If an eminent rocket scientist like V. Putin says that the zig zag technique will defeat all missile defenses, then we'd be fools to even investigate the technology.
When will our government learn to stop basing our policies on the well intentioned advice of foreign leaders? After all they've never lied to us before!
"They are made by private companies and individuals who's credentials and/or decency cannot be guaranteed. "
The set of individuals and or companies and or any other institution whose credentials and/or decency can be guaranteed is precisely equal to the null set.
One Childish N00b has the genesis of a good argument here, but this sentence detracts from it. It would be nice to have a way to assess the trustworthiness of the authors of anti-spyware. I can think of protocols which would improve my ability to do that assessment. But it adds nothing to the debate to point out that some people might be untrustworthy.
And the reference to companies just puts this in the realm of political discourse.
To put this back on topic, let's reformulate this as the core problem.
There are no tools which allow us to verify the quality of software, or the intent of software. We need to evaluate the intent of software to determine if it is serving the customer's needs, and we need to evaluate the quality to tell how well it serves those needs. We need to be able to detect software which serves multiple needs - frex a toolbar which provides an overt convenience to the consumer, and a covert function to the advertiser. Some people may choose to pay for the convenience. But there should be a way for them to assess what information they reveal, and compare it to the value they receive.
Framed that way, it is evident that the problem is twofold. First, users. Users of any infrastructure - whether it is computers or grocery stores are unable to perform price and quality discovery. Second, softare. The software market is still very immature.
A movie out is $25 bucks for me. Three/month * is $75.
But that ignores problems with Netflix. 1) the long latency time. 2) the fact that movies sit on my shelf for more than a month till I have time to watch them. 3) The number of times I've got 3 movies out that my daughter doesn't want to watch, but my daughter and I want to watch a movie.
Dynamic Netflix would allow me to jump around in the queue overnight. I could d/l the movies we want to watch when we want to watch them.
The first two answers led me to consider this man. Fortunately for me, I kept reading.
The point where I exceeded my sanity was his harping on the need for a true democracy. In one paragraph he harps on racism and in the next the need for a true democracy. (Care to take a true democratic vote on civil rights in 1860 America?) He think that conservation can substitute for Nuclear power. (Do the math; not unless you're willing to watch everyone's standard of living plummet).
In short this candidate is just as much a politician as the others. Full of symbols that have more to do with adherence to ideology than with solutions to real problems.
Thanks for running, thanks for answering the questions. But your symbols don't appeal to me.
I like the plan, and am willing to put $$ where my keyboard is.
I would be willing to contribute $100 up front and $10/month for an "investment club". THat club would pursue the ends described in this article. (1) Collect proxies for use at board meetings (2) Raise Open Source/Free Trade/Customer rights
And we'd probably make some money while we're at it. IIRC, this has been (somewhat) successful with Tobacco companies.
Unfortunately, I'm not willing to organize such an effort. However, if enough people put $$ pledges up, perhaps someone will be motivated to make the next step happen.
Yes, $100 & 10/mo are pitifully small amounts - I think however that many people can afford a small amount, and are more effective than a few big players.
Heck, I'd almost buy my kid a palm just to keep track of when homework is due. If every teacher put the assignment and the due date in a format which could be beamed to the palm, it would provide a way to coordinate that information with parents, who would like to help their kids become more responsible.
My daughter is in the second grade, and although she's very bright, what she thinks she is assigned isn't always exactly what the teacher intended. E.g. the other week she came home from school and told us that she couldn't get into the gifted & talented problem because she didn't have a problem - only students with problems could do gifted and talented work. I figured that this was a program for disadvantaged/ challenged/ kids.
I called the G&T teacher, who explained that if students wanted to get into G&T, they had to choose a research problem; any research problem, and they'd be helped to do research on it, and suggest a solution. Big difference. Had I had the text of the briefing, I'd have understood that and encouraged her to select a research problem.
I'd also like to see feedback from her assignments on a palm. A way for students, teachers and parents to share information that would help students to learn.
I recognize that my comments are peripheral, but I'd like to raise a danger that is neglected in much of the internet voting/cyberdemocracy postings. The issue which James Madison (aka Publius in the federalist papers) called "the Factious Minority".
For any given issue, there is a small minority of people who care passionately about the issue, and a great majority who are apathetic. This is a 'design feature' of our government. In order for an issue to become a bill, then a law, then a regulation, that factious minority must persuade (through free speech) a majority.
Apathy is part of the process. Apathy is the check that the populace exerts on the government. Fanatics can defeat apathy through short term appeal to emotions - whether that is demagogery or advertising. However the government is intentionally slow to act, which counteracts the demoagogery.
OK - with that as background, (sorry - too longs - got into my old college professor mode), my point is this. The Internet, and modern communications media provide us the time to shorten the cycle time of the government process. To submit more "small issues" to the people through the internet. But the cycle time was never intended to be short. Short cycle time is a good thing in consumer products, but not in laws.
