The Associated Press had a story also reprinted on
salon.com, describing one view of the fall of the Comics Code Authority, a "self-imposed" ratings system that either turned all comics into pablum, or saved the industry, depending on who you ask.
The Code was created in 1954, when comic books were read by many more children than they are today. A product of the McCarthy era's witch hunt for "unAmerican" activities, the major comic book companies adopted the Code as a form of self-regulation to avoid sanctions from a Senate committee investigating the corrupting impact of comics on America's youth.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, if you can't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it.
The SSSCA, which could become DMCA's darker sibling, has even more for Alan Cox to ponder. In fact, I just finished a weekend writing a fairly long letter to my representatives, and sent it only a few moments ago, so that it may get there in time for a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the 25th.
Re:Setting standards... I think not..
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Microsoft's Future
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· Score: 2
MS is worried that it won't be setting computing standards ? But it _never_ _ever_ has. Its forte has been ignoring standards and setting out on its own. Its problem now with the concept of the pervasive web and pervasive computing is that its #1 reason for this succeeding, its OS is not longer going to be ubiquidous.
Didn't you just disprove your argument? If Microsoft ignores existing standards, sets out on its own, and dominates the market, it sets the de facto standard. Nevermind what the RFCs say, Microsoft networks won't work without proprietary Microsoft extensions or methods. That's setting the standard.
When more Linux and Solaris backrooms exist and must interoperate, Microsoft must work with them, and not be as arrogant about the way they require proprietary methods. That's losing the edge, where Microsoft can't assume that everything it does is the de facto standard.
As soon as I heard that GRUB was a GNU project, I assumed it was just to help RMS' ego. I can just imagine RMS winding up the pitch: "The Linux kernel can't even boot without the help of GNU Free Software to pave the way! That's one more reason to call it GNU/Linux."
And [OT] while we're on the topic of massaging or dismissing RMS' ego, can Red Hat please please please stop publishing useless man pages that are just placeholder advertisements for info pages? I just don't see the point. A simple perl script should be sufficient for backporting info format into man format. If you like info, fine, it has a couple more features for indexing. But not everyone likes having to use info when man works just as well.
I don't care one way or another, I will call a whole distribution Linux if I want. I bought "Red Hat Linux 7.2" not Linux, not GNU/Linux, not GNU/Linux/RPM/Perl/Apache/KDE/Mozilla/StarOffice/L oki.
Re:Time for environment integration
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GNU Emacs 21
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Want an editor for your new IDE? Drop in emacs.
Some IDEs and desktop managers seem to be trying that out. The problem is that Emacs general set of key bindings really isn't designed for use a widget in a dialog box, or as a component in a larger application.
The problem is sovereignty. Emacs assumes it is sovereign; that is, that it has the full attention of the user and everything the user does has some bearing on Emacs. Keystrokes involve the Meta (or Alt) and the Ctrl keys, so it's hard to find keystrokes that obviously fall outside the Emacs sovereign domain.
Conversely, widgets are not sovereign, they are transient and flocking. Unknown keystrokes are usually passed up to larger and larger contexts, so that it's easy to navigate from one widget to another, or to select specific widgets from afar. Accelerators in a given window manager context typically use an obvious and consistent Alt or Ctrl scheme, which precludes mixing their use between Emacs-ish widgets and the greater context of a dialog box or application window.
Emacs is nice when you want to use it AS the IDE, but Emacs within some other IDE seems to be like fitting a baseball stadium inside a football stadium: too much confusion about overlapping sovereignty, or too much orchestration to ensure only one context is being used at a time.
Those are just my thoughts. I use whatever editor will let me get my job done the simplest way that will possibly work. Sometimes that's Emacs, sometimes that's vi, sometimes that's a WYSIWYG Rich Text editor.
With such organizations as the WTO, WIPO, ICANN, and the global reach of massive corporations, conglomerations, and keiritsu, this is of global importance.
What is passed as law in the USA or in Great Britain is often used as source material for future laws in other countries.
Hope and pray the teacher isnt using multiple exams, and that the guy behind you knows what he's doing.
Hm, with 174x144 grayscale display, you better pray that the guy behind you writes really big. 174x144.cheating.gif Can you read it? Even if it was 2048x1024 full color display, it's a screen that you're wearing on your wrist. Gonna scroll around on a zoom-in function while the teacher's not looking?
Ever hear of a dead-man's switch? It's a little device on a locomotive engine that will engage the brakes automatically if the engineer doesn't tickle it like clockwork.
So the bank's boss holds a meeting and tells the computer manufacturer that he will suspend payments on the mainframe until said mainframe could talk to the ATM as promised.
And the very next machine sold had a little bit of hidden circuitry or source code that "expired" shortly after the contract should have been renewed. The company using the machine had to keep supplying those payments like clockwork or the whole thing would grind to a halt. Without the schematics, would your technicians know how to adjust the device? Would you be sued for using the machine without paying for it?
