For the same reason all Americans should care if innocent Muslims are interned in prison camps under the guise of "fighting terrorism". It sets up a slippery slope situation.
If this idea is successful for AOL, many of the other large providers may then incorporate it, too. And that could directly affect each and every one of us.
Likewise, soon enough it'll move beyond Muslims or Arabs being held in such camps. Next those Americans who protest a little too loudly, or say the wrong things, may end up there. What may have started out as an attempt to provide security ends up ballooning into a massive problem affecting virtually everyone.
I have taken a good hard look at myself. And what I found was that I am the best. It is as simple as that. Ego isn't involved. There's no need for ego when you're the best.
I believe I need to invest in a quantum penis. I have been severely impotent for several decades now, but with a quantum cock I could fuck my wife with my perpetually flaccid boner and she would still have an orgasm!
Unlike many today, I recall very well the 1950s, when we heard the very same thing about nuclear technology of that era. We were told that they'd have the very attributes you just listed: they'd be safe, cheap, mass-produceable, decentralized. Of course, such claims failed horribly when faced with reality. The systems did work to some extent, but they never lived up to the original hype surrounding them.
I have little reason to believe that we're not seeing the same thing, 50 or 60 years later. We hear about how great all these technologies are, but then once implemented they hit the various snags that are present in the real world. And then perform nowhere near as well as they were originally claimed capable of.
The beauty of using OpenBSD, for instance, is that the installation program is somewhat of a challenge to use. It's easy enough if you have the necessary knowledge, and often quite powerful once you're an expect. Once you do reach that level, you likely will know better than to use vulnerable passwords. OpenBSD filters out moronic users, in a way.
I'm rather old. While I'm not yet a centenarian, let me tell you, 100 years isn't a very long time. Depending on medical advances, my grandchildren may be alive in 100 years. My great-grandchildren likely will be alive then, as well. I wouldn't want to leave them with the same problems we're dealing with today. That is why we need to think further than we currently are thinking.
We know there are renewable resources out there, and in many places they are abundant. Talk about mining material from extraterrestrial sources all you want. There's no need to do that when all we need is already available to us. All we need to do is put slightly more resources towards learning how to efficiently tap those resources, and we won't have to worry about mining for coal, or drilling for oil, or disposing of nuclear waste.
But decentralized systems aren't good business for the incumbent energy generation companies. They don't necessarily make money from you if you generate all the power you need from the windmill in your back yard, or the solar panels on your roof. In some cases, they may even pay you if you're supplying their grid with power. Of course, if everyone is capable of generating enough power for their own energy needs, there'd be little need to buy power from power companies. Towns and cities could purchase excess power (for streetlights, water filtration plants, etc.) directly from the citizens, too.
Just because a plant is in America it doesn't mean that Americans will be running it. I mean, they could just as easily bring in nuclear engineers from Germany, Japan or South Korea to actually run the plants.
We will soon enough run into the same problems with nuclear power that we're running into with coal power. Such plants still consume very finite, non-renewable resources, and produce a significant amount of pollution.
While economics may dictate that we head towards nuclear power before wind, solar or hydro power, for instance, we should really be skipping ahead. Putting more research towards power generation from renewable resources may in the end prove to be a far better investment.
It is likely that we will see nations like Denmark and Canada, which have put significant resources towards wind, hydro, solar, tidal, and other renewable energy sources, surge ahead in the long run. Nations that have put their efforts behind nuclear power will find themselves in the same boat as we are in today with coal, oil and natural gas power plants.
Either you don't know how to use nmap (that's quite possible), or you set up secure servers. Good for you, if the latter is the case.
And I never said it would work all of the time. Please, my friend, read my post again: And besides, using Netcraft or nmap one can already often tell what operating system an Internet-accessible system is running.
"Often" suggests that it isn't always possible, but many times it is.
But systems like Solaris, OpenBSD, and even Linux are often secure enough that it's okay to let people know that you're using them. It's just the old security through obscurity deal, where it's not a good idea to rely on obscurity to protect your systems.
And besides, using Netcraft or nmap one can already often tell what operating system an Internet-accessible system is running.
