There's a piece of software that many of us geeks can't live without. And while you hard core geeks might be thinking "That Jabber Author Guy".. but most people I know, including myself, uses Gaim on Linux. Heck, there are many AIM clients even for Mac OS X that use the gaim core (ie. Adium and Fire)... and a bunch of others even on other platforms.
While GAIM is radically different from when he passed on development to the community, let's not forget Mark Spencer for having brought us the original gaim, which evolved into the product that most of us use.
Possibly for when the copyright owner is a record company. Musicians who belong to a union might want to form some sort of standard for authorizing the use of encryption mechanisms.
It appears that the advantage of releasing sample code to exploit flaws in computer systems places increased pressure to fix the bug on the manufacturer. This is good, but at a compromise which places serious risk to the consumers of the product. Once suspect code is released, the potential for damage to consumer systems is exponentially increased because the tools to do damage are then available to anybody. Both sides have valid points, but perhaps a set of guidelines to report such bugs which take into account the interests of all involved parties is crucial.
As far as I am concerned, there are five levels of releasing this information which could be used to balance these interests: 1. Say nothing and somebody else will exploit the bug 2. release this information to the manufacturer of the software product and hope they do something about it 3. release a summary of the bug enough so it is realized by the general public 4. release technical information on what theories are used to exploit the flow 5. release the tools necessary to exploit the flaw
The above could be thought of as an agenda for the order in which to release word of any flaws, where one step succeeds the other, starting at #2. 5 should be used with extreme caution - in other words: know what you're doing before using this step, because then anybody can make a toy of the tool to execute the exploit on anybody's system.
When you do all the math and add up the per-seat installations, Zeppelin NT almost nears the cost of Windows NT.
Re:Whats New & Why you should get it
on
Mozilla 0.9.1 Out
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· Score: 2
Don't forget about the much-improved URL auto-completion, where a drop-down list displays a list more neatly than the former menu-list when you type into the url bar!:-)
"Movie producers are probably okay. They survived without money from video rentals before and will again if need be. As long as they can provide a compelling experience in the theater, they will be fine. The VCR gave them additional revenue. If they lose it, they'll come up with another one. Bitch all you want about the MPAA, they're much better behaved than the RIAA. The DVD region encoding annoys me (I still haven't bought a DVD player), but it isn't as bad as the RIAA's actions towards artists."
I would have to argue that, with the current media hype surrounding various music-file sharing services, many people involved with the making of many movies or music would be very interested in the added attention of a lawsuit concerning these services. We musn't forget that people are people and will always want more of what they have now or don't yet have. Movie producers are just the same as you and me: they would like greater revenue from their movies. Keep in mind, too, that greater revenues often rates the degree success.
p.s. I would have to agree with you on your comments about Slashdot.
And I don't exactly understand why "Are companies using stock options to trick their employees into working for less compensation?" was put in there.. not everything needs to be a conspiracy. To me, the choice would be obvious, but to those who don't see it that way.. that's part of their risk -- and potential reflection of their own common sense.
As for the companies.. stock options should be an incentive (an additional bonus) to work for the company -- I would be offended if they were anything but.
If you use their service to post to Usenet, you ARE agreeing to their contract, and are obligated to follow it.
I suspect that this clause of their contract is the exchange of "property" required for any contract to be considered legally binding. You receive their service in exchange for licensing them your posts. This would validate other parts of the contract, as well, in the eyes of the law.
There are plenty of other services that allow you to post to usenet without licensing your text to them (ie. most Internet Service Providers). Google shouldn't be kicked in the face for not being the company you - or anybody else - (probably) thought it was or expected it to be.
Currently, it appears that Google has no formal business plans to financially exploit what its users write. This contract/license just happens to give Google the legal wedge should they find a way to do this. There's nothing that obligates you to agree to the contract -- just don't use their service.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has nothing in its Windows licences specifying that you must agree to licence work created for the Operating System (OS) to Microsoft. If they did, it would be awfully foolish, given their previous Anti-trust difficulties -- let's not also forget that it is the software authors who help Microsoft keep many of their users. Although, Microsoft may own some system and dll files your app may need - including the OS, itself - it owns no more of your app than, say, the authors of GTK do (if your app makes use of the GTK).
