Well how about this: when you watch TV - THINK a little bit. It's not that hard.
Do not take this dangerous piece of advice seriously.
Many people will tell you to think when you watch television. These people will also tell you to eat while you're swimming and run the hair dryer in the shower. This stuff just doesn't mix, people.
Do you wonder why people think The King of Queens is funny? Do you ask yourself what engineering know-how Lincoln brings to the design of sport-utility vehicles? Was your favorite new show cancelled after two episodes? These are all warning signs.
High-level thought while watching television is the number one cause of TV tuneout today. Don't become a statistic -- stay on the couch, where it's safe.
This message brought to you by the National Association of Broadcasters, the Ad Council, and the guys who make those little green drool cups.
People seem to be saying that this either (1) is gratuitous MS-bashing on/.'s part, or (2) doesn't merit attention because it was just some silly PR move.
MS-bashing, well, yes. Gratuitous, no. The events of this match gave the lie to many things MS said about it, and many things they say about themselves. Notably, this whole "we just want to enable people to be their best" hogwash. They seek control, as the final death throes of this game demonstrate.
PR move, yes. So if MS demonstrates the weaknesses of its own model in the course of this PR move, should critics of MS let them spin it all away? I don't think so.
If, say, FIDE had set this up and done these things, it wouldn't have gotten on/., nor should it have. (Except that this might be a new way of collaborating using web technology -- seems like "news for nerds" to me.) If it all shook down the same, it might indict their quality as a chess organization, but that's all.
MS's mishandling indicts their role as a company producing technology to enable this kind of gee-whiz collaboration, and as responsible stewards of this technology. The way in which they screwed up leaves concerns about MS's qualifications in that area. It would have been the same if Sun or IBM or Red Hat had done this. And just as deserving of an article here, IMO.
phil
Re:Complexity is like a liquid...incompressible
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Gartner Slams Linux
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"I think Windows needs a better foundation and architecture... it is designed to be flawed at it's core. The user interface is fine (due largely to the fact that they stole it from the mac), but everything under the covers is a mess, and getting worse with every release."
The user interface is "fine" (in fact, far more usable for a naive user than Linux, IMO) because MS spends beaucoup bucks testing usability and hiring human factors people. That, and they stole a good base UI from the Mac (who, in their turn, stole it from Xerox).
Usability for the naive user is one place where most Open Source projects (particularly Linux) have a long way to go, because there is a dearth of human factors experts working in Open Source, as far as I can tell, and no one has been willing to bankroll user testing. (Though with Red Hat's recent influx of cash, I hope we see a change there.)
Another aspect of usability -- perhaps the most important -- is consistency. MS is very good at giving all their products a consistent graphical interface. This does not seem to be a priority in the Linux community. It should be.
What about a User Interface Specification, not unlike the Mac UI spec or Windows Spec? It could define a minimum set of behaviors and appearances that each conforming UI would provide as a default (with the option to change as many as desired by the implementors, of course).
phil typing this on RedHat 6.0 running Gnome and Enlightenment
First off, censorship is a necessity in any society as overcommunicated as this one. That doesn't mean censorship should take place based on political or philosophical agendas; rather it should seek to filter information and ideas that are irrelevant to an individual from those that are.
Of course, relevance is subjective; that's the sticking point in any discussion of censorship. In practice, the institutions in power decide relevance. Hence, we don't find out about American involvement in, say, aggressively destabilizing freely elected governments in South America until decades after it matters. The government and news media decided we didn't need to know.
I submit that we are in a period in which established institutions feel especially challenged. The magnitude and vector of the challenge can be gauged by who is seeking to censor whom, and how.
The reason Mencken was allowed to write about religion all those years ago was because religion (one of many institutions enjoying hegemony in consensus society) felt fairly sure of itself. In that situation, it makes no sense to create a martyr. Far better to let the crackpots have their say, and let their marginalism feed on itself. Now, it would appear, things are different.
The process can be viewed in reverse, too. Through most of this century, I probably couldn't openly espouse Communism without being fired, blacklisted, or otherwise ostracized. Because for most of this century, Communism was seen as a serious threat to another institution of the consensus, capitalism. That threat is no longer evident; if I wanted to join the American Communist Party now, people would think I was a harmless crank and move on.
Look at the institutions reacting most strongly against criticism, and you see the most insecure institutions in our society. The ones cited in Katz's article are organized religion (steadily declining membership for decades) and the Republican party (a representative of a host of, generally, ideas formed in reaction to the events of the early and middle twentieth century -- IMO the pragmatic approach of that WWII argument fairly reeks of the military-industrial complex a la Dr. Strangelove).
