nobody's been able to force the RIAA to trial and say that the lawsuit is outright bogus
While technically accurate, the observation paints an incomplete picture. There have been a number of cases where the RIAA has backed off, like the woman who didn't even own a computer. So we know the RIAA has been accusing innocent people. The question is, when will the accused "filesharers" who haven't been sharing files (stolen accounts or passwords, identity theft, et cetera) push back with a class-action suit against the RIAA for the false accusations?
At what point will this prompt a countersuit? Everyone knows the RIAA is suing music downloaders, so it stands to reason that the music downloaders will take steps to hide their identities, including using other people's accounts. If the RIAA stays true to form, they're going to assume that an IP address definitely identifies the culprit, when that is nowhere near true. When do they become legally liable for the false accusations?
Something to think about: when SCO tanks, somebody will buy the "UNIX intellectual property". Who's likely to do that? Sun? Microsoft? Red Hat?
Any IP that SCO actually owns will probably be shown to be so thoroughly contaminated by the end of this case that it probably won't be worth much. But if it's cheap enough, it might be a good PR touch if someone like IBM or Red Hat bought and open-sourced it.
they could add a whole swiss-army knife's worth of gadgets to the arms on those things.
It's been done. The Andros Wolverine has an intechangeable tool set. It has a generic gripper and this link documents it using stuff like wire cutters, laser targeting and a shotgun.
Those of us who don't live so close to the equator would get more benefit from cheaper systems that convert solar energy into heat rather than to electricity. Converting from photovoltaic energy to electricity to heat will lose a lot of energy unnecessarily. And areas with heavier cloud cover won't capture as much solar power anyway, causing further problems with the economics of the system.
Still, using hydrogen tanks as a storage medium for unused electricity is a nice touch.
Oops, you're right. I can read a core dump, but I have a problem with calendars. So much for that +5 "Informative".
Still, the information must have been distributed -- probably on the quiet -- if the article was right about government agencies and companies working to "fortify" their systems in recent weeks. It also says that the vulnerability was first found "late last year", so it's been a known issue for a while.
The article talks about how the government has been "fortifying" its networks against this, does that means they quickly rewrote the tcp protocol?
Nothing so drastic. Go back to the article and reread it, especially the "Mitigation" section. You will find:
It mainly affects the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) that occurs at a high level in the net. Few computers are involved.
The issue was first publicized about a month ago at CanSecWest, so those in the know have had a month to work on this.
The steps to mitigate the problem are a matter of tweaking settings (like window size) or setting up protocols (like encryption). This is not a matter of rewriting the entire protocol.
The article is interesting in that it shows how the bits and pieces of the Internet fit together, but I won't be losing any sleep over this one.
I'd suggest that an understanding of the business is a good start. I understand that MBAs don't get a lot of respect on Slashdot, but the ability to understand what end-users want is a big plus. I can't count the number of times I've been faced with end-users who think I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread because I took the time to explain to them how the system works in language they could understand. And without treating them like "lusers".
You don't have to go to India to find tech workers who don't speak English. (Or at least don't know how to use it.)
I think the author has good points, but I believe she misses the overarching explanation and, therefore, the logical solution. In a word, it is motivation. The basic reason for writing open-source is for the bragging rights. And the truth of the matter is that the only people we can really brag to are other geeks; most other folk just don't get it. She points out that open-source is "programmers writing for programmers." Well, duh. Who else cares?
The solution is to provide motivation to write for someone else. There are a lot of companies out there making a lot of money off open-source, selling hardware or services. If they want open-source programmers to write code differently, they need to provide some motivation for that change. One possibility would be an annual award program which could include - for example - a "best documentation" category. The combination of a cash prize (it needn't be large) plus the bragging rights for having won could provide the necessary nudge to improving open-source code.
Eccentricaly-dressed girls using their cuteness to conceal their embarassing ignorance, actually thinking that Wolverine's mutant powers are those metal claw thingies?
Yes, but now she might talk to you. I know most on Slashdot aren't aware of the fact, but there are advantages to this. You know those pictures you download? Believe it or not, they actually exist in the real world. My wife explained it to me after the first time I fixed her computer. It took a lot of explaining and a couple of demonstrations, but once I figured it out it turned out to be a lot better.
The mainstreaming of geekdom means the mainstreaming of the geeks as well. If the only person who shares your interests is on the other side of the world, of course you are going to spend more time on your computer communicating with that one other person. But if there is someone you can talk to next door, you're more likely to walk over for a beer.
Computer geeks are now in the same position automobile geeks were when the auto was coming into its own. Automobiles used to be considered an oddity at best and a nuisance at worst. Few owned them and the majority didn't understand the attraction for the noisy smelly things. Horses required little maintenance and performed the same functions better. Motoring enthusiasts formed clubs in order to be with others who understood their peculiar hobby.
