But I'd be more than likely to think that ingesting any easily digestable, easily convertable to energy food would help. God knows, I can't think worth a DAMN when I'm hungry. Mmmmn. Hungry. Anyone have some fries?
Do people have the right to gather information about you? Certainly. People do it all the time. Biographers, credit bureaus, and employers do it daily. Do people have a right to use the information gathered against you in a harmful or discriminatory way? No. And there are numerous laws in place which prevent that in most cases.
As with all computer security/privacy issues, I hold by a single rule - if I don't want it known, I don't send it over the wire. That *includes* filling out forms which have my name and address, for contests, registrations, or what have you. I just *don't do it*. Much like the companies that ask you to put your card in a fishbowl for a free lunch - what do you think they're doing with those cards? Do you think they just *want* to give you a free lunch?
You're as protected as you want to be. Is it inconvenient for you to turn off cookies, because it disables some features of your favourite sites? Well, it's either that or accept a semi-anonymous profile on you in some database. Your choice. Get over it.
As long as you're going to try to devalue the banner ad system, I suppose you have a better model for funding of web pages? I'm not trying to be sarcastic - I've been working on a site, and am trying *very* hard to think of another convenient way to fund it - if you have one in mind, let me know, eh?
And an army recruiting billboard? And the sign at the entrance of a military base? I kind of see what you're saying, but it doesn't hold up.
The point is, these are essentially high profile, low-utility systems which have little to do with the inner workings of any organization... anyone who has a clue has recovery plans for fixing a defaced site, and most have watchdogs to check if it's been changed. Notice how most of the defaced sites stay up a matter of hours?
The point is that the breaches are irrelevant in terms of compromise of security - like I said elsewhere, when someone publishes some proprietary information that's of use to someone on the 'net after cracking someone's systems, I'll be impressed. Until then, it's graffiti, and should be treated as such.
There's nothing new about patented medicines - the pharmaceutical industry has certianly been doing it as long as its existed. Take Viagra for instance - it's a patented medication. Obviously only that company can sell it. They can charge whatever they want for it. That's their right as the developer of that drug. They can also license it to other parties for sale as a generic, etc.
However.
I would think if someone came up with something such as a cure for AIDS or cancer or diabetes, you would see public demand it, and while I won't say it's certain that no company would do that, no company that ever wanted to produce another product after someone had reverse engineered their product and created a generic would take the actions you've suggested.
That would be pretty logical, except for the fact that they're not mapping a single individual's DNA, they're mapping all the possible combinations for any given section gene, and the results... or at least, that's my understanding. And I don't really understand how this is patentable or enforceable for that matter... I wish I could find a good, clear, easy to read reference on patent law, as it simply doesn't make any sense to me.
Well shit, I've written my name in marker on federal buildings, phone booths, mailboxes... I'm certainly more than your average defacer of random crap.:)
Seriously. When someone releases information that's of use to someone as result of their cracking, or actually *accomplishes* something aside from defacement... maybe *then* I'll be impressed. Until then - whatever.
I'm not criticising Slashdot for posting this, but the media in general for their obsession with these petty defacements.
At what point did the LA Times stop reporting every incidence of graffiti which had felled the barbed wire security of another billboard? Really.
These silly kids are being portrayed as part of "hacker" groups that no one but the members themselves has ever heard of, and aren't really calling any further attention to the lack of security on most corporate networks - just to the destructive tendancies of kids with too much time on their hands, who somehow become representative of *all* computer kids. That's productive.
I'm tired of it, it's boring, and if we ignored it, it would almost undoubtedly go away - after all, the thrill is in seeing your name in lights, isn't it?
While I definitely agree that the loss of focus is ultimately a bad thing for consumers (Deja is utterly unuseable through their interface, and even through dejasearch, is still not what it used to be), I think Yahoo has actually done it fairly well. Their main page and main focus and main functionality aren't terribly different than they were 3 years ago. If I'm looking for a good index page on something fairly common, I go there first and it's extremely useful. (They have an entire category for traceroute servers, including links to several indices which would have taken me quite a while to find with a traditional 'search'). If it makes me pedestrian to find indices of useful things (insurance, airline tickets, weather, stocks) in one place *without it being obnoxious* oh well. I guess I get a lot more annoyed when it takes away from or eliminates the original service.
As a side note, I think the utility of the pure search engine is decreasing by the day - regardless of what cruft their front page is filled with, their results are filled with even more. I usually search 2-3 search engines before finding one that seems to give what I'm looking for, and my order of operations is still altavista, yahoo, lycos, google.
