The smart cards are for something of a back up for a back up thing. Also they can be used to verify that the program that is being looked at is indeed, line for line, the program that was on the machine during the voteing process.
But I also think that having the backup on the smart cards can take the recount out of the hands of the idiots in Florida and put them in the hands of the American people.
I think I have this nailed. First and foremost, I believe everything has it's place. I think that zelots that think that EVERYTHING should be run in Linux or EVERYTHING should be open sourced are nuts. Everything has it's place.
And the electronic voteing booth just screams for open source. That is where I would start. I am closed minded to any company or individual that won't go open sourced on these things.
If I was in charge I would offer the electronic voteing booth contract in the same fashion that the Navy has 'fly offs' for new jet contracts.
I would find a company, or three and give them my requirements for the voteing booth. I would ask them to design something to my specifications and it must be open source.
Then I would put up a challenge to the Linux community. I would post the same requirements that I gave those companies on the net and look for some people to put together a free software open source voteing booth.
In a year I would do the 'fly off' (or vote off, sans actual election) and either pick the free software project or one of the companies.
That is part one of my plan.
The second part are my security requirements.
At some part in either the registration process or possibly at the polling place (or even both) the voter is issued a blank smart card. The card contains no personal information either digitally or printed on the surface.
The voter goes to vote. When they cast a vote the computer tallies it up in memory (naturaly) and then they are issued a paper reciept. The paper reciept does not need to contain any personal information either. It does need to list who the person voted for in clear bold English. A senior citizen should be able (and encouraged) to read the reciept to see that no mistakes were made. Also on the reciept is a bar code to aid in computer tabulation.
At this point the smart card comes into play. Here is where the smart card gets, well smart. It is totally optional. If someone leaves the card at home, or is opposed for any reason they don't need to use it.
The user inserts the smart card and some information is stored on the card.
**note** Feel free to add suggestions to this, I am not a comp sci person at all. I came up with this on my own***
The information is something like this: 1. The exact time that the card is written to. 2. The number of voters to have used the machine that day. 3. A hash file representing the exact size of the program data on the machine (like you would use to double check the a file you would get off of usenet) 4. A running total of all the results of the voteing on that booth so far.
Finally all this data is secured with a key that is kept private in the voteing booth itself. I would make it a law that once the elections ended the key had to be made public.
Here is what I am accomplishing:
1. You can always do a normal tally and not worry about my back ups. If everything appears normal and people are happy then there you go. 2. If recounts are asked for they can be easily accomplished by using the paper reciepts from the voteing machines. If someone cries foul at the bar code they can read the type on the reciepts. 3. If people are still crying foul - the voters keep the smart cards. Since every machine has a different key and all keys are public as soon as the voteing is done then it is a simple enough matter for independent programmers to verify the votes on there own. But what most people will do is go back to the polling place and swipe the smart cards into a reader. The reader will record the information and produce a graph showing the real time voteing that happened at each booth. Sans personal information (thank you very much). In the event that someone tries to cheat the system it will be obvious. Even if someone reencrypts the card they will show up like a sore thumb next to the next card that is read (see... we did a running tally of the votes.
We have the same things in the US. Stupid Snobs in the West, toothless banjo playing inbred freaks in the Applachains, racist truck driving tabaco chewing rednecks (and there boyfriends) in the south, decent smart normal people in Baltimore and clueless liberals in the northeast.
Oh yeah there is Canada too. Know what maks Canada special? Nothing.
Wrong place for this... But I make the argument that the EU is quickly approaching being a country made up of seperate states in the same way that the US is.
So by that logic you could say that Europe is a country, or possibly soon to be one.
Yes I know I am bending the logic a bit. But give me 20 years. It is coming.
This new worm, it looks to me like it is being dubbed an anti-virus.
Most of the time I learn about something and think it is new it is not. So I won't act shocked when some/.r comes forth and cites instances of anti-viruses in the past.
However I personally have not come across this before. I predict that the anti-virus will never be as prevolent as the virus, but we can expect to see them from here on out.
This whole bit has drug on way, way too long. However I found a website that illustrates my point much more eloquently then I can manage.
Go here: http://www.denbeste.nu
Don't worry, I swear on my best friend's lesbian sister's sexuality that this isn't pron or goatse.
It is a sight called USS Clueless and the guy talks a lot about why we are in no position to replace large generators with small home size units. He makes a smart and compelling argument.
Now that I give it a little more thought I think I can see how it could be doable.
If someone can produce a water cooling system that is A) cheap B) reliable and C) simple and painless to install then I think it could be done.
If you could pick up the part for maybe $20 or $30 and the install really wasn't any harder then say installing a PCI card then I think it would be feasible. But it would be critical that we could get a reliable 2 years out of it. I am suggesting throwing away the old and replacing it instead of topping off the water or cleaning the radiator.
I think the general public would have no issue with a replace/throwaway part. But if you start talking about topping off liquids and cleaning radiators, wow, I shudder at the trouble that could cause.
