Steganography is nothing new. People have been hiding secret messages in innocuous objects since time began. Naturally, various people want to prevent this, but the method's very nature makes it almost impossible to simply track.
Arizona State University
on
Dorm Storm?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You might look into what Arizona State has done to overcome their amazing feat: They're making it *mandatory* for business students to have laptops with wireless ethernet cards, which are then going to connect to a variety of online academic services, including those used during class. There's been a lot of news on it recently, and Google should be able to get you what you need.
Dr. Lenat and others in the field of AI research should know better than to make claims about consciousnes and morality in a public forum. Cognitive scientists don't even begin to agree on what consciousness is, let alone what it would take for a machine to replicate it. Some very respected individuals do not even think that human consciousness can be replicated within the forseeable future (e.g. Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind). Like any other scientific discipline, these sorts of claims should be left to peer review. Claiming to have invented a conscious machine would be akin to a physicist claiming to have unified quantum with relativity, but without having submitted their findings to any publication.
The Slashdot Scientific Review Technique: If any scientist says anything other than "we don't know," he or she is wrong.
Re:Idea: maybe Jon needs a wider forum?
on
Seanbaby.com
·
· Score: 2
Jon Katz should get a semi-regular opinion column in an old-fashioned medium like USA Today
I think the topic of this thread should have been, Idea: maybe Jon needs a different forum?.
OTOH, even old-timey/.ers seem unable to bring themselves to filter his stories. He's like Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern -- Those who agree pay attention, and those who disagree pay more attention. Annoying for us, but great business for Slashdot.:)
Am I wrong, or is SB handling the load pretty well? Little does Katz realize that the site is funded by a multimedia megacorp and is running on a powerhouse server cluster!
Katz Website Reality Scale
on
Seanbaby.com
·
· Score: 2
0: Slick, professional, elegant and useful.
2: Great design, useful content.
4: Nice effort: Graphics, interesting content.
6: Rough graphics and color scheme, poor HTML
8: Non-compliant HTML, little visual appeal, poor colors.
This really does bring up an interesting issue. For the most part, a GUI Linux interface is no more "difficult" to use than Windows, aside from the fact that people typically have experience with Windows and not with Linux.
It's like debating whether German or French is the more difficult language; It depends what you grew up speaking.
Does the False Authority Syndrome include accepting Slashdot stories as fact too?
No, no, no... read carefully: It says False Authority Syndrome. Slashdot editors select news from only authoritative sources[1], carefully check all facts[2], generate precise and accurate write-ups[3], and publish promptly[4]. Any story you read here can be trusted.
Notes:
1: Anonymous cowards
2: Asking on IRC, "Hey does this sound right?"
3: Including careful spell checks by CmdrTaco
4: Usually 2-3 months after news has appeared on Memepool, Slant-Six, K5, or similar sites.
We made the startup sequence busy and techie in a sort of imitation of the NeXT workstations we were using at the time...
Now, if we could just get Linux programmers to stop doing that, and instead to throw a pretty splash screen over the dirty background stuff, Linuxusership would increase exponentially.
But no...hackers love their scrolling gibberish...
The difference between ActiveWorlds (and similar) sites is that they are little more than avatar chatrooms with flashier graphics. The emphasis is still on talking rather than taking action.
I think that the ideal goal-free 3d world would be developed *without* and emphasis on talking, which would force the designers to making the world itself an interesting place to act and interact.
I've been working on a project that combines a variety of social/physical simulations into one MMP world, which can have a variety of interfaces (graphical, text, web-based, etc.) People are born, grow up, work, play, have relationships, have offspring, etc.; The focus is on the world itself, rather than on having a pretty place to chat.
Better Names
on
Code Red III
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Code Red I, II, and III are pretty dull names. Why not call II and III something like Code Blue or Code Monkey or something.
The biggest problem with online comics is the same one that affects eBooks and other online reading -- Monitors on which reading and viewing are actually comfortable have not yet filtered down to the masses. Joe Sixpack won't read lengthy comics online because it makes his head hurt after a while.
Not for long. The mods will have your ass soon and this post will be -1. Shoulda clicked the "No Score +1 Bonus" box. That would have cut your losses. Or better yet, posted that anonymously.
*yawn*
I've got *plenty* of Karma to burn. Moderators love what I say, and they just keep modding me up. I lose a few points here and there, and then say something-or-other about Microsoft and get them all back.
So, didn't you use "Crapobat" to obtain this to begin with? So everyone reading it is using Reader by proxy. Even if you used Ghostscript, you still used Adobe protocol. Karma whore.
You're just jealous because you have 12 karma points and I have 48. Sellout!
