I know, that is why I stopped previewing (and behold what that just caused...)
My little mistake seems to be a little/. bug too. I entered the url as href='http://www.google.com' but that came out as href="'http://www.google.com'"
That is: slashdot added the double quotes making me look really stupid. Next the script will automagically add "F1R57 P057" and Natalie Portman to the first five post on any subject:-)
I totally lived on the stories by Van Vogt, Asimov, Heinlein and actually even Hubbard (later inventions of his apart) as a kid. Rereading them now, though makes me realize how far it is between the 50's and now.
Yes they got the science right (more or less) but they completely missed the cultural change. They placed a fifties man in a future environment, not a future person. Their future was the future of the white western male.
This not said to be judging. I'm a product of my time, just like they were a product of theirs.
Ever tried Stephen Baxter? There you have a modern sf-writer who gets the science right and avoids the Gibson-ish bleak alleys.
Rest in peace Van Vogt. There will be followers boldly going where... wait a moment, I'm becoming pathetic....
Lawyers have found a way to create black holes on the "internet" by creating a vortex of lawsuits that swirls at velocities comparable to the speed of information.
"We are very exited by this" says a spokesman for the Unmoving Picture Association "Maybe it is possible to create a device so that information cannot escape its proximities, or at least bend over"
If "they" are protecting themselves with patents, then what you are doing is illegal (even if it is ethical) If they are protecting themselves with trade secrets - No problem. As long as you can show (document everything) that you reverse engineered from open sources you are in the clean.
Of course, IANAL, and there is much more to lawsuits than mere law (as we all know).
Now I don't know what field you are in, but lets say you are reinventing coca cola.
You may analyze a bottle (Reverse engineer) or use open sources (what is printed on the bottle i.e water, sugar, artificial flavoring). If you never seen the real recipy (trade secret) you are in the clear as long as you dont try to call your product "Coca cola" or something too similar.
If, on the other hand, you are making a simpler way to shop online (i.e. one click shopping). Assuming that Amazon's patent would hold in court, you can't recreate it in any way unless you can show that what you have done is really different to what is patented.
In short: Against patents you are screwed if their lawyers find you. Against trade secrets *they* are screwed as soon as you can show that you did the same independently.
My first reaction was "Thank goodness, less dead tree hassle" Then I started thinking about wider consequences.
An email (and possibly a http-post) would have to be regarded as a legal document. That means that there must be a foolproof way to determine identities. In legal terms I guess that also means accountability. That is: A good standard backed up by "The open source community" might not be accepted, while another standard backed up by megacorp inc would.
If you control your own gateway you can do lots of funny things. Therefore some legislator might start thinking about licensing ISP:s and require that any legaly bounding post or mail must go through AOL and the likes. Someone "Big and responsible"
Are we looking at a future where "signed e-mail" becomes a proprietary standard or am I just paranoid?
Yes autofiltering is a bad thing. Human filtering is not.
How about a/.-like system, where all mail (professional, not personal) to a representative goes on public record (online). Include a way to push unanswered mail up and we (correction: you, since I'm not a US citizen) might have something.
Ignoring an email is easy. Ignoring an email that is on public record is not.
I actually think that we greatly overestimate the importance of the present.
Yes, some data will be lost. That has happened before. We dont have complete records of our past. and we are doing fine as is. Cant we suspect that our childrens children will be able to do just fine even if they cant find the/. source?
The truth is that most records are lost, not primarily because of physical decay but because nobody cares enough.
If you want your work to survive to future generations, you make sure that enough people find it and make copies. That way you increase the chance that at least one copy will survive.
Actually, I sometimes think that the urge to preserve everything is a sign of decay. Monuments are built by the empire at its peak, wishing to be remembered, not by the rising competitor.
Guns might not be bad, Gun owners might be nice people. (Hey, target shooting *is* really fun) What is bad is the idea that "Someone trying to enter my house is a criminal and I'm justified in firing a gun at him/her" That thougt is what makes you shoot your daughter by accident when she's home late.
The combination of the idea "[insert ethnical group] are criminal" and "It is OK to kill a criminal" inevitably leads to members of that group getting killed. Sometimes someone breaking into a house. Sometimes someone innocent, who ran into a triggerhappy Joe, scared by racist propaganda.