I did read the article, and I did see what you said. However, I am not on this dudes jury.
What I am doing is sitting here and shrugging my shoulders. What he did do was just wrong. This dude knew exactly what damage he would create and did it anyways. Regardless of what the jury found him guilty of he went to jail, and in my opinion jail is where he is meant to be.
Now before you start getting all tied up in the idea that the specific charge isn't worth 7 years I want to point something else out to you.
Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion.
Sometimes prosecuters are presented with problems. Some schmuck is sitting in the defendants chair guilty as all out hell. But the prosecuter doesn't have the laws/evidence to give the shcmuck what he deserves for that particular crime. So the prosecuter goes for something that is lesser, which is easier to prove and more then likely overlooked by the schemeing schmuck in question. When the prosecuter gets the lesser charge he pushes for the stiffest sentence he can possibly get from it.
Useing that logic I have no sympathy for that guy. What he did was wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong.
I know no one will read a post put up this late. But I was struck by how wrong the article got this guy.
He DOS'd the companies email servers and sent emails to all of the companies clients giving instructions on how to do such an attack.
The line he crossed was DOS'ing those servers. That is where the difference between free speech and destruction of private property lies. If he was so unhappy about his former employer and so disgusted at the way security was handled then a website without a DOS attack on the employers email servers would have been fine. So would writing an article for the local newspaper. Hell a billboard would have been alright too (assuming this guy has all his facts straight).
But the difference in my mind between that stuff and what he did was the DOS attack.
He deserved to be in the pokey, now it is time for him to move on with his life.
For just a second you gotta stop thinking like a/.r Computers for the rest of the world are these boxes that when you push a button they turn on and they produce a steady stream of pron, email and spam that comes from some netherworld called 'the internet'.
And that is about all normal people understand.
These people have enough trouble with EASY preventative maintenence to the OS (I am talking Windows Update), asking them to do preventative maintenence to the hardware is just plain mean.
In that respect fans are good. Occasionaly they clog with dust but aside from that they are really maintenence free.
I don't watercool. I have read some odds and ends here and there talking about maintenence to watercoolers. So what is the reality? The people that do watercooling, is there any maintenence to them at all?
Even a little maintenence is too much for mainstream people.
God forbid I need to start telling people they need to check the oil inside there PC.
I have never seen this 'yellow air' you are describing.
Pick up a map. Find Harrisburg Pennsylvania, now find Baltimore Maryland. Now take a guess at what the half way point is between the two. That is where I live, the half way point. Check out how close I am to Philadelphia and New York City.
I have been to Philadelphia and New York maybe a dozen times each. I spend considerable time in Baltimore (my family is from there) and Harrisburg is so close to me it is a joke.
LA must have some sort of geographical difference from the area I live in. Because it isn't 'one person riding in a car'. That is just a dumb thing to say. I am telling you that on the East Coast we don't give a rats ass about how many people are in cars. We like trucks, big SUV's and motorcycles out here. And I have never seen what you are describing.
I still point out to you that LA has improved. Do some research on LA and look at how the smog has improved between the 70's and today. The 70's was something stupid like 1/3 of the year. Today it is something like 10 or 20 days a year.
Which is true, but it also comes back around to my original point about windmills, there are plenty of places in this country that cannot support them.
I live in Pennsylvania. Where I live the land is drammaticly different from the West Coast where these wind farms are popular. We have a greater population density then you do. Where I live there isn't enough land to build houses and commercial areas. Zoning laws are all that keep people sane about building commercial properties. Having wind farms competing for that very scarce land area, wow it would just be a bad thing.
I support it in areas that can support it. But I am a realist and there are places in this country that can't handle them.
Look, profits are good. With profits come Research and Devolopement. Those people funding the biomass research, when they are finished what do you think they are going to do with the results? I bet they don't open source the results and give it freely out to the world. My money says that they will try to patent as much of there research as possible and either sell it to another business or start one up themselves. It is the promise of profits that has motivated them to do this.
Profits are not bad. With Profits come capitilasim. With Capitilism comes research and with research comes solutions to the problems that you believe exist.
Got a question for you, have you ever refused a raise? Ever told your boss that you do whatever you do for the good of humanity and he should put your raise into something better?
Next time you get a raise have you given any thought to titheing the entire thing in perpetuity to a charity?
For me the answer is no. And it is the thought of being able to make more money and work in a more comfortable environment that brings out the best of me at my job.
Actually I have never seen the air turn yellow anywhere. What exactly are you smoking?
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't LA have a huge smog problem in the 70's? Haven't they come a very long way towards fixing it? How do those people in LA get around since they outlawed automobiles?
Is it possible, that maybe, just maybe, technology was the answer to LA's problems?
See there are other solutions.
As for your yellow air, I do believe you need your eyes checked, or a drug screening.
On the contrary. Those 'scientists' you refer to are for the most part politicians.
Do you care to submit to us for review information that supports your claim that the Earth has a big gas gauge on it and it reads 'E' for Empty?
