This is not the first time AOL has done this. I was working in ISP tech support in '96 and whatever version came out then (AOL 3.0?) did the same thing as 5.0 does, from the sounds of it - ie, nukes all your other connections. It sucks. Got tons of calls about it. Typical AOL badness.
This is the same response I sent to Salon's editors, fwiw.
While Ms. Borsook has the concepts and the lingo down, she doesn't have the motivating forces down by a mile. The reason people in the valley don't date is the same reason they don't have other hobbies. The prevalent focus for mental, phsyical, and spiritual energy is twofold - work, and money. Men brag in locker room tones about how much they've earned, spent, or worked lately - not about their sexual conequests. Getting some means you're wasting your time and energy, spilling your seed, if you will, a sort of Silicon Valley Onanism that is simply not looked upon highly. After all, why bother when your portfolio is easier to manage, and your conqests in the office at 3am are so much more proveable? It's just another symptom of a place with very strange priorities, one that grows sicker all the time. The fetish people are the healthy ones - at least they're getting out occasionally.
A friend of mine asked me once to explain my opinion of why the web is broken. After some thought, I came to some conclusions that are relevant here. I'll see if I can restate them effectively. All IMHO, of course.
A couple of assumptions:
1) The web is a non-hierarchical, non-linear system. The entire nature of it is actually closely related to how most people think, through a series of links. Ever found yourself explaining to someone how you got from one seemingly unrelated topic to another? The web is the same thing.
2) Mapping linear, hierarchical systems is what humans are good at. Indices, tables, flowcharts, etc. are all designed to present a certain kind of data in a randomly accessable way. When information is non-linear, we try to force it into this kind of structure, for better or for worse. This is what search engines currently try to do - provide a keyword index to every document on the web.
We cannot treat the web like something it is not. It is not a book or a collection of books. It is not even linear. It's a lot closer to the repository of information that is the human mind than most things that humans create.
This presents an information-finding nightmare. Much as it's sometimes difficult to find the piece of information you know you have stored in your head, it's becoming increasingly more difficult, even with the power of algorithmic parsing and pruning, to extract single pieces of information from the system. Search engines are, as the original post stated, becoming obsolete.
So what is the solution? In my opinion, the most intuitive 'index' type interface to the web has always been Yahoo, which for any given topic will provide a number of starting points. Not every document is indexed, not everything is represented - but if you drill down through links, you are more than likely to find what you're looking for. It takes the natural process of searching the web, which if it were a few hundred nodes could easily be done by hand, and gives it a logical starting point, much as someone can remind you of something you were searching to remember, and suddenly it all becomes clear. Indexing the entire web is as useless as trying to do an entire braindump of your mind. Indexing a set of starting points for using the web the way it was intended - as a series of links - is the only way that will probably ultimately work.
For people who jump at the first mention of people pidgeonholing them, Slashdot has a lot of nerve presenting these findings as they do. It's part of a de-stigmatization of chemical and mental problems to present this information - mental illness is not the rare bird that it is once thought it was, and it's not just your Aunt Millie who talks to walls who might have some problems in her lifetime.
Really, it's not even news that Slashdot would normally find interesting, despite the fact that there is a direct corolation between intelligence and likelyhood of disorders such as bipolar disorder and depression - it's only the Katzification of Slashdot that can even accont for this appearing on the front page. Slashdot, in their typical ignorant way, would prefer to adhere to societal predjudices and instead present it in a 3rd grade manner than consider the implications of destigmatizing something which obviously frightens them - the possibility that people they know who are mentally different, sick, ill, what have you, are not necessarily as rare as they might think, and that it is in fact treatable.
Making light of what you fear or don't understand is the forbearer of predjudice and discrimination. Thanks, Slashdot, for continuing a noble American tradition.
Enforce what? The.us domains have always been available, and still are. It's people who are selecting domain names that are at fault, not someone else for not 'enforcing' something. Not only that, but nobody in other countries is *required* to register a domain from their country's heirarchy, anyone can register a domain in.com,.net, or.org. What exactly were you trying to say here? The insanity with domain speculation has to do with individuals and an overinflated idea of 'value' for domains in the.com and.net (and to a lesser extent,.org) heirarchies. People getting smart would fix that. Not much else.
There's really two meanings to the word "client" - one could be a user, connecting to the server or service; the other could be the software of the user, which connects the user to the server/service.
I was refering to the software client aspect of the service, for the sake of clarity I'll use the term 'user' for the users of the software.
AFAIK, the Napster servers are open to anyone who has the required software, whether it's made by Napster or by a third party. Restricting users to one specific client would be a BadThing, IMHO.. let's take IRC for example: all necessary security measures are built into the server so any client's software can connect to the server.
IRC is different for the reason that it is a distributed, volunteer service, not a centralized service being run by a single company, assumedly for profit. It *is* a public internet service in the traditional sense. As far as I know, no one charges for acccess to their IRC servers (though some only allow their customers to use them). I'm not saying that napster is right or wrong for not making it a public service, or that they *won't* go on to distribute the servers, but that's the current state of it.
I've yet to see an IRC server that says "You must use the XYZ IRC client here or you will be banned!" - that would be ridiculous. Likewise, ICQ seems to have no problems with third-party clients (licq, micq, etc.) connecting to their service - in fact, makers of these clients prove that ICQ's "security features" are lacking. Requiring a user's authorization to be added to their ICQ list, etc. is all client-side security.