"
Just like 'fair use' laws and copyright... see... what they've done is, insetad of making any and all copyign illegal, they simply said 'it's still legal'"
I'm not looking to start any trouble but I'd be careful when putting words into others' mouth. They simply made use of their technology to make it more difficult to make use of their services at no cost. Sure it's possible "they" might be thinking what you've just stated; but they obviously discovered the economic advantage of putting their technology to work without hunting down and prosecuting violators.
before you run your mouth about a "Corporation" check out http://www.dict.org/ and look up the word "Corporation".. or just as well: get your Websters dictionary out!
The general concensus is that RFCs have been obsoleted by patents. The only difference is that with a patent, comments must be officially sanctioned by the holder. Woohoo! fuzzylogic!
The WHO is a well-respected organization and I should like to suggest that the title assigned to the post is horridly inaccurate ("WHO Bid To Regulate Health Sites"). First of all, if such a dot-health Top-Level-Domain (TLD) were to be created, they would only be able to regulate sites under that domain, or whatever provisions are agreed upon.
There is a wealth of inaccurate medical information, of which there are many instances where "findings" are very unfounded, often in the name of a commercial investment. If the WHO were to certify information as either accurate, opinion, whatever.. this would greatly decrease the chances of the many gullible people being exploited by commercialism -- not to mention people need to educate themselves, talk to doctors, and stop being so damn ignorant. Nothing can replace the advice of a doctor with whom you respect.. be s/he a respected medical doctor you don't personally know but much about or your own doctor.
In general, when we (as Slashdot readers/writers/editors/admins/moderators.. including myself, admitedly) complain about something being blatently inaccurate, we consider the stupidity of the creator and frown upon any attempts to censor this information, no matter how inaccurate. The WHO is attempting to establish a system whereby it is able to certify certain information or opinions or whatever. They are not censoring anybody:.com,.net,.org are theoretically "free" from censorship by everybody. They are basically allowing the credible sources in.
I would like to apply a censorship theory often used when dealing Internet access in Libraries and apply it to this situation, where the logic speaks for itself: A library may not arbitrarily decide against acquiring a book or dismissing a book from the public shelves. Likewise, some claim, the Library should not arbitrarily filter certain key words or other things from the internet, since they've basically acquired the entire Internet, as they might have with books. As stated above, the WHO would probably have qualifications for obtaining a.health site, where the resident would maintain the site as agreed to.
I'm not exactly sure how developers view this potentially negative aspect of such a cooperative, but Netscape/Mozilla is quite unique in that.. sure, Netscape is a variation of Mozilla, but Mozilla is always there. If you don't like Netscape, something of the equivalent is Mozilla. Use that. Something not there that Netscape has? Either bid on the developers doing it or do it yourself. As for me, I have no complaints about Netscape, but any allegedly justifyable complaints are countered by the availability of Mozilla.
Re:I looked into this...
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eLection '04
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· Score: 2
Wouldn't this require an amendment to the Federal Constitution, since it is the power of the states to print ballots? I guess if such a measure were to pass the current Supreme Court could choose to hear any cases resulting from the ballot power of the states shifting to the federal government.
Since the [current] Supreme Court has demonstrated that it favors states rights ahead of federal rights, it might be likely that such a mandate would be struck down. However, only time will tell, especially since our next president may serve the important job of reccomending Justices to fill future vacancies of the Supreme Court seats.
Complementing the Article
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
In Illinois, at least, election results in each polling place are transmitted via modem to a county facility where they are tallied and once again transmitted to the state polling facility. Something like that, of course the process is probably more complex than that:-)
Last night, on NPR, somebody from a Floridian county was interviewed. He commented that the technology they use -- the fill-in-the-bubble type -- is a 40-year-old optical technology. And, Like any optical technology, there are bound to be errors when the machines are reading the ballots. If there is an error, sure they can electronically recount the ballots, but there is still the chance for error and with each recount, there is no way for really ensuring an accurate count other than manually reviewing and tallying the ballots.