Go looking for it and see where you end up. My thing is that I am distrustful of pretty much everyone as a rule. Take the greenhouse theory.
Just in the last month the claim was made that South Africa is hit hardest by the greenhouse theory (I will not call it an 'effect' until I see proof). Let me get this straight, the US is the biggest consumer of 'evil' energy. We won't sign the Koyoto accords and we are huge polluters. Why isn't it us? For that matter why is it on pretty much the other side of the globe?
Something occured to me about the greenhouse theory a long time ago. If you really wanted to nail this thing as either existent or non-existent and if you wanted to measure it and be spot on and defining then there is only one place to start... The last Ice Age. Think about it, that is what we are talking about. The Earth does have trends where it is sometimes cooler and sometimes warmer. In order for the greenhouse theory to hold water, and especially if you want to blame it on humans and not, say cow flatulance, then you must demonstrate that any temperature fluctuations you are recording are not part of the natural order of the earths environment.
So the last Ice Age was what, something like 20,000 years ago? How long have human beings been taking accurate and consistant recordings of our weather patterns? Like 100 years now. And how long have we been taking super-duper accurate readings of our oceans? Something like 20 years now.
So you are telling me that in a 100 year period you have this data that shows a bit of a spike in temperature trends and that you can compare that with a 20,000 year period in our history and that is conclusive of anything?
Just who do we think we are? I am no statician, but I don't believe that those numbers can show any meaning. Hell, just 20 years ago Spock was on TV telling us that the Oceans were going to freeze over and NYC was gonna have ice bergs in Times Square.
How in just 20 years did we get from ice bergs to the obliteration of the polar caps?
When I want to see the science of this stuff all I ever end up being presented with is some kook that is more political then scientific reffering to a study that someone that he/she/it knows once read on the internet about this stuff.
I have yet to see these things with my own eyes.
A couple years ago/. had a story about a distributed computing project that was going to forecast the weather out like 500 years. I was very, very curious about this thing. And at first it had potential. Hell, I still think it was a good idea. They were going to come up with a zillion global weather models and run them all at least twice. The first time they would use data that was designed to generate a prediction for years 1900-1950. The second time was going to be the weather much farther out. The logic is obvious, if the computer nails the 1900-1950 then you put more faith in the farther out results.
There were technical problems with this project, but they are not really important. Nothing that could not have been cleaned up in revisions of the client.
However when I read the web site in detail I came across some disturbing things. The people putting out the project said that they were paranoid that the oil industry had a lot to fear from there project. They felt that the distributed computing model was open to sabotage from the oil industry. They said that they pretty much already knew what sort of results to expect, and no matter how accurate the 1900-1950 predictions were if the latter results didn't fall in line with there expectations then they would throw those results out. Obviously the oil companies had sabotaged there work.
Ummm wind power is only good as long as the wind is blowing.
Seriously, most parts of the country do not have a guarenteed constantly blowing wind. Then there is the land area needed to sit the windmills on. Windmills are not really that efficient. It takes many of them (running consistantly as well, see my first point) to replace a decent size power plant. You are talking about enormous tracts of land that could be used for many, many things.
Course before you put up the windmills you have to deforest that tract of land....
And solar power... Same problem really. Overcast days are as bad as night time. If you want to guarentee a consistent energy supply from the sun then you must also guarentee consistant access to it.
Once again it isn't that I am against any of this stuff. Hell, that wind farm they want to build off Martha's Vineyard is perfect in so many ways. Take a look at the hypocrits that are against that.... I am for building wind farms and solar farms in areas that can support it. I am against these structures in areas where the justification is political and not scientific as well as in areas where the land can be put to better use.
You are a sucker. There is an enormous amount of Oil waiting to be dug up. Hell, the US is sitting on an amount that could keep us independent for quite some time.
In fact, there is some speculation that we may be wrong about how oil is made. There have been some observations made in the ocean oil feilds that suggest old and used up oil reserves are somehow being replenished.
It isn't that I (or anyone else for that matter) is against different forms of energy. Oh sure, the liberals like to paint us like that, but it just isn't the case. It is that we are kind of in a 'The Devil you do know is better then the devil you don't know' mentality.
Solar, Wind Power, Garbage Power (try saying that with a straight face), hydro-power, hell even nuclear power; we just don't know nearly as much about these forms of energy as we know about Oil, Gas and Coal. And that is where I get worried. We have all these people just screaming there foolish heads off that we are in some sort of crisis. Truth is, we are not in any sort of crisis. You enviromentalist nuts out there have created an unintended safety for us. Because you are so stubornly against us drilling for oil in the US our country is in a position where the oil fields of the world could dry up, or OPEC, Russia, South America and Iraq could decide to stop selling to us and we would be able to pump our own oil on our own soil and be fine!
I say we should sit tight and allow technologies to improve. Let's learn about all the nasty effects of these alternate sources of energies. Lets get them to where they are equal in the efficeincy of Oil, Gas and Coal and then we can allow the market to absorb the newer forms of energy production.
