Hm...couldn't they sue Sigma for whatever profit Sigma has made? After all, just because something is GPL doesn't mean it can't be sold. You just have to make the source code freely available. They could say that, had they sold those binary copies of their software (pre-compiled as a service to the customer), they could have received the same amount of money that Sigma received...
1) You don't know who this party is and therefore it could very well be Microsoft.
2) The NSA is like most other govt agencies in that it employs and contracts with an army of lawyers. There is zero percent probability that every single lawyer for the NSA is somehow only knowledgable about security.
3) The GPL is a very simple document as far as legal documents go. I can read it and understand it and so can millions of laymen all across the world. Not only that there have been countless articles written about it in all kinds of forums. If you spent a half a day searching on google you would know the GPL inside out. Despite this you keep asserting that real life lawyers working for one of the most elite govt agencies in the world are simply unable to read or interpret this simple document. Not only that but they are so ignorant that they are unable to do searches on google and read about other people's analysis of the GPL on the internet. The lawyer(s) assigned to the task of studying this simple document are lazy, incompetent, and illeterate right?
1) Probably not microsoft. You have no proof of this. See your own comments on subject of proof before throwing out wild accusations. Also, I doubt Microsoft won a contract to develop SE Linux, though I suppose anything is possible.
2) "'We didn't fully understand the consequences of releasing software under the GPL (General Public License),' said Dick Schafer, deputy director of the NSA.
No, I don't expect everybody to believe it. But by the same token people should not believe that Microsoft coerced the NSA into dropping SE Linux. There's no proof in the main article, just a vague quote attached to an unrelated story. I cannot supply the party's name because we don't know, the NSA never told us. I imagine it is the NSA's nature not to reveal who is working on what so that people don't bother the groups working on a particular contract directly. Ideas should be going to the NSA who will then filter them down to their contracted groups.
I too used to think the NSA was always up to no good and was corrupt, focusing mainly on spying on US citizens, but reading a little history of what they've done has shown me otherwise (though I still enjoy movies like Conspiracy Theory;-)). I do truly believe they have the public's best interests in mind vis-a-vis SE Linux. Assuming microsoft tried to leverage them into using windows as their secure OS: well that might work okay for the NSA (of course the NSA would be given the code in this case), but it does little to appease the public. Who would trust NSA-Windows if they couldn't have the source code? I doubt Microsoft will allow the NSA to release the code to any hardened operating system they release. The SE Linux project was started, if you'll recall, to create a publically usable trusted operating system.
Using GPL (or another "free" as in source license) is really the only thing that makes sense.
And as for the question about the NSA's lawyers, I am simply saying that it is possible for one of their lawyers to make an error in foresight (a "mistake"). The NSA is interested in securing data, and I would imagine they have lawyers on hand mulling over legal matters with respect to securing data. It's possible one of them drafted the contract for working on SE Linux (see previous statement regarding non-disclosure of who "party" is. The more outside people involved in a contract, the higher the likelihood a mistake will be made and "party" will be revealed).
Anyway, I admit that I cannot provide said "proof." Neither can this story. If I were reading this article and this particular message thread, I would probably believe neither. But given what I have heard, I definitely do not believe Microsoft had anything to do with stopped development on SE Linux.
I sort of work on SE Linux. Our group is unsponsored by the NSA (thus far). Since we are unofficially working on it, though, we hear birds chatter sometimes. The rumor mill around our office has been saying that it is not the case that Microsoft has done anything. What happened? A party, whose name shan't be mentioned, because we have not been told their name (we shall call them the Party), was given an SE Linux contract by the NSA. The NSA it seems didn't understand the GPL so well (or some lawyer of theirs who hammered out the contract didn't). The NSA contract said that the Party working on the contract could have propietary code, and could patent ideas used to achieve goals on the project. Much work was done on SE Linux in the mean time by the Party, but patents/etc are held on certain parts of the code by the Party, and therefore cannot be released under GPL. The quotes you see in this article heading make perfect sense to me in this context. The NSA didn't understand the GPL. And yeah, I would complain too if I couldn't have the complete source to my kernel...