And this brings us to the Open Source philosophy: (1) no dead-man's-switch business model, and (2) you can prove it.
protect you from being sued by someone who copies you.
One is a sword, one is a shield.
If IBM doesn't use the patent as a sword, then who should care? Nobody. If they start charging royalties for those who "infringe," if they start trying to attack other companies who have since done the same obvious thing, then you can sound the alarms of righteous indignation.
Being terrorized and attacked due to their determination of me holding "copyrighted meterial" is violating my civil liberties.
Whoa, big fella. There's two parts here. While RIAA's attempts at lobbying for liability protection is downright bad form, calling this DoS strategy "terrorizing and attacking" is way off the mark.
If RIAA finds you have steal.me.baby.mp3 on your system, RIAA will just "download" it often enough to suck all your bandwidth dry. No other ports, no hacking your hard drive, no providing a virus to scan your subdirectories, no wiretapping your Audrey or even snooping your firewall. You offer the song, they oblige your offer in spades, so nobody else gets a satisfying download.
Terrorism is killing innocent people in the name of a political objective. Abusing that term dishonors those innocent people and trivializes the barbarity in the world.
The RIAA suck. However, they DO have the licenses to distribute music, and Mr. Gnutella user does not. This is a very valid way of combating the issue: suck the bandwidth dry. The RIAA should still be liable for damages incurred, and the artists should still undermine the RIAA's stranglehold by offering their own music instead of signing those contracts.
I wrote my first political opinion paper recently.
I found my specific three representatives' names, email addresses, and postal addresses. In case you were asleep in Civics classes, that's one Congressperson in the House of Representatives that hails from your district (area) of your home state, and two Senators who hail from your home state. I also found the same information for George Bush, the President.
I wrote my letter, which you can read at http://www.halley.cc/ed/politics/. A fair first letter; the only thing I would have changed would be to specifically reference the bill number . The features of the letter:
A cover page with all addresses sent.
An executive summary of my thoughts in two lines, boldface.
A one page opinion that states my thoughts in more detail.
Specifically closing with the fact that I am one of their constitutents, and more importantly, opening with the notice that they are my representatives.
As I form my opinions of our government based on their attention to the words of the Constitution and intent of the First Congress, I give a quote; one of the Founding Father's wisdom on the current topic.
I got printed letters back which stated each representative's viewpoints on the exact matter (and that the issue had not yet been sent from the Congress to the Senate). The Congressperson stated how they voted and why. The Senators described their current rationale on the issue.
While the letters did not contain any quotes or specific references to my own letter, they were appropos to my opinions, very articulate, very on-point and organized. I imagine that these were cranked out form letters, but in that case, they must have a very well-tuned library of form letters on each subject that they were addressing in their representative works.
I have not heard from GWB's office on this matter.
I spoke sloppily. Only a few terminal tests are made prominent because they are interactive. Agreed and understood.
OSS Test Harnesses? OSS Test Suites?
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Kernel 2.4.12 Released
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I'm a relative newcomer to the Open Source world, but what has struck me is how none of the big profile projects seem to have their own test harness or test suites. Maybe I'm missing something. Please let me know what test suites major OSS software ships with. (The only one I could think of was autoconf, which isn't a quality-management test suite but a build manager, and the Perl build process does a few demonstrations of terminal features.)
What I mean is something like "make test" integrated into the project. Running that generated test code would perform hundreds of sanity checks (or even thousands for complicated projects) on the code.
Perhaps Red Hat and SuSE have this kind of code locked away in their "commercial advantage" (and I could see the arguments for keeping those closed) but it would seem to me that Linux and Alan Cox and crew would be more open about test suite software for the kernel.
Install a kernel, run a battery of tests. Find systemic breakers really quickly. It's not hard, it's just a matter of discipline to write the tests. As code is written, write the tests for the code. Any time a bug is found outside the normal test suite, write the test that should have found it. Automatable tests wherever possible.
In the "eXtreme Programming" development paradigm, this is codified even more vigorously: write the test(s) BEFORE the code. In Eiffel, you program by contract; each method has a pretest and a posttest to ensure that the state of the world is correct. Part of the official build process for releasing the software should be a 100% compliance with the automated tests.
War, especially this kind of "feel good" unwinnable war, consumes Gross National Product without the benefit of raising the standard of living. That is, every effort put to the war is effort that could have been put to feed, salve or teach our own citizens or to aid other citizens.
Unwinnable? Yes. Just as in the Gulf War, America claims victory because we've hit all the known military objectives, while Saddam claims victory because we've not hit all the unknown military objectives and he remained in power. A war without losers is a war without winners. And that's exactly what we're facing with this newest "whack-a-mole" war in Afghanistan.