No need to panic.
Well now that I am done that, it is time for some bonehead that isn't capable of considering an opposing viewpoint to moderate me 'troll' or 'flamebait' status. What if the children hear what I have to say?
This topic made me think of a conversation I once had with a pointy headed boss of mine, Shane DeGary. This guy was dumb. I mean really, really dumb.
I can't remember what the topic was, but I said to Shane something like this: 'All matter has 3 states, liquid, gas and solid. I think some people are arguing that there is also a fourth state, plasma, but I don't understand that one.'.
Basic stuff, right? Not for Mr. DeGary. He argued with me until he was blue in the face that day. He didn't believe or understand what I was saying.
At some point I thought I was getting through to him, he put his hand on something metal and he said 'how do you explain this?' I said 'It's in it's solid state Shane. You know like when water is frozen.'.
I 'burnt' myself with that one. I remember thinking that I should have avoided use of the word 'freeze'. It only served to cause his feeble little mind to lock up.
Then he thought he had me, he brought up wood. I don't remember how the conversation ended. But I find it hard to believe that I made any sort of attempt to explain to him that wood was not an element, but a complicated mixture of elements.
Oh and then there was the day that I tried to explain to Shane that 'cold' doesn't exist. Think about it. Heat is actually a long wave radiation. All cold is is the absence of the radiation. (that is how I imagine it) Or you could say that heat is the vibration of the molecules. So cold is just the molecules vibrating less.
For years I had an intense hatred for that guy. I think I was bugged as much by his personality (lack of) as I was by the idea that someone that dense is my boss.
I was reading everyones knee-jerk posts to this article. A few things stick out in my mind.
Everyone seems to be asking 'Who would buy stuff like this?'. I always took the/. crowd to be smarter then the normal crowd, guess I was wrong. Do the math and draw your own conclusions. How much do you think they are paying for a CD of 1 million addresses? $25, $100? Does it matter? What is the percentage of sales they need to turn a profit? Not much. It doesn't take many people to make it worth there while to annoy all of us. When I was cold calling I was expected to set only 1 appointment for every 2 hours of work. My bosses were more concerned about the ratio of appointments to work time then they were to how many calls I blew through. Cold calling is cheap. Spam is cheaper.
Then I saw a couple of duffuses that listed some people's real names and addresses. Way to go McFly. Do you have any understanding how much trouble you could be in? Lawsuit time.
Then there is the mandatory 'Some people don't even belong on the internet' comment. What is the deal with you? You only pull your nose out of your linux to shove it up in the air and put down everyone around you. Got news for ya, the internet is for all of us.
There is this part of me that supports laws to kill spamming. But that part is getting laughed at by the other part of me that knows damn well that spammers will move there servers overseas and the ones that stop spamming won't even be noticed. I personally don't even see the reason to make laws against spammers, too many laws in this country if you ask me.
What I want to see more of is anti-spam tools at the user and ISP end. Seems to me that the solution to Spam is probably there.
I know NOTHING about Linux. Except that it is free (as in beer).
From my perspective it doesn't look so free anymore....
Okay I know a little bit more then that. Like how it is user supported and such. My first question is, is there a movement to get the SCO code out of Linux? Would it be proper to guess that maybe a 3.0 kernal in the future will be free of this code?
My other observation (please correct me if I got something wrong, I am begging) is that ****ahem**** the Microsoft solution is cheaper then $700 a CPU.
There is a part of me that would like to see file sharing just stop.
Does anyone think that the RIAA is aware of how awful a thing it would be if the P2P networks went away and the public swore to only buy legitimate music?
It is my firm belief that file sharing and pirated CD's are a small portion of the RIAA's problems. If those things went away the RIAA would still be unable to sell music and they would have no one left to point fingers at. That has got to scare them.
Another belief I have is in what it will take to kill the RIAA dead. Sooner or later there is going to come a music service, such as Apple's, that entirely circumvents the RIAA. This service will meet up with the future Guns and Roses (or Aerosmith, or Beastie Boys or whoever..) and that band will become HUGE. They will do it without any input from the RIAA. The band will become rich and popular and the RIAA will in all probablity sue.
Of course for this to happen another monopoly needs to be dealt with, Ticketmaster. But I feel like the RIAA is the real culprit that needs to be dealt with and everything else will slide in place.
I imagine a world in which bar bands are not begging for record contracts.
Slashdot Mirror
The smart cards are for something of a back up for a back up thing.
Also they can be used to verify that the program that is being looked at is indeed, line for line, the program that was on the machine during the voteing process.
But I also think that having the backup on the smart cards can take the recount out of the hands of the idiots in Florida and put them in the hands of the American people.
I think I have this nailed.
First and foremost, I believe everything has it's place. I think that zelots that think that EVERYTHING should be run in Linux or EVERYTHING should be open sourced are nuts.
Everything has it's place.
And the electronic voteing booth just screams for open source.
That is where I would start. I am closed minded to any company or individual that won't go open sourced on these things.