I don't know a lot about ICQ for the main reason that I don't use it - I find IRC preferable for basically the reasons that it is different from Napster or IRC. It's not run by any one company for profit and there are a variety of clients available for it. I don't disagree that it's a better architecture to have things be distributed and open. I simply feel that if a company has chosen a different route they have the right to do so - the internet *has* for better or worse become increasingly commerce-driven.
I definitely appreciate the free services that people provide online, but sharing protocols used by services was a precedent set long, long ago - I personally believe it's a good precedent, as it allows developers to create clients for all platforms. If there was a Napster protocol published, there more than likely would have been a *NIX client quite some time ago.
The main flaw I see with this logic is that as it stands now, the servers still belong to Napster. If I were to advocate opening something up, it would be the protocol and the *server code*. If you want a distributed service that is in fact open, you have to have the servers, and hence the server code for people to implement, for it be open, not just the client. I absolutely agree that the protocol should be open, and I think it'd be great if people developed their own independant network using the technology - the key word being if people developed their own. I don't see anything wrong with Napster protecting their resources (if you've seen their servers lately, they're *swamped* - and unfortunately issues of client compatability etc *are* more easily addressed during growth periods when you do have a single set of clients which are centrally maintained and authorized).
Unfortunately, publishing the protocol would reveal weaknesses only known by the developers of the software(and curious hackers - "hackers" as in those who reverse-engineered the software or sniffed the traffic from the software, NOT crackers). Not to put down Napster, but he more than likely knew there was little server-side security, and quite frankly, didn't want to let the cat out of the bag. This is a bad precedent to set, as any malicious kiddie with half of a brain could probably construct a client that would reveal all sorts of interesting information (hostnames/IPs, passwords, etc). This is why the open source movement has so much momentum - it (usually) creates better, more secure products; and believe me, I want my software to be secure with the number of script kiddies running around these days.
I think it's weird that this was hailed as a security issue to begin with, really. And I agree that more client/server security is probably necessary - after all, if all you needed to dial into an ISP was the phone number, ISPs wouldn't let that sit long - but the fact remains, if you *did* just dial in and use their service, it would be theft of service. Just because the service Napster provides is not being charged for does not mean that it is free, nor that it cannot in effect be stolen. Whatever 'security' issues are at hand, I think that's really where the interesting point lies.
It seems to be a moot point anyway, gnap and napster are working things out... but if people want to advocate opening the source to things, I would hope that it would be in a meaningful way, ie protocols and server code, rather than just wanting everyone to be able to modify the widgets.:)
It's not an issue of the *service* or *protocol* per se, but the *use of the servers on which the service or protocol is running* which is a distinct and separate thing. People seem to keep confusing the two. Napster, and ICQ as far as I know, is a centralized service, meaning that the servers on which the server part of the service are currently *only* Napster-owned machines with Napster-owned resources. For everyone who is complaining that they should open up the client, if you actually wanted to do more than leech off of someone else's work, you'd be asking them to open up the server instead.
1 - Napster owns the servers that the client uses. Period. They provide the servers for use by the client. Any unauthorized client using the servers is just that - unauthorized. This is exactly the same as someone relaying mail through your server that you do not authorize, and they should be equally free to do whatever they wish to make sure that only authorized clients use their servers.
2 - The service is provided without charge to the user. The client is provided without charge to the user. This does not == free, and it does not == public domain. The 'rights' of the users are just that of any other service - use it, enjoy it, if you don't like it, well... in so many words, shove it. I have yet to see someone build a free public domain server architecture and client to do the same, and when they do I hope that all of you will support it with gusto. Until then, you frankly have nothing to complain about. I don't see what is so wrong with using the client provided to you, and if you want to build your own and your own backend and open source it, more power to you.
Remember those things that used to come in the mail occasionally, or on the news, citing ways to tell if your teenager was using drugs? They used such discriminating factors as:
- Sleeps too much, or not at all - Keeps irregular or strange hours - Doesn't spend time at home - Gets many phone calls - Carries a pager - Does not want to communicate with parents about their social life
Any parent who looked at those lists and had a clue *laughed* their asses off.
This is just further evidence of the tendancy towards black and white guidebooks for things that have no black and white. We love to set up guidelines for things and try to adhere to them because we fear the people in charge have no critical thinking skills or good judgement. By giving them specifics to pick out a 'dangerous' kid, they are somehow 'empowered' to do the right thing. It's too bad that we can't just get more intelligent, perceptive people in charge of our schools instead of trying to 'trap' kids who are at risk.
One of the things that was charming about most BBSes is that they were little niches, little cliques of likeminded people. Idiots got their accounts killed, and the sysop was god, period. Often they were tied to a geographical area (especially for those of us who couldn't afford long distance bills and didn't have the technical prowess to avoid them =]) and physical meets were not only possible but frequent.
I think as much of BBS culture came from it being isolated as internet culture comes from it being distributed. Culture and community is bred when the same people interact with each other daily - something that in the vast open spaces of the internet just doesn't happen. Too many newsgroups, WAY too many web-boards.
Some of the most bbs-like communities you'll see are on special interest mailing lists (I've belonged to car mailing lists that really reminded me of those days, and the pregnancy list I'm on reminds me of it as well, but hey, you can guess which group of people is more technically savvy. =]).