When you use a gun against someone, you might or might not be in the clear legally. If you are not, you have become a murderer. You might have a gun for self defence. It is OK with me. It is your choice. I just hope that you never find yourself with a smoking gun in your hand, suddenly realising that you made a mistake.
Since you mentioned Sweden, I had to answer being a certified Swede(tm). Of cource I cant speak for other cultures, but I think some points are valid regardless of which country you study.
My view of the developments here is that racism is merely a symptom. The society has gotten tougher. It is no longer obvious in the minds of the young, that things are going to be "ever better and better". Wether people today actually *are* worse off than, lets say, 20 years ago is not the point. Among large groups of society, there is a general atmosphere of hopelessness, that leads to short sightedness.
This is of course a perfect breeding ground for extremist groups. Not only Neo-Nazis, but also extreme-left groups, anarchists, violent vegetarians(!) and so on.
With our rather leftish tradition (in the 70's left was right and right was evil) an extreme right attitude is a fool proof way to get some shock value. Thus, neo-nazis attracts the "I hate my parents and the society" types. Also we might not have dealt with our actions (or rather non-actions) in WWII properly. Many people were pro-german (but not necessarily pro-nazi, often rather anti-soviet) in the early war. Later governments has been trying to cover up that fact, and as usual, exposed government cover-ups is an easy way to plant an attitude of "Dont believe anything from the authorities" attitude.
This said, there is a reason why the internet racists use Sweden as a platform.
We have a very strong freedom of speech law and tradition. (remember, this is the country that made the Co$ papers a public record...) This combined with our high rate of internet usage makes it easy to maintain a racist site here.
Of course there are laws regarding this. They generally say that you may not agitate against any group of people. The courts also tends to take crimes with racist motives more seriously than others.
The racists are smart, however (well, some of them) The don't say "Kill the blacks/arabs/gays", but "Arm yourselves for self defence" They don't say "Throw them out", but "regulate immigration" They don't say "Foreigners are inferior", but "They are overrepresentated in the [something bad]-statistics"
Enough with this rant. My opinion is that official censorship won't solve anything. There are always ways around that. Education is always good. Actions agains social injusticies too. The main thing (and here comes a cliche) is that the good people never give up.
Got to speak for you here. It is so easy to think of all the marvelous technical gadgets, that changes the way we *do* stuff. The pill (and education) changes the way we live our *lives*. The pill (and other contraceptives) made children something you actively decided to have as opposed to something that "just happened". Nowadays most of us get a couple of years with no obligation to our parents, no children to care for and full physical health. That is 20-30 year old men and women are living a kind of life previously only enjoyed by the old.
How many geeks would there be if you had to put food on the table for your kids everyday? Perhaps the choice between coding for fun and working the grindstone would come out different then n'est ce pas?
Hell, if you've got a firewall, block all packets to and from doubleclick.net
You did not run into problems with page rendering?
I've seen a coupla webpages that did not display at all since a freaking ad server was down.
(Yeah I know "If they can't make proper web pages, why should I bother to visit yada yada" Yes, some strange looking pages is a small price to pay to get rid of doubleclicks tracking, but I still wonder
In software engineering (as opposed to mere coding) you must work with management types. Therefore the most important thing is to have all specifications written down, cause otherwise you'll find yourself wasting days and weeks arguing over what was included in the project and not.
Also, the *most* important thing is to have a clue about how your product is supposed to be used. Learn the terminology of those that are supposed to work with it on an everyday basis. Your application must speak *their* language, since they most likely don't know yours.
If you write software for, lets say, a law firm, you must take your time to learn a thing or two about how things work there. What procedures are done with a tight schedule? They must be optimized. What is frequently done by newbies? That must be simple. What is done by experts on an everyday basis? That must be quick, so that your system is not percieved as slow. (A seconds delay while I'm watching always seems slower than a minutes delay when I'm doing other stuff)
Yes, you must be a decent programmer, but unless you see why something as stupid as a talking paperclip actually can be called a feature you will get in trouble.
...package management utilities which can automatically check for new upgrades.