Here's the text for those not wanting to support Adobe:
Final Report by PbT Consultants
Under contract number PRS/2000/A0-7002/E/98
THE RESULTS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
CONSULTATION EXERCISE
ON
THE PATENTABILITY OF COMPUTER IMPLEMENTED
INVENTIONS
PbT Consultants Ltd
Ramswin House
Lombard Street
Orston
Notts NG13 9NG
UK
(?+44 1949 851519
stewdav@attglobal.net
Mobile +44 7767 355223
0. Executive Summary
Introduction
On 19 October 2000, the European Commission, DG Internal Market, launched a
consultation on the subject, "The Patentability of computer-implemented inventions".
The aim of the consultation was to seek the views of interested parties, the public at large
and Member States in order to help the European Commission formulate a policy that
strikes the right balance between promoting innovation through the possibility of obtaining
patents for computer implemented inventions and ensuring adequate competition in the
market place.
DG Internal Market produced and made available on its web site a consultation paper that
invited comments by 15 December 2000 on the preferred scope and economic impact of
harmonisation in the area of computer implemented inventions. The paper contained a
number of proposed "Key Elements" for a harmonised approach to the patentability of
computer-implemented inventions in the European Community.
The Response
A total of 1447 responses were received, amounting to around 2500 pages of text.
The largest single element in the response was a "petition" organised by the Eurolinux
Alliance who had requested responses to be sent to themselves for forwarding to the
Commission. Almost 1200 such responses were forwarded along with the response from
the Alliance itself. Eurolinux is an alliance of over 200 commercial software publishers and
European non profit associations with the goal to promote and protect the use of Open
Standards, Open Competition and Open Source Software such as Linux.
Responses were received from individuals and organisations in all EU and EEA member
states apart from Liechtenstein , various CEEC countries, the US, Australia and South
Africa.
The Scope of Harmonisation
The consultation paper asked the following questions:
- Should harmonisation take place on the basis of the elements contained in this
document? Or:
- Should a more restrictive approach be adopted? Or, conversely:
- Should more liberal conditions coming closer to the practice in the United States of
America prevail in the future?
Almost all of the responses fell into one of the following two distinct groups:
Restrictive Approach - Opposed to most software patents
Members
Students, academics, engineers, start-up companies
Concerns
Threats to the open-source movement and SMEs, lack of patenting resource and
expertise, fear of litigation, negative impact on standards for interoperability
Proposals
Severely restrict the patentability of software
Limit infringement liability for "open-source" software
Reject all business method patents
Liberal Approach - Apply traditional patentability criteria to computer-implemented
inventions
Members
Lawyers, established industry players, government agencies,
Concerns
Protection of development investment, equality with the US, opening up of global
markets
Proposals
Harmonise the application of European Patent Office practice
Apply patentability criteria to software that are slightly more liberal than those proposed
in the Commission consultation paper
Take extreme care with patenting of business methods
It was clear that the group opposed to software patents (91%) numerically dominated the
response. A large proportion of this group was explicitly from the "Open Source" movement
including the Eurolinux "petition". 54% of responses that were sent directly to the
Commission and were not from explicit "Open Source" respondents, supported software
related patents.
If account is taken of the economic muscle and number of organisations represented by
responses from industry and other associations it can be argued that there is an "economic"
majority in favour of patents on computer-implemented inventions.
On the other hand, those opposed to software patents would claim that due to the size and
fragility of their organisations, they require support. They would also claim that it is only the
"open-source" movement, e.g. Linux, that can effectively take on the "Micro$oft"s of this
world.
Ultimately, the weighting of the two points of view is a political matter.
The Impact of Harmonisation
The consultation paper asked for comments on the impact of the respondents' preferred
scope of harmonisation under the following headings:
Innovation in software and underlying knowledge and techniques
All but the most radical of respondents agreed that innovation was fostered by patents in
other areas of technology. However, those opposed to software patents claimed that
software technology was sufficiently different to justify a different approach. Both the nature
of the technology itself, for example, the incremental nature of the development process and
the existence of a supposedly unique business model, i.e. open-source, were cited as key
differentiators of the technology.
Impact on SMEs
Opinions were divided on whether the impact of software related patents was negative or
positive on SMEs. Little hard evidence was provided of business failures or patenting
triumphs, apart from Stac v Microsoft where an SME successfully sued Microsoft for
infringement of a software patent.
Why not take the Symantec Sircam cleanup utility, patch it to make it self-propagating, and then e-mail it out with the message "Hi there! I send you this because you're a stupid fscking idiot.:)"
Slashdot Mirror
You know it's bad when Slashdot can't handle the Slashdot effect.
Steganography is nothing new. People have been hiding secret messages in innocuous objects since time began. Naturally, various people want to prevent this, but the method's very nature makes it almost impossible to simply track.
You might look into what Arizona State has done to overcome their amazing feat: They're making it *mandatory* for business students to have laptops with wireless ethernet cards, which are then going to connect to a variety of online academic services, including those used during class. There's been a lot of news on it recently, and Google should be able to get you what you need.