(Oh, and I suspect the Democratic party would probably react the same way, but they have less to worry about because their rhetoric is not as openly tied to the existing order. They've been harmlessly marginalizing people for years -- cf. Jerry Brown.)
So, given that the venerable institutions of religion and ruling governmental bodies are feeling insecure, does that mean they are? Why, and should we use the opportunity provided to remodel or retire them?
I didn't get any NSI communications for my domain name until this morning -- looks like the same message, but only had two bullet points. (i.e., no mention at all of the webmail account).
Mine is a.org account -- any idea if this offer was restricted/implemented only for the.com's? I doubt it....Whether the account actually exists or not is, of course, an open question, at least until the server comes back up.:)
phil
p.s. -- I replied to the message, asking someone to contact me about the disclaimer at the end, and sending administrative and advertising information on the same list. I find this somewhat concerning, as I might skim over important info buried in a sea of "SPECIAL OFFERS". (I also don't want any more spam in my inbox than I can avoid.) I encourage other people with similar concerns to do the same.
There's stuff you can do
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CALEA update
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Write your congressman, White House, etc. Just because a law is passed doesn't mean it can't get repealed.
<rant>
And most importantly, don't forget. A lot of people feel ignored online because a paper letter still counts more than an email to a politician. That's because the pol expects the emailer to have forgotten about this by Election Day -- not so easy to do if you're so steamed you can write a letter, lick a stamp and send it. (Or so the theory goes.)
The FCC is appointed by the President -- tell him (or, better yet, the party he's from) that they won't get your vote as long as shenanigans like these persist. And do it, too. Don't buy that "you'll throw your vote away" crap -- if 89% of this country didn't vote for the Democrats or Republicans, how much of a waste is that? IMO, you're probably wasting your vote if you do vote for the two major parties, since both of them probably represent many, many views you find repellant, no matter who you are.
A candidate that forms his opinions based on an overriding philosophy that you agree with may still come down on the wrong side, but with less frequency, and probably not nearly as wholeheartedly as a politician who just checks the party scoresheet -- most of which was probably written by the biggest contributors this week.
I hate to sound so vitriolic, but the ineffectiveness in American politics is the result of the apathy of its citizens -- fostered by those currently in power that characterize our system as "imperfect, but the best we can do."
Well, half-truths are half-right -- it's certainly imperfect, but the two parties that are exactly as different as Coke and Pepsi that is, as different as they need to be to convince you there is any difference at all. Small voter turnouts only help them engineer the elections better -- turn out in force, and vote for the candidate you feel most comfortable with, even if you think he'll only get ten votes.
Treat politicians like employees, or better yet, like vendors -- there's plenty of vendors. If we do, maybe we'll get some customer service. phil </rant>
As welcome as this move is (3Com was about to lose me, too, until this), I have to say I will really jump for joy when I see some drivers released for 3Com's PCMCIA NICs. Not that Card Services isn't great, but neither the 3c574 or the 3c589d drivers have worked for me. (Admittedly, the fault may be mine with the 589, but I think the docs refer to the 574 driver as "flaky".)
Incidentally, any driver guys want to comment on the relative ease of writing Linux NIC/PCMCIA drivers versus Windows drivers? It seems like writing for Linux would be easier, that the interface would be a bit higher-level. I don't know anything, but I'm curious.
As Bill Gates said in that Simpsons episode, "I didn't get where I am by writing checks." That is, Microsoft wouldn't be doing it -- and certainly wouldn't have paid beaucoup d'argent to do so -- unless they were profiting from the users in some way. A few ways, in fact; they include:
Viewing the ads. (Actually least important, given ads' relative ineffectiveness online.)
Marketing information. I don't have a Hotmail account, but I imagine they get enough info to sell to direct marketing -- even if 90% of their users explicitly refuse this, that's 4 million names. Take out half for fake accounts, that's 2 million.
Mindshare.
Mindshare.
Oh, yeah, and mindshare. "Who's the monolithic company that's an email machine to all the chicks? Microsoft!" MS makes more than a little money off the idea that they're huge and unstoppable.
Ironically, MS probably perceive their reaction to this as strengthening that last point. With many people, they may be right. The message seems to be "shut up and take it, we own you." It's a lie, but I recall a certain other large organization based on the idea that if you shout a lie long enough and loud enough, people will start to believe it.
And the Nazis weren't even incorporated.
phil Kinda please with himself for worming the Nazi comparison in...:)
You might want to think a bit before you post this sort of thing. It looks an awful lot like FUD:
1) AOL's headquarters are in Dulles, VA (Sterling, VA if you want to get picky). Loudon County. 2) Not only that, Anne Arundel county is in Maryland, not Virginia.