The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of
doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by
the directing brains of the Party) is to use up the products of the
machine without raising the general standard of living. [...] From the
moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all
thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a
great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were
used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and
disease could be eliminated within a few generations. [...] But it was
also clear that an all-around increase in wealth threatened the
destruction--indeed in some sense was the destruction--of a hierarchical
society. [...] The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry
turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be
produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way
of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
--"Emanuel Goldstein", 1984, by George Orwell
Endless war just stratifies the society into a more crisp and more maintainable hierarchy of the Power Elite, the Party sheep, and the proletariat masses.
Here's a list of a few new features that the Moz team have been debating, also inspired by the trend-setting video game, Black & White:
MozCreature
This follows after the B&W 'creature' concept. An animated "buddy" tries to watch how you browse the web, and learns what pages to prefetch or submit every morning for you. You can scratch/fondle/slap your MozCreature to reinforce its tendency to discover new free porn for you, or punish the MozCreature to ensure that you never again wake up to find many First Posts on slashdot in your name. Lizard, Gnome, Ximian or Shadowman character art choices are included, but many more risquee "skin" packs are hitting the popular theme sites already. Caution: while the MozCreature can eat ad banners, a steady diet of ad banners will send the MozCreature into an IIS-defacing frenzy.
MozLeash
The concept of bookmarks is antiquated in modern internet terms. Once your MozCreature is on the loose, you can use your MozLeash module to assist in the training of the creature; limit their browsing domain to any hostmask or subnet you like, or avoid the MozCreature's tendency to battle for supremacy on many popular websites. Leashing your MozCreature to other popular applications such as the GIMP, nmap or GPG is also possible, but it's up to you to observe the truly remarkable effects while you train your MozCreature to full proficiency.
MozVillagers
Adding new JavaScript tags to your websites attracts your MozVillagers to point, click, play and explore your websites more than any real web visitor would. These MozVillager scripts will aid in your site's ad revenues by cavorting around GIF web-bugs as if in reverence, and occasionally clicking-thru to your sponsor sites to increase your marketing manna. The MozCreature, properly trained, can create and publish new MozVillager web scripts on your behalf, but remember, your MozCreature may end up teaching your competition some stupid web tricks as well.
All in all, Mozilla's ever-expanding suite of features, copied from every other application under the sun, shows the power and flexibility of the community development process. Netscape never had the temerity to battle it out, but armed with the MozCreature, MozLeash and MozVillager features, a new mythical landscape redefines the browser wars. Redmond's Clippy has never been in such peril.
Putting monopoly/copyright issues aside for a moment, requiring a WMA version means you lose at least 10% (at 128Kbit), which means that the maximal length would be more like 70min instead of 78min.
Not many albums even approach 70min of music. Many albums by leading artists don't reach 50min of music, even with a couple years of studio time in four-year tour/release cycles.
There have been several postings already that point out that the First Amendment does, or does not in fact, protect anonymous speech.
There is a confusion about what 'anonymity' means. Courts have ruled specifically about two aspects of anonymity, and have ruled that one form is protected, and one form is not protected. Others tend to think that anonymity is related to privacy. To lump them all under 'anonymity' is to ensure further confusion.
There is a First Amendment right to 'unsigned' expression. You can CHOOSE not to put your name on something you write, because you have the right to express yourself how you wish to express yourself, and to COMPELL an author or artist or whistleblower or witness to SIGN their own expressions is a blow against freedom of self-expression, and has a chilling effect on expression.
There are regulatory exceptions: the post office usually does not reject to unsigned envelopes, but sometimes does reject unsigned packages.
However, there is no right of 'unaccountability'. That is, if a third party is able to prove that you were the responsible author/artist/whistleblower/witness, then this fact is admissible, and you are able to be prosecuted if your expression is libelous, slanderous, or in some other way breaks existing laws. You are always accountable for your actions, including expression.
The Internet makes it easy to elude obvious signatures, but most ISPs keep enough logs to ensure some modicum of accountability. It is because of this linkage, and because of the confusion over the use of 'anonymity' that the courts are beginning to form guidelines, and the law enforcement community is interested in shaping that process to favor the availability of latent evidence.
The guidelines describe what standards must be followed to force ISPs to divulge private records to turn 'unsigned' expressions into 'accountable' expressions. In short, the courts seem to say that the specific expressions must be shown specifically to have a strong case for illegal forms of expression: again, libel, slander, or other legally disallowed forms of expression. This hurdle must be met BEFORE the ISPs are required to divulge private information.
Playing Devils' advocate here (because I agree with your sentiment and your logic, but feel you've missed something):
Airplanes;
The government licenses airplanes and their licensed pilots. Yes, mistakes and oversights exist, but the government has always revised its operations to avoid repeat risk exposure.
Dynamite;
The government licenses dynamite manufacturers and explosives-licensed contractors. Yes, mistakes and oversights exist, but the government has always revised its operations to avoid repeat risk exposure.