Even then, a good network will be designed such that the web servers run OpenBSD, and the databases are run on a mix of Solaris and Linux, for instance. So even if the web server is compromised (which is difficult to accomplish when using OpenBSD), there would be two completely different types of systems to deal with after that.
Depending on the physical security of the actual server rooms of a particular business, it could be quite easy for somebody to actually steal a server. Any able-bodied individual could easily carry out two or three rackmount systems. A system in a desktop case wouldn't be difficult to take, either.
Even some of the larger systems from Sun or SGI could be taken. If the entire system isn't taken, then at least any storage systems could be taken with relative ease.
Unless you're dealing with vintage Big Iron, most other servers these days would be just as easy to steal as a laptop.
Since the courts have failed in this matter, what we might end up seeing eventually is something along the lines of the "organic" branding of food that is common in some nations. Food which is prepared without the use of chemicals, or genetic modification, and some such, use such a label such as "organic" to differentiate themselves from other growers and manufacturers.
The obvious computing equivalent would perhaps be "Served by OpenBSD" or "Data Stored on Solaris" labels on websites which collect and store personal data. The same could even go for other firms that collect data. Banks, for instance, could advertise that they store their data on IBM systems.
While it doesn't really prevent attacks or theft outright, it does indicate to consumers that the company has their IT department in order. I, for one, would feel far more comfortable dealing with businesses who openly profess their use of OpenBSD, Solaris, or Linux. Likewise, I would do my best to avoid those who built their networks around other, potentially more vulnerable systems.
One of the questions that consumers might ask when dealing with a business that collects much personal information could become, "Do you run your database servers on HP-UX, OpenBSD, or Solaris?"
In my experience, users who end up using Linux or BSD in a work environment are often quite pleased. As long as their system works, they're more than willing to adapt to it, and likely will find themselves working far more effectively.
In the past, I've set up desktop networks running OpenBSD. KDE can be configured to look and feel very much like Windows, if that's necessary. But after a day or two of using even a default KDE installation, many people were more than comfortable. The massive boosts in productivity, especially among secretaries and some of the accountants and financial officers was stunning. Using OpenOffice, the secretaries were able to get their typing done for the day earlier. Some of them became so efficient under the new OpenBSD-based system that they were able to finish up their work two or three hours sooner than they would have when they were still using Office.
In addition to the massive productivity boost, that network never goes down. They never have to deal with spyware. The savings from not having to deal with such problems likely far outweigh the costs of implementing the system. And those costs were quite minimal, since much of the software was free.
Any forced censorship is a violation of free speech. Free speech is one of the few absolutes in the world: either you have it, or you do not. If somebody won't let you say or write something, then that is censorship, and you do not have freedom of expression.
In a society that claims to embrace the concept of free expression (like many Western nations, and especially the US), censorship cannot be tolerated. It doesn't matter if an idea is found to be "offensive" to some. Those who are easily "offended" will have to tolerate others saying such things.
There's no point in trying to get people to convert to Linux, or any other open source project.
The best thing to do is to use it yourself. I've helped various businesses out with OpenBSD installations, and the results have been spectacular. Of course, it particularly shines on web servers and as a firewall, due to its very high level of security. Not only that, but the care put towards security translates directly into higher quality code, which leads to virtually no crashes.
So while other businesses are fidgeting around with Windows Server 2003 or XP (and the massive hardware requirements needed to run such systems), and running into weekly network infections and other issues, others who know of better systems won't have such problems. They'll be able to run their servers on more economic hardware, using far superior software.
It's most often small businesses who are most responsive to using technology like OpenBSD and PostgreSQL, rather than Windows 2003 and SQL Server. And they're the ones who can gain the most from it, as well. Little makes the owner of a sporting goods shoppe happier than telling him you can set him up an OpenBSD web server for his online store at a mere fraction of the cost of a Windows-based solution. Even saving £500 for such a person will make them very pleased. And when their system doesn't crash every other day, they'll be even more impressed.
I'm getting pretty tired of society being held hostage by a bunch of ignorant barbarians who basically worship symbols and idols.
Shit, son. For a moment there I thought you were talking about Christianity, with their churches, crosses, Jesus, and so forth. Looking back even just over the past 5 years, we can see Christians responsible for at least two fairly major wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), the associated torture of detainees, amongst other atrocities.
