I'm not a gnus expert, I just want to be. I don't have a news server to try out A M on right now, but what I used to do was list all groups ( 'L' ) and then C-s to search through them. Not very efficient. I did notice that sometimes listing something like "comp*" would not work but "comp.*" would, so maybe those regexps are interpreted differently. But I don't remember the conditions for that.
I would say it was time for this thread to migrate to gnu.emacs.gnus or comp.emacs. Much more help there;)
What free usenet service can I use from X/Emacs and gnus, not through a web based interface ?
I know there was some elisp floating around that allowed you to search deja through gnus. Does that still work given deja's recent changes ? Is it possible that gnus could use the w3 stuff to interface with one of the web based newsreader/posters ?
And -- here's the big question: if that is possible, can someone hack that interface so that I can browse slashdot from emacs ? Wow. That would be awesome.
Pine is useable, actually pretty good. Gnus (emacs and XEmacs package) is the best, no competition. But it takes a while to learn all of it's features. It should be perfectly useable as a basic reader/poster without reading too much info pages though -- pop up your preference of emacs or XEmacs, and do M-x gnus.
I generally advise new users of gnus to try XEmacs at first, and use the pull down mousey menus (horrors!!!) to find the various list-all-groups and subscribe-group and post-article type functions; you can remember the keys which are listed in the menu, and go back to using emacs or turn off the menus after a while.
But that's only if you have some inability to do M-x info. For some reason a lot of people are extremely resistent to using info.
By the way, gnus is also an extremely good mail handler also. It is pretty easy (well, ok, copy the elisp of someone who already did it and edit the regexp's to fit your situation) to make it map your various mailing lists into their own little newsgroup like folders. It makes much more sense to read mailing lists in this fashion rather than have them mixed in amoung all the personal mail you actually read.
I've been planning to set up my gnus to have a folder for each of my web-based mail accounts, such as yahoo, hotmail, etc. I know you can do it because I've seen people who did it, I just haven't copied their elisp yet.
I have worked quite a bit on a massive project which is kept in CVS. Other contractors occasionally change things in the code I am responsible for, usually when they changed a common data type, or fixed a small bug. I also have a separate in-house repository for our code, which usually has much more changes, and perhaps a few branches with different experiments, some which worked and some which didn't. At some point we call for a code freeze for a delivery, and this is how I do it:
I check out two code trees to be merged, and I run ediff-directories in XEmacs over both of them, from the top level. I sit there and spend three or more hours going through every diff by hand, looking at every single one. If I am conscientious about keeping up to date and do this once every two weeks or so, then it will take half an hour, because I will know all the places where nothing has changed. You can look a the file sizes and quickly filter through files which are the same.
You have to be careful about new files in one tree that aren't in the other. ediff-directories is not good at making that obvious; I think the 'D' key will show you all files in one directory and not in the other.
Then I use pcl-cvs as my cvs interface and commit everything. There is a key shortcut to do a diff of the current modified file and one in the repository ( the '=' key, I think); you can make this do ediff if you wish. I look again at every single change that is going in.
There is a three-way ediff, and I've used it, but I personally find it preferable to merge one tree at a time into a base tree.
The ediff-directories tool and pcl-cvs are invaluable. I could live without pcl-cvs but not without ediff. So I think, if your problem is really that you lacking tools, then M-x ediff-directories is your saviour.
Now, if we really used CVS the way we should (too often it is simply used as a backup and distribution device) then those code trees would all be branches in the same repository. It's a bit easier then, because you can use CVS to merge the branches. (Look at the CVS manual by Per Cederqvist for details.) If two branches have a lot of conflicts, you might be better off with checking out separate copies and ediff, but that would be unusual.
If with ediff and CVS at your disposal you still find yourself overwhelmed with merging, then it is time to re-examine your development process. You may have to force two developers or development groups to start using the same branch. If their stuff has to be in the same tree at the end, the best way to merge is to merge them as you write. Just because you have CVS, doesn't mean that you are under configuration management; you have to actually use it as you develope.
I would not be at all surprised if your problem is not that you lack tools, but that your groups' method of development is not collaborative enough. Developers like to grab a copy of the code and go off and work for weeks and come back and plop it in your lap. If they are really mule-headed about it, demand that they commit all changes at the end of every day, delete their working copy, and check out a new copy the next day.
Most of the ice in the world is not floating in water, it is in huge (thousands of feet thick) layers that are over land, on the South Pole and on Greenland.
My point was not that if all that ice melted the water wouldn't rise. It's just that the recent observations of huge pieces of the floating ice shelves calving off are not themselves causing the ocean level to rise. It is only if they cause something bigger, or are signs of something bigger, that the ocean level would rise.
Ice gets one the order of a mile over land, such as Greenland or the South Pole. But the North Pole ice is over ocean, which is harder to freeze being salt, but more importantly it moves with currents, so ice tends to shift out to the warmer edge. Remember the pictures of nuclear submarines surfacing at the North Pole ?
No, the melting of floating ice doesn't change the surface level. If you fill a glass of water up, and put a big ice cube in it, mark the side at the water level, and let the cube melt, you will see that the water level doesn't change.
Because as the ice melts it gets smaller and fits into the hole in the water it was taking up. Exactly fits. That's what it means to be floating -- you displace your wieght, and if you turn to water, then obviously you fit into the space you were displacing.
So the whole of floating ice on the north pole (tens of feet thick at most, I believe) and the ice shelves (much thicker in places) can melt with out changing the water level.
If the absence of the floating shelf causes more ice to slide off the land and into the ocean, then the level will go up. As soon as that ice is in the water, not when that ice melts -- just like the water in a glass rises when you put an ice cube in it.
All this talk of ice cubes and ice bergs makes me want to play some rap.
I think the world wouldn't loose much if the lower parts flooded anyway. Those are generally the sucky parts, take NYC for example. But of course those loosers will then start moving inland and ruining it for the rest of us.
Well, if I want to increase the number of downloads, i.e. make it less likely that SK will publish, I only need to repeatedly download from conxion.com.