Anne Arundel is, in fact, in Maryland. Maryland is awfully close to Virginia -- right next to it, even. Dulles is certainly a drive away from Anne Arundel. Heck, Wytheville is a drive from Anne Arundel...just a long one. Law enforcement officers will make a drive that long, however, if the return justifies the investment.
3) And last, sorry, no. Cops need a court order to get info out of AOL. Noone can just walk up and take any information they want, cop or not.
3. Any evidence for that? I mean, not like he had any to begin with, but this is only a reiteration of the party line. Considering that this is the question at issue, it hardly settles the matter.
Just pointing out that you didn't really refute anything.
What makes the Mac and Windows UI's so touted is that you can talk about each of them as consistent, monolithic UI's. That's because they established standard behavior for everything and stuck to it. It's not a bad idea. The problem of multiple, dissimilar interfaces doesn't even exist on Mac or Windows, but it's a pain in Linux. Behavior depends on whether I'm using a GTK app or a TK app or an X app. (I HATE X dropdown listboxes, BTW.) It seems odd that a culture so enamored of open standards should put up with so many emissible, "proprietary" standards for UI.
I do not think we should scrap innovation, however -- rather, I think the competing/coexisting UI's (GTK, X, TK) need to conform to a consistent but evolving standard of UI behavior, and let the user customize with toolkit-specific behavior as desired. Good UI ideas would then get worked into newer versions of the standard, and everyone else would implement them, too. Now that's innovation. phil
At least, it seems that way to me. Look at the substance of the commentary -- "good software", the way its described above, is exclusively used for commerce and business.
Looking at the piece without any knowledge of TC and RMS's past, it appears to be a satire of both sides of Open Source/Free Software lampooned at once -- RMS's high horse and ESR's relentless commercial angle. Scylla and Charybdis, all in one, and both sides accused of claiming to be "GOD".
Looked at this way, I find the piece instructive (as good satire should be) -- there are aspects of both that should be avoided. Certainly, we shouldn't alienate the mainstream, but neither should we look to it for salvation. Capitalism, after all, has a long history of sacrificing the long-term for the short. (See Also: pre-WWI radio industry, the early days of the sewing machine industry. Le plus ce change...)
...inasmuch as/. is the guide, and journalists simply provide some of the raw materials. And rather than having a place in the transformation of news, they are likely to wither away as more and more information is put directly online from the sources.
Journalists don't want us to know it, of course, but 80% of their information comes from press releases and the news wire -- essentially the same services they claim to provide us. Hence, 80% of the job of a "journalist" is that of middleman. The other 10% of stories come from people going directly to the newspaper/TV/radio station -- and they'll go to the web, eventually, too. Directly, once they realize that they can get heard that way, the way they want to be heard. (Ask someone who's been on TV if their story got told, and it's pretty much a crap shoot. It all depends on whether its the story the reporter wants to tell.)
And that remaining 10%? The part that should be 100% -- the digging for stuff that gets missed or covered up, the part that they claim makes them so indispensable. Yet there are plenty of whistleblowers out there, digging around and finding what might get missed or, worse yet, worm its way into our consciousness without us actively analyzing it.
I hate it when I hear about a (potentially) useful website only when it is shut down. By many accounts, Packetstorm was a valuable security reference. The published words and acknowledged actions of AntiOnline's owner makes me averse to having my IP in their server logs.
So, what good security resources are left out there? If Packetstorm were still up, I would undoubtedly have scoped it out for usefulness, and bookmarked it as a resource if it met my needs. Is there anyplace else comparable I can check out?
...several posts seem to imply that hackers and crackers are mutually exclusive. They aren't.
How many of you got into socket programming because you wanted to write an IP sniffer, maybe snarf a few passwords? How many of you who know assembly have never used it to peek at virus source code? How many of you learned assembly so you could write/modify a virus?
I'm not saying all hackers are crackers -- that's the conventional stupidity. But crackers often become hackers, and many hackers still crack sites or phreak long-distance. Most of the skills are the same; to talk like the groups are mutually exclusive is silly.
Another complication: hacker ethics just don't jibe with what passes for ethics in today's society. How can you say "crackers are criminals, hackers aren't" when many of the hackers in question have filled their hard drives with software and music obtained illegally?
Not that they necessarily should be illegal, mind you, but consider your audience. The only ethic that makes any difference (in the US, at least) is money -- if you don't have any, you're evil, and if you try to take money from those who have it, you're a criminal. (If you steal from the poor, of course, it's perfectly legal -- just look up the definition of "fringe banking".)