Often times we hear extremist Christians being the most outspoken against Islam and other religions. But when we abstract away from particular religious deities or symbols, we see that those extremist Christians are just as bad as any extremist Muslims. Thankfully, the same goes for your average Christian and Muslim, who tend to be very good, respectable people. The unfortunate part is that one extremist is often far louder than 50 million decent people.
Avoiding the "trolls and hatemongers" is, like it or not, completely against the concept of freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression very often involves ideas which many may find "offensive". That's just part of the game. To try to filter out that which is "hate" is a pathetically useless exercise, and inherently against liberty.
Yahoo!, if not the entire Western world, must make a decision soon. Either they will have to fully support freedom of expression, or fully disregard it. Of course, disregarding it would basically mean an end to what has allowed Western civilization to progress over the past few centuries.
This mixing of some freedom of expression here and there, if you say the "right" things, but none for people saying the "wrong" things, will only lead to strife.
Anyone who truly supports such ideals as freedom of expression and freedom of speech must be willing to accept that there will be people who speak out against Islam. There will be people who speak out against Christianity. There will be people who speak out against fish and chips. And if you really do appreciate freedom, then you will not only accept the right of such people to make their points known, no matter how much you disagree with them, but you will actively encourage them to express themselves. That is true freedom, my friend. Self-sustaining freedom.
The radical Christians get much press. Take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance. They were primarily planned and executed by extremist Christians, with the mass media (especially in the US) more than willing to promulgate the views of those radical Christians (ie. that there were "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, and so forth).
Don't settle on something as relatively minor as abortion clinic violence when there are far more harmful, violent and significant incidents involving extremist Christians.
While we might see things like that, what we will likely see is innovation just end up moving outside of the US. If the patent and copyright laws really begin to take a financial toll on research and implementation, it may become economically beneficial to move such business to foreign nations with more reasonable laws.
Even though an ever-increasing copyright term benefits Disney, it concurrently causes much harm to many other (potentially far more important) fields. Soon enough companies won't want to develop products in the US due to the cost of ensuring that their products don't violate obscure patent or somebody's copyright (in the case of software). A situation like that might have to happen before truly beneficial changes start to occur in the US
Please understand that true conservatives are all about protecting the environment. They support short terms on copyrights and patents. Why do they support such things? Because the represent responsibility and liberty, and that's what true conservatism is all about.
In the US, those who seek to put in place legislation that allows companies to harm the environment, or extend copyright terms, and so forth, are not conservatives, libertarians, nor are they liberals. They are Republicans and Democrats. We may essentially consider the Democrats and Republicans to be one and the same, even if they project the image of being "opponents". They're both financed by the largest corporations and wealthiest few individuals in the US and the world. They have very little incentive to do what's best for the average American.
So when a self-proclaimed "conservative" rags on you about your support for limiting environmental damage or unnecessarily long copyright terms, just remember that he or she is in no way a conservative. In fact, such an individual stands firmly against conservatism.
Such an idea works in a classroom setting, but fails to work most elsewhere. It is necessary to have paper records in many fields. For instance, in some jurisdictions medical records must be on paper. While they can be stored in a computerized database, there still must be a paper copy for insurance and legal reasons.
And that's just one example. Many engineering documents and specs (I mean for real structures and products, not necessary consumer-grade hardware or software) are kept in paper form, again for legal reasons. Some accounting firms will use computers to help with their work, but again, they end up printing the data because hardcopies are often very useful.
So while it is theoretically possible to move towards a paperless society, and devices like this would help, it is not exactly practical within the existing legal frameworks of many nations.
It sounds like you're assuming that broadband penetration is ubiquitous. It clearly is not, if only 60% of the people have it. Of course it isn't non-existant, but 60% isn't as much as you make it out to be.
According to that 2004 data, only 13.0 of every 100 people in the US have broadband. For South Korea, the number is 24.9. Of course, if you want to look at a far larger nation than the US or South Korea, we can check out Canada, with 17.8 broadband users per 100 people.
Slashdot Mirror
For the same reason all Americans should care if innocent Muslims are interned in prison camps under the guise of "fighting terrorism". It sets up a slippery slope situation.
If this idea is successful for AOL, many of the other large providers may then incorporate it, too. And that could directly affect each and every one of us.