If I want to go the other way, I could repeatedly pay. But if I could also kill that conxion.com server, or make it really slow, and offer another faster mirror. Then I've reduced the number of downloads, but people can still pay at amazon.
So I can to either by just affecting conxion.com, and leaving amazon alone. I download a lot from conxion, I stop all downloads from conxion.
So the idea that those numbers will be valid is completely wrong, no way they mean anything, except maybe a measure of the 3l33t sk1llz of the two sides. You can be sure that someone out there is already trying to skew them one way or another.
Why will big publishers probably not do this ? Because a huge number of downloads might feed the old scribbler's ego, and promote the idea of reaching a huge audience, which would help sell the idea to the new and independent authors, who are the ones they really have to worry about signing and capturing.
However, there is a chance that even if SK made more money on this than any other book, he'd still feel offended at the "billions and billions" of people who "read" it and didn't pay. Most authors (think of Metallica) can't really mentally comprehend the idea of selling something and then not owning it after the transaction -- look at the emotional offense they feel after you do what you want with the tape/CD that they *sold* to you. They really believe that they sell something and then still own it, that they can eat their cake and have it too.
There is a reason why publishers will survive, and it is simple: most artists are too dumb to manage a lemonade stand, let alone their own businesses. A few can, but the best hope for the rest is to go with someone who can count their money for them.
If you support this experiment and want it to succeed, DDOS his server right now, and post mirrors of the pdf somewhere else, like geocities.
If SK is really going to pay attention to that ratio number, just be aware that it is highly vulnerable to manipulation. If I gave a shit (I think SK sucks as an author, screw him, and online publishing will happen no matter what this experiment results in, it is the one and only future path) I'd consider it my duty to fix those the results in the right direction before someone else did it in the other way.
This is interesting; note the comment about cable modem email. Is this "more strongly protected" status a legal one or technical one ?
It would be nice if the NY Times or other big newspapers had really technically sophisticated people on their staffs. If this article had been written by someone who had used a packet sniffer before, it would be more interesting. For example, the article says:
"In making their case, supporters of cybersurveillance say that the only way to track e-mail is by combing through all of the messages on a particular network, because e-mail consists of a series of digital packets that are broken apart at the sending end and transmitted along multiple electronic paths before being reconstituted by the recipient's computer. "
What are they talking about ? If they tap the wire going to either the sending or the receiving computers, they are guaranteed to get all the packets used in the communication and no other ones, while listening to the whole network just gives you the whole network, and then you have to do a bunch of processing. If they had a person who had actually tried to intercept other people's communication write this article (how many people do you know who went through a phase of net-stalking some girl in high school or college?) then it would be much clearer.
I find USENET to still be one of the most useful internet resources. It has never been easy to search, even with deja; I was delighted to discover the link to dogpile in a post below, I'll definitely be making use of it.
I have found that at my current place of employment, where there is no news feed, it is considerably harder to get work done without that resource. I used to ssh into my cable modem box to browse and post from there, but now I've moved to an apartment without cable. So I'm negotiating with our sysadmins to try to get a newserver set up.
The dogpile interface is definitely better than the old deja. In particular, each "hit" gives you the entire thread, instead of spreading a thread out amoung individual article links.
I think that many of the complaints about usenet being swamped with spam and useless are from people who are not familiar with better news readers. You can filter a lot of that stuff.
One thing I would definitely like is a usenet interface to slashdot. If it was read-only and you had to log in and go through the web interface that would be fine.
You say "The easiest way to monitor internet traffic is by tapping/using the servers."
So what ? The FBI doesn't need to, and shouldn't want, to "monitor internet traffic." But they often need to, and should set up a system that will allow them to, intercept all traffic from a specific person. The FBI's mandate to support law and order and the constitution doesn't require them to ever look at the packets coming from a person not under warrant, and in fact doing so is not just a violation of someone's privacy, it's a waste of resources that should be spent on their mission. Why is the money that was spent on carnivore not being spent on making, for example, a single piece of expensive equipment that can be connected to any DSL line from any provider in the country ? And then they need the software to analyze that -- something that will look a the log of packets and dump out the web sites visited with http, emails, emails sent through web based interfaces like hotmail or yahoo (or posts on slashdot), etc. That shit can't be cheap and they are wasting their (our) money on this crap.
The FBI will not get a warrant to investigate the internet as a whole. But *people*, the subjects of particular criminal investigations, will sometimes be the target of as much information collecting as the FBI can bring to bear.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies should be thinking about how to maintain a system to allow for the monitoring of people when needed and justified. And that system is not a purely technical box and computer program; it has to be an organizational system, consisting of laisons and communication channels with other organizations, established methods of obtaining warrants and wire tap orders, etc, as well as technical infrastructure.
Where does carnivore fit into such a system ?
I think at least some people at the FBI veiw the problem in those terms. I suspect that they see a threat to their established surveilence system in the growing amount of internet communications, and they just aren't technically informed enough to make the right decision. There probably exist numerous people in the agency who would agree with the tone of the posts on this thread, but the current culture of the agency might be smothering any valid technical criticism. The manager types at the top might be hiring inept "consultants" to do research and make recommendations, and those recommendations might gain huge momentum and plow through all objections, just based on the fact that they cost a lot.
My point is that the FBI should see all traffic you can see. So what they need is not a 2k piece of equipment, but a copy of the device which you have that connects to the cable companies co-ax on one side and has an ethernet connection on the other.
If you are on an older cable network, so that you can sniff all your neighbors traffic, then the FBI might potentially want to pay attention to what you might be sniffing.
I think the newer cable modems don't let you sniff anything of your neighbor's traffic, except the broadcast packets that go out when you boot the computer and send a dhcp request. At least that was the way it seemed to be when I lived in Cambridge Massachusetts, and I had MediaOne service. Where are you getting service ? If you can really sniff your neighbors' traffic, I would complain. And tell your neighbors. I think the cable modem from MediaOne, which costs something like $200 if you actually buy it, does do some filtering of the packets.