The issue here is an ethical dissonance, and, yes, insisting that some activities are those of "crackers" and not "hackers" has some merit -- it denotes acts using (mostly) hacker skills that the hacker community deems unethical. It's just that the distinction is lost to those on the Outside (who don't have a clue what ethics are anymore anyway). What makes a difference is how well we evangelize our ethics. Go out, all of you, and make hackers of men.:)
phil
Dysfunctional Family Circus
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Quickielanche
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Do you _want_ an MS Open Source License??
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Open Source Windows
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I don't.
The most chilling thing in this for me was the idea that if Linux "keeps popping up all over", then Microsoft will act to "keep its competitive edge." In the past, that means taking the good parts of a competitor and buying them or making them useless. They can't buy GNU or Linux.
Of course, they can't hurt the GPL or code licensed under it, but they can make it useless. We've already seen how conflicting licenses can make code reuse illegal between differently-licensed code. Even differently-licensed Open Source code.
The worst-case scenario is that Microsoft's army of lawyers comes up with a license that makes code licensed under it ususable in projects using other popular, "competing" licenses (*ahem* GPL *cough*). Then make their code so ubiquitous that the "competing" code becomes useless in practical terms. IOW, it's no longer a mix-and-match "commodity"...sound familiar?
Anyway, why do all the work cleaning up Windows code when you've already got a clean, maintainable codebase from Linux? Netscape has shown us how badly bloated commercial-quality products can be; why go through the effort when you could just polish up Linux some and be done with it?
Disclaimer: I'm using an NT box to write this even as we speak, and I'd be useless for digging into Windows source, unless it's in Perl. (Which would surprise me -- it would have to be pretty badly-written Perl.:) But irresponsible licensing practices can "de-commoditize" even Open Source code. Given MS's track record, it will take a lot to convince me anything significant they do with Open Source won't be an attack.
Katz wins the annual award for most self-conscious use of the phrase "geek tragedy" in an ongoing series
Hemos doesn't sux (AFAIK), but I think we oughtta pull something like this on him and other European/.'ers on Jan 4.:) (Huh? You don't get it? That's okay, I amused myself.)
The most disturbing thing about this is the anonymity of the accusers. (If I'm mistaken and these litigants aren't anonymous, please correct me.)
The disturbing part? I defend anonymity -- it's essential to free expression. But this kind of anonymity actually curbs free expression. Someone is doing a bastardly thing, and I can't even boycott them. So I'm also doing a little soul-searching. Just how should I feel about anonymity?
And I do want to boycott -- just because I didn't find segfault funny or keep UF on my bookmarks doesn't mean I don't despise the actions of the hideous fiends seeking to shut them down. Heck, I'd visit them each twice a day (and take cookies, and click through one ad a week) just to piss the corporate weasels off.
(Is that libelous? I can judge these people -- and I use the term loosely -- based only on their action(s), since they deny me the context of their identity. And these actions, to my mind, could only be performed by hideously petty, selfish fiends. And since anonymity protects them from any real action I might take, I'm left with free expression -- vitriolic free expression.)
Have the names of the litigious corporate slime been made public, and I just missed it? I might revise my opinions of them upward a micrometer if they were at least brave enough to admit their actions. (At least we know they have to be corporates -- no one else has money for nuisance lawsuits.)
Failing that, an actual lawsuit has to have litigants. And that info's public, right? Hopefully, someone knows more than I do about how to look up this stuff....any law folk in the crowd?
phil
P.S. - Did I mention how much I want to boycott these people?
This piece clearly implies that the MSID is a powerful law enforcement tool on the Digital Frontier. (BTW, I thought the out-of-nowhere references to the FBI were a nice touch.) That idea doesn't hold water, for a number of reasons. Apparently, ZD will gratuitously reinforce their message with questionable stuff like that FBI reference, but won't do the homework necessary to refute arguments that logically arise from their implied assertion.
If they can be refuted, I don't think they can.
First, there's no reason this will ever trap another hacker again, malicious or not. None. Anyone smart enough to write a Word97 macro is smart enough to obtain their own MAC address, scan the file for it, and remove it.
Is the address encrypted? The article doesn't say, which leads me to believe that it's not. Even if they do end up encrypting the thing, how hard will it be to decrypt? The only people you'll track down with this will be script kiddies killing time. Hackers knowledgeable enough to do genuine damage to a defended infrastructure are knowledgeable enough to find this ID and neutralize it.
"But that doesn't apply to the Intel ID," I can hear the ZD sycophants opine, "the Intel ID is a hardware ID, and no hacker can erase that!"
Fair enough. And the MAC address isn't?
In order for this ID to be useful in tracking down the origin of a virus, it has to be propagated in a file. Any file can be searched and have its contents modified. Period. The kind of ID you have makes no difference after it's overwritten.