Nothing really beats the socialization factor of going to the polling place and talking with others about the candidates among other things, as this same NPR broadcast pointed out. I agree.
Oregon allows some sort of remote voting, accomplished by mail. Obviously, with current solutions, this is the most secure means for revoting because such ballots would be difficult or impossible to duplicate and by the way *it's illegal* to do such:-). The NPR broadcast featured somebody who indicated that people enjoyed the convenience of being able to review the candidates credentials from within their own home, at their leisure, allowing more thinking time to be sure of yourself, aside from any pressure at the polling place.
Would such electronic balloting require a constitutional amendment, since states are given the power to print their own ballot? Strictly interpreted, a state wouldn't be printing ballots. It would be composing a ballot for the connecting voter's computer to render/display/print to the screen's screen. Secondly, in such a digital format, ballots could easily be duplicated.. suddenly anybody can "print" (though not legally) ballots, by definition. Last, Many states would not support a federal constitutional amendment which gives the federal government the power to print ballots, so this is an issue you should take up with your state legislature.
"Authorization isn't really that hard: When you register to vote, you (by default) get a password delivered by snail-mail a week before the election. Tampering with that mail is a federal offense, of course. On election day you use secure http to sign in from anywhere with your name, address and password. Lose the password? Sorry, you don't get the comfort of home/work; you go to the voting booth with everyone else."
Anonymity further complicates this. How are we to be sure that you aren't able to vote in both the online and physical polling place? Also, this would definately make vote fraud much easier! I don't want my password.. would you like it? (Just a theoretical situation). Sure, we could maintain a list of those who have voted online and those who have voted at the polling place, but this would definately require a massive revision and technological update to most states' polling systems -- a very expensive task!
"Anonymity is trivial; any logs with identifying information either don't get stored, or get wiped immediately."
The main problem with this is that investigating voter fraud is much more difficult. Care would need to be taken when devising such a system and certain things MUST be logged!
"At the voting booth it can be even simpler, using touch-screens."
I don't want to seem like an idiot. But a touchscreen has its own issues. You must understand that we have oils on our hands and everything we touch wips off some of those oils in the form of a fingerprint. I notice that you were just at the polling boot and, for some reason, I have a copy of your fingerprint. I can dust and identify your votes. This can even be investigated as some sort of fraud, but how do we investigate this without compromising the privacy of the voter? This definately would need to be solved! While this theoretical situation is far out in left-field, it is something that must be addressed, particularly with the Slashdot folk as security-concious as they are.
"Also, net admins overseeing the effort need to have enough access to track and lock out attackers, but obviously they can't have access to change the election results. Lock them in a room for the day with a hundred video cameras tracking everything they do, like the officers on missile-launch duty. Many net admins will find this a relaxed and enjoyable work environment compared to their current jobs."
If there is even the slightest chance that a voting system might be attacked anonymously, it would be a more difficult task to track them on the Internet than at a physical polling place. We must accept that not everything must be completely digital! It was just today, I was listening to an NPR broadcast about film preservation becoming a lost art to systems which simplify and dumb-down the process giving the user less control and experience needed to correct certain things. My point is that there are certain qualities of non-digital methods that will never be replaced by the digital world! They may be reimplemented, but it's not the same!
Some people might be interested in reading WIPO's WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center page. I won't go too in depth, because then I'd be reciting their page, but it's worth looking at because it does pertain to Internet Domain Names.
While there is the possibility that Segaweb #includes bias.h, I am greatly offended that it was asserted that it was a biased review because the source attacking something CmdrTaco obviously finds 'neat,' as do I.
