Yeah, the author mentions that. I wonder if FreeS/wan might be a good solution. Just throw a coupla out-of-date machines in front of each WAP box... FreeS/wan offers the ability to plug in the encryption method du jour and doesn't require any reconfiguration of your client machines...
Food for thought...
Re:what a bunch of bull
on
Make Your Own DSL
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I work at a phone company (a big, big one, with an ampersand in the name) and this is absolutely not BS.
In fact, we're now selling voice services over dry pair lines using DSL. If we can do it, you certainly can. As long as you don't give up before you even start...
Re:Bandwith without connectivity is worthless
on
Make Your Own DSL
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Funny, I thought the 'dry pair' stuff was the boring part of the article. I happen to be in telecom and that's all a no-brainer.
What was fascinating was the potential (admittedly) limited uses for roll-your-own DSL. Read the Lariat homepage - what an amazing project for a small town!
I think the main points of the article are:
1) There are lots of last-mile solutions, and they don't all have to come from your ILEC.
2) Innovative uses of these solutions can have come really cool results - like Lariat, like paying for only one broadband connection, like establishing a neighbourhood network then networking these networks... makes you think;)
Re:Tomshardwarepage.COM Conclusion
on
The New Athlons
·
· Score: 2
Athlon can leave Pentium 4 far behind in 3D-rendering software, because of its superior FPU-performance.
How far AMD has come. Remember when it was a universal constant that AMD had inferior floating-point across their product line?
But I think we must be a bit moderate in the discussion. It's not all bad! At least copyrighted media and windfall "fat cat" profits ensure lots of money spent on technical development and media development. And after all, you can sell anyone anything you like at any conditions you like, as long as you have a contract (and you are not a monopoly).
But these fat cat profits aren't going into improvements in their product. Sure, the DVD represents a huge technical advance over the videocassette, but it comes with huge restrictions for the consumer.
Look at the R&D underway in the entertainment industry today - it's all focused on limiting what the consumer can do. Watermarking, CSS, new file formats, new download controls... I haven't heard (in my little world) of a single dollar being spent on improvements in sound quality, a good online experience for people who just want an electronic copy of music, portability of 'content' etc.
And to look at the non-technical side of their 'product', record companies are looking for the next Britney Spears (for that quick financial hit) rather than the next Neil Young or Ani DiFranco. Movie companies want the same thing - Pearl Harbour or 'Gone in 60 Seconds' being produced rather than god knows how many films of superior artistic value.
I think media conglomeration combined with increasing control of technical capabilities will prove the be a Bad, Bad Thing. And by the time that's widely known, it may be too late.
"The malicious program can only be stopped if enough Web site operators install Microsoft's software patch, which plugs the security hole the worm uses to attack. "
This is what I was talking about above - Microsoft is handling this beautifully, from a PR perspective. News accounts in my area made it sound like Microsoft invented (innovated?;) a fix to this out-of-control virus, and everyone needs to download their patch to protect themselves.
Didn't sound *at all* like MS was fixing a bug in their software. We should all be grateful - Microsoft saved the web out of the goodness of their hearts.
I got precisely one Code Red attack on my home linux box (via cable modem). Last time around, I had upwards of 25 attacks.
Heard an interview with a Microsoft spokesperson this morning. Interesting how the terms 'Windows', 'NT', 'Windows 2000' and 'IIS' didn't come up once. Gotta protect those brands, I guess.
(To be fair, buffer overflows can happen to anybody, and it's not MS's fault that some sysadmins don't install updates. Just interesting to hear a real pro take charge of an interview.)
But regardless, if anybody out there has any *real* info on WHY the media isn't covering the case of Dmitry Skylarov or the DMCA, please inform us; I'm sure the/. community would like to know.
I see two reasons. First, the intricacies of copyright law, especially when combined with technology, are too subtle for sound-bites. I realize a statement like this is almost a cliche, but it's true. Too much valuable airtime/column inches would have to be wasted educating the reader on the DMCA, encryption, the rights of foreign nations etc. Easier to stick with warehouse fires and monster truck rallies.
Second (mentioned in another post already) is that most media outlets are affiliated with some organization that has an interest in the DMCA. Tough to get a critical article past your editor when s/he knows they'll get a call from the executive office about it later.
The stories of heroic journalists, well, that's different. It improves the image of journalism and the organizations that support them. And there's no need to report subtleties - just yell 'Cover-up!' at the top of your voice and everyone will be on your side.