If I was in charge I would offer the electronic voteing booth contract in the same fashion that the Navy has 'fly offs' for new jet contracts.
I would find a company, or three and give them my requirements for the voteing booth. I would ask them to design something to my specifications and it must be open source.
Then I would put up a challenge to the Linux community. I would post the same requirements that I gave those companies on the net and look for some people to put together a free software open source voteing booth.
In a year I would do the 'fly off' (or vote off, sans actual election) and either pick the free software project or one of the companies.
That is part one of my plan.
The second part are my security requirements.
At some part in either the registration process or possibly at the polling place (or even both) the voter is issued a blank smart card. The card contains no personal information either digitally or printed on the surface.
The voter goes to vote.
When they cast a vote the computer tallies it up in memory (naturaly) and then they are issued a paper reciept.
The paper reciept does not need to contain any personal information either. It does need to list who the person voted for in clear bold English. A senior citizen should be able (and encouraged) to read the reciept to see that no mistakes were made. Also on the reciept is a bar code to aid in computer tabulation.
At this point the smart card comes into play.
Here is where the smart card gets, well smart.
It is totally optional. If someone leaves the card at home, or is opposed for any reason they don't need to use it.
The user inserts the smart card and some information is stored on the card.
**note** Feel free to add suggestions to this, I am not a comp sci person at all. I came up with this on my own***
The information is something like this:
1. The exact time that the card is written to.
2. The number of voters to have used the machine that day.
3. A hash file representing the exact size of the program data on the machine (like you would use to double check the a file you would get off of usenet)
4. A running total of all the results of the voteing on that booth so far.
Finally all this data is secured with a key that is kept private in the voteing booth itself. I would make it a law that once the elections ended the key had to be made public.
Here is what I am accomplishing:
1. You can always do a normal tally and not worry about my back ups. If everything appears normal and people are happy then there you go.
2. If recounts are asked for they can be easily accomplished by using the paper reciepts from the voteing machines. If someone cries foul at the bar code they can read the type on the reciepts.
3. If people are still crying foul - the voters keep the smart cards. Since every machine has a different key and all keys are public as soon as the voteing is done then it is a simple enough matter for independent programmers to verify the votes on there own.
But what most people will do is go back to the polling place and swipe the smart cards into a reader. The reader will record the information and produce a graph showing the real time voteing that happened at each booth. Sans personal information (thank you very much).
In the event that someone tries to cheat the system it will be obvious. Even if someone reencrypts the card they will show up like a sore thumb next to the next card that is read (see... we did a running tally of the votes.
We have the same things in the US. Stupid Snobs in the West, toothless banjo playing inbred freaks in the Applachains, racist truck driving tabaco chewing rednecks (and there boyfriends) in the south, decent smart normal people in Baltimore and clueless liberals in the northeast.
Oh yeah there is Canada too. Know what maks Canada special?
Nothing.
Wrong place for this...
But I make the argument that the EU is quickly approaching being a country made up of seperate states in the same way that the US is.
So by that logic you could say that Europe is a country, or possibly soon to be one.
Yes I know I am bending the logic a bit. But give me 20 years. It is coming.
Maybe not a DOS attack per definition.
But this dude knew what it would take to take down those systems.
And he did it 3 times on seperate days.
He knowingly and willingly destroyed property.
Why is this being defended?
Is it somehow excuseable now?
I would use a metaphor about breaking and entering, but I won't. I abhor metaphor's on Slashdot. They are abused.
Bottom line, if I catch you breaking into my PC and I can prove it in court, you can council me on my lax security from your jail cell.
This new worm, it looks to me like it is being dubbed an anti-virus.
/.r comes forth and cites instances of anti-viruses in the past.
Most of the time I learn about something and think it is new it is not. So I won't act shocked when some
However I personally have not come across this before.
I predict that the anti-virus will never be as prevolent as the virus, but we can expect to see them from here on out.
This whole bit has drug on way, way too long.
However I found a website that illustrates my point much more eloquently then I can manage.
Go here: http://www.denbeste.nu
Don't worry, I swear on my best friend's lesbian sister's sexuality that this isn't pron or goatse.
It is a sight called USS Clueless and the guy talks a lot about why we are in no position to replace large generators with small home size units.
He makes a smart and compelling argument.
Now that I give it a little more thought I think I can see how it could be doable.
If someone can produce a water cooling system that is A) cheap B) reliable and C) simple and painless to install then I think it could be done.
If you could pick up the part for maybe $20 or $30 and the install really wasn't any harder then say installing a PCI card then I think it would be feasible.
But it would be critical that we could get a reliable 2 years out of it.
I am suggesting throwing away the old and replacing it instead of topping off the water or cleaning the radiator.
I think the general public would have no issue with a replace/throwaway part. But if you start talking about topping off liquids and cleaning radiators, wow, I shudder at the trouble that could cause.
I did read the article, and I did see what you said.
However, I am not on this dudes jury.
