Absolutely, but that was the least meritful example in the article. Page two has some much better instances, where it isn't so ridiculous to bring in some sort of legal authority. Part of the issue is that half-baked accusations of matters as serious as pedophilic teachers weren't as popular back when you were face to face with your friends as they are now that you have semi-anonymity and an audiance who may or may not understand it's a fabrication. That is to say, the subjects that kids talk about when making fun of teachers are sometimes different online than in person.
> "A teacher claiming she can't work because she got made fun of is like a firefighter complaining he can't work because fires are hot."
Absolutely. The case would have to be extraordinarily fucking cruel in order to warrant any claim of actual emotional harm.
A white noise generator? That's awesome, I always wondered if they even cared about the fact that the front row can hear them in real life. As for being picked for a jury, the only way in is if you appear as normal as possible with nothing in your background or demeanor to even hint at a potential bias one way or the other. Having complex ideas and independent thoughts is a major turnoff for the legal system, but not necessarily fatal if you can avoid demographic cliches. Bonus points for looking gullible.
In the case of number 3, I'm very confused as to why Hans would not have made such a claim. Is there a legal reason why his attorney would not have brought it up, or can we assume that Hans received no such call?
In one of his past posts, he describes the horrible broken vegetable state his hospital roommate was left in following surgery for the exact same kind of tumor he had. The only difference between the two of them was their insurance plans; Chez had a cutting-edge microsurgery treatment performed at very few locations in the nation, while the poor soul next to him was not lucky enough to have happened to work for a company with the level of healthcare CNN's provider afforded.
What are you talking about? He mentions Linux twice on that page, once in the context of how he's handling the slashdotting, and again in the main article as an offhand example to convey the breadth of his discussion. Your non sequitur is almost equivalent to "Nice argument, but you obviously don't have a clue about yellow elephants."
Oh, you greatly misunderstand. When I speak of good and bad, I'm talking about from the company's perspective.
> Not only is it ineffectual and easily cracked,
That's just it though, it's far more difficult to copy something if it has to be cracked first, even if the crack is absolutely trivial aside from its obscurity. Remember that we're not talking about technical users - a big fat comment in the exe version information explaining how to bypass it would probably go unnoticed.
> but also does your paying customerbase have the hassle of trying to support the kludge.
Again, company's perspective, not customer's. This is why it sucks for the customer to be in a small market.
> I'd feel royally pissed if something stopped working just because I no longer have a parallel port on my computer, for instance, or am running inside a VMWare machine... So pissed, in fact, that I'll go out of my way to avoid products by that company in the future.
It's actually pretty standard when you're looking at very specialized, high cost, low volume professional software. I'd be pissed too, but I'm not the one that has to run it.
My example was about a DRM system, so obviously it was never meant to be strong in any of the areas you mention. The point was that utter crap encryption is far better at serving the purpose of real encryption, than is making no effort to even pretend to be secure. Of course, in general, the danger is that users would act differently if they knew they weren't really secure, but that's not applicable to this case.
Read again, my foreign friend. The plural "gods" implies that we're not talking about monotheism, or likely any religion at all, but are referring to the classical notion of near (but not actual) omnipotence. I for one am a fan of Greek mythology, but I don't think it's purely because I'm American.
That said, a lot of American's do seem to be a bit religion obsessed. However, I'd save such observations for threads on politics.
Thank you for that. I hadn't read any Asimov before this, but it was far better than I expected. I especially like the poignant twist around the part with Zee, where it became less about exponential expansion and worrying about the future, and more about remembrance of a past that could never be recaptured.
It's funny how broad such writings are - that I can scoff at antiquated terms like "analog computer" and "microvac", and be moved by aggregation of all thought and matter, in the same piece.
Star Trek? Star Trek?! You're looking at the future of computing and using *that* as your measure of success? Have fun getting rid of analog distortions in the audio output of your holograms by "installing recursive algorithms", and try not to be overwhelmed by your AI's unstable recombinant subroutines. You'd best get a second computer, in case someone ties up your first single-tasking one by asking it to compute the last digit of pi. Bonus points if you manage to implement a sane security policy, putting you two steps ahead of any system to ever appear in the future.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to solve string theory by getting all the infinities to cancel each other out.
Trust is a technical word; you trust someone by simply *doing* so. I believe it's the DoD that defines it a trusted party as "one that can break your security model", and I think most other organizations use a similar definition if it's not an outright industry standard. This means that you simply define your security model such that you don't worry about the third party, and *in theory* you're alright.
Also, I'd recommend auditing all your code to avoid raptor attacks by removing gotos.