Fast forward to today. A knowledgeable mechanic is virtually guaranteed an audience when discussing his profession. Everyone has a car and everyone has a story or a problem for which a mechanic's expertise provides a welcome addition to the conversation. Nobody thinks of auto mechanics as isolated geeks.
It makes all the difference in the world when the others in a party are interested in hearing what you have to say, whether it's the details of automatic transmissions, the pros and cons of DSL versus broadband or the differences between the movie and the comic.
Call me a cynic, but I'm still not buying it. A free email account that allows 10meg attachments and has a 1gig limit? And they plan to pay for it with spam they target by scanning your private correspondence? I can't believe that's a workable business plan. And I don't believe Google does either.
If they ever offered such a service, I'd sign up for an account (maybe several) right away. And I'd never use it for correspondence. I'd use it for high volume data transfers, using those 10gig attachments. Pirates could use it to store encrypted zip files of their MP3 collections. What would you store (encrypted, of course) if you had 10gig online for free?
And ask yourself, would you store "every email" you ever wrote in an account that periodically scanned your personal mail and used that data to spam you? I think they're stringing along Forbes, and anyone else who will listen, and won't say "April Fool" until tomorrow.
And the "what you can do" plea to get readers to get major news organizations to
pick up the story is a nice touch. Nice example of viral marketing. It would be
a bit more convincing -- but less funny -- if they got people to write Parliament
instead.
I'd dearly love to see Forbes get suckered by this one. They've been
such dorks about anything to do with Linux, it would be par for the course. It
looks like they
bought
the Google mail story hook, line and sinker.
Reputation is irrelevant because SCO is playing an end-game. Caldera's hopes for a viable company ended with Project Monterey and the head of that company left for better things. The original SCO took their one viable product and changed their name to Tarantella, selling off their unprofitable ventures -- and their old name -- to what is now SCO. The Canopy Group looked over what was left and determined that it was not possible to make a real company out of it, so they hired Darl and turned it into a litigation/stock manipulation factory with just enough real product to maintain the illusion of credibility for the gullible. What is now "SCO" is expendable, expected to have zero value when the game is done.
The insiders are getting wealthy off of stock options and the lawyers are making a bundle off the legal wranglings. Left holding the bag are the stockholders and investors, notably Baystar, whose $50 million investment has lost more than half its original value already. The options are part of the problem, since they dilute the stock, and the loss of reputation and the court case will finish off the rest.
In the end, SCO will lose its court cases as expected and declare bankruptcy. The companies officers and lawyers will walk away with piles of cash and the remaining IP and products (yes, SCO has some IP and products) will be sold off to the highest bidder. But this all looks like it was part of the plan to extract money from a company which could no longer produce a viable business.
1948; Haredevil Hare - It's a "Uranium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator."
1953; Duck Dodger's in the 24 1/2 Century - Duck Dodgers (a.k.a. Daffy) and Marvin both try to obtain the only known quantity of "Illudium Phosdex", the shaving cream atom and our first exposure to Illudium.
1958; Hare-way to the Stars - Now we finally have the "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator."
I think the third one is the one you want since it contains the the line, "Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!"
That's why the link. There's an overview of the main arguments here and the main site's here. I found the site and joined the mailing list when I was following the IE/Netscape case.
The basic case is that the courts have changed antitrust in such a way as to make it impossible for the plaintiff to win. For example, they've added an argument that the plaintiff must prove "harm to the consumer". In the Microsoft case, Netscape proved that Microsoft had used it's Windows monopoly to destroy Netscape's market share, but Microsoft argued that doing so had not harmed the consumer. Such an argument can't be proved either way without using a crystal ball. It used to be assumed that limiting competition harmed the consumer. Competition is what capitalism is supposed to be about, right?
Microsoft also argued that Netscape might have gone bankrupt anyway due to their own poor business decisions. That's kind of like arguing that the guy you just shot might have been hit by a car because he got a jaywalking ticket last week, but the court's seem to have bought the argument.
I'm glad to see that at least Europe still has some
functioning antitrust laws, unlike the US where antitrust laws were
effectively gutted
by the judiciary.
You don't need to pay someone to get free books in PDA format. Get the plain text from Gutenberg or elsewhere, then download a copy of the program DropBook. Run the plain text through DropBook and you'll have the book on your PDA. If you want to get fancy, you can use a text editor to mark up the book in the Palm Markup Language. That will get you stuff like chapter headings and a table of contents.
I did this just the other day and now I have a copy of the manual for MySQL readable on my PDA complete with a table of contents. Sweet.
Slashdot Mirror
At what point will this prompt a countersuit? Everyone knows the RIAA is suing music downloaders, so it stands to reason that the music downloaders will take steps to hide their identities, including using other people's accounts. If the RIAA stays true to form, they're going to assume that an IP address definitely identifies the culprit, when that is nowhere near true. When do they become legally liable for the false accusations?
(Oh, admit it. You thought the same thing.)
Still, using hydrogen tanks as a storage medium for unused electricity is a nice touch.