Plastic Explosives;
The government licenses military-grade weapon manufacturers, military contractors, and the military itself. Yes, mistakes and oversights exist, but the government has always revised its operations to avoid repeat risk exposure.
Fertilizer chemicals;
Synthetic fertilizers and fuels are unlicensed commodities. That does not stop the FBI from wanting to require the introduction of taggants to provide more latent evidence at crime scenes, much as the FBI requires the paints of every year and model of automotive to be unique and registered.
Telephones and other communication equipment; Covert wiretapping via Echelon? Overt wiretapping statutes via courts? Mandated specific reporting information on all local telco connections even if the carrier does not need this for billing or cost analysis?
Knives; Boxcutters;
Many functional handheld edge weapons are legislated as forbidden in many cities, counties, states: nunchaku, shuriken, swords, stiletto knives, switchblade knives, butterfly-handled knives. Weapon checks and security measures at high-risk facilities such as courtrooms and airports and now even schools and themeparks are controlled by legislation, law enforcement and private policies.
I think Ashcroft's answer would be, the government always has focused on the tools, because focusing on otherwise innocent individuals impinges on their constitutional rights. He would even quote the fourth amendment back at you, suggesting that while you argue for "security in your papers", it also guarantees the right to be "secure in your persons", not just from some theoretical government torture, but from the deranged psychopathy that makes up the dangerous terrorist element.
That said, I feel it's not the people nor the tools, but the actions that are to be focused upon. But there's another catch-22 there: you can't legislate effectively against actions; they're already committed by someone who doesn't care about the consequences for those illegal actions. The government is thus stuck focusing on the tools.
Airplanes, explosives, chemicals, private communications, and defensive weapons are all useful things for the peaceful, and all useful things for the wrathful. Our liberties are hard-won, and hard-kept, both from enemies abroad and within. The Constitution is a work of art and a work of power, and I respect it. Will you? Will our leaders?
Would a meta-keyring approach be useful? The actual secring.gpg/.skr enclosed in an encrypted metaring.gpg/.mkr file, which would be automatically sought and unlocked with the meta-passphrase?
Once extracted, the same passphrase could be attempted on the selected actual key from the actual secring file, just in case it matches, so that you don't have to enter passphrases twice.
Anyway, I figure this idea is old and either (A) already done, or (B) found to be unhelpful. Just pondering.
If Orville and Wilbur Wright were alive today, would they weep for the use of the airplane as a direct weapon of civilian mass destruction? Yes. And rightly so.
Do people today, 98 years after Kitty Hawk, say that the civil airplane system must be reviewed and refined to make it virtually impossible to use the airplane this way again? Yes. And rightly so.
The airplane and the encryption algorithm were both used as weapons in this case. Nobody should throw out airplanes, and nobody should throw out encryption algorithms. Citizens and the Business world both depend on these tools for use in peace, for use within the scope of our protected civil rights.
Another inventor feared the devastating and tragic uses of his invention. He was right to worry: the tool designed to destroy troublesome boulders was also able to destroy businesses and homes and innocent people, and it didn't take much imagination or skill to misuse or abuse the tool. That man did not stop from inventing dynamite, Tri-Nitro Toluene (TNT), as the good outweighed the evil. He also instituted in his name the annual Nobel Peace Prize to reward the world for proving him right, that good did indeed outweigh evil.
Phil Zimmerman, sometimes a tool can be redesigned to make it unabusable, and sometimes it cannot. This does not make the tool any less valid and appropriate. Lawmakers and the average person are often unable or unwilling to remember that. This also does not make the tool any less unimpeachable; the tool can and will be abused. Technologists and inventors are often unable or unwilling to remember that.
The encryption algorithm assists the public to feel more "secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects." It assists the businesses to ensure that security for their customers, when storing their most personal and vital information.
Phil, should you weep that your tool may have allegedly been used in this situation or others, as a weapon? Yes. And rightly so.
I like the features of both Google and Altavista's different image searchers.
Google's search seems to be a little more focused on the content of the surrounding page, while Altavista's search seems to be a little more focused on the content of the image itself.
Altavista's "Similar" indexing is a really interesting way to browse randomly, or to find better-quality copies of the same image. It goes by some color-to-area fingerprinting index scheme, so a pumpkin on a black background may be seen as "similar" to a basketball on a dark brown background.
Google's database of images is not mature yet, and needs more tie-in with the stock-photo services, but it is in more ways predictable: reasonable searches often find reasonable images.
In both, and in website searching too, I'd like for it to automatically try synonyms to words I provide, perhaps at a lower weighting.