But let's keep in mind that because such a review attacks something we might like, this is no cause for retaliation. Maybe their argument is valid and well-supported, I'm not expert, I don't know. But maybe there are some points that were completely ignored to support such a conspiracy theme, as CmdrTaco pointed out.
anybody have any ideas on what items they may have missed? Remember to reply with unbiased opinions and compare and contrast similar features but certainly don't reply with comments which are either untrue or aren't reported fairly:-)
Exactly, the benefits of implementing gpf-like functionality (better crash-dialog functionality) into kde or, for the gnome folk, gnome.
Seriously, though, I know not what the true story is, but I'm sure there are many reasons Microsoft might execute such and infinately many reasons why they would not have. And, by the way, we don't even know what, if, or exactly how much code was stolen.
Maybe this is another case of a hard drive being misplaced behind a copy machine, anyways.
Microsoft has invested MANY millions of dollars into their software -- something they obviously don't want to lose -- against your theory. With all the funky legal stuff going on in recent years, I must say if Microsoft hasn't used this vehicle, you are first, in my book, to give ideas to those who will;-)
Slashdot Mirror
In my router configuration it says "Linksys, a division of Cisco."
will this now become:
"Linksys, a division of Cisco. Perfigo ready!"
at what point will Cisco stop? I can see it now "Cisco acquires Sysco" (Where Sysco will be its retail arm.) --
"Linksys, a division of Cisco. Perfigo ready! Distributed by Sysco."
There's a piece of software that many of us geeks can't live without. And while you hard core geeks might be thinking "That Jabber Author Guy" .. but most people I know, including myself, uses Gaim on Linux. Heck, there are many AIM clients even for Mac OS X that use the gaim core (ie. Adium and Fire) ... and a bunch of others even on other platforms.
While GAIM is radically different from when he passed on development to the community, let's not forget Mark Spencer for having brought us the original gaim, which evolved into the product that most of us use.
(Let's not also forget the current maintainers at: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/contactinfo.php )
On K5: Hi folks, we just anted to point out that Slashdot will be adding subscriptions to their site. The story is here (free registration required)
Mr. Taco just wants us to hold of on our little /. effect ritual until further notice, after he has downloaded all of the archives!
--Andy
And if it were actually a threat, then maybe this might be a noteworthy story. But nobody uses Linux anymore!
Possibly for when the copyright owner is a record company. Musicians who belong to a union might want to form some sort of standard for authorizing the use of encryption mechanisms.
It appears that the advantage of releasing sample code to exploit flaws in computer systems places increased pressure to fix the bug on the manufacturer. This is good, but at a compromise which places serious risk to the consumers of the product. Once suspect code is released, the potential for damage to consumer systems is exponentially increased because the tools to do damage are then available to anybody. Both sides have valid points, but perhaps a set of guidelines to report such bugs which take into account the interests of all involved parties is crucial.
As far as I am concerned, there are five levels of releasing this information which could be used to balance these interests: 1. Say nothing and somebody else will exploit the bug 2. release this information to the manufacturer of the software product and hope they do something about it 3. release a summary of the bug enough so it is realized by the general public 4. release technical information on what theories are used to exploit the flow 5. release the tools necessary to exploit the flaw
The above could be thought of as an agenda for the order in which to release word of any flaws, where one step succeeds the other, starting at #2. 5 should be used with extreme caution - in other words: know what you're doing before using this step, because then anybody can make a toy of the tool to execute the exploit on anybody's system.
When you do all the math and add up the per-seat installations, Zeppelin NT almost nears the cost of Windows NT.
Don't forget about the much-improved URL auto-completion, where a drop-down list displays a list more neatly than the former menu-list when you type into the url bar! :-)
"Movie producers are probably okay. They survived without money from video rentals before and will again if need be. As long as they can provide a compelling experience in the theater, they will be fine. The VCR gave them additional revenue. If they lose it, they'll come up with another one. Bitch all you want about the MPAA, they're much better behaved than the RIAA. The DVD region encoding annoys me (I still haven't bought a DVD player), but it isn't as bad as the RIAA's actions towards artists."