I think most people who were once part of BBS culture miss it a lot, and I know a lot of people who have tried to re-create it, but it requires an investment of time on not only the part of the sysop but of the users - and who has time to do that when you have to read slashdot, freshmeat, userfriendly, suck, salon, cnnnews, and bugtraq? Most people I knew had a handful of bbs'es they were active on, and spent a LOT of time on them.
It seemed like most BBSes died when the old core of people who gave them character moved on to the internet, abandoning their BBS roots. Some BBSes became ISPs for a short time, some became web pages, some just stuck around until the sysop got bored.
People go somewhere else for everything they got on BBSes - interaction, files, games... but it was everything in one place that made it unique, and I kind of doubt there will ever be a true resurgance of that.
1) Anyone, including the FBI, can call up any ISP and try to intimidate them into taking web pages down. Without any actual legal stuff (ie, warrants, etc) there is no reason for the ISP to comply. While I understand why they did so, and I think the intimidation tactics used by the FBI were icky, if they had actually had to jump throgh the proper hoops to remove this web page, it'd probably still be up. It's sad the ISP caved, but ISPs have caved to far less before.
2) I think it's quite understandable why the FBI saw this as a threat. I think the artist understood exactly what he was doing (look at the domain name - crowdedtheatre.com?) and shouldn't be surprised that a movie which presented itself as a military briefing on something that would scare the crap out of lots of people, and then being published as 'possibly true' would be a target of censorship or restriction. It could probably even be considered treasonous, all told. In a different context, it would be less threatening (hell, even Blair Witch Project, which was in movie theatres all over the place and highly hyped, was mistaken for fact by some) but the fact is, you stumble upon the web site because it was mentioned on the news, and what kind of context do you have for it? None save for what he's presented.
A disclaimer or debriefing page would have been the responsible thing to do.
I can kind of see what you're getting at here, but my understanding was that the definition of a virus was something that is a) self replicating and b) self propagating, which none of the things you mention are. They all require you to specifically install them. Even trojans are not really viruses in this sense. Can you explain further how programs such as Netscape and IE are in fact viral?
I would be interested in hearing you discuss your idea of programs as speech further. In my opinion, a program is a tool which you create, much as you can create any other tool. The fact that it is made of a language made of letters and numbers does not to me necessarily categorize it as speech and thereby inherently covered as free speech with all its protections, any more than a hydrogen bomb is protected by free speech because of the fact that the plans were made of letters, symbols, etc, which could be construed as language. I think that if a program is written to convey a message/image/etc that message/image/etc is covered by free speech, but the program itself may not be.
I don't disagree that writing a computer program shouldn't be a crime and that intent of use for the program is the issue, but I think that categorizing programming as free speech is a dangerous dilution of the concept, and that in fact programming and software have very different issues which constrain them.
This falls into the same category as anything that can be used 'for good or for evil,' as it's said. I'm sure there are entire well thought out books on the use of tools such as lockpicks (more on this in a second), knives (some legal, some illegal), guns (some legal, some illegal), rope (legal), etc.
After some discussion, I'm going to have to revert to the whole lock/locksmith, security/security tools metaphor, which I know we all hate, but it kind of works here. It legal to own lockpicks if you are a locksmith or have a legitimate use for them, but they are fairly easy to come by. But they are also not a very powerful tool in most people's hands. However, there are automated lockpicking machines (usually for specific types of locks, from what I understand) which are a) very expensive and b) require a license to purchase. These are extremely hard to come by, and hard to get - but the point is that the restriction is in the distribution, not in the use of the product. Once you attain one, it is assumed that you are entitled to use it, and you have no restrictions. If you were caught using one and you were not a locksmith, it would in fact be illegal. Could one still be stolen? Absolutely. Could one be resold by an unscrupulous locksmith? Yep.
A counter example is the redbox, a modified dtmf dialer we're all aware of. It's a single purpose device, built to defraud the telephone system, and is thus illegal. It is not seen as having any legitimate purpose, as opposed to a lockpick.
In essence, I don't think it's *necessarily* the responsibility of the maker of the product to ensure it's not used for evil. There is no way to prevent people from doing bad things. (Heh, and imo, when the US govt. realizes this, maybe some of the idiotic lawmaking can stop and we can try to actually improve quality of life for people... but that's a whole other fricking rant). The maker of the product has a responsibility to make the best product they can, ensure it is will not *accidentally* cause harm (ie, safety lighters, etc), and in cases where there is a specific audience for a dangerous product, try to distribute it only to that audience. This currently is nearly impossible, as anyone with a 386 in their back room is a system administrator, and anyone who puts the title on their business card is a security consultant. This makes limitation of distribution a pretty unfeasable option.
Essentially, I think any product can be misused, and while manufacturers should attempt to curtail accidental misuse, the mechanisms for keeping software from being used for harm are not in place. Limitation of distribution is one of the only models I see working for this, and it is unlikely (imo) to occur soon.
Depends on your definition of sexy. I'd avoid anything that she won't associate with you, ie technical books, random computer hardware that will be outdated next week, etc.
Some thoughts that spring to mind that *I* wouldn't mind getting (hint hint to dre, if you're reading this...)
- An ergonomic chair in her favourite colour (if you don't understand what's sexy about a chair... mmm, email me, I can send you directions I think).