Still, the information must have been distributed -- probably on the quiet -- if the article was right about government agencies and companies working to "fortify" their systems in recent weeks. It also says that the vulnerability was first found "late last year", so it's been a known issue for a while.
- It mainly affects the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) that occurs at a high level in the net. Few computers are involved.
- The issue was first publicized about a month ago at CanSecWest, so those in the know have had a month to work on this.
- The steps to mitigate the problem are a matter of tweaking settings (like window size) or setting up protocols (like encryption). This is not a matter of rewriting the entire protocol.
The article is interesting in that it shows how the bits and pieces of the Internet fit together, but I won't be losing any sleep over this one.You don't have to go to India to find tech workers who don't speak English. (Or at least don't know how to use it.)
The solution is to provide motivation to write for someone else. There are a lot of companies out there making a lot of money off open-source, selling hardware or services. If they want open-source programmers to write code differently, they need to provide some motivation for that change. One possibility would be an annual award program which could include - for example - a "best documentation" category. The combination of a cash prize (it needn't be large) plus the bragging rights for having won could provide the necessary nudge to improving open-source code.
Computer geeks are now in the same position automobile geeks were when the auto was coming into its own. Automobiles used to be considered an oddity at best and a nuisance at worst. Few owned them and the majority didn't understand the attraction for the noisy smelly things. Horses required little maintenance and performed the same functions better. Motoring enthusiasts formed clubs in order to be with others who understood their peculiar hobby.
Fast forward to today. A knowledgeable mechanic is virtually guaranteed an audience when discussing his profession. Everyone has a car and everyone has a story or a problem for which a mechanic's expertise provides a welcome addition to the conversation. Nobody thinks of auto mechanics as isolated geeks.
It makes all the difference in the world when the others in a party are interested in hearing what you have to say, whether it's the details of automatic transmissions, the pros and cons of DSL versus broadband or the differences between the movie and the comic.
I meant 10meg.
Gotta learn to preview more carefully.
If they ever offered such a service, I'd sign up for an account (maybe several) right away. And I'd never use it for correspondence. I'd use it for high volume data transfers, using those 10gig attachments. Pirates could use it to store encrypted zip files of their MP3 collections. What would you store (encrypted, of course) if you had 10gig online for free?
And ask yourself, would you store "every email" you ever wrote in an account that periodically scanned your personal mail and used that data to spam you? I think they're stringing along Forbes, and anyone else who will listen, and won't say "April Fool" until tomorrow.
I'd dearly love to see Forbes get suckered by this one. They've been such dorks about anything to do with Linux, it would be par for the course. It looks like they bought the Google mail story hook, line and sinker.
Right up there with the spaghetti harvest.
Giant squid flesh has a high ammonia content which makes them unpalatable. On the other hand, here's a good Martian recipe.
The insiders are getting wealthy off of stock options and the lawyers are making a bundle off the legal wranglings. Left holding the bag are the stockholders and investors, notably Baystar, whose $50 million investment has lost more than half its original value already. The options are part of the problem, since they dilute the stock, and the loss of reputation and the court case will finish off the rest.
In the end, SCO will lose its court cases as expected and declare bankruptcy. The companies officers and lawyers will walk away with piles of cash and the remaining IP and products (yes, SCO has some IP and products) will be sold off to the highest bidder. But this all looks like it was part of the plan to extract money from a company which could no longer produce a viable business.
- 1948; Haredevil Hare - It's a "Uranium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator."
- 1953; Duck Dodger's in the 24 1/2 Century - Duck Dodgers (a.k.a. Daffy) and Marvin both try to obtain the only known quantity of "Illudium Phosdex", the shaving cream atom and our first exposure to Illudium.
- 1958; Hare-way to the Stars - Now we finally have the "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator."
I think the third one is the one you want since it contains the the line, "Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!"The basic case is that the courts have changed antitrust in such a way as to make it impossible for the plaintiff to win. For example, they've added an argument that the plaintiff must prove "harm to the consumer". In the Microsoft case, Netscape proved that Microsoft had used it's Windows monopoly to destroy Netscape's market share, but Microsoft argued that doing so had not harmed the consumer. Such an argument can't be proved either way without using a crystal ball. It used to be assumed that limiting competition harmed the consumer. Competition is what capitalism is supposed to be about, right?
Microsoft also argued that Netscape might have gone bankrupt anyway due to their own poor business decisions. That's kind of like arguing that the guy you just shot might have been hit by a car because he got a jaywalking ticket last week, but the court's seem to have bought the argument.
I'm glad to see that at least Europe still has some functioning antitrust laws, unlike the US where antitrust laws were effectively gutted by the judiciary.
I did this just the other day and now I have a copy of the manual for MySQL readable on my PDA complete with a table of contents. Sweet.
And it connects to the computer with a DB25 female instead of a DB25 male, right?
Can't Chairface Chippendale claim prior art on space ads?