Auto-upgrades is also a wonderful target for virus makers. The difference between "Nothing may be installed on my machine unless I say so" and "Nothing potentially improper may be installed on my machine unless I say so" is huge. And if the unexperienced user (heck me too) got used to OK:ing *some* upgrades, it would be all too easy to press that OK button once too many.
Regarding the password rant, I think we agree. I just used the first example of non responsible behaviour that sprang to mind, sorry.
What I wanted to stress was that viruses, crashes and bugs are a much greater problem for the inexperienced user, regardless of system. Also that the factor that makes an open source system more secure for an expert is not valid for the average user.
Thanks, Jennifer, for saving me the trouble to write the same post myself;) Of course there will be Linux viruses. Virus vulnerability is only partly a question of OS choise. User awareness is *the* most important factor.
A computer savvy person does not run a linux box as root, or a NT box as administrator. A computer savvy person uses an upgraded anti virus program and keeps track of discovered bugs and security flaws. A computer savvy person knows that bad things happen sooner or later and backs up data.
However, Linux is slowly entering the realm of the non-geeks. They will run their system as preinstalled. They will not update their system when a bug is discovered (and fixed) They will run as root if it saves them the trouble of remembering *two* passwords. Hey, these are the people who has their password on a post it note beside the screen!
Security in an open source system works because the user is coresponsible for the system
Windows main security problem is that it is designed to fit the both the clueless and the pro.
Now for the big quetion: How can "we" avoid that Linux falls into the same trap? Is it better that Linux remains a OS for the pros, or is it possible to make a secure "install and forget" open source system?
(and I said the same when AOL and TW merged) Coded, copy protected, "pay per view" Video and Audio on the net is the media giants wet dream.
Until now it has not been possible, since there open standards, that makes proprieatary ones a second choise. *BUT* when you have a large bulk of content(TW/EMI), a large customer base (AOL) and control of the client (Netscape), you can actually dictate a new standard and get end users for it.
Think of a "secure audio format" (SAF). Encrypted and closed source, naturally. Everything from EMI/TW gets released online in SAF. You can enjoy it via a Netscape plugin, that by the way makes those awful pirated Mp3's bounce off your browser.
Of course somebody will crack it, but since this is all online, a new encryption is easily pushed out.
The CD is gone, but the record label still controls the distribution, just like in the good old pre-net times.
Oh, but that is only in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, unfortunately, is not signed by the US.
(Seems like some people have a problem with part III, Article 6.5: "Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women. "
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, That must mean that CmdrTaco Beat the Turing Test.
...would of course be to code an APISAC(FP) (Artificial Pseudo-Intelligent Slashdot Anonymous Coward (F1R57 P057))
OK Good doctor. Can we end this thread now?
My little mistake seems to be a little /. bug too. I entered the url as href='http://www.google.com' but that came out as href="'http://www.google.com'"
That is: slashdot added the double quotes making me look really stupid. Next the script will automagically add "F1R57 P057" and Natalie Portman to the first five post on any subject :-)
Sigh... Pecavi
Do I hear ...?
Yes they got the science right (more or less) but they completely missed the cultural change. They placed a fifties man in a future environment, not a future person. Their future was the future of the white western male.
This not said to be judging. I'm a product of my time, just like they were a product of theirs.
Ever tried Stephen Baxter? There you have a modern sf-writer who gets the science right and avoids the Gibson-ish bleak alleys.
Rest in peace Van Vogt. There will be followers boldly going where... wait a moment, I'm becoming pathetic....
Ah! so that is why he went into the crusoe project!
"We are very exited by this" says a spokesman for the Unmoving Picture Association "Maybe it is possible to create a device so that information cannot escape its proximities, or at least bend over"
Of course, IANAL, and there is much more to lawsuits than mere law (as we all know).
Now I don't know what field you are in, but lets say you are reinventing coca cola.
You may analyze a bottle (Reverse engineer) or use open sources (what is printed on the bottle i.e water, sugar, artificial flavoring). If you never seen the real recipy (trade secret) you are in the clear as long as you dont try to call your product "Coca cola" or something too similar.
If, on the other hand, you are making a simpler way to shop online (i.e. one click shopping). Assuming that Amazon's patent would hold in court, you can't recreate it in any way unless you can show that what you have done is really different to what is patented.