So this ID will only end up in documents that are:
Not malicous.
Malicious, but still untraceable (i.e., email automatically generated by a user who triggered a virus). In this case the ID is, to say the least, of limited value.
So the only people the ID can track are law-abiding citizens who don't care to remove the ID because their intentions are not malicious. Now why would you want to track them?
IMO, two things happened to lessen the appeal of the show:
Joel left. A lesser show wouldn't have survived at all, but MST only went from "amazingly cool" to "pretty darned good"
When you're scouring the universe for funny movies, and you have to have one every week, you start to exhaust the easy targets, and you lower your standards. I'm not dissing them -- it's inevitable, and they did as well as they can.
Ah, well, there's always the tapes. And there are a lot of shows I never saw, so I don't guess I'll want for MST3K any time soon. Still sad, tho'.
I Maintain that installing Linux is JUST AS EASY as installing WIN95.
Installing -- just getting the OS on the system -- is fairly easy. Configuring -- making it work with your system -- is a nightmarish for mere mortals and non-IT types, especially if you don't know where to look for answers. I have examples, but I won't bore anyone (unduly) unless asked.
It seems that most people would rather shell out $x hundred (thousand?) for "repair" or replacement than figure out for themselves what's not working and how to fix it. It's more comfortable and less time-consuming, and for many people, time (and comfort) are more important than money.
Win95 lets them do that with a clear conscience. You can't learn how to fix it; the most MS will even let you do is click a few buttons and reinsert a CD now and then. And people seem to like it that way. (Remember, the grandaddy of Windows was MS-DOS. Back when there was competition, Macintosh was winning it -- by making the first computer for people who don't want to learn anything about computers.)
The masses don't ever want to have to think about their OS. Microsoft knows that -- you can't even think about their OS if you want to.
The sooner this notion becomes widely accepted, the sooner Linux will be a legitimate contender in the marketplace, IMO.
Slashdot Mirror
Do not take this dangerous piece of advice seriously.
Many people will tell you to think when you watch television. These people will also tell you to eat while you're swimming and run the hair dryer in the shower. This stuff just doesn't mix, people.
Do you wonder why people think The King of Queens is funny? Do you ask yourself what engineering know-how Lincoln brings to the design of sport-utility vehicles? Was your favorite new show cancelled after two episodes? These are all warning signs.
High-level thought while watching television is the number one cause of TV tuneout today. Don't become a statistic -- stay on the couch, where it's safe.
This message brought to you by the National Association of Broadcasters, the Ad Council, and the guys who make those little green drool cups.
phil
People seem to be saying that this either (1) is gratuitous MS-bashing on /.'s part, or (2) doesn't merit attention because it was just some silly PR move.
- MS-bashing, well, yes. Gratuitous, no. The events of this match gave the lie to many things MS said about it, and many things they say about themselves. Notably, this whole "we just want to enable people to be their best" hogwash. They seek control, as the final death throes of this game demonstrate.
- PR move, yes. So if MS demonstrates the weaknesses of its own model in the course of this PR move, should critics of MS let them spin it all away? I don't think so.
If, say, FIDE had set this up and done these things, it wouldn't have gotten onMS's mishandling indicts their role as a company producing technology to enable this kind of gee-whiz collaboration, and as responsible stewards of this technology. The way in which they screwed up leaves concerns about MS's qualifications in that area. It would have been the same if Sun or IBM or Red Hat had done this. And just as deserving of an article here, IMO.
phil
The user interface is "fine" (in fact, far more usable for a naive user than Linux, IMO) because MS spends beaucoup bucks testing usability and hiring human factors people. That, and they stole a good base UI from the Mac (who, in their turn, stole it from Xerox).
Usability for the naive user is one place where most Open Source projects (particularly Linux) have a long way to go, because there is a dearth of human factors experts working in Open Source, as far as I can tell, and no one has been willing to bankroll user testing. (Though with Red Hat's recent influx of cash, I hope we see a change there.)
Another aspect of usability -- perhaps the most important -- is consistency. MS is very good at giving all their products a consistent graphical interface. This does not seem to be a priority in the Linux community. It should be.
What about a User Interface Specification, not unlike the Mac UI spec or Windows Spec? It could define a minimum set of behaviors and appearances that each conforming UI would provide as a default (with the option to change as many as desired by the implementors, of course).
phil
typing this on RedHat 6.0 running Gnome and Enlightenment
First off, censorship is a necessity in any society as overcommunicated as this one. That doesn't mean censorship should take place based on political or philosophical agendas; rather it should seek to filter information and ideas that are irrelevant to an individual from those that are.