> It's also NEVER a good idea to use any "crypto developed in-house". Manufacturers love to tell you since they developed it and their development is secret and such that their product is safe and secure, much more secure even since nobody knows how it works. > Cryptologists laugh at those claims, and everybody else should, too. These non-encrypting devices are a good reason as to why they do so.
Indeed, the only purpose for which this kind of thing should ever be considered is when your threat model says it's not worth having security against anyone with even a mild motivation. I once came across a certain dongle-based DRM/antipiracy solution for a piece of software I was working on. The system was bottom-dollar to be sure - I'm fairly certain that most of its functionality was implemented in its drivers, not in hardware - but it was better than nothing. It's just that the incremental improvement of having very weak obscurity instead of having no protection at all, is so much more justifiable than the improvement of good, rock solid crypto over weak obscurity.
I don't know what's in the book the AC above recommended, but it's true, compiling TrueCrypt yourself adds no security over accepting a binary from the official website (I'd assume it's them you'd be getting builds from, since it is in fact a windows program). If you're paranoid enough to not trust the developers, then you're paranoid enough to require hiring a trusted party to basically recreate the software for you.
God I hope not. Copyright law is absurd enough as it is. We don't need its interpretation extended to prohibit yet another technology based on its profoundly poorly defined limitations.
I've never sat on a jury, but I've been Voir dire'd, and the one thing I took away from the experience was how condescending the system was - I suppose it's out of necessity. It was almost overwhelming, how much they tried to stress certain points and how cliche the attorneys were. I was excused, probably because they only needed a few more jurors by the time I was called, but I'm almost certain that demographics played an important role. I'm a college student, and the case was about drugs; therefore it must have been much safer to excuse me, than to take the chance that I'm naive or stubborn enough to play right into the defense's hands.
From the selected articles I read on that page, it seemed like the defense attorney was begging for that kind of treatment. I wouldn't assume that the judge decided to be an asshole preemptively.
Honestly, I don't know; I generally use frustrations like yours to justify my own apathy, so it's a non-issue for me. I might recommend giving to the EFF over the ACLU though. I never hear of the ACLU bringing any interesting cases these days, and it's the EFF that's fighting for us in the current telecom Bush-administration scandal.
It's statements like that that give you the illusion of power (and thus responsibility) via voting. Don't let the mechanisms of the system confuse into thinking that your decision over a minuscule set of options (often representable with a single bit) would make or break any particular event in history. To do so encourages complacency with the system, or at least with your level of participation in it.
Translation: Look for other areas in which to make a difference, besides voting in very large elections.
Not that this comment will be read so late in the game, but it irks me that internal Microsoft emails were revealed through the legal system. All companies look like crap when you make their most candid discussions public. I find it unsettling that these messages can be used against them in such a way, because it would seem to lead us to a state where marketing BS invades internal technical discussions, creating a sort of double-think / no-privacy situation in the workplace. I just think that private thoughts deserve protection.
> "You might as well ask the typical user to perform brain surgery on himself."
So what you're saying is, to get Linux mainstream support we must train users in the works of Escher and the proof of the Recursion Theorem. Got it; I'm on it.
Wouldn't be the first time that MS has released technical documentation and guidelines, then proceeded to ignore them. I remember reading msdn guidelines on the use of the API controlling the damn XP lower-right corner popups. It urged developers to remember that every time they use it, they are interrupting the user from another task, so they should only use it to communicate urgent system information rather than nag the crap out of them. Shortly afterwards I was asked once again by my system to "Help make office better".
I don't come to slashdot to read about torture, imprisonment, lies/deceit, politicians' lack of respect (You will address me as *Sir* John Everyman!), terrorism, or international policy - unless it's related to technology. There are enough channels out there to bitch and moan about the ocean of refuse that is politics on mainstream issues, and were I not so, so very tired of it, I might even join you. Instead, I want to pick an esoteric topic and discuss it in peace, free from the ubiquity of such pseudo-issues as gay marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, or more serious matters that have already been done to death like war and security and the economy. What the hell is the point of assembling together questions from a massive common source in hopes that they'll be taken seriously, if we're going to waste them on what every other massive group of people is going to complain about? Even if we were going to choose mundane topics, did they really *have* to be worded in such a slanted, bullshit manner, as to absolutely mandate a bullshit response? We could have at least given Ron Paul the *option* of *premtively* acting like an ass, instead of goading him into it.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely, but that was the least meritful example in the article. Page two has some much better instances, where it isn't so ridiculous to bring in some sort of legal authority. Part of the issue is that half-baked accusations of matters as serious as pedophilic teachers weren't as popular back when you were face to face with your friends as they are now that you have semi-anonymity and an audiance who may or may not understand it's a fabrication. That is to say, the subjects that kids talk about when making fun of teachers are sometimes different online than in person.