In short: Against patents you are screwed if their lawyers find you. Against trade secrets *they* are screwed as soon as you can show that you did the same independently.
The Big Thing (tm) is the new application of new *established* tecnology.
(Like: the net is not new, but the way we use it is)
An email (and possibly a http-post) would have to be regarded as a legal document. That means that there must be a foolproof way to determine identities. In legal terms I guess that also means accountability. That is: A good standard backed up by "The open source community" might not be accepted, while another standard backed up by megacorp inc would.
If you control your own gateway you can do lots of funny things. Therefore some legislator might start thinking about licensing ISP:s and require that any legaly bounding post or mail must go through AOL and the likes. Someone "Big and responsible"
Are we looking at a future where "signed e-mail" becomes a proprietary standard or am I just paranoid?
How about a /.-like system, where all mail (professional, not personal) to a representative goes on public record (online). Include a way to push unanswered mail up and we (correction: you, since I'm not a US citizen) might have something.
Ignoring an email is easy. Ignoring an email that is on public record is not.
Just a thought
Yes, some data will be lost. That has happened before. We dont have complete records of our past. and we are doing fine as is. Cant we suspect that our childrens children will be able to do just fine even if they cant find the /. source?
The truth is that most records are lost, not primarily because of physical decay but because nobody cares enough.
If you want your work to survive to future generations, you make sure that enough people find it and make copies. That way you increase the chance that at least one copy will survive.
Actually, I sometimes think that the urge to preserve everything is a sign of decay. Monuments are built by the empire at its peak, wishing to be remembered, not by the rising competitor.
Guns might not be bad, Gun owners might be nice people. (Hey, target shooting *is* really fun) What is bad is the idea that "Someone trying to enter my house is a criminal and I'm justified in firing a gun at him/her"
That thougt is what makes you shoot your daughter by accident when she's home late.
The combination of the idea "[insert ethnical group] are criminal" and "It is OK to kill a criminal" inevitably leads to members of that group getting killed. Sometimes someone breaking into a house. Sometimes someone innocent, who ran into a triggerhappy Joe, scared by racist propaganda.
When you use a gun against someone, you might or might not be in the clear legally. If you are not, you have become a murderer. You might have a gun for self defence. It is OK with me. It is your choice. I just hope that you never find yourself with a smoking gun in your hand, suddenly realising that you made a mistake.
My view of the developments here is that racism is merely a symptom. The society has gotten tougher. It is no longer obvious in the minds of the young, that things are going to be "ever better and better". Wether people today actually *are* worse off than, lets say, 20 years ago is not the point. Among large groups of society, there is a general atmosphere of hopelessness, that leads to short sightedness.
This is of course a perfect breeding ground for extremist groups. Not only Neo-Nazis, but also extreme-left groups, anarchists, violent vegetarians(!) and so on.
With our rather leftish tradition (in the 70's left was right and right was evil) an extreme right attitude is a fool proof way to get some shock value. Thus, neo-nazis attracts the "I hate my parents and the society" types. Also we might not have dealt with our actions (or rather non-actions) in WWII properly. Many people were pro-german (but not necessarily pro-nazi, often rather anti-soviet) in the early war. Later governments has been trying to cover up that fact, and as usual, exposed government cover-ups is an easy way to plant an attitude of "Dont believe anything from the authorities" attitude.
This said, there is a reason why the internet racists use Sweden as a platform.
We have a very strong freedom of speech law and tradition. (remember, this is the country that made the Co$ papers a public record...) This combined with our high rate of internet usage makes it easy to maintain a racist site here.
Of course there are laws regarding this. They generally say that you may not agitate against any group of people. The courts also tends to take crimes with racist motives more seriously than others.
The racists are smart, however (well, some of them)
The don't say "Kill the blacks/arabs/gays", but "Arm yourselves for self defence"
They don't say "Throw them out", but "regulate immigration"
They don't say "Foreigners are inferior", but "They are overrepresentated in the [something bad]-statistics"
Enough with this rant. My opinion is that official censorship won't solve anything. There are always ways around that.
Education is always good. Actions agains social injusticies too. The main thing (and here comes a cliche) is that the good people never give up.