Yes I hate Microsoft, but this article is kind of ridiculous...it uses some vague quote to make microsoft look bad. This is not the way to win the war.
Check the numbers. 1 in 1.37e2 Red Hat/Apache web servers gets defaced. 1 in 8.23e3 Debian/Apache servers get defaced. 1 in 2.19e2 NT4/IIS servers get defaced.
Care to give us a source on that? I'm a debian user myself but I'm always wary of numbers with no backing...
When this change was introduced, there ended up being a lot less children, meaning a lot of people where cheating on their taxes.
Why would people claim to not have children? Having dependants is a tax break (you get a bigger standard deductible, or optionally you can include receipts for kids as necessary for survival). I don't quite get why people would have kids and not claim them...
Once again I call people's attention to GPG, which can be used to digitally sign source code. Then, if something is trojaned, you know who to blame for including the bum code.
Bait and Switch
on
.NET for Apache
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
How much do you want to bet Microsoft keeps.NET for apache around for a while, until people start relying on it. Then, when everyone is nice and settled using.NET, they stop supporting it. Guess what? If you want to have.NET now you'll need to switch to IIS. Muhahahaha.
One reason they might consider relocating to Albany is an initiative started by the State two years ago. The state pays for University students to work for companies all over Central New York. The state started the program to try and get more high tech companies to move in, and it works.
I am currently working that way and my paychecks, while coming from my university, are actually paid for by the state of New York. My group has developed two complete software packages for different companies up here already, and it doesn't take much overhead for the companies to tell us what to do...so these companies are getting essentially free labor (well, they pay taxes and some of their tax money pays for us).
Granted University labor isn't the best labor in the world all the time, but you can't argue with the price.
> Slashdot isn't financial waters. Any good speaker >knows that you pick your language to match what the >audience will respond to. If you can't speak >techie, then you probably can't think techie. If >can't figure out when it's inappropiate to speak >financial, you probably can't figure out when it's >inappropiate to think financial.
Except that the highest-moderated questions were pretty financial in nature, so evidently financial answers were what the slashdot readers really wanted....
>I know that the chances of ebay going under are >miniscule, but I wouldn't risk paying into it to >have it fold and be left empty handed.
Empty-handed? You pay for benefits as you get them. So, if eBay goes under, you stop paying for health insurance, you stop receiving health insurance. It works the same way with any employer...it's not as though ebay is having you to buy stock in the company as part of your retirement fund.
It sounds all fine and good to manage the construction of your own home, and even buy the lumber and whatever else you need. But you'd better have some carprentry experience before you do so.
I could save a lot of money by building my own file server too, but then I wouldn't have a support contract to go with it, and getting any warranty work done on it would suck, and would probably result in two companies pointing the finger at each other, saying "It's their fault!"
By the same token, if you go out and buy lumber, and have your framer put it together, and something goes wrong, he may say, "Well, the lumber you bought wasn't so great, there's only so much I can do." Going to the lumber company results in, "The framer must have done something to the wood, that was my best pressure-treated.." If your framer picks out the wood, then you definitely a case and can put it solely on his shoulders.
This is just an example, IANAC (but my brother is).
Sure they're great fun, until someone loses an eye. Lock picks are actually illegal to have in some states, iirc, unless you are a registered/certified locksmith. Also, it's illegal to ship them across state lines a lot of times. Just be careful;-).
One of my favorite "local" bands has been doing this for way over a year. Check them out at http://www.greyeyeglances.com. I definitely think this sort of thing is cool. The band's manager has said that the online transaction costs about that much, but the band does it for the fans. This way, they can release their songs when they're done, not when they have enough for songs for a record. It's a very cool way to run a band. It would be way better if they could make money off it somehow (without charging an excessive amount per song).