More semantic work could be done on Google, to avoid the dreaded "'how' is a very common word and ignored" phenomenon. Of course, a database table with references to all the pages that include the word 'how' would be enormous. However, if groups of words on pages and in searches were recognized and considered as new meta-English symbols, the tables of how to verb for each verb would be manageable and useful. "How to tie", "how to format", "how to derive". (Linux docs have adopted 'howto' as a word to avoid the situation, but [shock] not everything you want to find is about Linux.)
Other word groupings that commonly surround the too-common words are good candidates for this symbol-analysis too.
Slashdot Mirror
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, if you can't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it.
Wow, who would have thunk it?
They give away thousands of marital aids bundled with Wired Magazine and in Radio Shack stores,
They go morally and financially bankrupt with attempting to prosecute Open Source developers,
And now they release a frame buffer video driver for Linux to unseat X11!
Way to go, Digital Convergence!
The SSSCA, which could become DMCA's darker sibling, has even more for Alan Cox to ponder. In fact, I just finished a weekend writing a fairly long letter to my representatives, and sent it only a few moments ago, so that it may get there in time for a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the 25th.
The full letter is at http://www.halley.cc/ed/politics/2001-10-22.conten t.control.html. I welcome comments, and the letter may be reprinted with attribution.
MS is worried that it won't be setting computing standards ? But it _never_ _ever_ has. Its forte has been ignoring standards and setting out on its own. Its problem now with the concept of the pervasive web and pervasive computing is that its #1 reason for this succeeding, its OS is not longer going to be ubiquidous.
Didn't you just disprove your argument? If Microsoft ignores existing standards, sets out on its own, and dominates the market, it sets the de facto standard. Nevermind what the RFCs say, Microsoft networks won't work without proprietary Microsoft extensions or methods. That's setting the standard.
When more Linux and Solaris backrooms exist and must interoperate, Microsoft must work with them, and not be as arrogant about the way they require proprietary methods. That's losing the edge, where Microsoft can't assume that everything it does is the de facto standard.
GNU GRUB ranting involving RMS
As soon as I heard that GRUB was a GNU project, I assumed it was just to help RMS' ego. I can just imagine RMS winding up the pitch: "The Linux kernel can't even boot without the help of GNU Free Software to pave the way! That's one more reason to call it GNU/Linux."
And [OT] while we're on the topic of massaging or dismissing RMS' ego, can Red Hat please please please stop publishing useless man pages that are just placeholder advertisements for info pages? I just don't see the point. A simple perl script should be sufficient for backporting info format into man format. If you like info, fine, it has a couple more features for indexing. But not everyone likes having to use info when man works just as well.
I don't care one way or another, I will call a whole distribution Linux if I want. I bought "Red Hat Linux 7.2" not Linux, not GNU/Linux, not GNU/Linux/RPM/Perl/Apache/KDE/Mozilla/StarOffice/L oki.
Want an editor for your new IDE? Drop in emacs.
Some IDEs and desktop managers seem to be trying that out. The problem is that Emacs general set of key bindings really isn't designed for use a widget in a dialog box, or as a component in a larger application.
The problem is sovereignty. Emacs assumes it is sovereign; that is, that it has the full attention of the user and everything the user does has some bearing on Emacs. Keystrokes involve the Meta (or Alt) and the Ctrl keys, so it's hard to find keystrokes that obviously fall outside the Emacs sovereign domain.
Conversely, widgets are not sovereign, they are transient and flocking. Unknown keystrokes are usually passed up to larger and larger contexts, so that it's easy to navigate from one widget to another, or to select specific widgets from afar. Accelerators in a given window manager context typically use an obvious and consistent Alt or Ctrl scheme, which precludes mixing their use between Emacs-ish widgets and the greater context of a dialog box or application window.
Emacs is nice when you want to use it AS the IDE, but Emacs within some other IDE seems to be like fitting a baseball stadium inside a football stadium: too much confusion about overlapping sovereignty, or too much orchestration to ensure only one context is being used at a time.
Those are just my thoughts. I use whatever editor will let me get my job done the simplest way that will possibly work. Sometimes that's Emacs, sometimes that's vi, sometimes that's a WYSIWYG Rich Text editor.
With such organizations as the WTO, WIPO, ICANN, and the global reach of massive corporations, conglomerations, and keiritsu, this is of global importance.
What is passed as law in the USA or in Great Britain is often used as source material for future laws in other countries.
Hope and pray the teacher isnt using multiple exams, and that the guy behind you knows what he's doing.
Hm, with 174x144 grayscale display, you better pray that the guy behind you writes really big. 174x144.cheating.gif Can you read it? Even if it was 2048x1024 full color display, it's a screen that you're wearing on your wrist. Gonna scroll around on a zoom-in function while the teacher's not looking?
Ever hear of a dead-man's switch? It's a little device on a locomotive engine that will engage the brakes automatically if the engineer doesn't tickle it like clockwork.
So the bank's boss holds a meeting and tells the computer manufacturer that he will suspend payments on the mainframe until said mainframe could talk to the ATM as promised.