Likewise, soon enough it'll move beyond Muslims or Arabs being held in such camps. Next those Americans who protest a little too loudly, or say the wrong things, may end up there. What may have started out as an attempt to provide security ends up ballooning into a massive problem affecting virtually everyone.
No harm done, my friend. I agree, the faux security "experts" (who often times recommend the use of Windows 2003 Server) do get quite annoying.
I have taken a good hard look at myself. And what I found was that I am the best. It is as simple as that. Ego isn't involved. There's no need for ego when you're the best.
I believe I need to invest in a quantum penis. I have been severely impotent for several decades now, but with a quantum cock I could fuck my wife with my perpetually flaccid boner and she would still have an orgasm!
Unlike many today, I recall very well the 1950s, when we heard the very same thing about nuclear technology of that era. We were told that they'd have the very attributes you just listed: they'd be safe, cheap, mass-produceable, decentralized. Of course, such claims failed horribly when faced with reality. The systems did work to some extent, but they never lived up to the original hype surrounding them.
I have little reason to believe that we're not seeing the same thing, 50 or 60 years later. We hear about how great all these technologies are, but then once implemented they hit the various snags that are present in the real world. And then perform nowhere near as well as they were originally claimed capable of.
The beauty of using OpenBSD, for instance, is that the installation program is somewhat of a challenge to use. It's easy enough if you have the necessary knowledge, and often quite powerful once you're an expect. Once you do reach that level, you likely will know better than to use vulnerable passwords. OpenBSD filters out moronic users, in a way.
I'm rather old. While I'm not yet a centenarian, let me tell you, 100 years isn't a very long time. Depending on medical advances, my grandchildren may be alive in 100 years. My great-grandchildren likely will be alive then, as well. I wouldn't want to leave them with the same problems we're dealing with today. That is why we need to think further than we currently are thinking.
We know there are renewable resources out there, and in many places they are abundant. Talk about mining material from extraterrestrial sources all you want. There's no need to do that when all we need is already available to us. All we need to do is put slightly more resources towards learning how to efficiently tap those resources, and we won't have to worry about mining for coal, or drilling for oil, or disposing of nuclear waste.
But decentralized systems aren't good business for the incumbent energy generation companies. They don't necessarily make money from you if you generate all the power you need from the windmill in your back yard, or the solar panels on your roof. In some cases, they may even pay you if you're supplying their grid with power. Of course, if everyone is capable of generating enough power for their own energy needs, there'd be little need to buy power from power companies. Towns and cities could purchase excess power (for streetlights, water filtration plants, etc.) directly from the citizens, too.
Just because a plant is in America it doesn't mean that Americans will be running it. I mean, they could just as easily bring in nuclear engineers from Germany, Japan or South Korea to actually run the plants.
We will soon enough run into the same problems with nuclear power that we're running into with coal power. Such plants still consume very finite, non-renewable resources, and produce a significant amount of pollution.
While economics may dictate that we head towards nuclear power before wind, solar or hydro power, for instance, we should really be skipping ahead. Putting more research towards power generation from renewable resources may in the end prove to be a far better investment.
It is likely that we will see nations like Denmark and Canada, which have put significant resources towards wind, hydro, solar, tidal, and other renewable energy sources, surge ahead in the long run. Nations that have put their efforts behind nuclear power will find themselves in the same boat as we are in today with coal, oil and natural gas power plants.
Either you don't know how to use nmap (that's quite possible), or you set up secure servers. Good for you, if the latter is the case.
And I never said it would work all of the time. Please, my friend, read my post again:
And besides, using Netcraft or nmap one can already often tell what operating system an Internet-accessible system is running.
"Often" suggests that it isn't always possible, but many times it is.
But systems like Solaris, OpenBSD, and even Linux are often secure enough that it's okay to let people know that you're using them. It's just the old security through obscurity deal, where it's not a good idea to rely on obscurity to protect your systems.
And besides, using Netcraft or nmap one can already often tell what operating system an Internet-accessible system is running.
Even then, a good network will be designed such that the web servers run OpenBSD, and the databases are run on a mix of Solaris and Linux, for instance. So even if the web server is compromised (which is difficult to accomplish when using OpenBSD), there would be two completely different types of systems to deal with after that.