- Matching webcams set up so you can coo at each other at work (Ok, it's cheesy but I thought it was cute when my sister and her bf did it)
- Housewares with your favourite vendors emblazened on them (Ok, I admit it, I *love* my cisco throw blanket... and this is easier to attain if you live right in the middle of Silicon Valley and can just wander into everyone's company stores).
- If she likes jewlery, you can usually find some pretty cool geek-type stuff (ie, made of circuitboard/just looks technological) at science museum gift shops, etc. Can't think of one online right now...
- Immaterial things like a surprise trip to a geeky attraction can be lovely as well... (science museums are romantic - they're always so *dark* =])
Oh yeah, I forgot... my mom has already declared she's getting everyone in the family the mini-keychain-sized leatherman for xmas, as she saw the one my boyfriend has and thought it the most useful thing she'd ever seen.;) My mom is a geek, just of a different colour...
I dunno, I think I'm of the opinion that giving someone technical books or RAM for xmas is along the lines of socks and underwear - sure, you need them, but they have the sentimentality of a rock. Not only that, but do you trust your non-technical family members to actually get you what you wanted without specifying model numbers?:) I'll let my family stick with my non-geek interests, they're better at it.
Me, I opt for toys. Desk toys, neat things that do things... I actually just bought myself an early xmas present, one of those "fiber trees" that has light at the bottom of a bundle of fiber optic strands.
Then again, I have a boyfriend who, for my birthday, gave me (much needed) instructions on what versions of perl modules I needed to get Cricket working (something I'd been pounding at for a few days), so you can see how much sentimentality goes into the gifts aronud *here*...:)
Sony may be a megacorp, but one thing I will say for them is that they have a consistantly solid product, unlike other corporate predators mentioned. My main problem with m$ is not that they are huge, but that they are huge not by any kind of good products, but by force and domination. Sony has fallen prey to their standards not being adopted (Betamax, for one, and Minidisc has never really caught on) and has also had great success with their standards being adopted (CD, for one - at least I think that was Sony, maybe it was pioneer?). I have a great deal of respect for Sony's products, they seem to consistantly innovate and put themselves in good market positions. I'd be sad to hear it's through unscrupulous means.
I think Sony has an excellent ability to recognize how to put their products in the forefront of the market. They *know* that the Palm is *the* handheld device right now, and more people have them than digital cameras or aibos. So it's a brilliant move to get them to use their memory stick technology. If Palm is smart though, they won't make it *exclusively* use it, and instead leave an open interface for other types of products.
We're past the point of hand-to-hand combat in our time - the US will probably never see another major offensive the likes of WWII or Vietnam, barring a civil war of massive proportions, mostly because the gov't can't afford it in PR anymore. The draft is unlikely to be re-instituted, I have heard that most branches of the military are consistantly reducing personell and increasing amounts of eqiupiment. What relevance does this have to your comment? The relevenace is that war is irrelevant to the majority of young people - it holds no real threat, and no real reality for that matter. Add to this the lack of interest in foreign policy and the general isolationist tendancies of your average american, and it's easy to see that shooting people in Quake doesn't even come close to relating to shooting a person in real life, or for that matter understanding the reasons for war. History books provide a minimal view, the media likewise. War is something that happens far away to people you don't know, and you see clips on the 10 o'clock news. Even most people I know who own real guns and shoot them regularly are more often than not fairly suspicious of military motives, and unlikely to support military action. I wouldn't say that people here are anti-war, they're blissfully ignorant of war. And that's kind of a nice thing, I think. Limited from the global view? Sure. But maybe it ultimately reflects a good thing... I dunno.
I have no education and little information on this subject, so my speculation will be limited here... but isn't this just refering to basically an advanced form of propaganda? Wouldn't the same people who would be vulnerable to this be vulnerable to leaflets dropped from the sky/et al? Or is it the fact that the video medium is so much more compelling, and unlikely to be doubted?
I was under the impression that such demoralizing/disinforming propaganda was common. Perhaps someone with more insight into current military propaganda techniques can give further analysis here...
I heard about this the other day... and failed to understand the sudden interest.
This is, once again, nothing new. There are paid note-takers at every major college in the nation, and class notes for sale. In fact, I recall over 4 years ago reading articles about Stanford, grade inflation, and the place that notes-for-sale play in that. Why is it that every time a long-established practice hits the 'net, it becomes suddently interesting again? Does the whole world just assume that if you own a domain with.com at the end you have a million dollars and are worthwhile to sue, as opposed to addressing the fact that it's an existing problem?
I won't even comment on the state of the educational system, it's offtopic, and I'd likely go on for 10 pages. =P
This is one of the oldest methods of copy protection - I remember it from lots of games on my AppleIIe. Mostly someone clever would just crack it and bypass it, only today warez kids are so totally clueless that maybe 1 percent could even accomplish it...
You may be right about the re-enabling of protection selling more games, but I'm sure there's a crack out for the add-on packs as we speak.:)
Entrapment laws help those in the know. If the cop explicitly asks for the illegal service, it's a no go - it has to be offered. If the cop/agent/etc is asked if they are a cop, they have to say yes. That is true with police, anyway, at least according to the last time I asked my in-house criminal justice expert.;) These things may NOT apply at federal levels/to other agencies. It's not a bad idea to research it.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh. CD-R and CD-RW are *NOT* true random
access. They suck compared to Minidisk.
Try editing a CDRW a few thousand times
in one minute.
MD also uses a lossy compression algorithm
that is not proprietary at all.