Okay, let's think about this for a second. If Javascript was written to allow pop-under windows, obviously this feature had to be written in JS, and tested at some point. So are we to believe that Exit Exchange actually wrote this part of the language and tested it? I think not. Surely there must be an example of prior art out there, then.
Or maybe I should patent using X language to add two integers between 25 and 50 together. It's the same thing, I'm using X's built-in add operator to do something specific.
"If Nike's position were the law, then a company could make blatantly false statements as long as they included something in there that looks like its part of a public debate," said Alan Caplan.
Damn straight. I do not have a right to make deceptive/false claims like this, neither should a company.
My own thought on having US based corporations manufacture goods outside the country? The United Streets should view those factories as being within the US, and charge applicable fines to corporations that abuse their employees (by United States standards). If the company doesn't like it, fine, they can move their business to the other country. Of course, then they should pay stiff import fees, as in charge enough money to not make it worth it for the company. Problems with this?
Well sure there are some to consider...how do you decide what "minimum wage" is in another country? $5 an hour in some third world country would make you rich enough to create a military rivalling your government's, probably. So that's something I couldn't answer. But the law guys should think about this....
This seems like a bad bad title. This stuff is persistent RAM, so it won't help you if you need to reboot after recompiling a kernel. Also, this article doesn't mention getting rid of POST...most computers stuff some data into memory and check it to make sure your ram is still working. Would be kind of hard to check your memory if it has stuff in it that you don't want to lose.
Slashdot Mirror
Am I the only who noticed this does not include the fix for invalid SSL certificates? Pretty big (and very expensive) problem, I think....
Hm...couldn't they sue Sigma for whatever profit Sigma has made? After all, just because something is GPL doesn't mean it can't be sold. You just have to make the source code freely available. They could say that, had they sold those binary copies of their software (pre-compiled as a service to the customer), they could have received the same amount of money that Sigma received...
That might send a stronger message to Sigma.
1) You don't know who this party is and therefore it could very well be Microsoft.
2) The NSA is like most other govt agencies in that it employs and contracts with an army of lawyers. There is zero percent probability that every single lawyer for the NSA is somehow only knowledgable about security.
3) The GPL is a very simple document as far as legal documents go. I can read it and understand it and so can millions of laymen all across the world. Not only that there have been countless articles written about it in all kinds of forums. If you spent a half a day searching on google you would know the GPL inside out. Despite this you keep asserting that real life lawyers working for one of the most elite govt agencies in the world are simply unable to read or interpret this simple document. Not only that but they are so ignorant that they are unable to do searches on google and read about other people's analysis of the GPL on the internet. The lawyer(s) assigned to the task of studying this simple document are lazy, incompetent, and illeterate right?
1) Probably not microsoft. You have no proof of this. See your own comments on subject of proof before throwing out wild accusations. Also, I doubt Microsoft won a contract to develop SE Linux, though I suppose anything is possible.
2) "'We didn't fully understand the consequences of releasing software under the GPL (General Public License),' said Dick Schafer, deputy director of the NSA.
3) See point 2.
No, I don't expect everybody to believe it. But by the same token people should not believe that Microsoft coerced the NSA into dropping SE Linux. There's no proof in the main article, just a vague quote attached to an unrelated story. I cannot supply the party's name because we don't know, the NSA never told us. I imagine it is the NSA's nature not to reveal who is working on what so that people don't bother the groups working on a particular contract directly. Ideas should be going to the NSA who will then filter them down to their contracted groups.
;-)). I do truly believe they have the public's best interests in mind vis-a-vis SE Linux. Assuming microsoft tried to leverage them into using windows as their secure OS: well that might work okay for the NSA (of course the NSA would be given the code in this case), but it does little to appease the public. Who would trust NSA-Windows if they couldn't have the source code? I doubt Microsoft will allow the NSA to release the code to any hardened operating system they release. The SE Linux project was started, if you'll recall, to create a publically usable trusted operating system.