It is so easy to think of all the marvelous technical gadgets, that changes the way we *do* stuff. The pill (and education) changes the way we live our *lives*. The pill (and other contraceptives) made children something you actively decided to have as opposed to something that "just happened". Nowadays most of us get a couple of years with no obligation to our parents, no children to care for and full physical health. That is 20-30 year old men and women are living a kind of life previously only enjoyed by the old.
How many geeks would there be if you had to put food on the table for your kids everyday? Perhaps the choice between coding for fun and working the grindstone would come out different then n'est ce pas?
You did not run into problems with page rendering?
I've seen a coupla webpages that did not display at all since a freaking ad server was down.
(Yeah I know "If they can't make proper web pages, why should I bother to visit yada yada" Yes, some strange looking pages is a small price to pay to get rid of doubleclicks tracking, but I still wonder
Therefore the most important thing is to have all specifications written down, cause otherwise you'll find yourself wasting days and weeks arguing over what was included in the project and not.
Also, the *most* important thing is to have a clue about how your product is supposed to be used. Learn the terminology of those that are supposed to work with it on an everyday basis. Your application must speak *their* language, since they most likely don't know yours.
If you write software for, lets say, a law firm, you must take your time to learn a thing or two about how things work there. What procedures are done with a tight schedule? They must be optimized. What is frequently done by newbies? That must be simple. What is done by experts on an everyday basis? That must be quick, so that your system is not percieved as slow. (A seconds delay while I'm watching always seems slower than a minutes delay when I'm doing other stuff)
Yes, you must be a decent programmer, but unless you see why something as stupid as a talking paperclip actually can be called a feature you will get in trouble.
Auto-upgrades is also a wonderful target for virus makers. The difference between "Nothing may be installed on my machine unless I say so" and "Nothing potentially improper may be installed on my machine unless I say so" is huge. And if the unexperienced user (heck me too) got used to OK:ing *some* upgrades, it would be all too easy to press that OK button once too many.
Regarding the password rant, I think we agree. I just used the first example of non responsible behaviour that sprang to mind, sorry.
What I wanted to stress was that viruses, crashes and bugs are a much greater problem for the inexperienced user, regardless of system. Also that the factor that makes an open source system more secure for an expert is not valid for the average user.
A computer savvy person does not run a linux box as root, or a NT box as administrator.
A computer savvy person uses an upgraded anti virus program and keeps track of discovered bugs and security flaws.
A computer savvy person knows that bad things happen sooner or later and backs up data.
However, Linux is slowly entering the realm of the non-geeks.
They will run their system as preinstalled.
They will not update their system when a bug is discovered (and fixed)
They will run as root if it saves them the trouble of remembering *two* passwords.
Hey, these are the people who has their password on a post it note beside the screen!
Security in an open source system works because the user is coresponsible for the system
Windows main security problem is that it is designed to fit the both the clueless and the pro.
Now for the big quetion:
How can "we" avoid that Linux falls into the same trap? Is it better that Linux remains a OS for the pros, or is it possible to make a secure "install and forget" open source system?
Coded, copy protected, "pay per view" Video and Audio on the net is the media giants wet dream.
Until now it has not been possible, since there open standards, that makes proprieatary ones a second choise. *BUT* when you have a large bulk of content(TW/EMI), a large customer base (AOL) and control of the client (Netscape), you can actually dictate a new standard and get end users for it.
Think of a "secure audio format" (SAF). Encrypted and closed source, naturally. Everything from EMI/TW gets released online in SAF. You can enjoy it via a Netscape plugin, that by the way makes those awful pirated Mp3's bounce off your browser.
Of course somebody will crack it, but since this is all online, a new encryption is easily pushed out.
The CD is gone, but the record label still controls the distribution, just like in the good old pre-net times.
(Seems like some people have a problem with part III, Article 6.5:
"Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women. "
And no US vs Europe flamewar here, thanks.
"Kevin Mitnick has been imprisoned by the U.S. Government for:
4 years, 11 months, 6 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes, 55 seconds
Kevin Mitnick will be released from prison in:
11 months, 30 days, 19 hours, 14 minutes, 8 seconds"
Y2K bug still alive and well huh?
The marketing decisions are typically based on "What has selled before" as opposed to "What would sell"
Sad but true