Where do you Slashdot people get your
information from?
This is not the first time AOL has done this. I was working in ISP tech support in '96 and whatever version came out then (AOL 3.0?) did the same thing as 5.0 does, from the sounds of it - ie, nukes all your other connections. It sucks. Got tons of calls about it. Typical AOL badness.
While Ms. Borsook has the concepts and the lingo down, she doesn't have the motivating forces down by a mile. The reason people in the valley don't date is the same reason they don't have other hobbies. The prevalent focus for mental, phsyical, and spiritual energy is twofold - work, and money. Men brag in locker room tones about how much they've earned, spent, or worked lately - not about their sexual conequests. Getting some means you're wasting your time and energy, spilling your seed, if you will, a sort of Silicon Valley Onanism that is simply not looked upon highly. After all, why bother when your portfolio is easier to manage, and your conqests in the office at 3am are so much more proveable? It's just another symptom of a place with very strange priorities, one that grows sicker all the time. The fetish people are the healthy ones - at least they're getting out occasionally.
A friend of mine asked me once to explain my opinion of why the web is broken. After some thought, I came to some conclusions that are relevant here. I'll see if I can restate them effectively. All IMHO, of course.
A couple of assumptions:
1) The web is a non-hierarchical, non-linear system. The entire nature of it is actually closely related to how most people think, through a series of links. Ever found yourself explaining to someone how you got from one seemingly unrelated topic to another? The web is the same thing.
2) Mapping linear, hierarchical systems is what humans are good at. Indices, tables, flowcharts, etc. are all designed to present a certain kind of data in a randomly accessable way. When information is non-linear, we try to force it into this kind of structure, for better or for worse. This is what search engines currently try to do - provide a keyword index to every document on the web.
We cannot treat the web like something it is not. It is not a book or a collection of books. It is not even linear. It's a lot closer to the repository of information that is the human mind than most things that humans create.
This presents an information-finding nightmare. Much as it's sometimes difficult to find the piece of information you know you have stored in your head, it's becoming increasingly more difficult, even with the power of algorithmic parsing and pruning, to extract single pieces of information from the system. Search engines are, as the original post stated, becoming obsolete.
So what is the solution? In my opinion, the most intuitive 'index' type interface to the web has always been Yahoo, which for any given topic will provide a number of starting points. Not every document is indexed, not everything is represented - but if you drill down through links, you are more than likely to find what you're looking for. It takes the natural process of searching the web, which if it were a few hundred nodes could easily be done by hand, and gives it a logical starting point, much as someone can remind you of something you were searching to remember, and suddenly it all becomes clear. Indexing the entire web is as useless as trying to do an entire braindump of your mind. Indexing a set of starting points for using the web the way it was intended - as a series of links - is the only way that will probably ultimately work.
For people who jump at the first mention of people pidgeonholing them, Slashdot has a lot of nerve presenting these findings as they do. It's part of a de-stigmatization of chemical and mental problems to present this information - mental illness is not the rare bird that it is once thought it was, and it's not just your Aunt Millie who talks to walls who might have some problems in her lifetime.
Really, it's not even news that Slashdot would normally find interesting, despite the fact that there is a direct corolation between intelligence and likelyhood of disorders such as bipolar disorder and depression - it's only the Katzification of Slashdot that can even accont for this appearing on the front page. Slashdot, in their typical ignorant way, would prefer to adhere to societal predjudices and instead present it in a 3rd grade manner than consider the implications of destigmatizing something which obviously frightens them - the possibility that people they know who are mentally different, sick, ill, what have you, are not necessarily as rare as they might think, and that it is in fact treatable.
Making light of what you fear or don't understand is the forbearer of predjudice and discrimination. Thanks, Slashdot, for continuing a noble American tradition.
Enforce what? The .us domains have always been available, and still are. It's people who are selecting domain names that are at fault, not someone else for not 'enforcing' something. Not only that, but nobody in other countries is *required* to register a domain from their country's heirarchy, anyone can register a domain in .com, .net, or .org. What exactly were you trying to say here? The insanity with domain speculation has to do with individuals and an overinflated idea of 'value' for domains in the .com and .net (and to a lesser extent, .org) heirarchies. People getting smart would fix that. Not much else.
I was refering to the software client aspect of the service, for the sake of clarity I'll use the term 'user' for the users of the software.
AFAIK, the Napster servers are open to anyone who has the required software, whether it's made by Napster or by a third party. Restricting users to one specific client would be a BadThing, IMHO.. let's take IRC for example: all necessary security measures are built into the server so any client's software can connect to the server.
IRC is different for the reason that it is a distributed, volunteer service, not a centralized service being run by a single company, assumedly for profit. It *is* a public internet service in the traditional sense. As far as I know, no one charges for acccess to their IRC servers (though some only allow their customers to use them). I'm not saying that napster is right or wrong for not making it a public service, or that they *won't* go on to distribute the servers, but that's the current state of it.
I've yet to see an IRC server that says "You must use the XYZ IRC client here or you will be banned!" - that would be ridiculous. Likewise, ICQ seems to have no problems with third-party clients (licq, micq, etc.) connecting to their service - in fact, makers of these clients prove that ICQ's "security features" are lacking. Requiring a user's authorization to be added to their ICQ list, etc. is all client-side security.