Talk about FUD - here's a quote, from Scientific American, no less: "Imagine a cold that kills. It spreads rapidly and indiscriminately through droplets in the air, and you think you're absolutely healthy until you begin to sneeze. Your only protection is complete, impossible isolation,"
WOW! That sounds awful! Run for the hills!
But wait - imagine that a vaccine for the cold has been available for months. You could get vaccinated just by logging into a website.
Oh, and once you're infected, all you need to do is take a nap (ie. reboot) and you're healthy again.
What a load of scare-mongering. SciAm should know better.
Whoa - just checked the logs on my humble linux box (behind a cable modem) and I've had about 25 hits on 'default.ida' today. Looks like a unique IP every time.
Jeez, if this is coming to my obscure neck of the woods... gonna be a hell of a night for W's IT staff...
So... the DMCA is a good thing, but doesn't go far enough. It should require *strong* encryption.
The DMCA isn't about protecting your personal right to privacy in emails or documents. It's about the formation of a new corporate definition of copyright that never expires. It's about blocking fair use. It's about giving the copyright holder absolute control over how the copyrighted material is used (eg. only played on approved DVD players).
It disallows decryption when the user intends to pirate, for sure. But it also disallows decryption when the user simply wants to make use of the content.
Perhaps I've misunderstood your post. Correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps you merely intended to (justifiably) slam Adobe for selling flawed encryption.
Your post sounds a *lot* like my local DSL provider's aggressive advertising. "Bob was so tired of sharing his cable modem with the neighbourhood that he bought the whole neighbourhood". *Sad scene of a kid riding a tricycle down an empty sidewalk*
I really don't think the last mile is often a bottleneck for cable or DSL. I lived in the burbs for two years and was the *only* subscriber on my segment for much of that time. Now I'm in the city and sharing the segment with many others. No perceptible difference in speed.
YMMV, of course, but I really think the cable vs. DSL argument is a non-issue. It's the backoffice hardware and backbones that I'd be concerned about.
Ford Motor Company has announced litigation against the creators of Kontour, claiming it "dilutes the trademark of their successful mid-range sedan, the Ford Contour".
Ford is seeking monetary damages equal to the engineering invested in the Contour, as well as all marketing expenses and manufacturing costs for 650,000 Contours, totalling $3.4B
No, I don't think *current* linux users will buy SmartSuite. There are too many decent free/Free options available.
Where I see potential is with corporations considering linux on the desktop for price, each of support, remote support, simple licensing etc., but holding back for lack of applications. The office suite is the killer app, and something that no IT director will mess with lightly.
Offer them SmartSuite - an honest-to-gosh integrated office suite by IBM, no less. Fully compatible with MS Office, and future development assured.
I work in telecom and my current and previous employers had *thousands* of people answering phones and doing the vast majority of their work through browsers, telnet sessions, etc. With a linux desktop, they'd gain the advantages I mentioned above. Throw SmartSuite on there, and Customer Service reps could still open/compose the occasional document or spreadsheet and share it with the rest of the company.
"Right now, we're not planning native ports of Lotus Notes or Lotus SmartSuite to Linux desktops since the demand from our customers just isn't there yet."
Strange. The (perceived) lack of a solid office suite for Linux is the biggest thing holding back the desktop. Yet IBM isn't porting SmartSuite because nobody is using Linux on the desktop.
I've used StarOffice and a couple of the other suites, and they're good. But I think that IBM SmartSuite(TM) showing up on the Linux desktop would really make some waves and drive acceptance of the Linux desktop.
Actually, I'd hoped that Corel's office suite would pull this off, but it never got off the ground.
C'mon IBM - let's see that port! Heck, you could still charge for it. MS Office sets the price of office suites pretty high, so there's money to be made.
Consider the source, of course - 'Enterprise Solutions' or whatever. This is the trade mag for companies that make their living selling big, expense storage solutions. These companies have relied on the falling $/Gig of high-end hard drives for their 5-year business plan.
Interesting that once drives stop getting cheaper, all they can cut to improve price/performance is by reducing the price of their crown jewels - the controllers.
Slashdot Mirror
Food for thought...
I work at a phone company (a big, big one, with an ampersand in the name) and this is absolutely not BS.
In fact, we're now selling voice services over dry pair lines using DSL. If we can do it, you certainly can. As long as you don't give up before you even start...