Anyway, the whole long-winded point of this thread is that the FBI should be able to pull out exactly the traffic that is hitting your machine, and plopping something down on a server is misguided at best.
I think the basic rule would be to listen to everything that is hitting the subject's computer, and nothing else.
For DSL, I think you can just tap the line, it is not shared with anyone else.
In the case of an ethernet card on a network, just sniff the whole network. After all, the subject might be sniffing too, and picking up information in packets not addressed to his card. If the subject can see it, the wiretap should cover it.
For a cable modem, it is slightly complicated. The subjects computer can't see everyone elses pacekts, except for broadcast packets, because the ethernet card plugs into the cable modem box which is acting like an ethernet bridge; this is why you can't sniff the packets of that cute girl down the block, even though you are both on the same cable modem service. So for that case I would presume that their would be a cable modem between the FBI's computer at the cable network, filtering out exactly what your cable modem filters out.
None of these cases will record my traffic if I am not potentially in communication with the subject. That's good. Carnivore uselessly and ineeficiently reads my email to see if it is labeled as communication with the subject, when in fact the subject might not see it even though carnivore did see it, and vice versa.
But the pathetic dial-up line is exactly what the FBI wants. Why mess with all that dedicated data lines and the massive amounts of traffic on it when all the subject's communications, and nothing else, is right there on the line ?
As for IP telehones, I don't think they necessitate any change. How are they different from using a voice-over-ip solution on a regular PC ? If a subject regularly uses a particular computer, you can tap that computer and pull out all traffic going in or out of it. If he uses a different computer every time, you have to look at non-wiretap types of surveillence; the wiretap model pressumes that their is a specific communications channel you can regularly listen to.
That's all well and fine. So why all this fuss about carnivore being setup up at ISPs ? Surely if an ISP only offered dialup accounts, it would be superfluous ?
I see two basic types of network surveillence here, and maybe the FBI's rediculous looking system comes from confusing them:
1) the subject uses the same computer or device for communication on a regular basis. This would be the dialup computer from home, or a computer at work or school. This is the wiretap model. You go and listen to everything that goes into or out of that computer. For a phone line or DSL line this is clear cut: through a passive modem device on the line. For cable modem or for the lan at work, you have to put a sniffer (see note below).
2) The subject of the investigation uses various different devices, also used by other people, to communicate. This would be the case of the drug dealer who always used different pay phones, someone who worked from various public computers in a library or school, using a different one each time, etc. This just doesn't fit the wiretap model, and there is no reason to try to warp a wiretap to fit the situation, which may be what the FBI is attempting to do. For such a case you would get a court order for a different type of surveillence. Just as one doesn't tap all the payphones in anticipation that a subject of an investigation might choose to use them, you wouldn't place carnivore type equipment on that school or library network.
(note -- why would putting a sniffer on the ethernet that a subject's machine was attached to not be a violation of the same nature as carnivore ? It is because everything the sniffer would record is something the subject could potentially be using to communicate. The subject *might* be using an ethernet sniffer himself, and watching traffic not directed at his machine as a way of getting information on a covert channel. Think of ethernet as a crowded room with a lot of conversations overlapping; of course most people are filtering out everyone else's, but when the FBI surveils the subject they record everything that is hitting his ears, so that if he is getting cues from a third party's conversation, it will be discovered.)
If the FBI wants to reduce the amount of information being sifted through, they would get a factor of several thousand simply by going to your phone line.
I think it is as easy to pull that mail message out of the stream of data as it is to sift through everything else. Sniffers usually do some organization of the raw information, so you can pull out the mail messages.
Consider the following: suppose the suspect signs up for a yahoo or hotmail account. With carnivore you might never know it, as all of the mail will pass through the ISP formatted as html pages and html submissions. But if you are directly tapping the line, you will see his connections to any web site, and pick out the information.
So why do a carnivore thing ? I think they just don't know what they hell they are doing. If they get a wiretap order and don't figure out what hotmail account the guy uses when he dials in, that's just inept. I would expect more from them. Prehaps carnivore also pulls out a lot of packet level information, and knows about other protocols such us http and irc and ftp and telnet ?
I don't see why the FBI can't continue to simply tap the phone lines, the traditional practice under current law. They would just need a modem and a computer to listen to the connection instead of an agent and a pair of head phones, and all the traffic would be traffic from the suspect, none of it traffic not pertinent that would have to be filtered out.
Of course people communicate from computers from places other than their home, but the FBI and other law enforcement authorities have delt with pay phones and people placing calls from cell phones and from their work place in the past. (Often an extension to the wiretap order is needed. Or they use traditional bugs (small hidden microphones) or long distance directional microphones, etc.)
Why doesn't the tap go straight to the physical wire which at once assures you the you get all the subjects communications, and none of anyone elses ?
It can't be a matter of the trouble of sending someone to place a clip on the wires, because I don't think that law enforcement does that at all now. The telephone central switches have a way for them to remotely connect to a phone call and tape it, don't they ?
It would seem that this system would also expose them to the problem of a smart target tricking them into ignoring his communications through some type of packet mal-formation, so that his traffic isn't matched to his ip address. Or worse, someone else forging stuff that you end up thinking is the subject's. But if you hit the physical wire he is using, it is the perfect filter; all of his stuff and none of anyone else's.
I think the choices are:
-- The FBI thinks they can do their mission for a lot less money if they install carnivore boxes, and they don't think they will loose anything (or much) coming from the subject or get other's traffic mixed in. In this case I think they are just operating on technically incorrect advice; they probably hired some government contractor to look into the possibilities of such surveilence, and got talked into believing it was needed or would work.
-- The FBI actually wants to be a able to illegally grep through everyone's email. (If I was a lawyer defending some young client for "hacking" and reading someone else's mail, I'd sure have those FBI agents on the stand describing exactly what they do with that box, and I'd claim my client could not be punished for anything the Agency routinely does without a court order.)