Well, see, Americans are very dual-minded about things. When it comes to health and safety things that the rest of the world has adopted, they're slow to follow - after all, we have to be more cautious than our overzealous overseas friends.
But when it comes to gadgets, geegaws, and trinkets... you'd better BET we'd have 'em before anyone else!
If irradiated food was labeled with "XTRA-PUR, blessed by angels for your consumption!" it'd be less controversial.:) And you can be sure any glowing trees will be marketed with an appropriately marketable name...
Obviously, everyone has their own ideals about the opposite sex - personally, I've always been attracted to skinny geek boys with a CRT tan. Seriously! I'm sitting naked next to one right now, dually basking in the glow of our laptop screens. Nothing wrong with geeks seeking each other out - consider who you're surrounded by at work and at play - probably other geeks. Common interests are a great way to get to know someone... browsing through the networking books section of a local bookstore ain't a bad date.:)
Point being, don't write off the possibility of finding love in unlikely places. Like the datacenter. Especially the datacenter. Mmmmn.
Funny, when I was a kid, most kids I knew had less free time than most adults with paying jobs I know now... and they still managed to do lots with it without demanding the sell-out they were 'entitled' to...
The hard part is, who can do it? A lot of bbs'es were run by kids who had lots of time on their hands, but a lot of people kind of 'graduated' when they went to work - I know I sort of did. In everyone's quest for The Almighty Buck it's only those who haven't yet been sucked into the make-more-money-to-buy-more-crack circle who have the time and energy to do this stuff... and those kids don't have a clue it seems, these days... maybe we should just be recruiting our neighbours and corrupting them from a young age... hmmm...
You know, in some arenas, "selling out" is considered synonymous with losing your integrity, not with success. I find it sickening that we all hold our breath and wait for IPOs so that we, too, can be part of some corporate conglomerate...
The American Way? I'll go back to the underground where we did it, we were free, we did it *for* free, and LIKED it that way.
And incidentally, how many of you Slashdot people had even heard of cDc before BackOrifice? Don't all shout at once... Once again, displaying the recent heritage and lack of culture of the Slashdot domain. It's kind of sad, really...
This guy is such a brilliant example, I can't help but reply.
More proof of I was saying, the only thing that kids care about these days is getting their MCSE and working a shit job in a cubicle all day until they get some IPO money. The fact that you believe you can learn everything by getting a 4 year degree exemplifies your ignorance - I've interviewed more people with college degrees in CS who couldn't logically analyze a problem if their life depended on it than I can remember, and more bright hackers who grew up on cDc who were genuine wizards than I can forget. If you think real world experience, the ability to seek out and discover things and share information is useless, well, go back to your cube. Maybe the company will throw you a bone at the end of your 50 years of service, and you can pretend you did something you enjoyed for all that time. At least cDc has a legacy to look back on. And no, you aren't part of it.
You know, I've thought about this before... and I've even known people who have tried to do it. But for some reason, it doesn't seem to work very well. I guess at some point, we were all kids, and we all read the files and we all learned from each other and maybe taught each other - and it happened on a really local level a lot of the time. And maybe there is a new generation of clueless kids who want to learn real stuff, and would develop the bbs ethic... but from my experience, it seems like most kids have figured out that they can just go get an MCSE or some other shite certification, and go out and make money, rather than having any interest in learning/community/anything. But then, I guess every generation thinks the one after them is doomed...
Can you explain how slashdot is in the computer underground? I for one don't see it. In my mind, for something to be part of an 'underground' it is generally one or more of the following:
- A self-funded grassroots type of thing - At least semi-obscure - Self-glorifying, but only in its own ranks - Happy with being underground
Slashdot seems to me to be a 'webzine' that wants to make it big, be recognized by major media, and IPO. Well, I guess they're a third of the way there!
And yes, it comes down to image, which Slashdot is more concerned about than content. Gee, if everyone is so concerned about cDc not putting out more tools, howcome Rob won't even release his changes to the Slash engine to people who want to use it?
Open sores indeed.
The reason that slashdot and cDc might be at odds is that cDc do what they do because they love it, without expectation of reward. Slashdot people do what they do because they think somehow they're going to get their name on the front page, and people will think they're cool, someone will see their code and give them a job, or they'll get a piece of the next redhat-type IPO.
Wow. Great interview, made me happy. Can't say the questions themselves did, as about half of them seemed to be posed by people who simply Don't Get It.