I would have to argue that, with the current media hype surrounding various music-file sharing services, many people involved with the making of many movies or music would be very interested in the added attention of a lawsuit concerning these services. We musn't forget that people are people and will always want more of what they have now or don't yet have. Movie producers are just the same as you and me: they would like greater revenue from their movies. Keep in mind, too, that greater revenues often rates the degree success.
p.s. I would have to agree with you on your comments about Slashdot.
*EXACTLY*!
And I don't exactly understand why "Are companies using stock options to trick their employees into working for less compensation?" was put in there.. not everything needs to be a conspiracy. To me, the choice would be obvious, but to those who don't see it that way .. that's part of their risk -- and potential reflection of their own common sense.
As for the companies .. stock options should be an incentive (an additional bonus) to work for the company -- I would be offended if they were anything but.
Relevant post
If you use their service to post to Usenet, you ARE agreeing to their contract, and are obligated to follow it.
I suspect that this clause of their contract is the exchange of "property" required for any contract to be considered legally binding. You receive their service in exchange for licensing them your posts. This would validate other parts of the contract, as well, in the eyes of the law.
There are plenty of other services that allow you to post to usenet without licensing your text to them (ie. most Internet Service Providers). Google shouldn't be kicked in the face for not being the company you - or anybody else - (probably) thought it was or expected it to be.
Currently, it appears that Google has no formal business plans to financially exploit what its users write. This contract/license just happens to give Google the legal wedge should they find a way to do this. There's nothing that obligates you to agree to the contract -- just don't use their service.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has nothing in its Windows licences specifying that you must agree to licence work created for the Operating System (OS) to Microsoft. If they did, it would be awfully foolish, given their previous Anti-trust difficulties -- let's not also forget that it is the software authors who help Microsoft keep many of their users. Although, Microsoft may own some system and dll files your app may need - including the OS, itself - it owns no more of your app than, say, the authors of GTK do (if your app makes use of the GTK).
I'm not looking to start any trouble but I'd be careful when putting words into others' mouth. They simply made use of their technology to make it more difficult to make use of their services at no cost. Sure it's possible "they" might be thinking what you've just stated; but they obviously discovered the economic advantage of putting their technology to work without hunting down and prosecuting violators.
O'Really[?].Net
before you run your mouth about a "Corporation" check out http://www.dict.org/ and look up the word "Corporation" .. or just as well: get your Websters dictionary out!
The general concensus is that RFCs have been obsoleted by patents. The only difference is that with a patent, comments must be officially sanctioned by the holder. Woohoo! fuzzylogic!
The WHO is a well-respected organization and I should like to suggest that the title assigned to the post is horridly inaccurate ("WHO Bid To Regulate Health Sites"). First of all, if such a dot-health Top-Level-Domain (TLD) were to be created, they would only be able to regulate sites under that domain, or whatever provisions are agreed upon.
There is a wealth of inaccurate medical information, of which there are many instances where "findings" are very unfounded, often in the name of a commercial investment. If the WHO were to certify information as either accurate, opinion, whatever .. this would greatly decrease the chances of the many gullible people being exploited by commercialism -- not to mention people need to educate themselves, talk to doctors, and stop being so damn ignorant. Nothing can replace the advice of a doctor with whom you respect .. be s/he a respected medical doctor you don't personally know but much about or your own doctor.
In general, when we (as Slashdot readers/writers/editors/admins/moderators .. including myself, admitedly) complain about something being blatently inaccurate, we consider the stupidity of the creator and frown upon any attempts to censor this information, no matter how inaccurate. The WHO is attempting to establish a system whereby it is able to certify certain information or opinions or whatever. They are not censoring anybody: .com,.net,.org are theoretically "free" from censorship by everybody. They are basically allowing the credible sources in.