What I am doing is sitting here and shrugging my shoulders. What he did do was just wrong. This dude knew exactly what damage he would create and did it anyways. Regardless of what the jury found him guilty of he went to jail, and in my opinion jail is where he is meant to be.
Now before you start getting all tied up in the idea that the specific charge isn't worth 7 years I want to point something else out to you.
Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion.
Sometimes prosecuters are presented with problems. Some schmuck is sitting in the defendants chair guilty as all out hell. But the prosecuter doesn't have the laws/evidence to give the shcmuck what he deserves for that particular crime.
So the prosecuter goes for something that is lesser, which is easier to prove and more then likely overlooked by the schemeing schmuck in question.
When the prosecuter gets the lesser charge he pushes for the stiffest sentence he can possibly get from it.
Useing that logic I have no sympathy for that guy. What he did was wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong.
I know no one will read a post put up this late.
But I was struck by how wrong the article got this guy.
He DOS'd the companies email servers and sent emails to all of the companies clients giving instructions on how to do such an attack.
The line he crossed was DOS'ing those servers. That is where the difference between free speech and destruction of private property lies. If he was so unhappy about his former employer and so disgusted at the way security was handled then a website without a DOS attack on the employers email servers would have been fine. So would writing an article for the local newspaper.
Hell a billboard would have been alright too (assuming this guy has all his facts straight).
But the difference in my mind between that stuff and what he did was the DOS attack.
He deserved to be in the pokey, now it is time for him to move on with his life.
For just a second you gotta stop thinking like a /.r
Computers for the rest of the world are these boxes that when you push a button they turn on and they produce a steady stream of pron, email and spam that comes from some netherworld called 'the internet'.
And that is about all normal people understand.
These people have enough trouble with EASY preventative maintenence to the OS (I am talking Windows Update), asking them to do preventative maintenence to the hardware is just plain mean.
In that respect fans are good. Occasionaly they clog with dust but aside from that they are really maintenence free.
I don't watercool. I have read some odds and ends here and there talking about maintenence to watercoolers.
So what is the reality? The people that do watercooling, is there any maintenence to them at all?
Even a little maintenence is too much for mainstream people.
God forbid I need to start telling people they need to check the oil inside there PC.
I have never seen this 'yellow air' you are describing.
Pick up a map. Find Harrisburg Pennsylvania, now find Baltimore Maryland. Now take a guess at what the half way point is between the two. That is where I live, the half way point. Check out how close I am to Philadelphia and New York City.
I have been to Philadelphia and New York maybe a dozen times each. I spend considerable time in Baltimore (my family is from there) and Harrisburg is so close to me it is a joke.
LA must have some sort of geographical difference from the area I live in. Because it isn't 'one person riding in a car'. That is just a dumb thing to say. I am telling you that on the East Coast we don't give a rats ass about how many people are in cars.
We like trucks, big SUV's and motorcycles out here.
And I have never seen what you are describing.
I still point out to you that LA has improved. Do some research on LA and look at how the smog has improved between the 70's and today.
The 70's was something stupid like 1/3 of the year. Today it is something like 10 or 20 days a year.
Technology helps. It really does.
Which is true, but it also comes back around to my original point about windmills, there are plenty of places in this country that cannot support them.
I live in Pennsylvania. Where I live the land is drammaticly different from the West Coast where these wind farms are popular. We have a greater population density then you do.
Where I live there isn't enough land to build houses and commercial areas. Zoning laws are all that keep people sane about building commercial properties.
Having wind farms competing for that very scarce land area, wow it would just be a bad thing.
I support it in areas that can support it. But I am a realist and there are places in this country that can't handle them.
You really think Russia is funding those Soyez launches?
Now you are injecting politics into this.
Look, profits are good. With profits come Research and Devolopement.
Those people funding the biomass research, when they are finished what do you think they are going to do with the results?
I bet they don't open source the results and give it freely out to the world.
My money says that they will try to patent as much of there research as possible and either sell it to another business or start one up themselves.
It is the promise of profits that has motivated them to do this.
Profits are not bad. With Profits come capitilasim. With Capitilism comes research and with research comes solutions to the problems that you believe exist.
Got a question for you, have you ever refused a raise?
Ever told your boss that you do whatever you do for the good of humanity and he should put your raise into something better?
Next time you get a raise have you given any thought to titheing the entire thing in perpetuity to a charity?
For me the answer is no. And it is the thought of being able to make more money and work in a more comfortable environment that brings out the best of me at my job.
Actually I have never seen the air turn yellow anywhere.
What exactly are you smoking?
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't LA have a huge smog problem in the 70's? Haven't they come a very long way towards fixing it?
How do those people in LA get around since they outlawed automobiles?
Is it possible, that maybe, just maybe, technology was the answer to LA's problems?
See there are other solutions.
As for your yellow air, I do believe you need your eyes checked, or a drug screening.
On the contrary.
/. had a story about a distributed computing project that was going to forecast the weather out like 500 years.
Those 'scientists' you refer to are for the most part politicians.