What is this "if you're not churning out code you must be a script kiddie" shit? Did any of you fools participate in the BBSes of old? Do you remember a few small things called "community" and "culture" and "having fun"? I've always viewed cDc as a bunch of people who like fucking around with computers, sharing the information they attain, and having fun. They're not coding enough for you? What? That makes them *script kiddies*? These people were putting out textfiles before the term was invented.
Something really bad has happened to online culture since it left BBSes - but I'm guessing most of you are too young to know that, seeing as from general comments, few of the people on Slashdot seem to be out of high school (don't bother replying with "I'm 35 and have been in the community 50 years!" comments - you're in the minority). It ceased to be about having fun and doing cool stuff and became a matter of writing tons of code so you can eventually sell out.
We await the day with relish that somebody dares to make a dance record that consists of nothing more than an electronically programmed bass drum beat that continues playing the fours monotonously for eight minutes. Then, when somebody else brings one out using exactly the same bass drum sound and at the same beats per minute (B.P.M.), we will all be able to tell which is the best, which inspires the dance floor to fill the fastest, which has the most sex and the most soul. There is no doubt, one will be better than the other. What we are basically saying is, if you have anything in you, anything unique, what others might term as originality, it will come through whatever the component parts used in your future Number One are made up from.
The fact is, a large part of voice data is going to be over IP in the next decade anyway. It's simply more efficient - hello, 24 phone calls on a T1, each of which takes up a tiny amount of the bandwidth of its channel? It just doesn't make any sense.
The problem that the phone company has with data over telephone lines is that it actually uses the full capacity of the line - a T1 in use for data will push the full 1.54mb, more or less. Their original gear was never designed for that. This has forced them to upgrade.
This is just a too-little-too-late attempt to recoup their costs for having to upgrade to new technology - don't be surprised if it disappears around the time that they cut over their systems to run over IP. I have heard rumours that Sprint will have an entirely integrated voice/data network by the end of next year...
Why don't you try examining some actual data. I suggest you begin at http://www.usgs.gov, which has numerous links to global and regional earthquake data. Medium (5.0) quakes happen all over the world all the time - like riot and revolution, we only notice when they might affect us economically.
Slashdot Mirror
But I'd be more than likely to think that ingesting any easily digestable, easily convertable to energy food would help. God knows, I can't think worth a DAMN when I'm hungry. Mmmmn. Hungry. Anyone have some fries?
So you would sooner blur the line between endorsement and advertisement and have paid-for content than banner ads?
Watched an informercial lately?
What's the going rate for a paragraph of praise on *your* site sir?
Do people have the right to gather information about you? Certainly. People do it all the time. Biographers, credit bureaus, and employers do it daily. Do people have a right to use the information gathered against you in a harmful or discriminatory way? No. And there are numerous laws in place which prevent that in most cases.
As with all computer security/privacy issues, I hold by a single rule - if I don't want it known, I don't send it over the wire. That *includes* filling out forms which have my name and address, for contests, registrations, or what have you. I just *don't do it*. Much like the companies that ask you to put your card in a fishbowl for a free lunch - what do you think they're doing with those cards? Do you think they just *want* to give you a free lunch?
You're as protected as you want to be. Is it inconvenient for you to turn off cookies, because it disables some features of your favourite sites? Well, it's either that or accept a semi-anonymous profile on you in some database. Your choice. Get over it.
As long as you're going to try to devalue the banner ad system, I suppose you have a better model for funding of web pages? I'm not trying to be sarcastic - I've been working on a site, and am trying *very* hard to think of another convenient way to fund it - if you have one in mind, let me know, eh?
And an army recruiting billboard? And the sign at the entrance of a military base? I kind of see what you're saying, but it doesn't hold up.
The point is, these are essentially high profile, low-utility systems which have little to do with the inner workings of any organization... anyone who has a clue has recovery plans for fixing a defaced site, and most have watchdogs to check if it's been changed. Notice how most of the defaced sites stay up a matter of hours?
The point is that the breaches are irrelevant in terms of compromise of security - like I said elsewhere, when someone publishes some proprietary information that's of use to someone on the 'net after cracking someone's systems, I'll be impressed. Until then, it's graffiti, and should be treated as such.
There's nothing new about patented medicines - the pharmaceutical industry has certianly been doing it as long as its existed. Take Viagra for instance - it's a patented medication. Obviously only that company can sell it. They can charge whatever they want for it. That's their right as the developer of that drug. They can also license it to other parties for sale as a generic, etc.
However.
I would think if someone came up with something such as a cure for AIDS or cancer or diabetes, you would see public demand it, and while I won't say it's certain that no company would do that, no company that ever wanted to produce another product after someone had reverse engineered their product and created a generic would take the actions you've suggested.