I too used to think the NSA was always up to no good and was corrupt, focusing mainly on spying on US citizens, but reading a little history of what they've done has shown me otherwise (though I still enjoy movies like Conspiracy Theory
Using GPL (or another "free" as in source license) is really the only thing that makes sense.
And as for the question about the NSA's lawyers, I am simply saying that it is possible for one of their lawyers to make an error in foresight (a "mistake"). The NSA is interested in securing data, and I would imagine they have lawyers on hand mulling over legal matters with respect to securing data. It's possible one of them drafted the contract for working on SE Linux (see previous statement regarding non-disclosure of who "party" is. The more outside people involved in a contract, the higher the likelihood a mistake will be made and "party" will be revealed).
Anyway, I admit that I cannot provide said "proof." Neither can this story. If I were reading this article and this particular message thread, I would probably believe neither. But given what I have heard, I definitely do not believe Microsoft had anything to do with stopped development on SE Linux.
I sort of work on SE Linux. Our group is unsponsored by the NSA (thus far). Since we are unofficially working on it, though, we hear birds chatter sometimes. The rumor mill around our office has been saying that it is not the case that Microsoft has done anything. What happened? A party, whose name shan't be mentioned, because we have not been told their name (we shall call them the Party), was given an SE Linux contract by the NSA. The NSA it seems didn't understand the GPL so well (or some lawyer of theirs who hammered out the contract didn't). The NSA contract said that the Party working on the contract could have propietary code, and could patent ideas used to achieve goals on the project. Much work was done on SE Linux in the mean time by the Party, but patents/etc are held on certain parts of the code by the Party, and therefore cannot be released under GPL. The quotes you see in this article heading make perfect sense to me in this context. The NSA didn't understand the GPL. And yeah, I would complain too if I couldn't have the complete source to my kernel...
Yes I hate Microsoft, but this article is kind of ridiculous...it uses some vague quote to make microsoft look bad. This is not the way to win the war.
Check the numbers. 1 in 1.37e2 Red Hat/Apache web servers gets defaced. 1 in 8.23e3 Debian/Apache servers get defaced. 1 in 2.19e2 NT4/IIS servers get defaced.
Care to give us a source on that? I'm a debian user myself but I'm always wary of numbers with no backing...
Somewhere in Brooklyn, Wesley Crusher falls silent forever.
Driving in New York? While talking on a cell phone? Tsk tsk.
And yes before people scream, I'm aware Wil does not live in New York.
Time to buy a new video card! Ouch.
When this change was introduced, there ended up being a lot less children, meaning a lot of people where cheating on their taxes.
Why would people claim to not have children? Having dependants is a tax break (you get a bigger standard deductible, or optionally you can include receipts for kids as necessary for survival). I don't quite get why people would have kids and not claim them...
Once again I call people's attention to GPG, which can be used to digitally sign source code. Then, if something is trojaned, you know who to blame for including the bum code.
How much do you want to bet Microsoft keeps .NET for apache around for a while, until people start relying on it. Then, when everyone is nice and settled using .NET, they stop supporting it. Guess what? If you want to have .NET now you'll need to switch to IIS. Muhahahaha.
So you know who to blame when you can't get to slashdot anymore...
One reason they might consider relocating to Albany is an initiative started by the State two years ago. The state pays for University students to work for companies all over Central New York. The state started the program to try and get more high tech companies to move in, and it works.
I am currently working that way and my paychecks, while coming from my university, are actually paid for by the state of New York. My group has developed two complete software packages for different companies up here already, and it doesn't take much overhead for the companies to tell us what to do...so these companies are getting essentially free labor (well, they pay taxes and some of their tax money pays for us).
Granted University labor isn't the best labor in the world all the time, but you can't argue with the price.
other crypto restrictions have taken root around the world
Oh no! I just got home and found out my box got rooted by Crypt0 r35tr1c710n5 too! How are we going to stop this hacker?