Unfortunately, I'm leaning toward the first case. Or maybe that is fortunate. I think the FBI is just blowing money, getting less performance out of the new system, and spending a lot their political chits (which they might really need later), all for nothing. It's a boondogle that will blow a lot of trust along with government money. If the FBI is going to try to setup illegal wiretaps, it's nice that they are incompetent, but I'd rather have an agency both legally and technically skilled.
"The much-talked-about digital divide would not affect would-be listeners of low-power FM stations. This is one of the most important implications of LPFM."
No. LPFM *is* the digital divide. Rich people get computers and the internet, so any person can publish to everyone. Poor people get LPFM, so only one person can publish at time, and then only to few thousand people.
Think about what it is like to be poor: you get to turn on the radio and listen to commercial trash, or a stumbling, poorly produced local amateur. Rich: commercial trash, and any one of millions of stumbling, poorly produced global amateurs, one of whom might be cool if you can ever find him; once a month it is your turn to read the next weeks softball schedule over the air.
"A less priveliged community can fairly easily pull together the dough to get an LPFM station, base it at, for example, a local public school, and then provide a tremendous number of services to the local area. Not only programming that addresses the local communtiy's needs (rather than shrinkwrapped kool-kulture brought to you by 102.5 the BUZZ), but also on-the-job training for people interested in careers in broadcast media, and hands-on experience in positive, community-oriented programming for the students at the school."
A less privileged community can start a computer club and get the kids to write web pages. Or a ham radio club. Or after school sports, SAT tutorials, writing workshops. There is nothing particularly more enlightening or empowering about the microphone as opposed to the keyboard. The programming is about as likely to address the communities needs as your average community center web site -- i.e., it won't. Web site experience is more likely to get them a job than babbling about the latest softball game or rap CD in front of a thousand people.
"It also allows another way to inexpensively bring independant music (either local, national, or international) to the ears of people who want to hear it. This provides a real alternative to big radio's spoonfed programming, generally chosen by computers to suit a perceived demographic."
mp3 and Napster: I choose what I listen to. Any radio, low power or otherwise: Someone else chooses the music, and I turn it off.
"And, most importantly, the bar to accessing the media is very low - a working radio can be had for less than $10. That's a lot less than a $1500-$3000 dollar computer, or even a cheapo iOpener that requires a monthly fee. Additionally, converting a LPFM station for internet simulcast is not hard to do, should the cost on internet access drop in the future."
The point is not that the money to set up an LPFM is low. The point is that there are not enough stations on the dial so that every person can have a LPFM, but every person can have a computer and a web site. Focusing on the internet and computing we have some hope of achieving a fairer, more equal access society. LPFM just gives a smaller local model of the same society we have now.
"IMO, the more access people have to accessible media sources, the freer they will be."
That's what I'm saying. Why do you think replacing the tyranny of corporate boards with the tyranny of the neighborhood board will change anything ? Someone else still controls what you can publish.
I'm not against LPFM; it definitely should be done, probably should have been done some time ago. But it isn't the wave of the future and it isn't going to save anyone from the ghetto who wasn't getting out already.
The wave of the future is the internet. By publishing my thoughts on this web page, I am doing in a few minutes work what would have taken hundreds of medieval village monks years of re-copying and passing on parchment, or what would have taken dozens of 1776 Committees of Correspondance weeks of re-copying, printing, and horseback delivering pamphlets. This is the new efficiency that changes everything.
LPFM is the equivalent of giving the medieval village a giant, huge, megaphone so the town retard, the town priest, and the town minstrel can take turns shouting at everyone in the whole valley. Since we used to have just a few megaphones for the whole nation, I guess you could call it an improvement.
I can access the phone network from anywhere also. Those with something to hide from law enforcement have always had access to public pay phones, or more recently, been able to purchase cell phones with cash pre-paid service. So standard phone taps have always been frustrating, and law enforcement has always found other ways (long distance microphones, planted bugs) to surveil targets when necessary. All within the laws we have right now.
So why does the government suddenly need more powers ? They don't listen to all of my phone calls to make sure that I'm not really Osama Bin Laden, so why do they need to grep through all of my email ?
The point is, that this is an extension of the government's powers, not simple application of existing powers to a new medium. I'm not against extending the wiretapping authority of the government, it may be necessary, because of the increased amount of communications (not the newer mediums). But it should be done with open public discussion, not in an atmosphere of misleading claims.
You are being distracted by all this new internet stuff.
Just put a tap on the phone that goes to his house. Just like the old days. You are pretty much guaranteed to get only the subject. It's just a matter of processing the tapped with a computer instead of a tape recorder.
Why worry about his IP address if you know his phone line ?
Why worry about some SMTP server when you can just listen everything that goes in and out of his connection ?
Yeah, but their VHS rental market would be dead. That's where they expect to get hit. Why would you ever rent a movie for few friends coming over, when you could just tell one of the same friends to bring over a disk and burn yourself a copy afterwards if it was good ?
The rental market is the same market they were so anxious to kill because they were worried about piracy. Ironic.
That sounds like an awesome product from Nokia; in all the various research I've done I hadn't come across it.
Of course, the application I had in mind was a mobile low-bandwidth one, while this nokia product is a stationary high-bandwidth one (much more suited to the original question here). I would like to see what algorithms they are using though, I'll download those pdf documents from their site.
I am completely serious about starting a company. I'll email you later tonight.
Whether you burn more gas or burn more battery, I just question whether it's a net win in any way except the coolness of making the car have sleeker lines.
Even on a non-hybrid car, more electrical load puts more drag on the alternator, and you loose gas mileage.
Teens (and others) already cheat on tests using the IR data transfer on the newer calculators. While you have to explain why you need to use your instant messaging device or PDA or cell phone to help you do algebra, a calculator is an instant excuse. So I don't think we are going to compete there.
I also think this is something sheep could go along with. You don't have to be anti-something to use it, it should work better than the existing methods, and be cheaper.