Funny, I thought the 'dry pair' stuff was the boring part of the article. I happen to be in telecom and that's all a no-brainer.
;)
What was fascinating was the potential (admittedly) limited uses for roll-your-own DSL. Read the Lariat homepage - what an amazing project for a small town!
I think the main points of the article are:
1) There are lots of last-mile solutions, and they don't all have to come from your ILEC.
2) Innovative uses of these solutions can have come really cool results - like Lariat, like paying for only one broadband connection, like establishing a neighbourhood network then networking these networks... makes you think
Athlon can leave Pentium 4 far behind in 3D-rendering software, because of its superior FPU-performance.
How far AMD has come. Remember when it was a universal constant that AMD had inferior floating-point across their product line?
Mad props to AMD for pulling this together.
But I think we must be a bit moderate in the discussion. It's not all bad! At least copyrighted media and windfall "fat cat" profits ensure lots of money spent on technical development and media development. And after all, you can sell anyone anything you like at any conditions you like, as long as you have a contract (and you are not a monopoly).
But these fat cat profits aren't going into improvements in their product. Sure, the DVD represents a huge technical advance over the videocassette, but it comes with huge restrictions for the consumer.
Look at the R&D underway in the entertainment industry today - it's all focused on limiting what the consumer can do. Watermarking, CSS, new file formats, new download controls... I haven't heard (in my little world) of a single dollar being spent on improvements in sound quality, a good online experience for people who just want an electronic copy of music, portability of 'content' etc.
And to look at the non-technical side of their 'product', record companies are looking for the next Britney Spears (for that quick financial hit) rather than the next Neil Young or Ani DiFranco. Movie companies want the same thing - Pearl Harbour or 'Gone in 60 Seconds' being produced rather than god knows how many films of superior artistic value.
I think media conglomeration combined with increasing control of technical capabilities will prove the be a Bad, Bad Thing. And by the time that's widely known, it may be too late.
Each time we go to our weekend house...
Yeah, life is tough, alright. Weekend house?!?
;)
"The malicious program can only be stopped if enough Web site operators install Microsoft's software patch, which plugs the security hole the worm uses to attack. "
;) a fix to this out-of-control virus, and everyone needs to download their patch to protect themselves.
This is what I was talking about above - Microsoft is handling this beautifully, from a PR perspective. News accounts in my area made it sound like Microsoft invented (innovated?
Didn't sound *at all* like MS was fixing a bug in their software. We should all be grateful - Microsoft saved the web out of the goodness of their hearts.
I got precisely one Code Red attack on my home linux box (via cable modem). Last time around, I had upwards of 25 attacks.
Heard an interview with a Microsoft spokesperson this morning. Interesting how the terms 'Windows', 'NT', 'Windows 2000' and 'IIS' didn't come up once. Gotta protect those brands, I guess.
(To be fair, buffer overflows can happen to anybody, and it's not MS's fault that some sysadmins don't install updates. Just interesting to hear a real pro take charge of an interview.)
Don't let it heat up either...
But regardless, if anybody out there has any *real* info on WHY the media isn't covering the case of Dmitry Skylarov or the DMCA, please inform us; I'm sure the /. community would like to know.
I see two reasons. First, the intricacies of copyright law, especially when combined with technology, are too subtle for sound-bites. I realize a statement like this is almost a cliche, but it's true. Too much valuable airtime/column inches would have to be wasted educating the reader on the DMCA, encryption, the rights of foreign nations etc. Easier to stick with warehouse fires and monster truck rallies.
Second (mentioned in another post already) is that most media outlets are affiliated with some organization that has an interest in the DMCA. Tough to get a critical article past your editor when s/he knows they'll get a call from the executive office about it later.
The stories of heroic journalists, well, that's different. It improves the image of journalism and the organizations that support them. And there's no need to report subtleties - just yell 'Cover-up!' at the top of your voice and everyone will be on your side.
Talk about FUD - here's a quote, from Scientific American, no less: "Imagine a cold that kills. It spreads rapidly and indiscriminately through droplets in the air, and you think you're absolutely healthy until you begin to sneeze. Your only protection is complete, impossible isolation,"
WOW! That sounds awful! Run for the hills!
But wait - imagine that a vaccine for the cold has been available for months. You could get vaccinated just by logging into a website.
Oh, and once you're infected, all you need to do is take a nap (ie. reboot) and you're healthy again.
What a load of scare-mongering. SciAm should know better.