I don't know a lot about ICQ for the main reason that I don't use it - I find IRC preferable for basically the reasons that it is different from Napster or IRC. It's not run by any one company for profit and there are a variety of clients available for it. I don't disagree that it's a better architecture to have things be distributed and open. I simply feel that if a company has chosen a different route they have the right to do so - the internet *has* for better or worse become increasingly commerce-driven.
I definitely appreciate the free services that people provide online, but sharing protocols used by services was a precedent set long, long ago - I personally believe it's a good precedent, as it allows developers to create clients for all platforms. If there was a Napster protocol published, there more than likely would have been a *NIX client quite some time ago.
The main flaw I see with this logic is that as it stands now, the servers still belong to Napster. If I were to advocate opening something up, it would be the protocol and the *server code*. If you want a distributed service that is in fact open, you have to have the servers, and hence the server code for people to implement, for it be open, not just the client. I absolutely agree that the protocol should be open, and I think it'd be great if people developed their own independant network using the technology - the key word being if people developed their own. I don't see anything wrong with Napster protecting their resources (if you've seen their servers lately, they're *swamped* - and unfortunately issues of client compatability etc *are* more easily addressed during growth periods when you do have a single set of clients which are centrally maintained and authorized).
Unfortunately, publishing the protocol would reveal weaknesses only known by the developers of the software(and curious hackers - "hackers" as in those who reverse-engineered the software or sniffed the traffic from the software, NOT crackers). Not to put down Napster, but he more than likely knew there was little server-side security, and quite frankly, didn't want to let the cat out of the bag. This is a bad precedent to set, as any malicious kiddie with half of a brain could probably construct a client that would reveal all sorts of interesting information (hostnames/IPs, passwords, etc). This is why the open source movement has so much momentum - it (usually) creates better, more secure products; and believe me, I want my software to be secure with the number of script kiddies running around these days.
I think it's weird that this was hailed as a security issue to begin with, really. And I agree that more client/server security is probably necessary - after all, if all you needed to dial into an ISP was the phone number, ISPs wouldn't let that sit long - but the fact remains, if you *did* just dial in and use their service, it would be theft of service. Just because the service Napster provides is not being charged for does not mean that it is free, nor that it cannot in effect be stolen. Whatever 'security' issues are at hand, I think that's really where the interesting point lies.
It seems to be a moot point anyway, gnap and napster are working things out... but if people want to advocate opening the source to things, I would hope that it would be in a meaningful way, ie protocols and server code, rather than just wanting everyone to be able to modify the widgets. :)
It's not an issue of the *service* or *protocol* per se, but the *use of the servers on which the service or protocol is running* which is a distinct and separate thing. People seem to keep confusing the two. Napster, and ICQ as far as I know, is a centralized service, meaning that the servers on which the server part of the service are currently *only* Napster-owned machines with Napster-owned resources. For everyone who is complaining that they should open up the client, if you actually wanted to do more than leech off of someone else's work, you'd be asking them to open up the server instead.
1 - Napster owns the servers that the client uses. Period. They provide the servers for use by the client. Any unauthorized client using the servers is just that - unauthorized. This is exactly the same as someone relaying mail through your server that you do not authorize, and they should be equally free to do whatever they wish to make sure that only authorized clients use their servers.
2 - The service is provided without charge to the user. The client is provided without charge to the user. This does not == free, and it does not == public domain. The 'rights' of the users are just that of any other service - use it, enjoy it, if you don't like it, well... in so many words, shove it. I have yet to see someone build a free public domain server architecture and client to do the same, and when they do I hope that all of you will support it with gusto. Until then, you frankly have nothing to complain about. I don't see what is so wrong with using the client provided to you, and if you want to build your own and your own backend and open source it, more power to you.
Remember those things that used to come in the mail occasionally, or on the news, citing ways to tell if your teenager was using drugs? They used such discriminating factors as:
- Sleeps too much, or not at all
- Keeps irregular or strange hours
- Doesn't spend time at home
- Gets many phone calls
- Carries a pager
- Does not want to communicate with parents about their social life
Any parent who looked at those lists and had a clue *laughed* their asses off.
This is just further evidence of the tendancy towards black and white guidebooks for things that have no black and white. We love to set up guidelines for things and try to adhere to them because we fear the people in charge have no critical thinking skills or good judgement. By giving them specifics to pick out a 'dangerous' kid, they are somehow 'empowered' to do the right thing. It's too bad that we can't just get more intelligent, perceptive people in charge of our schools instead of trying to 'trap' kids who are at risk.
One of the things that was charming about most BBSes is that they were little niches, little cliques of likeminded people. Idiots got their accounts killed, and the sysop was god, period. Often they were tied to a geographical area (especially for those of us who couldn't afford long distance bills and didn't have the technical prowess to avoid them =]) and physical meets were not only possible but frequent.
I think as much of BBS culture came from it being isolated as internet culture comes from it being distributed. Culture and community is bred when the same people interact with each other daily - something that in the vast open spaces of the internet just doesn't happen. Too many newsgroups, WAY too many web-boards.
Some of the most bbs-like communities you'll see are on special interest mailing lists (I've belonged to car mailing lists that really reminded me of those days, and the pregnancy list I'm on reminds me of it as well, but hey, you can guess which group of people is more technically savvy. =]).