Depending on the physical security of the actual server rooms of a particular business, it could be quite easy for somebody to actually steal a server. Any able-bodied individual could easily carry out two or three rackmount systems. A system in a desktop case wouldn't be difficult to take, either.
Even some of the larger systems from Sun or SGI could be taken. If the entire system isn't taken, then at least any storage systems could be taken with relative ease.
Unless you're dealing with vintage Big Iron, most other servers these days would be just as easy to steal as a laptop.
The trend seems to be quite simple to follow. The first (and likely only) question we need to ask is, "Does this laptop belong to a corporation?"
If the answer is "Yes", then the owner of the laptop is not liable.
If the answer is "No", then the owner of the laptop is liable.
Since the courts have failed in this matter, what we might end up seeing eventually is something along the lines of the "organic" branding of food that is common in some nations. Food which is prepared without the use of chemicals, or genetic modification, and some such, use such a label such as "organic" to differentiate themselves from other growers and manufacturers.
The obvious computing equivalent would perhaps be "Served by OpenBSD" or "Data Stored on Solaris" labels on websites which collect and store personal data. The same could even go for other firms that collect data. Banks, for instance, could advertise that they store their data on IBM systems.
While it doesn't really prevent attacks or theft outright, it does indicate to consumers that the company has their IT department in order. I, for one, would feel far more comfortable dealing with businesses who openly profess their use of OpenBSD, Solaris, or Linux. Likewise, I would do my best to avoid those who built their networks around other, potentially more vulnerable systems.
One of the questions that consumers might ask when dealing with a business that collects much personal information could become, "Do you run your database servers on HP-UX, OpenBSD, or Solaris?"
In my experience, users who end up using Linux or BSD in a work environment are often quite pleased. As long as their system works, they're more than willing to adapt to it, and likely will find themselves working far more effectively.
In the past, I've set up desktop networks running OpenBSD. KDE can be configured to look and feel very much like Windows, if that's necessary. But after a day or two of using even a default KDE installation, many people were more than comfortable. The massive boosts in productivity, especially among secretaries and some of the accountants and financial officers was stunning. Using OpenOffice, the secretaries were able to get their typing done for the day earlier. Some of them became so efficient under the new OpenBSD-based system that they were able to finish up their work two or three hours sooner than they would have when they were still using Office.
In addition to the massive productivity boost, that network never goes down. They never have to deal with spyware. The savings from not having to deal with such problems likely far outweigh the costs of implementing the system. And those costs were quite minimal, since much of the software was free.
Any forced censorship is a violation of free speech. Free speech is one of the few absolutes in the world: either you have it, or you do not. If somebody won't let you say or write something, then that is censorship, and you do not have freedom of expression.
In a society that claims to embrace the concept of free expression (like many Western nations, and especially the US), censorship cannot be tolerated. It doesn't matter if an idea is found to be "offensive" to some. Those who are easily "offended" will have to tolerate others saying such things.
There's no point in trying to get people to convert to Linux, or any other open source project.
The best thing to do is to use it yourself. I've helped various businesses out with OpenBSD installations, and the results have been spectacular. Of course, it particularly shines on web servers and as a firewall, due to its very high level of security. Not only that, but the care put towards security translates directly into higher quality code, which leads to virtually no crashes.
So while other businesses are fidgeting around with Windows Server 2003 or XP (and the massive hardware requirements needed to run such systems), and running into weekly network infections and other issues, others who know of better systems won't have such problems. They'll be able to run their servers on more economic hardware, using far superior software.
It's most often small businesses who are most responsive to using technology like OpenBSD and PostgreSQL, rather than Windows 2003 and SQL Server. And they're the ones who can gain the most from it, as well. Little makes the owner of a sporting goods shoppe happier than telling him you can set him up an OpenBSD web server for his online store at a mere fraction of the cost of a Windows-based solution. Even saving £500 for such a person will make them very pleased. And when their system doesn't crash every other day, they'll be even more impressed.
I'm getting pretty tired of society being held hostage by a bunch of ignorant barbarians who basically worship symbols and idols.
Shit, son. For a moment there I thought you were talking about Christianity, with their churches, crosses, Jesus, and so forth. Looking back even just over the past 5 years, we can see Christians responsible for at least two fairly major wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), the associated torture of detainees, amongst other atrocities.