And the very next machine sold had a little bit of hidden circuitry or source code that "expired" shortly after the contract should have been renewed. The company using the machine had to keep supplying those payments like clockwork or the whole thing would grind to a halt. Without the schematics, would your technicians know how to adjust the device? Would you be sued for using the machine without paying for it?
And this brings us to the Open Source philosophy: (1) no dead-man's-switch business model, and (2) you can prove it.
Patents exist.
There are two things that patents do:
One is a sword, one is a shield.
If IBM doesn't use the patent as a sword, then who should care? Nobody. If they start charging royalties for those who "infringe," if they start trying to attack other companies who have since done the same obvious thing, then you can sound the alarms of righteous indignation.
Until then, STFU. Please.
Being terrorized and attacked due to their determination of me holding "copyrighted meterial" is violating my civil liberties.
Whoa, big fella. There's two parts here. While RIAA's attempts at lobbying for liability protection is downright bad form, calling this DoS strategy "terrorizing and attacking" is way off the mark.
If RIAA finds you have steal.me.baby.mp3 on your system, RIAA will just "download" it often enough to suck all your bandwidth dry. No other ports, no hacking your hard drive, no providing a virus to scan your subdirectories, no wiretapping your Audrey or even snooping your firewall. You offer the song, they oblige your offer in spades, so nobody else gets a satisfying download.
Terrorism is killing innocent people in the name of a political objective. Abusing that term dishonors those innocent people and trivializes the barbarity in the world.
The RIAA suck. However, they DO have the licenses to distribute music, and Mr. Gnutella user does not. This is a very valid way of combating the issue: suck the bandwidth dry. The RIAA should still be liable for damages incurred, and the artists should still undermine the RIAA's stranglehold by offering their own music instead of signing those contracts.
Like the children's rhyme in This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin, naming the great socialists.
Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei, we thank you for this perfect day. ... Marx, Wood, Wei and Christ, all but Wei were sacrificed.
I wrote my first political opinion paper recently.
I found my specific three representatives' names, email addresses, and postal addresses. In case you were asleep in Civics classes, that's one Congressperson in the House of Representatives that hails from your district (area) of your home state, and two Senators who hail from your home state. I also found the same information for George Bush, the President.
I wrote my letter, which you can read at http://www.halley.cc/ed/politics/. A fair first letter; the only thing I would have changed would be to specifically reference the bill number . The features of the letter:
I got printed letters back which stated each representative's viewpoints on the exact matter (and that the issue had not yet been sent from the Congress to the Senate). The Congressperson stated how they voted and why. The Senators described their current rationale on the issue.
While the letters did not contain any quotes or specific references to my own letter, they were appropos to my opinions, very articulate, very on-point and organized. I imagine that these were cranked out form letters, but in that case, they must have a very well-tuned library of form letters on each subject that they were addressing in their representative works.
I have not heard from GWB's office on this matter.
I spoke sloppily. Only a few terminal tests are made prominent because they are interactive. Agreed and understood.
I'm a relative newcomer to the Open Source world, but what has struck me is how none of the big profile projects seem to have their own test harness or test suites. Maybe I'm missing something. Please let me know what test suites major OSS software ships with. (The only one I could think of was autoconf, which isn't a quality-management test suite but a build manager, and the Perl build process does a few demonstrations of terminal features.)
What I mean is something like "make test" integrated into the project. Running that generated test code would perform hundreds of sanity checks (or even thousands for complicated projects) on the code.
Perhaps Red Hat and SuSE have this kind of code locked away in their "commercial advantage" (and I could see the arguments for keeping those closed) but it would seem to me that Linux and Alan Cox and crew would be more open about test suite software for the kernel.
Install a kernel, run a battery of tests. Find systemic breakers really quickly. It's not hard, it's just a matter of discipline to write the tests. As code is written, write the tests for the code. Any time a bug is found outside the normal test suite, write the test that should have found it. Automatable tests wherever possible.
In the "eXtreme Programming" development paradigm, this is codified even more vigorously: write the test(s) BEFORE the code. In Eiffel, you program by contract; each method has a pretest and a posttest to ensure that the state of the world is correct. Part of the official build process for releasing the software should be a 100% compliance with the automated tests.
War, especially this kind of "feel good" unwinnable war, consumes Gross National Product without the benefit of raising the standard of living. That is, every effort put to the war is effort that could have been put to feed, salve or teach our own citizens or to aid other citizens.
Unwinnable? Yes. Just as in the Gulf War, America claims victory because we've hit all the known military objectives, while Saddam claims victory because we've not hit all the unknown military objectives and he remained in power. A war without losers is a war without winners. And that's exactly what we're facing with this newest "whack-a-mole" war in Afghanistan.