I think most people who were once part of BBS culture miss it a lot, and I know a lot of people who have tried to re-create it, but it requires an investment of time on not only the part of the sysop but of the users - and who has time to do that when you have to read slashdot, freshmeat, userfriendly, suck, salon, cnnnews, and bugtraq? Most people I knew had a handful of bbs'es they were active on, and spent a LOT of time on them.
It seemed like most BBSes died when the old core of people who gave them character moved on to the internet, abandoning their BBS roots. Some BBSes became ISPs for a short time, some became web pages, some just stuck around until the sysop got bored.
People go somewhere else for everything they got on BBSes - interaction, files, games... but it was everything in one place that made it unique, and I kind of doubt there will ever be a true resurgance of that.
A few thoughts.
1) Anyone, including the FBI, can call up any ISP and try to intimidate them into taking web pages down. Without any actual legal stuff (ie, warrants, etc) there is no reason for the ISP to comply. While I understand why they did so, and I think the intimidation tactics used by the FBI were icky, if they had actually had to jump throgh the proper hoops to remove this web page, it'd probably still be up. It's sad the ISP caved, but ISPs have caved to far less before.
2) I think it's quite understandable why the FBI saw this as a threat. I think the artist understood exactly what he was doing (look at the domain name - crowdedtheatre.com?) and shouldn't be surprised that a movie which presented itself as a military briefing on something that would scare the crap out of lots of people, and then being published as 'possibly true' would be a target of censorship or restriction. It could probably even be considered treasonous, all told. In a different context, it would be less threatening (hell, even Blair Witch Project, which was in movie theatres all over the place and highly hyped, was mistaken for fact by some) but the fact is, you stumble upon the web site because it was mentioned on the news, and what kind of context do you have for it? None save for what he's presented.
A disclaimer or debriefing page would have been the responsible thing to do.
I can kind of see what you're getting at here, but my understanding was that the definition of a virus was something that is a) self replicating and b) self propagating, which none of the things you mention are. They all require you to specifically install them. Even trojans are not really viruses in this sense. Can you explain further how programs such as Netscape and IE are in fact viral?
I would be interested in hearing you discuss your idea of programs as speech further. In my opinion, a program is a tool which you create, much as you can create any other tool. The fact that it is made of a language made of letters and numbers does not to me necessarily categorize it as speech and thereby inherently covered as free speech with all its protections, any more than a hydrogen bomb is protected by free speech because of the fact that the plans were made of letters, symbols, etc, which could be construed as language. I think that if a program is written to convey a message/image/etc that message/image/etc is covered by free speech, but the program itself may not be.
I don't disagree that writing a computer program shouldn't be a crime and that intent of use for the program is the issue, but I think that categorizing programming as free speech is a dangerous dilution of the concept, and that in fact programming and software have very different issues which constrain them.
This falls into the same category as anything that can be used 'for good or for evil,' as it's said. I'm sure there are entire well thought out books on the use of tools such as lockpicks (more on this in a second), knives (some legal, some illegal), guns (some legal, some illegal), rope (legal), etc.
After some discussion, I'm going to have to revert to the whole lock/locksmith, security/security tools metaphor, which I know we all hate, but it kind of works here. It legal to own lockpicks if you are a locksmith or have a legitimate use for them, but they are fairly easy to come by. But they are also not a very powerful tool in most people's hands. However, there are automated lockpicking machines (usually for specific types of locks, from what I understand) which are a) very expensive and b) require a license to purchase. These are extremely hard to come by, and hard to get - but the point is that the restriction is in the distribution, not in the use of the product. Once you attain one, it is assumed that you are entitled to use it, and you have no restrictions. If you were caught using one and you were not a locksmith, it would in fact be illegal. Could one still be stolen? Absolutely. Could one be resold by an unscrupulous locksmith? Yep.
A counter example is the redbox, a modified dtmf dialer we're all aware of. It's a single purpose
device, built to defraud the telephone system, and is thus illegal. It is not seen as having any legitimate purpose, as opposed to a lockpick.
In essence, I don't think it's *necessarily* the responsibility of the maker of the product to ensure it's not used for evil. There is no way to prevent people from doing bad things. (Heh, and imo, when the US govt. realizes this, maybe some of the idiotic lawmaking can stop and we can try to actually improve quality of life for people... but that's a whole other fricking rant). The maker of the product has a responsibility to make the best product they can, ensure it is will not *accidentally* cause harm (ie, safety lighters, etc), and in cases where there is a specific audience for a dangerous product, try to distribute it only to that audience. This currently is nearly impossible, as anyone with a 386 in their back room is a system administrator, and anyone who puts the title on their business card is a security consultant. This makes limitation of distribution a pretty unfeasable option.
Essentially, I think any product can be misused, and while manufacturers should attempt to curtail accidental misuse, the mechanisms for keeping software from being used for harm are not in place. Limitation of distribution is one of the only models I see working for this, and it is unlikely (imo) to occur soon.
Depends on your definition of sexy. I'd avoid anything that she won't associate with you, ie technical books, random computer hardware that will be outdated next week, etc.
Some thoughts that spring to mind that *I* wouldn't mind getting (hint hint to dre, if you're reading this...)
- An ergonomic chair in her favourite colour (if you don't understand what's sexy about a chair... mmm, email me, I can send you directions I think).
- Matching webcams set up so you can coo at each other at work (Ok, it's cheesy but I thought it was cute when my sister and her bf did it)
- Housewares with your favourite vendors emblazened on them (Ok, I admit it, I *love* my cisco throw blanket... and this is easier to attain if you live right in the middle of Silicon Valley and can just wander into everyone's company stores).