Do you care to submit to us for review information that supports your claim that the Earth has a big gas gauge on it and it reads 'E' for Empty?
Go looking for it and see where you end up.
My thing is that I am distrustful of pretty much everyone as a rule.
Take the greenhouse theory.
Just in the last month the claim was made that South Africa is hit hardest by the greenhouse theory (I will not call it an 'effect' until I see proof).
Let me get this straight, the US is the biggest consumer of 'evil' energy. We won't sign the Koyoto accords and we are huge polluters.
Why isn't it us?
For that matter why is it on pretty much the other side of the globe?
Something occured to me about the greenhouse theory a long time ago.
If you really wanted to nail this thing as either existent or non-existent and if you wanted to measure it and be spot on and defining then there is only one place to start...
The last Ice Age.
Think about it, that is what we are talking about. The Earth does have trends where it is sometimes cooler and sometimes warmer.
In order for the greenhouse theory to hold water, and especially if you want to blame it on humans and not, say cow flatulance, then you must demonstrate that any temperature fluctuations you are recording are not part of the natural order of the earths environment.
So the last Ice Age was what, something like 20,000 years ago?
How long have human beings been taking accurate and consistant recordings of our weather patterns?
Like 100 years now. And how long have we been taking super-duper accurate readings of our oceans? Something like 20 years now.
So you are telling me that in a 100 year period you have this data that shows a bit of a spike in temperature trends and that you can compare that with a 20,000 year period in our history and that is conclusive of anything?
Just who do we think we are? I am no statician, but I don't believe that those numbers can show any meaning.
Hell, just 20 years ago Spock was on TV telling us that the Oceans were going to freeze over and NYC was gonna have ice bergs in Times Square.
How in just 20 years did we get from ice bergs to the obliteration of the polar caps?
When I want to see the science of this stuff all I ever end up being presented with is some kook that is more political then scientific reffering to a study that someone that he/she/it knows once read on the internet about this stuff.
I have yet to see these things with my own eyes.
A couple years ago
I was very, very curious about this thing.
And at first it had potential. Hell, I still think it was a good idea.
They were going to come up with a zillion global weather models and run them all at least twice.
The first time they would use data that was designed to generate a prediction for years 1900-1950.
The second time was going to be the weather much farther out.
The logic is obvious, if the computer nails the 1900-1950 then you put more faith in the farther out results.
There were technical problems with this project, but they are not really important. Nothing that could not have been cleaned up in revisions of the client.
However when I read the web site in detail I came across some disturbing things. The people putting out the project said that they were paranoid that the oil industry had a lot to fear from there project. They felt that the distributed computing model was open to sabotage from the oil industry. They said that they pretty much already knew what sort of results to expect, and no matter how accurate the 1900-1950 predictions were if the latter results didn't fall in line with there expectations then they would throw those results out. Obviously the oil companies had sabotaged there work.
Ummm wind power is only good as long as the wind is blowing.
Seriously, most parts of the country do not have a guarenteed constantly blowing wind.
Then there is the land area needed to sit the windmills on. Windmills are not really that efficient. It takes many of them (running consistantly as well, see my first point) to replace a decent size power plant. You are talking about enormous tracts of land that could be used for many, many things.
Course before you put up the windmills you have to deforest that tract of land....
And solar power...
Same problem really. Overcast days are as bad as night time. If you want to guarentee a consistent energy supply from the sun then you must also guarentee consistant access to it.
Once again it isn't that I am against any of this stuff. Hell, that wind farm they want to build off Martha's Vineyard is perfect in so many ways. Take a look at the hypocrits that are against that....
I am for building wind farms and solar farms in areas that can support it.
I am against these structures in areas where the justification is political and not scientific as well as in areas where the land can be put to better use.
You are a sucker.
There is an enormous amount of Oil waiting to be dug up. Hell, the US is sitting on an amount that could keep us independent for quite some time.
In fact, there is some speculation that we may be wrong about how oil is made. There have been some observations made in the ocean oil feilds that suggest old and used up oil reserves are somehow being replenished.
It isn't that I (or anyone else for that matter) is against different forms of energy.
Oh sure, the liberals like to paint us like that, but it just isn't the case.
It is that we are kind of in a 'The Devil you do know is better then the devil you don't know' mentality.
Solar, Wind Power, Garbage Power (try saying that with a straight face), hydro-power, hell even nuclear power; we just don't know nearly as much about these forms of energy as we know about Oil, Gas and Coal.
And that is where I get worried. We have all these people just screaming there foolish heads off that we are in some sort of crisis. Truth is, we are not in any sort of crisis. You enviromentalist nuts out there have created an unintended safety for us. Because you are so stubornly against us drilling for oil in the US our country is in a position where the oil fields of the world could dry up, or OPEC, Russia, South America and Iraq could decide to stop selling to us and we would be able to pump our own oil on our own soil and be fine!
I say we should sit tight and allow technologies to improve. Let's learn about all the nasty effects of these alternate sources of energies.