Of course, relevance is subjective; that's the sticking point in any discussion of censorship. In practice, the institutions in power decide relevance. Hence, we don't find out about American involvement in, say, aggressively destabilizing freely elected governments in South America until decades after it matters. The government and news media decided we didn't need to know.
I submit that we are in a period in which established institutions feel especially challenged. The magnitude and vector of the challenge can be gauged by who is seeking to censor whom, and how.
The reason Mencken was allowed to write about religion all those years ago was because religion (one of many institutions enjoying hegemony in consensus society) felt fairly sure of itself. In that situation, it makes no sense to create a martyr. Far better to let the crackpots have their say, and let their marginalism feed on itself. Now, it would appear, things are different.
The process can be viewed in reverse, too. Through most of this century, I probably couldn't openly espouse Communism without being fired, blacklisted, or otherwise ostracized. Because for most of this century, Communism was seen as a serious threat to another institution of the consensus, capitalism. That threat is no longer evident; if I wanted to join the American Communist Party now, people would think I was a harmless crank and move on.
Look at the institutions reacting most strongly against criticism, and you see the most insecure institutions in our society. The ones cited in Katz's article are organized religion (steadily declining membership for decades) and the Republican party (a representative of a host of, generally, ideas formed in reaction to the events of the early and middle twentieth century -- IMO the pragmatic approach of that WWII argument fairly reeks of the military-industrial complex a la Dr. Strangelove).
(Oh, and I suspect the Democratic party would probably react the same way, but they have less to worry about because their rhetoric is not as openly tied to the existing order. They've been harmlessly marginalizing people for years -- cf. Jerry Brown.)
So, given that the venerable institutions of religion and ruling governmental bodies are feeling insecure, does that mean they are? Why, and should we use the opportunity provided to remodel or retire them?
Discuss. Use back of page if necessary. :)
phil
Mine is a .org account -- any idea if this offer was restricted/implemented only for the .com's? I doubt it....Whether the account actually exists or not is, of course, an open question, at least until the server comes back up. :)
phil
p.s. -- I replied to the message, asking someone to contact me about the disclaimer at the end, and sending administrative and advertising information on the same list. I find this somewhat concerning, as I might skim over important info buried in a sea of "SPECIAL OFFERS". (I also don't want any more spam in my inbox than I can avoid.) I encourage other people with similar concerns to do the same.
<rant>
And most importantly, don't forget. A lot of people feel ignored online because a paper letter still counts more than an email to a politician. That's because the pol expects the emailer to have forgotten about this by Election Day -- not so easy to do if you're so steamed you can write a letter, lick a stamp and send it. (Or so the theory goes.)
The FCC is appointed by the President -- tell him (or, better yet, the party he's from) that they won't get your vote as long as shenanigans like these persist. And do it, too. Don't buy that "you'll throw your vote away" crap -- if 89% of this country didn't vote for the Democrats or Republicans, how much of a waste is that? IMO, you're probably wasting your vote if you do vote for the two major parties, since both of them probably represent many, many views you find repellant, no matter who you are.
A candidate that forms his opinions based on an overriding philosophy that you agree with may still come down on the wrong side, but with less frequency, and probably not nearly as wholeheartedly as a politician who just checks the party scoresheet -- most of which was probably written by the biggest contributors this week.
I hate to sound so vitriolic, but the ineffectiveness in American politics is the result of the apathy of its citizens -- fostered by those currently in power that characterize our system as "imperfect, but the best we can do."
Well, half-truths are half-right -- it's certainly imperfect, but the two parties that are exactly as different as Coke and Pepsi that is, as different as they need to be to convince you there is any difference at all. Small voter turnouts only help them engineer the elections better -- turn out in force, and vote for the candidate you feel most comfortable with, even if you think he'll only get ten votes.
Treat politicians like employees, or better yet, like vendors -- there's plenty of vendors. If we do, maybe we'll get some customer service. phil
</rant>
Incidentally, any driver guys want to comment on the relative ease of writing Linux NIC/PCMCIA drivers versus Windows drivers? It seems like writing for Linux would be easier, that the interface would be a bit higher-level. I don't know anything, but I'm curious.
phil
Ironically, MS probably perceive their reaction to this as strengthening that last point. With many people, they may be right. The message seems to be "shut up and take it, we own you." It's a lie, but I recall a certain other large organization based on the idea that if you shout a lie long enough and loud enough, people will start to believe it.
And the Nazis weren't even incorporated.
phil :)
Kinda please with himself for worming the Nazi comparison in...