Imagine if you will that someone had submitted new laws to the voters after Columbine? Remember the bill in Pennsylvania which gave the principal of a school the right to commit any student to an insane asylum without review or accountability? - and no obligation to inform parents (indeed, immunity from lawsuit if the power was exercised frivolously!) [N.B. I don't have a citation for this - this may be an internet myth, but I believe I read it on Slashdot, so I reguard it as potentially credible)]. Point being that submitting small issues directly to the voters can be a bad thing - people want to "do something" quickly - to respond to horror and tragedy. But Laws should be made by deliberation, not through emotionqal reaction.
Final note - I'm not saying tha tdemocracy or cyberdemocracy is bad. I have reservations about the implementation, based on the fact that it will affect one of the design features of our government.
The Federalist Papers are a very good and important read for anyone who wants to change the way we do government - as is the Articles of Confederation.
I think the core assumption here is that we can trust some kernel code in the "peanut" device. I suspect that will prove to be a fairly difficult trust to establish.
The concept of resurected Ducklings however might have broader implications. Indeed, it might serve to solve some of the problems with trusted kernel code.
Suppose that we create "sickly ducklings" - processes that will die if interfered with. One way to look at hacking is that hacking is an attempt to obtain unexpected responses from a program based on unexpected inputs, and to take advantage of those responses. A fragile duckling, confronted with unexpected input would die - or perhaps enter a more sickly state. [Reference to the "DOOM kill process article" elsewhere on slashdot is intentional.]
If the kernel code is fragile, then any attempt to interact with it by unauthorized entities will kill it. The program can then reinitialize itself, with a new identity. Any subsequent reference to this duckling by an authorized user will reveal the tamper.
Obviously the code must be small, and must interact in (formally) defined ways - much like a security kernel.
Combine this with Kerberos style tickets, or better yet Yaksha, and I think this might form the basis of software tamperproof.
[Yes, a well prepared adversary can kill a lot of ducklings to discover an "addicitve duckling medicine" that will enable him/her to cure the duckling, and manipulate the cured duckling. But I suspect the ease of discovering that medicine is related to key/secret size.
Slashdot Mirror
If an eminent rocket scientist like V. Putin says that the zig zag technique will defeat all missile defenses, then we'd be fools to even investigate the technology.
When will our government learn to stop basing our policies on the well intentioned advice of foreign leaders? After all they've never lied to us before!
Wild guess? At least for the target audience of women who read slashdot, you're more likely to get laid if you can spell "laid".
"They are made by private companies and individuals who's credentials and/or decency cannot be guaranteed. "
The set of individuals and or companies and or any other institution whose credentials and/or decency can be guaranteed is precisely equal to the null set.
One Childish N00b has the genesis of a good argument here, but this sentence detracts from it. It would be nice to have a way to assess the trustworthiness of the authors of anti-spyware. I can think of protocols which would improve my ability to do that assessment. But it adds nothing to the debate to point out that some people might be untrustworthy.
And the reference to companies just puts this in the realm of political discourse.
To put this back on topic, let's reformulate this as the core problem.
There are no tools which allow us to verify the quality of software, or the intent of software. We need to evaluate the intent of software to determine if it is serving the customer's needs, and we need to evaluate the quality to tell how well it serves those needs. We need to be able to detect software which serves multiple needs - frex a toolbar which provides an overt convenience to the consumer, and a covert function to the advertiser. Some people may choose to pay for the convenience. But there should be a way for them to assess what information they reveal, and compare it to the value they receive.
Framed that way, it is evident that the problem is twofold. First, users. Users of any infrastructure - whether it is computers or grocery stores are unable to perform price and quality discovery. Second, softare. The software market is still very immature.
Eh - I'm done ranting for now.
I started to seriously question my post. FOrtunately I read on....
"Fusion is no solution - the supply of Uranium is limited...."
I rest easy now.
I'd pay more. Easily.
A movie out is $25 bucks for me. Three/month * is $75.
But that ignores problems with Netflix. 1) the long latency time. 2) the fact that movies sit on my shelf for more than a month till I have time to watch them. 3) The number of times I've got 3 movies out that my daughter doesn't want to watch, but my daughter and I want to watch a movie.
Dynamic Netflix would allow me to jump around in the queue overnight. I could d/l the movies we want to watch when we want to watch them.
Well worth the $$ for me.
The first two answers led me to consider this man. Fortunately for me, I kept reading.
The point where I exceeded my sanity was his harping on the need for a true democracy. In one paragraph he harps on racism and in the next the need for a true democracy. (Care to take a true democratic vote on civil rights in 1860 America?) He think that conservation can substitute for Nuclear power. (Do the math; not unless you're willing to watch everyone's standard of living plummet).