Lets get them to where they are equal in the efficeincy of Oil, Gas and Coal and then we can allow the market to absorb the newer forms of energy production.
No need to panic.
Well now that I am done that, it is time for some bonehead that isn't capable of considering an opposing viewpoint to moderate me 'troll' or 'flamebait' status.
What if the children hear what I have to say?
I tend to think that feasability studies are ways for politicians to put off projects that may or may not benefit them.
Where I live they wanted to build a bypass of a busy inner-city road.
They spent 3 years doing a feasibility study.
Based on what they learned from the feasability study they decided against the bypass.
The total cost of the 'study' was nearly 3 times the projected cost of doing the bypass.
What is wrong with this picture?
Possibly because I was attempting to make an ass out of him in front of my other cow-workers.
This topic made me think of a conversation I once had with a pointy headed boss of mine, Shane DeGary.
This guy was dumb.
I mean really, really dumb.
I can't remember what the topic was, but I said to Shane something like this: 'All matter has 3 states, liquid, gas and solid. I think some people are arguing that there is also a fourth state, plasma, but I don't understand that one.'.
Basic stuff, right?
Not for Mr. DeGary.
He argued with me until he was blue in the face that day. He didn't believe or understand what I was saying.
At some point I thought I was getting through to him, he put his hand on something metal and he said 'how do you explain this?'
I said 'It's in it's solid state Shane. You know like when water is frozen.'.
I 'burnt' myself with that one. I remember thinking that I should have avoided use of the word 'freeze'. It only served to cause his feeble little mind to lock up.
Then he thought he had me, he brought up wood.
I don't remember how the conversation ended. But I find it hard to believe that I made any sort of attempt to explain to him that wood was not an element, but a complicated mixture of elements.
Oh and then there was the day that I tried to explain to Shane that 'cold' doesn't exist.
Think about it.
Heat is actually a long wave radiation. All cold is is the absence of the radiation.
(that is how I imagine it)
Or you could say that heat is the vibration of the molecules. So cold is just the molecules vibrating less.
For years I had an intense hatred for that guy.
I think I was bugged as much by his personality (lack of) as I was by the idea that someone that dense is my boss.
I was reading everyones knee-jerk posts to this article.
/. crowd to be smarter then the normal crowd, guess I was wrong.
A few things stick out in my mind.
Everyone seems to be asking 'Who would buy stuff like this?'.
I always took the
Do the math and draw your own conclusions. How much do you think they are paying for a CD of 1 million addresses? $25, $100? Does it matter?
What is the percentage of sales they need to turn a profit?
Not much.
It doesn't take many people to make it worth there while to annoy all of us.
When I was cold calling I was expected to set only 1 appointment for every 2 hours of work. My bosses were more concerned about the ratio of appointments to work time then they were to how many calls I blew through. Cold calling is cheap.
Spam is cheaper.
Then I saw a couple of duffuses that listed some people's real names and addresses.
Way to go McFly. Do you have any understanding how much trouble you could be in? Lawsuit time.
Then there is the mandatory 'Some people don't even belong on the internet' comment.
What is the deal with you? You only pull your nose out of your linux to shove it up in the air and put down everyone around you. Got news for ya, the internet is for all of us.
There is this part of me that supports laws to kill spamming. But that part is getting laughed at by the other part of me that knows damn well that spammers will move there servers overseas and the ones that stop spamming won't even be noticed. I personally don't even see the reason to make laws against spammers, too many laws in this country if you ask me.
What I want to see more of is anti-spam tools at the user and ISP end. Seems to me that the solution to Spam is probably there.
I know NOTHING about Linux. Except that it is free (as in beer).
From my perspective it doesn't look so free anymore....
Okay I know a little bit more then that. Like how it is user supported and such. My first question is, is there a movement to get the SCO code out of Linux?
Would it be proper to guess that maybe a 3.0 kernal in the future will be free of this code?
My other observation (please correct me if I got something wrong, I am begging) is that ****ahem**** the Microsoft solution is cheaper then $700 a CPU.
Any thoughts?
There is a part of me that would like to see file sharing just stop.
Does anyone think that the RIAA is aware of how awful a thing it would be if the P2P networks went away and the public swore to only buy legitimate music?
It is my firm belief that file sharing and pirated CD's are a small portion of the RIAA's problems. If those things went away the RIAA would still be unable to sell music and they would have no one left to point fingers at. That has got to scare them.
Another belief I have is in what it will take to kill the RIAA dead.
Sooner or later there is going to come a music service, such as Apple's, that entirely circumvents the RIAA. This service will meet up with the future Guns and Roses (or Aerosmith, or Beastie Boys or whoever..) and that band will become HUGE. They will do it without any input from the RIAA.
The band will become rich and popular and the RIAA will in all probablity sue.
Of course for this to happen another monopoly needs to be dealt with, Ticketmaster. But I feel like the RIAA is the real culprit that needs to be dealt with and everything else will slide in place.
I imagine a world in which bar bands are not begging for record contracts.