> "A teacher claiming she can't work because she got made fun of is like a firefighter complaining he can't work because fires are hot."
Absolutely. The case would have to be extraordinarily fucking cruel in order to warrant any claim of actual emotional harm.
"Fire INDEED hot!"
An oldie but a goodie. Still a non sequitur.
A white noise generator? That's awesome, I always wondered if they even cared about the fact that the front row can hear them in real life. As for being picked for a jury, the only way in is if you appear as normal as possible with nothing in your background or demeanor to even hint at a potential bias one way or the other. Having complex ideas and independent thoughts is a major turnoff for the legal system, but not necessarily fatal if you can avoid demographic cliches. Bonus points for looking gullible.
In the case of number 3, I'm very confused as to why Hans would not have made such a claim. Is there a legal reason why his attorney would not have brought it up, or can we assume that Hans received no such call?
In one of his past posts, he describes the horrible broken vegetable state his hospital roommate was left in following surgery for the exact same kind of tumor he had. The only difference between the two of them was their insurance plans; Chez had a cutting-edge microsurgery treatment performed at very few locations in the nation, while the poor soul next to him was not lucky enough to have happened to work for a company with the level of healthcare CNN's provider afforded.
...
What are you talking about? He mentions Linux twice on that page, once in the context of how he's handling the slashdotting, and again in the main article as an offhand example to convey the breadth of his discussion. Your non sequitur is almost equivalent to "Nice argument, but you obviously don't have a clue about yellow elephants."
Do we really have to choose?
Oh, you greatly misunderstand. When I speak of good and bad, I'm talking about from the company's perspective.
... So pissed, in fact, that I'll go out of my way to avoid products by that company in the future.
> Not only is it ineffectual and easily cracked,
That's just it though, it's far more difficult to copy something if it has to be cracked first, even if the crack is absolutely trivial aside from its obscurity. Remember that we're not talking about technical users - a big fat comment in the exe version information explaining how to bypass it would probably go unnoticed.
> but also does your paying customerbase have the hassle of trying to support the kludge.
Again, company's perspective, not customer's. This is why it sucks for the customer to be in a small market.
> I'd feel royally pissed if something stopped working just because I no longer have a parallel port on my computer, for instance, or am running inside a VMWare machine
It's actually pretty standard when you're looking at very specialized, high cost, low volume professional software. I'd be pissed too, but I'm not the one that has to run it.
My example was about a DRM system, so obviously it was never meant to be strong in any of the areas you mention. The point was that utter crap encryption is far better at serving the purpose of real encryption, than is making no effort to even pretend to be secure. Of course, in general, the danger is that users would act differently if they knew they weren't really secure, but that's not applicable to this case.
I think his comment was some sort of odd joke. "Lay of the trolling" was a ludicrously non-applicable response that IMO needs no further attention.
Read again, my foreign friend. The plural "gods" implies that we're not talking about monotheism, or likely any religion at all, but are referring to the classical notion of near (but not actual) omnipotence. I for one am a fan of Greek mythology, but I don't think it's purely because I'm American.
That said, a lot of American's do seem to be a bit religion obsessed. However, I'd save such observations for threads on politics.
Thank you for that. I hadn't read any Asimov before this, but it was far better than I expected. I especially like the poignant twist around the part with Zee, where it became less about exponential expansion and worrying about the future, and more about remembrance of a past that could never be recaptured.
It's funny how broad such writings are - that I can scoff at antiquated terms like "analog computer" and "microvac", and be moved by aggregation of all thought and matter, in the same piece.
Star Trek? Star Trek?! You're looking at the future of computing and using *that* as your measure of success? Have fun getting rid of analog distortions in the audio output of your holograms by "installing recursive algorithms", and try not to be overwhelmed by your AI's unstable recombinant subroutines. You'd best get a second computer, in case someone ties up your first single-tasking one by asking it to compute the last digit of pi. Bonus points if you manage to implement a sane security policy, putting you two steps ahead of any system to ever appear in the future.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to solve string theory by getting all the infinities to cancel each other out.
Trust is a technical word; you trust someone by simply *doing* so. I believe it's the DoD that defines it a trusted party as "one that can break your security model", and I think most other organizations use a similar definition if it's not an outright industry standard. This means that you simply define your security model such that you don't worry about the third party, and *in theory* you're alright.
Also, I'd recommend auditing all your code to avoid raptor attacks by removing gotos.