That would be pretty logical, except for the fact that they're not mapping a single individual's DNA, they're mapping all the possible combinations for any given section gene, and the results... or at least, that's my understanding. And I don't really understand how this is patentable or enforceable for that matter... I wish I could find a good, clear, easy to read reference on patent law, as it simply doesn't make any sense to me.
*cough*
"Hell yes!"
Well shit, I've written my name in marker on federal buildings, phone booths, mailboxes... I'm certainly more than your average defacer of random crap. :)
Seriously. When someone releases information that's of use to someone as result of their cracking, or actually *accomplishes* something aside from defacement... maybe *then* I'll be impressed. Until then - whatever.
I'm not criticising Slashdot for posting this, but the media in general for their obsession with these petty defacements.
At what point did the LA Times stop reporting every incidence of graffiti which had felled the barbed wire security of another billboard? Really.
These silly kids are being portrayed as part of "hacker" groups that no one but the members themselves has ever heard of, and aren't really calling any further attention to the lack of security on most corporate networks - just to the destructive tendancies of kids with too much time on their hands, who somehow become representative of *all* computer kids. That's productive.
I'm tired of it, it's boring, and if we ignored it, it would almost undoubtedly go away - after all, the thrill is in seeing your name in lights, isn't it?
While I definitely agree that the loss of focus is ultimately a bad thing for consumers (Deja is utterly unuseable through their interface, and even through dejasearch, is still not what it used to be), I think Yahoo has actually done it fairly well. Their main page and main focus and main functionality aren't terribly different than they were 3 years ago. If I'm looking for a good index page on something fairly common, I go there first and it's extremely useful. (They have an entire category for traceroute servers, including links to several indices which would have taken me quite a while to find with a traditional 'search'). If it makes me pedestrian to find indices of useful things (insurance, airline tickets, weather, stocks) in one place *without it being obnoxious* oh well. I guess I get a lot more annoyed when it takes away from or eliminates the original service.
As a side note, I think the utility of the pure search engine is decreasing by the day - regardless of what cruft their front page is filled with, their results are filled with even more. I usually search 2-3 search engines before finding one that seems to give what I'm looking for, and my order of operations is still altavista, yahoo, lycos, google.
Well, see, Americans are very dual-minded about things. When it comes to health and safety things that the rest of the world has adopted, they're slow to follow - after all, we have to be more cautious than our overzealous overseas friends.
:) And you can be sure any glowing trees will be marketed with an appropriately marketable name...
But when it comes to gadgets, geegaws, and trinkets... you'd better BET we'd have 'em before anyone else!
If irradiated food was labeled with "XTRA-PUR, blessed by angels for your consumption!" it'd be less controversial.
There have been other thinly-veiled religiously themed games... does anyone remember Afterlife, the sim-city like game from Lucasarts? It ruled. :)
Obviously, everyone has their own ideals about the opposite sex - personally, I've always been attracted to skinny geek boys with a CRT tan. Seriously! I'm sitting naked next to one right now, dually basking in the glow of our laptop screens. Nothing wrong with geeks seeking each other out - consider who you're surrounded by at work and at play - probably other geeks. Common interests are a great way to get to know someone... browsing through the networking books section of a local bookstore ain't a bad date. :)
:)
Point being, don't write off the possibility of finding love in unlikely places. Like the datacenter. Especially the datacenter. Mmmmn.
The entire dating scene is ugly and bad anyway.
Funny, when I was a kid, most kids I knew had less free time than most adults with paying jobs I know now... and they still managed to do lots with it without demanding the sell-out they were 'entitled' to...
The hard part is, who can do it? A lot of bbs'es were run by kids who had lots of time on their hands, but a lot of people kind of 'graduated' when they went to work - I know I sort of did. In everyone's quest for The Almighty Buck it's only those who haven't yet been sucked into the make-more-money-to-buy-more-crack circle who have the time and energy to do this stuff... and those kids don't have a clue it seems, these days... maybe we should just be recruiting our neighbours and corrupting them from a young age... hmmm...
You know, in some arenas, "selling out" is considered synonymous with losing your integrity, not with success. I find it sickening that we all hold our breath and wait for IPOs so that we, too, can be part of some corporate conglomerate...
The American Way? I'll go back to the underground where we did it, we were free, we did it *for* free, and LIKED it that way.
And incidentally, how many of you Slashdot people had even heard of cDc before BackOrifice? Don't all shout at once... Once again, displaying the recent heritage and lack of culture of the Slashdot domain. It's kind of sad, really...