You have to go with the Napster principle; if you make it easier to break the rules rather than to follow them, the sheep will gravitate to the easy method in mass.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not a gnus expert, I just want to be. I don't have a news server to try out A M on right now, but what I used to do was list all groups ( 'L' ) and then C-s to search through them. Not very efficient. I did notice that sometimes listing something like "comp*" would not work but "comp.*" would, so maybe those regexps are interpreted differently. But I don't remember the conditions for that.
;)
I would say it was time for this thread to migrate to gnu.emacs.gnus or comp.emacs. Much more help there
What free usenet service can I use from X/Emacs and gnus, not through a web based interface ?
I know there was some elisp floating around that allowed you to search deja through gnus. Does that still work given deja's recent changes ? Is it possible that gnus could use the w3 stuff to interface with one of the web based newsreader/posters ?
And -- here's the big question: if that is possible, can someone hack that interface so that I can browse slashdot from emacs ? Wow. That would be awesome.
Pine is useable, actually pretty good. Gnus (emacs and XEmacs package) is the best, no competition. But it takes a while to learn all of it's features. It should be perfectly useable as a basic reader/poster without reading too much info pages though -- pop up your preference of emacs or XEmacs, and do M-x gnus.
I generally advise new users of gnus to try XEmacs at first, and use the pull down mousey menus (horrors!!!) to find the various list-all-groups and subscribe-group and post-article type functions; you can remember the keys which are listed in the menu, and go back to using emacs or turn off the menus after a while.
But that's only if you have some inability to do M-x info. For some reason a lot of people are extremely resistent to using info.
By the way, gnus is also an extremely good mail handler also. It is pretty easy (well, ok, copy the elisp of someone who already did it and edit the regexp's to fit your situation) to make it map your various mailing lists into their own little newsgroup like folders. It makes much more sense to read mailing lists in this fashion rather than have them mixed in amoung all the personal mail you actually read.
I've been planning to set up my gnus to have a folder for each of my web-based mail accounts, such as yahoo, hotmail, etc. I know you can do it because I've seen people who did it, I just haven't copied their elisp yet.
I have worked quite a bit on a massive project which is kept in CVS. Other contractors occasionally change things in the code I am responsible for, usually when they changed a common data type, or fixed a small bug. I also have a separate in-house repository for our code, which usually has much more changes, and perhaps a few branches with different experiments, some which worked and some which didn't. At some point we call for a code freeze for a delivery, and this is how I do it:
I check out two code trees to be merged, and I run ediff-directories in XEmacs over both of them, from the top level. I sit there and spend three or more hours going through every diff by hand, looking at every single one. If I am conscientious about keeping up to date and do this once every two weeks or so, then it will take half an hour, because I will know all the places where nothing has changed. You can look a the file sizes and quickly filter through files which are the same.
You have to be careful about new files in one tree that aren't in the other. ediff-directories is not good at making that obvious; I think the 'D' key will show you all files in one directory and not in the other.
Then I use pcl-cvs as my cvs interface and commit everything. There is a key shortcut to do a diff of the current modified file and one in the repository ( the '=' key, I think); you can make this do ediff if you wish. I look again at every single change that is going in.
There is a three-way ediff, and I've used it, but I personally find it preferable to merge one tree at a time into a base tree.
The ediff-directories tool and pcl-cvs are invaluable. I could live without pcl-cvs but not without ediff. So I think, if your problem is really that you lacking tools, then M-x ediff-directories is your saviour.
Now, if we really used CVS the way we should (too often it is simply used as a backup and distribution device) then those code trees would all be branches in the same repository. It's a bit easier then, because you can use CVS to merge the branches. (Look at the CVS manual by Per Cederqvist for details.) If two branches have a lot of conflicts, you might be better off with checking out separate copies and ediff, but that would be unusual.
If with ediff and CVS at your disposal you still find yourself overwhelmed with merging, then it is time to re-examine your development process. You may have to force two developers or development groups to start using the same branch. If their stuff has to be in the same tree at the end, the best way to merge is to merge them as you write. Just because you have CVS, doesn't mean that you are under configuration management; you have to actually use it as you develope.
I would not be at all surprised if your problem is not that you lack tools, but that your groups' method of development is not collaborative enough. Developers like to grab a copy of the code and go off and work for weeks and come back and plop it in your lap. If they are really mule-headed about it, demand that they commit all changes at the end of every day, delete their working copy, and check out a new copy the next day.
But hopefully ediff-directories is your answer.
Most of the ice in the world is not floating in water, it is in huge (thousands of feet thick) layers that are over land, on the South Pole and on Greenland.
My point was not that if all that ice melted the water wouldn't rise. It's just that the recent observations of huge pieces of the floating ice shelves calving off are not themselves causing the ocean level to rise. It is only if they cause something bigger, or are signs of something bigger, that the ocean level would rise.
Ice gets one the order of a mile over land, such as Greenland or the South Pole. But the North Pole ice is over ocean, which is harder to freeze being salt, but more importantly it moves with currents, so ice tends to shift out to the warmer edge. Remember the pictures of nuclear submarines surfacing at the North Pole ?
No, the melting of floating ice doesn't change the surface level. If you fill a glass of water up, and put a big ice cube in it, mark the side at the water level, and let the cube melt, you will see that the water level doesn't change.
Because as the ice melts it gets smaller and fits into the hole in the water it was taking up. Exactly fits. That's what it means to be floating -- you displace your wieght, and if you turn to water, then obviously you fit into the space you were displacing.
So the whole of floating ice on the north pole (tens of feet thick at most, I believe) and the ice shelves (much thicker in places) can melt with out changing the water level.
If the absence of the floating shelf causes more ice to slide off the land and into the ocean, then the level will go up. As soon as that ice is in the water, not when that ice melts -- just like the water in a glass rises when you put an ice cube in it.
All this talk of ice cubes and ice bergs makes me want to play some rap.
I think the world wouldn't loose much if the lower parts flooded anyway. Those are generally the sucky parts, take NYC for example. But of course those loosers will then start moving inland and ruining it for the rest of us.
Well, if I want to increase the number of downloads, i.e. make it less likely that SK will publish, I only need to repeatedly download from conxion.com.