Maybe congress should legalize DoS attacks against all the providers/servers listed on the map. If it works for the RIAA.....
> Slashdot isn't financial waters. Any good speaker
>knows that you pick your language to match what the
>audience will respond to. If you can't speak
>techie, then you probably can't think techie. If
>can't figure out when it's inappropiate to speak
>financial, you probably can't figure out when it's
>inappropiate to think financial.
Except that the highest-moderated questions were pretty financial in nature, so evidently financial answers were what the slashdot readers really wanted....
>I know that the chances of ebay going under are
>miniscule, but I wouldn't risk paying into it to
>have it fold and be left empty handed.
Empty-handed? You pay for benefits as you get them. So, if eBay goes under, you stop paying for health insurance, you stop receiving health insurance. It works the same way with any employer...it's not as though ebay is having you to buy stock in the company as part of your retirement fund.
It sounds all fine and good to manage the construction of your own home, and even buy the lumber and whatever else you need. But you'd better have some carprentry experience before you do so.
I could save a lot of money by building my own file server too, but then I wouldn't have a support contract to go with it, and getting any warranty work done on it would suck, and would probably result in two companies pointing the finger at each other, saying "It's their fault!"
By the same token, if you go out and buy lumber, and have your framer put it together, and something goes wrong, he may say, "Well, the lumber you bought wasn't so great, there's only so much I can do." Going to the lumber company results in, "The framer must have done something to the wood, that was my best pressure-treated.." If your framer picks out the wood, then you definitely a case and can put it solely on his shoulders.
This is just an example, IANAC (but my brother is).
Sure they're great fun, until someone loses an eye. Lock picks are actually illegal to have in some states, iirc, unless you are a registered/certified locksmith. Also, it's illegal to ship them across state lines a lot of times. Just be careful ;-).
One of my favorite "local" bands has been doing this for way over a year. Check them out at http://www.greyeyeglances.com. I definitely think this sort of thing is cool. The band's manager has said that the online transaction costs about that much, but the band does it for the fans. This way, they can release their songs when they're done, not when they have enough for songs for a record. It's a very cool way to run a band. It would be way better if they could make money off it somehow (without charging an excessive amount per song).
Okay, let's think about this for a second. If Javascript was written to allow pop-under windows, obviously this feature had to be written in JS, and tested at some point. So are we to believe that Exit Exchange actually wrote this part of the language and tested it? I think not. Surely there must be an example of prior art out there, then.
Or maybe I should patent using X language to add two integers between 25 and 50 together. It's the same thing, I'm using X's built-in add operator to do something specific.
So yes, this patent is retarded.
It stinks.
I mean, sinks.
Oh nevermind, I guess they're both okay.
"If Nike's position were the law, then a company could make blatantly false statements as long as they included something in there that looks like its part of a public debate," said Alan Caplan.
Damn straight. I do not have a right to make deceptive/false claims like this, neither should a company.
My own thought on having US based corporations manufacture goods outside the country? The United Streets should view those factories as being within the US, and charge applicable fines to corporations that abuse their employees (by United States standards). If the company doesn't like it, fine, they can move their business to the other country. Of course, then they should pay stiff import fees, as in charge enough money to not make it worth it for the company. Problems with this?
Well sure there are some to consider...how do you decide what "minimum wage" is in another country? $5 an hour in some third world country would make you rich enough to create a military rivalling your government's, probably. So that's something I couldn't answer. But the law guys should think about this....
And if you don't understand, you'll never know...
This seems like a bad bad title. This stuff is persistent RAM, so it won't help you if you need to reboot after recompiling a kernel. Also, this article doesn't mention getting rid of POST...most computers stuff some data into memory and check it to make sure your ram is still working. Would be kind of hard to check your memory if it has stuff in it that you don't want to lose.