- If she likes jewlery, you can usually find some pretty cool geek-type stuff (ie, made of circuitboard/just looks technological) at science museum gift shops, etc. Can't think of one online right now...
- Immaterial things like a surprise trip to a geeky attraction can be lovely as well... (science museums are romantic - they're always so *dark* =])
- Teledildonics! (ok, ok, I'll shut up now...)
Oh yeah, I forgot... my mom has already declared she's getting everyone in the family the mini-keychain-sized leatherman for xmas, as she saw the one my boyfriend has and thought it the most useful thing she'd ever seen. ;) My mom is a geek, just of a different colour...
I dunno, I think I'm of the opinion that giving someone technical books or RAM for xmas is along the lines of socks and underwear - sure, you need them, but they have the sentimentality of a rock. Not only that, but do you trust your non-technical family members to actually get you what you wanted without specifying model numbers? :) I'll let my family stick with my non-geek interests, they're better at it.
... :)
Me, I opt for toys. Desk toys, neat things that do things... I actually just bought myself an early xmas present, one of those "fiber trees" that has light at the bottom of a bundle of fiber optic strands.
Then again, I have a boyfriend who, for my birthday, gave me (much needed) instructions on what versions of perl modules I needed to get Cricket working (something I'd been pounding at for a few days), so you can see how much sentimentality goes into the gifts aronud *here*
Sony may be a megacorp, but one thing I will say for them is that they have a consistantly solid product, unlike other corporate predators mentioned. My main problem with m$ is not that they are huge, but that they are huge not by any kind of good products, but by force and domination. Sony has fallen prey to their standards not being adopted (Betamax, for one, and Minidisc has never really caught on) and has also had great success with their standards being adopted (CD, for one - at least I think that was Sony, maybe it was pioneer?). I have a great deal of respect for Sony's products, they seem to consistantly innovate and put themselves in good market positions. I'd be sad to hear it's through unscrupulous means.
I think Sony has an excellent ability to recognize how to put their products in the forefront of the market. They *know* that the Palm is *the* handheld device right now, and more people have them than digital cameras or aibos. So it's a brilliant move to get them to use their memory stick technology. If Palm is smart though, they won't make it *exclusively* use it, and instead leave an open interface for other types of products.
We're past the point of hand-to-hand combat in our time - the US will probably never see another major offensive the likes of WWII or Vietnam, barring a civil war of massive proportions, mostly because the gov't can't afford it in PR anymore. The draft is unlikely to be re-instituted, I have heard that most branches of the military are consistantly reducing personell and increasing amounts of eqiupiment. What relevance does this have to your comment? The relevenace is that war is irrelevant to the majority of young people - it holds no real threat, and no real reality for that matter. Add to this the lack of interest in foreign policy and the general isolationist tendancies of your average american, and it's easy to see that shooting people in Quake doesn't even come close to relating to shooting a person in real life, or for that matter understanding the reasons for war. History books provide a minimal view, the media likewise. War is something that happens far away to people you don't know, and you see clips on the 10 o'clock news. Even most people I know who own real guns and shoot them regularly are more often than not fairly suspicious of military motives, and unlikely to support military action. I wouldn't say that people here are anti-war, they're blissfully ignorant of war. And that's kind of a nice thing, I think. Limited from the global view? Sure. But maybe it ultimately reflects a good thing... I dunno.
I have no education and little information on this subject, so my speculation will be limited here... but isn't this just refering to basically an advanced form of propaganda? Wouldn't the same people who would be vulnerable to this be vulnerable to leaflets dropped from the sky/et al? Or is it the fact that the video medium is so much more compelling, and unlikely to be doubted?
I was under the impression that such demoralizing/disinforming propaganda was common. Perhaps someone with more insight into current military propaganda techniques can give further analysis here...
I'd revise this to say, read the story it was based on, as the movie is an atrocity of bad acting, bad writing, and otherwise generally a travesty. ;)
In general, though, this theme is well covered by PKD - also read "The Three Stigmatas of Palmer Eldrich" for further discussion.
I heard about this the other day... and failed to understand the sudden interest.
.com at the end you have a million dollars and are worthwhile to sue, as opposed to addressing the fact that it's an existing problem?
This is, once again, nothing new. There are paid note-takers at every major college in the nation, and class notes for sale. In fact, I recall over 4 years ago reading articles about Stanford, grade inflation, and the place that notes-for-sale play in that. Why is it that every time a long-established practice hits the 'net, it becomes suddently interesting again? Does the whole world just assume that if you own a domain with
I won't even comment on the state of the educational system, it's offtopic, and I'd likely go on for 10 pages. =P
This is one of the oldest methods of copy protection - I remember it from lots of games on my AppleIIe. Mostly someone clever would just crack it and bypass it, only today warez kids are so totally clueless that maybe 1 percent could even accomplish it...
:)
You may be right about the re-enabling of protection selling more games, but I'm sure there's a crack out for the add-on packs as we speak.
Entrapment laws help those in the know. If the cop explicitly asks for the illegal service, it's a no go - it has to be offered. If the cop/agent/etc is asked if they are a cop, they have to say yes. That is true with police, anyway, at least according to the last time I asked my in-house criminal justice expert. ;) These things may NOT apply at federal levels/to other agencies. It's not a bad idea to research it.