Often times we hear extremist Christians being the most outspoken against Islam and other religions. But when we abstract away from particular religious deities or symbols, we see that those extremist Christians are just as bad as any extremist Muslims. Thankfully, the same goes for your average Christian and Muslim, who tend to be very good, respectable people. The unfortunate part is that one extremist is often far louder than 50 million decent people.
Avoiding the "trolls and hatemongers" is, like it or not, completely against the concept of freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression very often involves ideas which many may find "offensive". That's just part of the game. To try to filter out that which is "hate" is a pathetically useless exercise, and inherently against liberty.
Yahoo!, if not the entire Western world, must make a decision soon. Either they will have to fully support freedom of expression, or fully disregard it. Of course, disregarding it would basically mean an end to what has allowed Western civilization to progress over the past few centuries.
This mixing of some freedom of expression here and there, if you say the "right" things, but none for people saying the "wrong" things, will only lead to strife.
Anyone who truly supports such ideals as freedom of expression and freedom of speech must be willing to accept that there will be people who speak out against Islam. There will be people who speak out against Christianity. There will be people who speak out against fish and chips. And if you really do appreciate freedom, then you will not only accept the right of such people to make their points known, no matter how much you disagree with them, but you will actively encourage them to express themselves. That is true freedom, my friend. Self-sustaining freedom.
The radical Christians get much press. Take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance. They were primarily planned and executed by extremist Christians, with the mass media (especially in the US) more than willing to promulgate the views of those radical Christians (ie. that there were "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, and so forth).
Don't settle on something as relatively minor as abortion clinic violence when there are far more harmful, violent and significant incidents involving extremist Christians.
While we might see things like that, what we will likely see is innovation just end up moving outside of the US. If the patent and copyright laws really begin to take a financial toll on research and implementation, it may become economically beneficial to move such business to foreign nations with more reasonable laws.
Even though an ever-increasing copyright term benefits Disney, it concurrently causes much harm to many other (potentially far more important) fields. Soon enough companies won't want to develop products in the US due to the cost of ensuring that their products don't violate obscure patent or somebody's copyright (in the case of software). A situation like that might have to happen before truly beneficial changes start to occur in the US
Please understand that true conservatives are all about protecting the environment. They support short terms on copyrights and patents. Why do they support such things? Because the represent responsibility and liberty, and that's what true conservatism is all about.
In the US, those who seek to put in place legislation that allows companies to harm the environment, or extend copyright terms, and so forth, are not conservatives, libertarians, nor are they liberals. They are Republicans and Democrats. We may essentially consider the Democrats and Republicans to be one and the same, even if they project the image of being "opponents". They're both financed by the largest corporations and wealthiest few individuals in the US and the world. They have very little incentive to do what's best for the average American.
So when a self-proclaimed "conservative" rags on you about your support for limiting environmental damage or unnecessarily long copyright terms, just remember that he or she is in no way a conservative. In fact, such an individual stands firmly against conservatism.
Such an idea works in a classroom setting, but fails to work most elsewhere. It is necessary to have paper records in many fields. For instance, in some jurisdictions medical records must be on paper. While they can be stored in a computerized database, there still must be a paper copy for insurance and legal reasons.
And that's just one example. Many engineering documents and specs (I mean for real structures and products, not necessary consumer-grade hardware or software) are kept in paper form, again for legal reasons. Some accounting firms will use computers to help with their work, but again, they end up printing the data because hardcopies are often very useful.
So while it is theoretically possible to move towards a paperless society, and devices like this would help, it is not exactly practical within the existing legal frameworks of many nations.
It sounds like you're assuming that broadband penetration is ubiquitous. It clearly is not, if only 60% of the people have it. Of course it isn't non-existant, but 60% isn't as much as you make it out to be.
2 25_2496764_1_1_1_1,00.html#timeseries
Here are some statistics we might like to consider:
http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2649_34
According to that 2004 data, only 13.0 of every 100 people in the US have broadband. For South Korea, the number is 24.9. Of course, if you want to look at a far larger nation than the US or South Korea, we can check out Canada, with 17.8 broadband users per 100 people.