--"Emanuel Goldstein", 1984, by George Orwell
Endless war just stratifies the society into a more crisp and more maintainable hierarchy of the Power Elite, the Party sheep, and the proletariat masses.
Here's a list of a few new features that the Moz team have been debating, also inspired by the trend-setting video game, Black & White:
This follows after the B&W 'creature' concept. An animated "buddy" tries to watch how you browse the web, and learns what pages to prefetch or submit every morning for you. You can scratch/fondle/slap your MozCreature to reinforce its tendency to discover new free porn for you, or punish the MozCreature to ensure that you never again wake up to find many First Posts on slashdot in your name. Lizard, Gnome, Ximian or Shadowman character art choices are included, but many more risquee "skin" packs are hitting the popular theme sites already. Caution: while the MozCreature can eat ad banners, a steady diet of ad banners will send the MozCreature into an IIS-defacing frenzy.
The concept of bookmarks is antiquated in modern internet terms. Once your MozCreature is on the loose, you can use your MozLeash module to assist in the training of the creature; limit their browsing domain to any hostmask or subnet you like, or avoid the MozCreature's tendency to battle for supremacy on many popular websites. Leashing your MozCreature to other popular applications such as the GIMP, nmap or GPG is also possible, but it's up to you to observe the truly remarkable effects while you train your MozCreature to full proficiency.
Adding new JavaScript tags to your websites attracts your MozVillagers to point, click, play and explore your websites more than any real web visitor would. These MozVillager scripts will aid in your site's ad revenues by cavorting around GIF web-bugs as if in reverence, and occasionally clicking-thru to your sponsor sites to increase your marketing manna. The MozCreature, properly trained, can create and publish new MozVillager web scripts on your behalf, but remember, your MozCreature may end up teaching your competition some stupid web tricks as well.
All in all, Mozilla's ever-expanding suite of features, copied from every other application under the sun, shows the power and flexibility of the community development process. Netscape never had the temerity to battle it out, but armed with the MozCreature, MozLeash and MozVillager features, a new mythical landscape redefines the browser wars. Redmond's Clippy has never been in such peril.
On behalf of my fellow Australians I would like to apologize for the crimes committed against comedy by Yahoo Serious.
Now can you apologize for Mel Gibson's Hamlet and Paul Hogan's... um... everything?
Putting monopoly/copyright issues aside for a moment, requiring a WMA version means you lose at least 10% (at 128Kbit), which means that the maximal length would be more like 70min instead of 78min.
Not many albums even approach 70min of music. Many albums by leading artists don't reach 50min of music, even with a couple years of studio time in four-year tour/release cycles.
Start Linux.
Start Mac on Linux.
Start Windows on Mac on Linux.
Start MAME on Windows on Mac.
Start Linux on Playstation on MAME on Windows on Mac.
Start VMware on Linux on Playstation on MAME on Windows on Mac...
[stock rant on the subject]
There have been several postings already that point out that the First Amendment does, or does not in fact, protect anonymous speech.
There is a confusion about what 'anonymity' means. Courts have ruled specifically about two aspects of anonymity, and have ruled that one form is protected, and one form is not protected. Others tend to think that anonymity is related to privacy. To lump them all under 'anonymity' is to ensure further confusion.
There is a First Amendment right to 'unsigned' expression. You can CHOOSE not to put your name on something you write, because you have the right to express yourself how you wish to express yourself, and to COMPELL an author or artist or whistleblower or witness to SIGN their own expressions is a blow against freedom of self-expression, and has a chilling effect on expression.
There are regulatory exceptions: the post office usually does not reject to unsigned envelopes, but sometimes does reject unsigned packages.
However, there is no right of 'unaccountability'. That is, if a third party is able to prove that you were the responsible author/artist/whistleblower/witness, then this fact is admissible, and you are able to be prosecuted if your expression is libelous, slanderous, or in some other way breaks existing laws. You are always accountable for your actions, including expression.
The Internet makes it easy to elude obvious signatures, but most ISPs keep enough logs to ensure some modicum of accountability. It is because of this linkage, and because of the confusion over the use of 'anonymity' that the courts are beginning to form guidelines, and the law enforcement community is interested in shaping that process to favor the availability of latent evidence.
The guidelines describe what standards must be followed to force ISPs to divulge private records to turn 'unsigned' expressions into 'accountable' expressions. In short, the courts seem to say that the specific expressions must be shown specifically to have a strong case for illegal forms of expression: again, libel, slander, or other legally disallowed forms of expression. This hurdle must be met BEFORE the ISPs are required to divulge private information.
[end of stock rant]
Playing Devils' advocate here (because I agree with your sentiment and your logic, but feel you've missed something):
The government licenses airplanes and their licensed pilots. Yes, mistakes and oversights exist, but the government has always revised its operations to avoid repeat risk exposure.
The government licenses dynamite manufacturers and explosives-licensed contractors. Yes, mistakes and oversights exist, but the government has always revised its operations to avoid repeat risk exposure.