If I want to go the other way, I could repeatedly pay. But if I could also kill that conxion.com server, or make it really slow, and offer another faster mirror. Then I've reduced the number of downloads, but people can still pay at amazon.
So I can to either by just affecting conxion.com, and leaving amazon alone. I download a lot from conxion, I stop all downloads from conxion.
So the idea that those numbers will be valid is completely wrong, no way they mean anything, except maybe a measure of the 3l33t sk1llz of the two sides. You can be sure that someone out there is already trying to skew them one way or another.
. . . can "adjust" that downloads to money ratio.
Why will big publishers probably not do this ? Because a huge number of downloads might feed the old scribbler's ego, and promote the idea of reaching a huge audience, which would help sell the idea to the new and independent authors, who are the ones they really have to worry about signing and capturing.
However, there is a chance that even if SK made more money on this than any other book, he'd still feel offended at the "billions and billions" of people who "read" it and didn't pay. Most authors (think of Metallica) can't really mentally comprehend the idea of selling something and then not owning it after the transaction -- look at the emotional offense they feel after you do what you want with the tape/CD that they *sold* to you. They really believe that they sell something and then still own it, that they can eat their cake and have it too.
There is a reason why publishers will survive, and it is simple: most artists are too dumb to manage a lemonade stand, let alone their own businesses. A few can, but the best hope for the rest is to go with someone who can count their money for them.
If you support this experiment and want it to succeed, DDOS his server right now, and post mirrors of the pdf somewhere else, like geocities.
If SK is really going to pay attention to that ratio number, just be aware that it is highly vulnerable to manipulation. If I gave a shit (I think SK sucks as an author, screw him, and online publishing will happen no matter what this experiment results in, it is the one and only future path) I'd consider it my duty to fix those the results in the right direction before someone else did it in the other way.
It would be nice if the NY Times or other big newspapers had really technically sophisticated people on their staffs. If this article had been written by someone who had used a packet sniffer before, it would be more interesting. For example, the article says:
"In making their case, supporters of cybersurveillance say that the only way to track e-mail is by combing through all of the messages on a particular network, because e-mail consists of a series of digital packets that are broken apart at the sending end and transmitted along multiple electronic paths before being reconstituted by the recipient's computer. "
What are they talking about ? If they tap the wire going to either the sending or the receiving computers, they are guaranteed to get all the packets used in the communication and no other ones, while listening to the whole network just gives you the whole network, and then you have to do a bunch of processing. If they had a person who had actually tried to intercept other people's communication write this article (how many people do you know who went through a phase of net-stalking some girl in high school or college?) then it would be much clearer.
This is the no-registration link .
I find USENET to still be one of the most useful internet resources. It has never been easy to search, even with deja; I was delighted to discover the link to dogpile in a post below, I'll definitely be making use of it.
I have found that at my current place of employment, where there is no news feed, it is considerably harder to get work done without that resource. I used to ssh into my cable modem box to browse and post from there, but now I've moved to an apartment without cable. So I'm negotiating with our sysadmins to try to get a newserver set up.
The dogpile interface is definitely better than the old deja. In particular, each "hit" gives you the entire thread, instead of spreading a thread out amoung individual article links.
I think that many of the complaints about usenet being swamped with spam and useless are from people who are not familiar with better news readers. You can filter a lot of that stuff.
One thing I would definitely like is a usenet interface to slashdot. If it was read-only and you had to log in and go through the web interface that would be fine.
You say "The easiest way to monitor internet traffic is by tapping/using the servers."
So what ? The FBI doesn't need to, and shouldn't want, to "monitor internet traffic." But they often need to, and should set up a system that will allow them to, intercept all traffic from a specific person. The FBI's mandate to support law and order and the constitution doesn't require them to ever look at the packets coming from a person not under warrant, and in fact doing so is not just a violation of someone's privacy, it's a waste of resources that should be spent on their mission. Why is the money that was spent on carnivore not being spent on making, for example, a single piece of expensive equipment that can be connected to any DSL line from any provider in the country ? And then they need the software to analyze that -- something that will look a the log of packets and dump out the web sites visited with http, emails, emails sent through web based interfaces like hotmail or yahoo (or posts on slashdot), etc. That shit can't be cheap and they are wasting their (our) money on this crap.
The FBI will not get a warrant to investigate the internet as a whole. But *people*, the subjects of particular criminal investigations, will sometimes be the target of as much information collecting as the FBI can bring to bear.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies should be thinking about how to maintain a system to allow for the monitoring of people when needed and justified. And that system is not a purely technical box and computer program; it has to be an organizational system, consisting of laisons and communication channels with other organizations, established methods of obtaining warrants and wire tap orders, etc, as well as technical infrastructure.
Where does carnivore fit into such a system ?
I think at least some people at the FBI veiw the problem in those terms. I suspect that they see a threat to their established surveilence system in the growing amount of internet communications, and they just aren't technically informed enough to make the right decision. There probably exist numerous people in the agency who would agree with the tone of the posts on this thread, but the current culture of the agency might be smothering any valid technical criticism. The manager types at the top might be hiring inept "consultants" to do research and make recommendations, and those recommendations might gain huge momentum and plow through all objections, just based on the fact that they cost a lot.
My point is that the FBI should see all traffic you can see. So what they need is not a 2k piece of equipment, but a copy of the device which you have that connects to the cable companies co-ax on one side and has an ethernet connection on the other.
If you are on an older cable network, so that you can sniff all your neighbors traffic, then the FBI might potentially want to pay attention to what you might be sniffing.
I think the newer cable modems don't let you sniff anything of your neighbor's traffic, except the broadcast packets that go out when you boot the computer and send a dhcp request. At least that was the way it seemed to be when I lived in Cambridge Massachusetts, and I had MediaOne service. Where are you getting service ? If you can really sniff your neighbors' traffic, I would complain. And tell your neighbors. I think the cable modem from MediaOne, which costs something like $200 if you actually buy it, does do some filtering of the packets.