In short this candidate is just as much a politician as the others. Full of symbols that have more to do with adherence to ideology than with solutions to real problems.
Thanks for running, thanks for answering the questions. But your symbols don't appeal to me.
I like the plan, and am willing to put $$ where
my keyboard is.
I would be willing to contribute $100 up front
and $10/month for an "investment club". THat club would pursue the ends described in this article.
(1) Collect proxies for use at board meetings
(2) Raise Open Source/Free Trade/Customer rights
And we'd probably make some money while we're at it. IIRC, this has been (somewhat) successful with Tobacco companies.
Unfortunately, I'm not willing to organize such an effort. However, if enough people put $$ pledges up, perhaps someone will be motivated to make the next step happen.
Yes, $100 & 10/mo are pitifully small amounts - I think however that many people can afford a small amount, and are more effective than a few big players.
Heck, I'd almost buy my kid a palm just to keep track of when homework is due. If every teacher put the assignment and the due date in a format
which could be beamed to the palm, it would provide a way to coordinate that information with parents, who would like to help their kids become more responsible.
My daughter is in the second grade, and although she's very bright, what she thinks she is assigned isn't always exactly what the teacher intended. E.g. the other week she came home from school and told us that she couldn't get into the gifted & talented problem because she didn't have a problem - only students with problems could do gifted and talented work. I figured that this was a program for disadvantaged/ challenged/ kids.
I called the G&T teacher, who explained that if students wanted to get into G&T, they had to choose a research problem; any research problem, and they'd be helped to do research on it, and suggest a solution. Big difference. Had I had the text of the briefing, I'd have understood that and encouraged her to select a research problem.
I'd also like to see feedback from her assignments on a palm. A way for students, teachers and parents to share information that would help students to learn.
I recognize that my comments are peripheral, but I'd like to raise a danger that is neglected in much of the internet voting/cyberdemocracy postings. The issue which James Madison (aka Publius in the federalist papers) called "the Factious Minority".
For any given issue, there is a small minority of people who care passionately about the issue, and a great majority who are apathetic. This is a 'design feature' of our government. In order for an issue to become a bill, then a law, then a regulation, that factious minority must persuade (through free speech) a majority.
Apathy is part of the process. Apathy is the check that the populace exerts on the government. Fanatics can defeat apathy through short term appeal to emotions - whether that is demagogery or advertising. However the government is intentionally slow to act, which counteracts the demoagogery.
OK - with that as background, (sorry - too longs - got into my old college professor mode), my point is this. The Internet, and modern communications media provide us the time to shorten the cycle time of the government process. To submit more "small issues" to the people through the internet. But the cycle time was never intended to be short. Short cycle time is a good thing in consumer products, but not in laws.
Imagine if you will that someone had submitted new laws to the voters after Columbine? Remember the bill in Pennsylvania which gave the principal of a school the right to commit any student to an insane asylum without review or accountability? - and no obligation to inform parents (indeed, immunity from lawsuit if the power was exercised frivolously!) [N.B. I don't have a citation for this - this may be an internet myth, but I believe I read it on Slashdot, so I reguard it as potentially credible)]. Point being that submitting small issues directly to the voters can be a bad thing - people want to "do something" quickly - to respond to horror and tragedy. But Laws should be made by deliberation, not through emotionqal reaction.
Final note - I'm not saying tha tdemocracy or cyberdemocracy is bad. I have reservations about the implementation, based on the fact that it will affect one of the design features of our government.
The Federalist Papers are a very good and important read for anyone who wants to change the way we do government - as is the Articles of Confederation.
I think the core assumption here is that we can trust some kernel code in the "peanut" device. I suspect that will prove to be a fairly difficult trust to establish.
The concept of resurected Ducklings however might have broader implications. Indeed, it might serve to solve some of the problems with trusted kernel code.
Suppose that we create "sickly ducklings" - processes that will die if interfered with. One way to look at hacking is that hacking is an attempt to obtain unexpected responses from a program based on unexpected inputs, and to take advantage of those responses. A fragile duckling, confronted with unexpected input would die - or perhaps enter a more sickly state.
[Reference to the "DOOM kill process article" elsewhere on slashdot is intentional.]
If the kernel code is fragile, then any attempt to interact with it by unauthorized entities will kill it. The program can then reinitialize itself, with a new identity. Any subsequent reference to this duckling by an authorized user will reveal the tamper.
Obviously the code must be small, and must interact in (formally) defined ways - much like a security kernel.
Combine this with Kerberos style tickets, or better yet Yaksha, and I think this might form the basis of software tamperproof.
[Yes, a well prepared adversary can kill a lot of ducklings to discover an "addicitve duckling medicine" that will enable him/her to cure the duckling, and manipulate the cured duckling. But I suspect the ease of discovering that medicine is related to key/secret size.