The government licenses military-grade weapon manufacturers, military contractors, and the military itself. Yes, mistakes and oversights exist, but the government has always revised its operations to avoid repeat risk exposure.
Synthetic fertilizers and fuels are unlicensed commodities. That does not stop the FBI from wanting to require the introduction of taggants to provide more latent evidence at crime scenes, much as the FBI requires the paints of every year and model of automotive to be unique and registered.
Covert wiretapping via Echelon? Overt wiretapping statutes via courts? Mandated specific reporting information on all local telco connections even if the carrier does not need this for billing or cost analysis?
Many functional handheld edge weapons are legislated as forbidden in many cities, counties, states: nunchaku, shuriken, swords, stiletto knives, switchblade knives, butterfly-handled knives. Weapon checks and security measures at high-risk facilities such as courtrooms and airports and now even schools and themeparks are controlled by legislation, law enforcement and private policies.
I think Ashcroft's answer would be, the government always has focused on the tools, because focusing on otherwise innocent individuals impinges on their constitutional rights. He would even quote the fourth amendment back at you, suggesting that while you argue for "security in your papers", it also guarantees the right to be "secure in your persons", not just from some theoretical government torture, but from the deranged psychopathy that makes up the dangerous terrorist element.
That said, I feel it's not the people nor the tools, but the actions that are to be focused upon. But there's another catch-22 there: you can't legislate effectively against actions; they're already committed by someone who doesn't care about the consequences for those illegal actions. The government is thus stuck focusing on the tools.
Airplanes, explosives, chemicals, private communications, and defensive weapons are all useful things for the peaceful, and all useful things for the wrathful. Our liberties are hard-won, and hard-kept, both from enemies abroad and within. The Constitution is a work of art and a work of power, and I respect it. Will you? Will our leaders?
Once extracted, the same passphrase could be attempted on the selected actual key from the actual secring file, just in case it matches, so that you don't have to enter passphrases twice.
Anyway, I figure this idea is old and either (A) already done, or (B) found to be unhelpful. Just pondering.
If Orville and Wilbur Wright were alive today, would they weep for the use of the airplane as a direct weapon of civilian mass destruction? Yes. And rightly so.
Do people today, 98 years after Kitty Hawk, say that the civil airplane system must be reviewed and refined to make it virtually impossible to use the airplane this way again? Yes. And rightly so.
The airplane and the encryption algorithm were both used as weapons in this case. Nobody should throw out airplanes, and nobody should throw out encryption algorithms. Citizens and the Business world both depend on these tools for use in peace, for use within the scope of our protected civil rights.
Another inventor feared the devastating and tragic uses of his invention. He was right to worry: the tool designed to destroy troublesome boulders was also able to destroy businesses and homes and innocent people, and it didn't take much imagination or skill to misuse or abuse the tool. That man did not stop from inventing dynamite, Tri-Nitro Toluene (TNT), as the good outweighed the evil. He also instituted in his name the annual Nobel Peace Prize to reward the world for proving him right, that good did indeed outweigh evil.
Phil Zimmerman, sometimes a tool can be redesigned to make it unabusable, and sometimes it cannot. This does not make the tool any less valid and appropriate. Lawmakers and the average person are often unable or unwilling to remember that. This also does not make the tool any less unimpeachable; the tool can and will be abused. Technologists and inventors are often unable or unwilling to remember that.
The encryption algorithm assists the public to feel more "secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects." It assists the businesses to ensure that security for their customers, when storing their most personal and vital information.
Phil, should you weep that your tool may have allegedly been used in this situation or others, as a weapon? Yes. And rightly so.
But you were right to create it.
Google's search seems to be a little more focused on the content of the surrounding page, while Altavista's search seems to be a little more focused on the content of the image itself.
Altavista's "Similar" indexing is a really interesting way to browse randomly, or to find better-quality copies of the same image. It goes by some color-to-area fingerprinting index scheme, so a pumpkin on a black background may be seen as "similar" to a basketball on a dark brown background.
Google's database of images is not mature yet, and needs more tie-in with the stock-photo services, but it is in more ways predictable: reasonable searches often find reasonable images.
In both, and in website searching too, I'd like for it to automatically try synonyms to words I provide, perhaps at a lower weighting.
More semantic work could be done on Google, to avoid the dreaded "'how' is a very common word and ignored" phenomenon. Of course, a database table with references to all the pages that include the word 'how' would be enormous. However, if groups of words on pages and in searches were recognized and considered as new meta-English symbols, the tables of how to verb for each verb would be manageable and useful. "How to tie", "how to format", "how to derive". (Linux docs have adopted 'howto' as a word to avoid the situation, but [shock] not everything you want to find is about Linux.)
Other word groupings that commonly surround the too-common words are good candidates for this symbol-analysis too.