visual representaion (butterflies) combined with a quasi-religious theme.
Does this mean we BSD folk will be able to do some serious Java work (using Linux binary compatibility)?
Anyone know more?
Replace the bourgeoisie with America in the following:
The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
That's why we have the WTO, and why the world is a "global market", or asylum, as you put it so well. Pretty insightful for something written 151 years ago (you know by whom).
How else should I run it on my PowerPC laptop?
Wait for the MacOS port. Simple. Looks like it'll be done soon. Or have you read their page?
How about Alpha Linux?
How many people do you know running Alpha Linux? Also, don't they have Netscape? With Opera's ports it will be able to reach the vast majority of computer users, and the Linux version should be simple to port (basically re-compile) to other hardware platforms.
Where's the source code?
After reading Slashdot for three years, I've grown so tired of this statement. People do not realize that closed-source software often fills a need where OSS hasn't provided. I'm not talking about Windows, MS Office or products like that. I'm talking about software like Opera, Accelerated-X, games in general, MacOS, BeOS and others that fill a certain need that only a concentrated, well-organized effort can provide, and only (unfortunately) currently can happen in a situation in which profit ($$) is a motive. Anyone who says that Linux development (I'm not talking about just the kernel) is well-organized and concentrated is looney. OSS may eventually provide a product superior in performance and features to Opera, and other niche closed-source products, but it doesn't right now.
I too paid for Opera after using it on Win32. Student rates at $17. Fast, fast, fast. HTML compliant (or as colse as you can get). Did I mention fast? Products like this prove that, yes, closed-source products can be (and are) superior to their OSS counterparts. AS long as they aren't priced out of existence, the only question becomes that of user preference and performance.
Finally, someone with the insight to use those two words to describe linux.
Another communist aspect of linux is the *complete* lack of property involved. Nobody has ownership of any aspect of the OS, including any intellectual aspects. OSS (GPL) is just about the only truly free useful human product on the planet.
open source economics might play a big factor in the physical economy too
Let's all hope we see this day before we destroy our world trying to get richer with globalization, at the expense of workers, the environment, human rights, etc.........
By skipping the innumerable inevitable appeals Microsoft would follow, we'll all save a few bucks by them going straight to the top. Plus, we'll all know the answer sooner.
Microsoft's bad, m'kay.........
From the article:
[corporate BS deleted] said it had created a router -- the equipment that directs traffic from one segment of a network to another -- capable of delivering 10 terabits, or trillion bits, of data per second, 10 times that of rival products.
Now, it may not be apparent how Lucent looks at packets with mirrors in order to route them correctly, but if you take them at their literal word (a risky idea for a new product) then yes, they say twice in the release it is a router.
The smoke is the most important part in determing the destination address when routing anyway.........
Be on the desktop, Linux on the server side...
If only more people realized this should be the way for these OSs to go, then we as PC users could have the best of both worlds.
People who use both OSs (including myself) realize that one OS makes up for the other in some way. I like the raw power inherent in both, but while BeOS makes little sense in a multi-user server environment (or are they working on that?) linux is too complex for Joe user (and should remain that way, if you ask me - work on improving linux's accessibility to the general public is taking away from adding more useful functionality to the OS.). Each OS has a niche, and each fills that niche extremely well (MacOS is another exmple of a great niche product).
The one-size-fits-all OS concept should be thrown out for good.
This is the same guy that when asked about how lengthy his Hours download was he replied something like, "But it only takes a few minutes at my house." Bowie's perspective is always going to be a rich man looking in regardless of how hard he tries to get in touch with the common bloke.
It's also pretty laughable to see that he (as do many of our 'caring' politicians) thinks the disparity in technology access is of utmost concern for the 'have-nots' of this world.
Of course the have's and have-nots where technology is concerned is also very worrying. A third of the world will have access to knowledge while the rest of the world will languish in ignorance and that is a very dangerous situation.
No David, a dangerous situation is where the wealthiest country in the world can't afford to give health insurance to 40 million of it's citizens. A dangerous situation is where millions of people worry about food and clean water each day. Your techno-prophecizing means nothing to the majority of the people on this planet. Go back to your mansion and appreciate your fast download times; you're obviously completely out-of-touch with real people.
The one thing that bothers me though, is that free entreprise and Capitalism are supposed to be a system where anybody can make as much money as they want, if their product is superior.
Hate to break it to ya, but the is one of the biggest flaws of capitalism. Those making the most money are hardly ever those who make superior products, but those who are able to fool the most people into buying their stuff. It's a giant game for profits where people lose out, and this case is the creme de la creme.
This whole situation also shows just how ignorant and uninformed the average American consumer is about their purchases - mostly due to sneaky advertising and business practices but also to a lack of time and resources to fully inform themselves. Advertising is set up specifically to hide the truth about the quality of a product. Microsoft just happened to provide the perfect example of how things would be in a true laissez faire world.