This guy is such a brilliant example, I can't help but reply.
More proof of I was saying, the only thing that kids care about these days is getting their MCSE and working a shit job in a cubicle all day until they get some IPO money. The fact that you believe you can learn everything by getting a 4 year degree exemplifies your ignorance - I've interviewed more people with college degrees in CS who couldn't logically analyze a problem if their life depended on it than I can remember, and more bright hackers who grew up on cDc who were genuine wizards than I can forget. If you think real world experience, the ability to seek out and discover things and share information is useless, well, go back to your cube. Maybe the company will throw you a bone at the end of your 50 years of service, and you can pretend you did something you enjoyed for all that time. At least cDc has a legacy to look back on. And no, you aren't part of it.
You know, I've thought about this before... and I've even known people who have tried to do it. But for some reason, it doesn't seem to work very well. I guess at some point, we were all kids, and we all read the files and we all learned from each other and maybe taught each other - and it happened on a really local level a lot of the time. And maybe there is a new generation of clueless kids who want to learn real stuff, and would develop the bbs ethic... but from my experience, it seems like most kids have figured out that they can just go get an MCSE or some other shite certification, and go out and make money, rather than having any interest in learning/community/anything. But then, I guess every generation thinks the one after them is doomed...
Can you explain how slashdot is in the computer underground? I for one don't see it. In my mind, for something to be part of an 'underground' it is generally one or more of the following:
- A self-funded grassroots type of thing
- At least semi-obscure
- Self-glorifying, but only in its own ranks
- Happy with being underground
Slashdot seems to me to be a 'webzine' that wants to make it big, be recognized by major media, and IPO. Well, I guess they're a third of the way there!
And yes, it comes down to image, which Slashdot is more concerned about than content. Gee, if everyone is so concerned about cDc not putting out more tools, howcome Rob won't even release his changes to the Slash engine to people who want to use it?
Open sores indeed.
The reason that slashdot and cDc might be at odds is that cDc do what they do because they love it, without expectation of reward. Slashdot people do what they do because they think somehow they're going to get their name on the front page, and people will think they're cool, someone will see their code and give them a job, or they'll get a piece of the next redhat-type IPO.
Wow. Great interview, made me happy. Can't say the questions themselves did, as about half of them seemed to be posed by people who simply Don't Get It.
What is this "if you're not churning out code you must be a script kiddie" shit? Did any of you fools participate in the BBSes of old? Do you remember a few small things called "community" and "culture" and "having fun"? I've always viewed cDc as a bunch of people who like fucking around with computers, sharing the information they attain, and having fun. They're not coding enough for you? What? That makes them *script kiddies*? These people were putting out textfiles before the term was invented.
Something really bad has happened to online culture since it left BBSes - but I'm guessing most of you are too young to know that, seeing as from general comments, few of the people on Slashdot seem to be out of high school (don't bother replying with "I'm 35 and have been in the community 50 years!" comments - you're in the minority). It ceased to be about having fun and doing cool stuff and became a matter of writing tons of code so you can eventually sell out.
cDc never IPO'ed.
'nuff said.
We await the day with relish that somebody dares to make a dance record that consists of nothing more than an electronically programmed bass drum beat that continues playing the fours monotonously for eight minutes. Then, when somebody else brings one out using exactly the same bass drum sound and at the same beats per minute (B.P.M.), we will all be able to tell which is the best, which inspires the dance floor to fill the fastest, which has the most sex and the most soul. There is no doubt, one will be better than the other. What we are basically saying is, if you have anything in you, anything unique, what others might term as originality, it will come through whatever the component parts used in your future Number One are made up from.
The fact is, a large part of voice data is going to be over IP in the next decade anyway. It's simply more efficient - hello, 24 phone calls on a T1, each of which takes up a tiny amount of the bandwidth of its channel? It just doesn't make any sense.
The problem that the phone company has with data over telephone lines is that it actually uses the full capacity of the line - a T1 in use for data will push the full 1.54mb, more or less. Their original gear was never designed for that. This has forced them to upgrade.
This is just a too-little-too-late attempt to recoup their costs for having to upgrade to new technology - don't be surprised if it disappears around the time that they cut over their systems to run over IP. I have heard rumours that Sprint will have an entirely integrated voice/data network by the end of next year...
Why don't you try examining some actual data. I suggest you begin at http://www.usgs.gov, which has numerous links to global and regional earthquake data. Medium (5.0) quakes happen all over the world all the time - like riot and revolution, we only notice when they might affect us economically.