Just pointing out that you didn't really refute anything.
phil
What makes the Mac and Windows UI's so touted is that you can talk about each of them as consistent, monolithic UI's. That's because they established standard behavior for everything and stuck to it. It's not a bad idea. The problem of multiple, dissimilar interfaces doesn't even exist on Mac or Windows, but it's a pain in Linux. Behavior depends on whether I'm using a GTK app or a TK app or an X app. (I HATE X dropdown listboxes, BTW.) It seems odd that a culture so enamored of open standards should put up with so many emissible, "proprietary" standards for UI.
I do not think we should scrap innovation, however -- rather, I think the competing/coexisting UI's (GTK, X, TK) need to conform to a consistent but evolving standard of UI behavior, and let the user customize with toolkit-specific behavior as desired. Good UI ideas would then get worked into newer versions of the standard, and everyone else would implement them, too. Now that's innovation. phil
Looking at the piece without any knowledge of TC and RMS's past, it appears to be a satire of both sides of Open Source/Free Software lampooned at once -- RMS's high horse and ESR's relentless commercial angle. Scylla and Charybdis, all in one, and both sides accused of claiming to be "GOD".
Looked at this way, I find the piece instructive (as good satire should be) -- there are aspects of both that should be avoided. Certainly, we shouldn't alienate the mainstream, but neither should we look to it for salvation. Capitalism, after all, has a long history of sacrificing the long-term for the short. (See Also: pre-WWI radio industry, the early days of the sewing machine industry. Le plus ce change...)
phil
Journalists don't want us to know it, of course, but 80% of their information comes from press releases and the news wire -- essentially the same services they claim to provide us. Hence, 80% of the job of a "journalist" is that of middleman. The other 10% of stories come from people going directly to the newspaper/TV/radio station -- and they'll go to the web, eventually, too. Directly, once they realize that they can get heard that way, the way they want to be heard. (Ask someone who's been on TV if their story got told, and it's pretty much a crap shoot. It all depends on whether its the story the reporter wants to tell.)
And that remaining 10%? The part that should be 100% -- the digging for stuff that gets missed or covered up, the part that they claim makes them so indispensable. Yet there are plenty of whistleblowers out there, digging around and finding what might get missed or, worse yet, worm its way into our consciousness without us actively analyzing it.
Then, they usually submit it to Slashdot. :)
phil
I hate it when I hear about a (potentially) useful website only when it is shut down. By many accounts, Packetstorm was a valuable security reference. The published words and acknowledged actions of AntiOnline's owner makes me averse to having my IP in their server logs.
So, what good security resources are left out there? If Packetstorm were still up, I would undoubtedly have scoped it out for usefulness, and bookmarked it as a resource if it met my needs. Is there anyplace else comparable I can check out?
phil
How many of you got into socket programming because you wanted to write an IP sniffer, maybe snarf a few passwords? How many of you who know assembly have never used it to peek at virus source code? How many of you learned assembly so you could write/modify a virus?
I'm not saying all hackers are crackers -- that's the conventional stupidity. But crackers often become hackers, and many hackers still crack sites or phreak long-distance. Most of the skills are the same; to talk like the groups are mutually exclusive is silly.
Another complication: hacker ethics just don't jibe with what passes for ethics in today's society. How can you say "crackers are criminals, hackers aren't" when many of the hackers in question have filled their hard drives with software and music obtained illegally?
Not that they necessarily should be illegal, mind you, but consider your audience. The only ethic that makes any difference (in the US, at least) is money -- if you don't have any, you're evil, and if you try to take money from those who have it, you're a criminal. (If you steal from the poor, of course, it's perfectly legal -- just look up the definition of "fringe banking".)
The issue here is an ethical dissonance, and, yes, insisting that some activities are those of "crackers" and not "hackers" has some merit -- it denotes acts using (mostly) hacker skills that the hacker community deems unethical. It's just that the distinction is lost to those on the Outside (who don't have a clue what ethics are anymore anyway). What makes a difference is how well we evangelize our ethics. Go out, all of you, and make hackers of men. :)
phil
www.spinnwebe.com
phil
The most chilling thing in this for me was the idea that if Linux "keeps popping up all over", then Microsoft will act to "keep its competitive edge." In the past, that means taking the good parts of a competitor and buying them or making them useless. They can't buy GNU or Linux.
Of course, they can't hurt the GPL or code licensed under it, but they can make it useless. We've already seen how conflicting licenses can make code reuse illegal between differently-licensed code. Even differently-licensed Open Source code.
The worst-case scenario is that Microsoft's army of lawyers comes up with a license that makes code licensed under it ususable in projects using other popular, "competing" licenses (*ahem* GPL *cough*). Then make their code so ubiquitous that the "competing" code becomes useless in practical terms. IOW, it's no longer a mix-and-match "commodity"...sound familiar?