I would like to apply a censorship theory often used when dealing Internet access in Libraries and apply it to this situation, where the logic speaks for itself: A library may not arbitrarily decide against acquiring a book or dismissing a book from the public shelves. Likewise, some claim, the Library should not arbitrarily filter certain key words or other things from the internet, since they've basically acquired the entire Internet, as they might have with books. As stated above, the WHO would probably have qualifications for obtaining a .health site, where the resident would maintain the site as agreed to.
I'm not exactly sure how developers view this potentially negative aspect of such a cooperative, but Netscape/Mozilla is quite unique in that .. sure, Netscape is a variation of Mozilla, but Mozilla is always there. If you don't like Netscape, something of the equivalent is Mozilla. Use that. Something not there that Netscape has? Either bid on the developers doing it or do it yourself. As for me, I have no complaints about Netscape, but any allegedly justifyable complaints are countered by the availability of Mozilla.
Since the [current] Supreme Court has demonstrated that it favors states rights ahead of federal rights, it might be likely that such a mandate would be struck down. However, only time will tell, especially since our next president may serve the important job of reccomending Justices to fill future vacancies of the Supreme Court seats.
Anonymity further complicates this. How are we to be sure that you aren't able to vote in both the online and physical polling place? Also, this would definately make vote fraud much easier! I don't want my password.. would you like it? (Just a theoretical situation). Sure, we could maintain a list of those who have voted online and those who have voted at the polling place, but this would definately require a massive revision and technological update to most states' polling systems -- a very expensive task!
The main problem with this is that investigating voter fraud is much more difficult. Care would need to be taken when devising such a system and certain things MUST be logged!
I don't want to seem like an idiot. But a touchscreen has its own issues. You must understand that we have oils on our hands and everything we touch wips off some of those oils in the form of a fingerprint. I notice that you were just at the polling boot and, for some reason, I have a copy of your fingerprint. I can dust and identify your votes. This can even be investigated as some sort of fraud, but how do we investigate this without compromising the privacy of the voter? This definately would need to be solved! While this theoretical situation is far out in left-field, it is something that must be addressed, particularly with the Slashdot folk as security-concious as they are.
If there is even the slightest chance that a voting system might be attacked anonymously, it would be a more difficult task to track them on the Internet than at a physical polling place. We must accept that not everything must be completely digital! It was just today, I was listening to an NPR broadcast about film preservation becoming a lost art to systems which simplify and dumb-down the process giving the user less control and experience needed to correct certain things. My point is that there are certain qualities of non-digital methods that will never be replaced by the digital world! They may be reimplemented, but it's not the same!
FYI, the proper term is "vote fraud"
Thank you for reaffirming my request that those who dispute the claims should prove the inaccuracy.
Some people might be interested in reading WIPO's WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center page. I won't go too in depth, because then I'd be reciting their page, but it's worth looking at because it does pertain to Internet Domain Names.
While there is the possibility that Segaweb #includes bias.h, I am greatly offended that it was asserted that it was a biased review because the source attacking something CmdrTaco obviously finds 'neat,' as do I.
But let's keep in mind that because such a review attacks something we might like, this is no cause for retaliation. Maybe their argument is valid and well-supported, I'm not expert, I don't know. But maybe there are some points that were completely ignored to support such a conspiracy theme, as CmdrTaco pointed out.
anybody have any ideas on what items they may have missed? Remember to reply with unbiased opinions and compare and contrast similar features but certainly don't reply with comments which are either untrue or aren't reported fairly :-)
Exactly, the benefits of implementing gpf-like functionality (better crash-dialog functionality) into kde or, for the gnome folk, gnome.
Seriously, though, I know not what the true story is, but I'm sure there are many reasons Microsoft might execute such and infinately many reasons why they would not have. And, by the way, we don't even know what, if, or exactly how much code was stolen.
Maybe this is another case of a hard drive being misplaced behind a copy machine, anyways.
Microsoft has invested MANY millions of dollars into their software -- something they obviously don't want to lose -- against your theory. With all the funky legal stuff going on in recent years, I must say if Microsoft hasn't used this vehicle, you are first, in my book, to give ideas to those who will ;-)