Anyway, the whole long-winded point of this thread is that the FBI should be able to pull out exactly the traffic that is hitting your machine, and plopping something down on a server is misguided at best.
I think the basic rule would be to listen to everything that is hitting the subject's computer, and nothing else.
For DSL, I think you can just tap the line, it is not shared with anyone else.
In the case of an ethernet card on a network, just sniff the whole network. After all, the subject might be sniffing too, and picking up information in packets not addressed to his card. If the subject can see it, the wiretap should cover it.
For a cable modem, it is slightly complicated. The subjects computer can't see everyone elses pacekts, except for broadcast packets, because the ethernet card plugs into the cable modem box which is acting like an ethernet bridge; this is why you can't sniff the packets of that cute girl down the block, even though you are both on the same cable modem service. So for that case I would presume that their would be a cable modem between the FBI's computer at the cable network, filtering out exactly what your cable modem filters out.
None of these cases will record my traffic if I am not potentially in communication with the subject. That's good. Carnivore uselessly and ineeficiently reads my email to see if it is labeled as communication with the subject, when in fact the subject might not see it even though carnivore did see it, and vice versa.
But the pathetic dial-up line is exactly what the FBI wants. Why mess with all that dedicated data lines and the massive amounts of traffic on it when all the subject's communications, and nothing else, is right there on the line ?
As for IP telehones, I don't think they necessitate any change. How are they different from using a voice-over-ip solution on a regular PC ? If a subject regularly uses a particular computer, you can tap that computer and pull out all traffic going in or out of it. If he uses a different computer every time, you have to look at non-wiretap types of surveillence; the wiretap model pressumes that their is a specific communications channel you can regularly listen to.
That's all well and fine. So why all this fuss about carnivore being setup up at ISPs ? Surely if an ISP only offered dialup accounts, it would be superfluous ?
I see two basic types of network surveillence here, and maybe the FBI's rediculous looking system comes from confusing them:
1) the subject uses the same computer or device for communication on a regular basis. This would be the dialup computer from home, or a computer at work or school. This is the wiretap model. You go and listen to everything that goes into or out of that computer. For a phone line or DSL line this is clear cut: through a passive modem device on the line. For cable modem or for the lan at work, you have to put a sniffer (see note below).
2) The subject of the investigation uses various different devices, also used by other people, to communicate. This would be the case of the drug dealer who always used different pay phones, someone who worked from various public computers in a library or school, using a different one each time, etc. This just doesn't fit the wiretap model, and there is no reason to try to warp a wiretap to fit the situation, which may be what the FBI is attempting to do. For such a case you would get a court order for a different type of surveillence. Just as one doesn't tap all the payphones in anticipation that a subject of an investigation might choose to use them, you wouldn't place carnivore type equipment on that school or library network.
(note -- why would putting a sniffer on the ethernet that a subject's machine was attached to not be a violation of the same nature as carnivore ? It is because everything the sniffer would record is something the subject could potentially be using to communicate. The subject *might* be using an ethernet sniffer himself, and watching traffic not directed at his machine as a way of getting information on a covert channel. Think of ethernet as a crowded room with a lot of conversations overlapping; of course most people are filtering out everyone else's, but when the FBI surveils the subject they record everything that is hitting his ears, so that if he is getting cues from a third party's conversation, it will be discovered.)
If the FBI wants to reduce the amount of information being sifted through, they would get a factor of several thousand simply by going to your phone line.
I think it is as easy to pull that mail message out of the stream of data as it is to sift through everything else. Sniffers usually do some organization of the raw information, so you can pull out the mail messages.
Consider the following: suppose the suspect signs up for a yahoo or hotmail account. With carnivore you might never know it, as all of the mail will pass through the ISP formatted as html pages and html submissions. But if you are directly tapping the line, you will see his connections to any web site, and pick out the information.
So why do a carnivore thing ? I think they just don't know what they hell they are doing. If they get a wiretap order and don't figure out what hotmail account the guy uses when he dials in, that's just inept. I would expect more from them. Prehaps carnivore also pulls out a lot of packet level information, and knows about other protocols such us http and irc and ftp and telnet ?
I don't see why the FBI can't continue to simply tap the phone lines, the traditional practice under current law. They would just need a modem and a computer to listen to the connection instead of an agent and a pair of head phones, and all the traffic would be traffic from the suspect, none of it traffic not pertinent that would have to be filtered out.
Of course people communicate from computers from places other than their home, but the FBI and other law enforcement authorities have delt with pay phones and people placing calls from cell phones and from their work place in the past. (Often an extension to the wiretap order is needed. Or they use traditional bugs (small hidden microphones) or long distance directional microphones, etc.)
Why doesn't the tap go straight to the physical wire which at once assures you the you get all the subjects communications, and none of anyone elses ?
It can't be a matter of the trouble of sending someone to place a clip on the wires, because I don't think that law enforcement does that at all now. The telephone central switches have a way for them to remotely connect to a phone call and tape it, don't they ?
It would seem that this system would also expose them to the problem of a smart target tricking them into ignoring his communications through some type of packet mal-formation, so that his traffic isn't matched to his ip address. Or worse, someone else forging stuff that you end up thinking is the subject's. But if you hit the physical wire he is using, it is the perfect filter; all of his stuff and none of anyone else's.
I think the choices are:
-- The FBI thinks they can do their mission for a lot less money if they install carnivore boxes, and they don't think they will loose anything (or much) coming from the subject or get other's traffic mixed in. In this case I think they are just operating on technically incorrect advice; they probably hired some government contractor to look into the possibilities of such surveilence, and got talked into believing it was needed or would work.
-- The FBI actually wants to be a able to illegally grep through everyone's email. (If I was a lawyer defending some young client for "hacking" and reading someone else's mail, I'd sure have those FBI agents on the stand describing exactly what they do with that box, and I'd claim my client could not be punished for anything the Agency routinely does without a court order.)