Crap... I've been referring to it as the 'Guffaw'. No wonder my Mac-loving friends have been so snippy lately.
Good point.
And of course, this is just how Motorola prefers to do business. Lock 'em in, suck 'em dry. God, you should try dealing with them in telecom...
...tease people who would steal from you.
Sure hope some frustrated opportunist doesn't come back with a buddy and send this thing through your front window.
hmm... could these dialup victims be using Win98's 'Personal Web Server'? It's just IIS 3.x.
Wonder if that's vulnerable.
Whoa - just checked the logs on my humble linux box (behind a cable modem) and I've had about 25 hits on 'default.ida' today. Looks like a unique IP every time.
Jeez, if this is coming to my obscure neck of the woods... gonna be a hell of a night for W's IT staff...
Sounds great, but no BBQ in the space station.
*cough
*blink*
So... the DMCA is a good thing, but doesn't go far enough. It should require *strong* encryption.
The DMCA isn't about protecting your personal right to privacy in emails or documents. It's about the formation of a new corporate definition of copyright that never expires. It's about blocking fair use. It's about giving the copyright holder absolute control over how the copyrighted material is used (eg. only played on approved DVD players).
It disallows decryption when the user intends to pirate, for sure. But it also disallows decryption when the user simply wants to make use of the content.
Perhaps I've misunderstood your post. Correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps you merely intended to (justifiably) slam Adobe for selling flawed encryption.
Your post sounds a *lot* like my local DSL provider's aggressive advertising. "Bob was so tired of sharing his cable modem with the neighbourhood that he bought the whole neighbourhood". *Sad scene of a kid riding a tricycle down an empty sidewalk*
I really don't think the last mile is often a bottleneck for cable or DSL. I lived in the burbs for two years and was the *only* subscriber on my segment for much of that time. Now I'm in the city and sharing the segment with many others. No perceptible difference in speed.
YMMV, of course, but I really think the cable vs. DSL argument is a non-issue. It's the backoffice hardware and backbones that I'd be concerned about.
Ford Motor Company has announced litigation against the creators of Kontour, claiming it "dilutes the trademark of their successful mid-range sedan, the Ford Contour".
Ford is seeking monetary damages equal to the engineering invested in the Contour, as well as all marketing expenses and manufacturing costs for 650,000 Contours, totalling $3.4B
No, I don't think *current* linux users will buy SmartSuite. There are too many decent free/Free options available.
Where I see potential is with corporations considering linux on the desktop for price, each of support, remote support, simple licensing etc., but holding back for lack of applications. The office suite is the killer app, and something that no IT director will mess with lightly.
Offer them SmartSuite - an honest-to-gosh integrated office suite by IBM, no less. Fully compatible with MS Office, and future development assured.
I work in telecom and my current and previous employers had *thousands* of people answering phones and doing the vast majority of their work through browsers, telnet sessions, etc. With a linux desktop, they'd gain the advantages I mentioned above. Throw SmartSuite on there, and Customer Service reps could still open/compose the occasional document or spreadsheet and share it with the rest of the company.
Dunno. Seems like a viable option to me.
hmm... I'm typing on my freshly-issued-by-the-corporation A21m right now. I'm getting an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.... *grin
"Right now, we're not planning native ports of Lotus Notes or Lotus SmartSuite to Linux desktops since the demand from our customers just isn't there yet."
Strange. The (perceived) lack of a solid office suite for Linux is the biggest thing holding back the desktop. Yet IBM isn't porting SmartSuite because nobody is using Linux on the desktop.
I've used StarOffice and a couple of the other suites, and they're good. But I think that IBM SmartSuite(TM) showing up on the Linux desktop would really make some waves and drive acceptance of the Linux desktop.
Actually, I'd hoped that Corel's office suite would pull this off, but it never got off the ground.
C'mon IBM - let's see that port! Heck, you could still charge for it. MS Office sets the price of office suites pretty high, so there's money to be made.
Food for thought.
You mean like all those uppity Canadians? Thank god!
;)
(Born and bred in Canada, myself
Consider the source, of course - 'Enterprise Solutions' or whatever. This is the trade mag for companies that make their living selling big, expense storage solutions. These companies have relied on the falling $/Gig of high-end hard drives for their 5-year business plan.
Interesting that once drives stop getting cheaper, all they can cut to improve price/performance is by reducing the price of their crown jewels - the controllers.