Anyway, why do all the work cleaning up Windows code when you've already got a clean, maintainable codebase from Linux? Netscape has shown us how badly bloated commercial-quality products can be; why go through the effort when you could just polish up Linux some and be done with it?
Disclaimer: I'm using an NT box to write this even as we speak, and I'd be useless for digging into Windows source, unless it's in Perl. (Which would surprise me -- it would have to be pretty badly-written Perl. :) But irresponsible licensing practices can "de-commoditize" even Open Source code. Given MS's track record, it will take a lot to convince me anything significant they do with Open Source won't be an attack.
phil
phil :)
The disturbing part? I defend anonymity -- it's essential to free expression. But this kind of anonymity actually curbs free expression. Someone is doing a bastardly thing, and I can't even boycott them. So I'm also doing a little soul-searching. Just how should I feel about anonymity?
And I do want to boycott -- just because I didn't find segfault funny or keep UF on my bookmarks doesn't mean I don't despise the actions of the hideous fiends seeking to shut them down. Heck, I'd visit them each twice a day (and take cookies, and click through one ad a week) just to piss the corporate weasels off.
(Is that libelous? I can judge these people -- and I use the term loosely -- based only on their action(s), since they deny me the context of their identity. And these actions, to my mind, could only be performed by hideously petty, selfish fiends. And since anonymity protects them from any real action I might take, I'm left with free expression -- vitriolic free expression.)
Have the names of the litigious corporate slime been made public, and I just missed it? I might revise my opinions of them upward a micrometer if they were at least brave enough to admit their actions. (At least we know they have to be corporates -- no one else has money for nuisance lawsuits.)
Failing that, an actual lawsuit has to have litigants. And that info's public, right? Hopefully, someone knows more than I do about how to look up this stuff....any law folk in the crowd?
phil
P.S. - Did I mention how much I want to boycott these people?
First off, well said, Mr. Madin.
This piece clearly implies that the MSID is a powerful law enforcement tool on the Digital Frontier. (BTW, I thought the out-of-nowhere references to the FBI were a nice touch.) That idea doesn't hold water, for a number of reasons. Apparently, ZD will gratuitously reinforce their message with questionable stuff like that FBI reference, but won't do the homework necessary to refute arguments that logically arise from their implied assertion.
If they can be refuted, I don't think they can.
First, there's no reason this will ever trap another hacker again, malicious or not. None. Anyone smart enough to write a Word97 macro is smart enough to obtain their own MAC address, scan the file for it, and remove it.
Is the address encrypted? The article doesn't say, which leads me to believe that it's not. Even if they do end up encrypting the thing, how hard will it be to decrypt? The only people you'll track down with this will be script kiddies killing time. Hackers knowledgeable enough to do genuine damage to a defended infrastructure are knowledgeable enough to find this ID and neutralize it.
"But that doesn't apply to the Intel ID," I can hear the ZD sycophants opine, "the Intel ID is a hardware ID, and no hacker can erase that!"
Fair enough. And the MAC address isn't?
In order for this ID to be useful in tracking down the origin of a virus, it has to be propagated in a file. Any file can be searched and have its contents modified. Period. The kind of ID you have makes no difference after it's overwritten.
So this ID will only end up in documents that are:
So the only people the ID can track are law-abiding citizens who don't care to remove the ID because their intentions are not malicious. Now why would you want to track them?
The answer is left as an exercise to the reader.
phil
Ah, well, there's always the tapes. And there are a lot of shows I never saw, so I don't guess I'll want for MST3K any time soon. Still sad, tho'.
phil
Installing -- just getting the OS on the system -- is fairly easy. Configuring -- making it work with your system -- is a nightmarish for mere mortals and non-IT types, especially if you don't know where to look for answers. I have examples, but I won't bore anyone (unduly) unless asked.
It seems that most people would rather shell out $x hundred (thousand?) for "repair" or replacement than figure out for themselves what's not working and how to fix it. It's more comfortable and less time-consuming, and for many people, time (and comfort) are more important than money.
Win95 lets them do that with a clear conscience. You can't learn how to fix it; the most MS will even let you do is click a few buttons and reinsert a CD now and then. And people seem to like it that way. (Remember, the grandaddy of Windows was MS-DOS. Back when there was competition, Macintosh was winning it -- by making the first computer for people who don't want to learn anything about computers.)
The masses don't ever want to have to think about their OS. Microsoft knows that -- you can't even think about their OS if you want to.
The sooner this notion becomes widely accepted, the sooner Linux will be a legitimate contender in the marketplace, IMO.
phil