Unfortunately, I'm leaning toward the first case. Or maybe that is fortunate. I think the FBI is just blowing money, getting less performance out of the new system, and spending a lot their political chits (which they might really need later), all for nothing. It's a boondogle that will blow a lot of trust along with government money. If the FBI is going to try to setup illegal wiretaps, it's nice that they are incompetent, but I'd rather have an agency both legally and technically skilled.
"The much-talked-about digital divide would not affect would-be listeners of low-power FM stations. This is one of the most important implications of LPFM."
No. LPFM *is* the digital divide. Rich people get computers and the internet, so any person can publish to everyone. Poor people get LPFM, so only one person can publish at time, and then only to few thousand people.
Think about what it is like to be poor: you get to turn on the radio and listen to commercial trash, or a stumbling, poorly produced local amateur. Rich: commercial trash, and any one of millions of stumbling, poorly produced global amateurs, one of whom might be cool if you can ever find him; once a month it is your turn to read the next weeks softball schedule over the air.
"A less priveliged community can fairly easily pull together the dough to get an LPFM station, base it at, for example, a local public school, and then provide a tremendous number of services to the local area. Not only programming that addresses the local communtiy's needs (rather than shrinkwrapped kool-kulture brought to you by 102.5 the BUZZ), but also on-the-job training for people interested in careers in broadcast media, and hands-on experience in positive, community-oriented programming for the students at the school."
A less privileged community can start a computer club and get the kids to write web pages. Or a ham radio club. Or after school sports, SAT tutorials, writing workshops. There is nothing particularly more enlightening or empowering about the microphone as opposed to the keyboard. The programming is about as likely to address the communities needs as your average community center web site -- i.e., it won't. Web site experience is more likely to get them a job than babbling about the latest softball game or rap CD in front of a thousand people.
"It also allows another way to inexpensively bring independant music (either local, national, or international) to the ears of people who want to hear it. This provides a real alternative to big radio's spoonfed programming, generally chosen by computers to suit a perceived demographic."
mp3 and Napster: I choose what I listen to.
Any radio, low power or otherwise: Someone else chooses the music, and I turn it off.
"And, most importantly, the bar to accessing the media is very low - a working radio can be had for less than $10. That's a lot less than a $1500-$3000 dollar computer, or even a cheapo iOpener that requires a monthly fee. Additionally, converting a LPFM station for internet simulcast is not hard to do, should the cost on internet access drop in the future."
The point is not that the money to set up an LPFM is low. The point is that there are not enough stations on the dial so that every person can have a LPFM, but every person can have a computer and a web site. Focusing on the internet and computing we have some hope of achieving a fairer, more equal access society. LPFM just gives a smaller local model of the same society we have now.
"IMO, the more access people have to accessible media sources, the freer they will be."
That's what I'm saying. Why do you think replacing the tyranny of corporate boards with the tyranny of the neighborhood board will change anything ? Someone else still controls what you can publish.
I'm not against LPFM; it definitely should be done, probably should have been done some time ago. But it isn't the wave of the future and it isn't going to save anyone from the ghetto who wasn't getting out already.
The wave of the future is the internet. By publishing my thoughts on this web page, I am doing in a few minutes work what would have taken hundreds of medieval village monks years of re-copying and passing on parchment, or what would have taken dozens of 1776 Committees of Correspondance weeks of re-copying, printing, and horseback delivering pamphlets. This is the new efficiency that changes everything.
LPFM is the equivalent of giving the medieval village a giant, huge, megaphone so the town retard, the town priest, and the town minstrel can take turns shouting at everyone in the whole valley. Since we used to have just a few megaphones for the whole nation, I guess you could call it an improvement.
But I wouldn't get my heart rate up about it.
I can access the phone network from anywhere also. Those with something to hide from law enforcement have always had access to public pay phones, or more recently, been able to purchase cell phones with cash pre-paid service. So standard phone taps have always been frustrating, and law enforcement has always found other ways (long distance microphones, planted bugs) to surveil targets when necessary. All within the laws we have right now.
So why does the government suddenly need more powers ? They don't listen to all of my phone calls to make sure that I'm not really Osama Bin Laden, so why do they need to grep through all of my email ?
The point is, that this is an extension of the government's powers, not simple application of existing powers to a new medium. I'm not against extending the wiretapping authority of the government, it may be necessary, because of the increased amount of communications (not the newer mediums). But it should be done with open public discussion, not in an atmosphere of misleading claims.
You are being distracted by all this new internet stuff.
Just put a tap on the phone that goes to his house. Just like the old days. You are pretty much guaranteed to get only the subject. It's just a matter of processing the tapped with a computer instead of a tape recorder.
Why worry about his IP address if you know his phone line ?
Why worry about some SMTP server when you can just listen everything that goes in and out of his connection ?
Yeah, but their VHS rental market would be dead. That's where they expect to get hit. Why would you ever rent a movie for few friends coming over, when you could just tell one of the same friends to bring over a disk and burn yourself a copy afterwards if it was good ?
The rental market is the same market they were so anxious to kill because they were worried about piracy. Ironic.
That sounds like an awesome product from Nokia; in all the various research I've done I hadn't come across it.
Of course, the application I had in mind was a mobile low-bandwidth one, while this nokia product is a stationary high-bandwidth one (much more suited to the original question here). I would like to see what algorithms they are using though, I'll download those pdf documents from their site.
I am completely serious about starting a company. I'll email you later tonight.
Whether you burn more gas or burn more battery, I just question whether it's a net win in any way except the coolness of making the car have sleeker lines.
Even on a non-hybrid car, more electrical load puts more drag on the alternator, and you loose gas mileage.
Maybe it's also lighter overall ?
Teens (and others) already cheat on tests using the IR data transfer on the newer calculators. While you have to explain why you need to use your instant messaging device or PDA or cell phone to help you do algebra, a calculator is an instant excuse. So I don't think we are going to compete there.
I also think this is something sheep could go along with. You don't have to be anti-something to use it, it should work better than the existing methods, and be cheaper.
You have to go with the Napster principle; if you make it easier to break the rules rather than to follow them, the sheep will gravitate to the easy method in mass.