> It's also NEVER a good idea to use any "crypto developed in-house". Manufacturers love to tell you since they developed it and their development is secret and such that their product is safe and secure, much more secure even since nobody knows how it works.
> Cryptologists laugh at those claims, and everybody else should, too. These non-encrypting devices are a good reason as to why they do so.
Indeed, the only purpose for which this kind of thing should ever be considered is when your threat model says it's not worth having security against anyone with even a mild motivation. I once came across a certain dongle-based DRM/antipiracy solution for a piece of software I was working on. The system was bottom-dollar to be sure - I'm fairly certain that most of its functionality was implemented in its drivers, not in hardware - but it was better than nothing. It's just that the incremental improvement of having very weak obscurity instead of having no protection at all, is so much more justifiable than the improvement of good, rock solid crypto over weak obscurity.
I don't know what's in the book the AC above recommended, but it's true, compiling TrueCrypt yourself adds no security over accepting a binary from the official website (I'd assume it's them you'd be getting builds from, since it is in fact a windows program). If you're paranoid enough to not trust the developers, then you're paranoid enough to require hiring a trusted party to basically recreate the software for you.
God I hope not. Copyright law is absurd enough as it is. We don't need its interpretation extended to prohibit yet another technology based on its profoundly poorly defined limitations.
I've never sat on a jury, but I've been Voir dire'd, and the one thing I took away from the experience was how condescending the system was - I suppose it's out of necessity. It was almost overwhelming, how much they tried to stress certain points and how cliche the attorneys were. I was excused, probably because they only needed a few more jurors by the time I was called, but I'm almost certain that demographics played an important role. I'm a college student, and the case was about drugs; therefore it must have been much safer to excuse me, than to take the chance that I'm naive or stubborn enough to play right into the defense's hands.
From the selected articles I read on that page, it seemed like the defense attorney was begging for that kind of treatment. I wouldn't assume that the judge decided to be an asshole preemptively.
Honestly, I don't know; I generally use frustrations like yours to justify my own apathy, so it's a non-issue for me. I might recommend giving to the EFF over the ACLU though. I never hear of the ACLU bringing any interesting cases these days, and it's the EFF that's fighting for us in the current telecom Bush-administration scandal.
It's statements like that that give you the illusion of power (and thus responsibility) via voting. Don't let the mechanisms of the system confuse into thinking that your decision over a minuscule set of options (often representable with a single bit) would make or break any particular event in history. To do so encourages complacency with the system, or at least with your level of participation in it.
Translation: Look for other areas in which to make a difference, besides voting in very large elections.
Not that this comment will be read so late in the game, but it irks me that internal Microsoft emails were revealed through the legal system. All companies look like crap when you make their most candid discussions public. I find it unsettling that these messages can be used against them in such a way, because it would seem to lead us to a state where marketing BS invades internal technical discussions, creating a sort of double-think / no-privacy situation in the workplace. I just think that private thoughts deserve protection.
Flame on.
> "You might as well ask the typical user to perform brain surgery on himself."
So what you're saying is, to get Linux mainstream support we must train users in the works of Escher and the proof of the Recursion Theorem. Got it; I'm on it.
Wouldn't be the first time that MS has released technical documentation and guidelines, then proceeded to ignore them. I remember reading msdn guidelines on the use of the API controlling the damn XP lower-right corner popups. It urged developers to remember that every time they use it, they are interrupting the user from another task, so they should only use it to communicate urgent system information rather than nag the crap out of them. Shortly afterwards I was asked once again by my system to "Help make office better".
"No wonder Millionaires are so stupid... if this is what they consider a "Problem"..."
If you think that's bad, then I have some dining philosophers that I'd like you to meet...
I don't come to slashdot to read about torture, imprisonment, lies/deceit, politicians' lack of respect (You will address me as *Sir* John Everyman!), terrorism, or international policy - unless it's related to technology. There are enough channels out there to bitch and moan about the ocean of refuse that is politics on mainstream issues, and were I not so, so very tired of it, I might even join you. Instead, I want to pick an esoteric topic and discuss it in peace, free from the ubiquity of such pseudo-issues as gay marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, or more serious matters that have already been done to death like war and security and the economy. What the hell is the point of assembling together questions from a massive common source in hopes that they'll be taken seriously, if we're going to waste them on what every other massive group of people is going to complain about? Even if we were going to choose mundane topics, did they really *have* to be worded in such a slanted, bullshit manner, as to absolutely mandate a bullshit response? We could have at least given Ron Paul the *option* of *premtively* acting like an ass, instead of goading him into it.