Answer: Fortune and glory, sweetheart. Fortune and glory.
The Slashdot Scientific Review Technique: If any scientist says anything other than "we don't know," he or she is wrong.
I think the topic of this thread should have been, Idea: maybe Jon needs a different forum?.
OTOH, even old-timey /.ers seem unable to bring themselves to filter his stories. He's like Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern -- Those who agree pay attention, and those who disagree pay more attention. Annoying for us, but great business for Slashdot. :)
Am I wrong, or is SB handling the load pretty well? Little does Katz realize that the site is funded by a multimedia megacorp and is running on a powerhouse server cluster!
0: Slick, professional, elegant and useful.
2: Great design, useful content.
4: Nice effort: Graphics, interesting content.
6: Rough graphics and color scheme, poor HTML
8: Non-compliant HTML, little visual appeal, poor colors.
Perfect 10: Crap layout, lousy colors, animated gifs -- hip, happening, and real.
I agree, except for the -ndy part.
Shouldn't this be in MLP? Oops, wrong site...
Don't click that link! It goes to goatse.cx!
It's like debating whether German or French is the more difficult language; It depends what you grew up speaking.
No, no, no... read carefully: It says False Authority Syndrome. Slashdot editors select news from only authoritative sources[1], carefully check all facts[2], generate precise and accurate write-ups[3], and publish promptly[4]. Any story you read here can be trusted.
Notes:
1: Anonymous cowards
2: Asking on IRC, "Hey does this sound right?"
3: Including careful spell checks by CmdrTaco
4: Usually 2-3 months after news has appeared on Memepool, Slant-Six, K5, or similar sites.
Now, if we could just get Linux programmers to stop doing that, and instead to throw a pretty splash screen over the dirty background stuff, Linuxusership would increase exponentially.
But no...hackers love their scrolling gibberish...
I think that the ideal goal-free 3d world would be developed *without* and emphasis on talking, which would force the designers to making the world itself an interesting place to act and interact.
I've been working on a project that combines a variety of social/physical simulations into one MMP world, which can have a variety of interfaces (graphical, text, web-based, etc.) People are born, grow up, work, play, have relationships, have offspring, etc.; The focus is on the world itself, rather than on having a pretty place to chat.
Code Red I, II, and III are pretty dull names. Why not call II and III something like Code Blue or Code Monkey or something.
The Doctrine & Covenants, silly!
Paper is still a beautiful medium.
That's your qualification? Lots of people have written books when they oughtn't to have.
The Net fosters a "Hey, I can do this, too" value system.
That's wonderful if you define "this" as:
They are sometimes narcissistic: they fixate on "me" media, blocking and filtering people and ideas they don't like or agree with
I'm only writing these comments because I forgot to block Katz articles again...
*yawn*
I've got *plenty* of Karma to burn. Moderators love what I say, and they just keep modding me up. I lose a few points here and there, and then say something-or-other about Microsoft and get them all back.
Try to keep up, okay?
You're just jealous because you have 12 karma points and I have 48. Sellout!
Final Report by PbT Consultants
Under contract number PRS/2000/A0-7002/E/98
THE RESULTS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
CONSULTATION EXERCISE
ON
THE PATENTABILITY OF COMPUTER IMPLEMENTED
INVENTIONS
PbT Consultants Ltd
Ramswin House
Lombard Street
Orston
Notts NG13 9NG
UK
(?+44 1949 851519
stewdav@attglobal.net
Mobile +44 7767 355223
0. Executive Summary
Introduction
On 19 October 2000, the European Commission, DG Internal Market, launched a consultation on the subject, "The Patentability of computer-implemented inventions". The aim of the consultation was to seek the views of interested parties, the public at large and Member States in order to help the European Commission formulate a policy that strikes the right balance between promoting innovation through the possibility of obtaining patents for computer implemented inventions and ensuring adequate competition in the market place.
DG Internal Market produced and made available on its web site a consultation paper that invited comments by 15 December 2000 on the preferred scope and economic impact of harmonisation in the area of computer implemented inventions. The paper contained a number of proposed "Key Elements" for a harmonised approach to the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in the European Community.
The Response
A total of 1447 responses were received, amounting to around 2500 pages of text. The largest single element in the response was a "petition" organised by the Eurolinux Alliance who had requested responses to be sent to themselves for forwarding to the Commission. Almost 1200 such responses were forwarded along with the response from the Alliance itself. Eurolinux is an alliance of over 200 commercial software publishers and European non profit associations with the goal to promote and protect the use of Open Standards, Open Competition and Open Source Software such as Linux. Responses were received from individuals and organisations in all EU and EEA member states apart from Liechtenstein , various CEEC countries, the US, Australia and South Africa.
The Scope of Harmonisation
The consultation paper asked the following questions:
- Should harmonisation take place on the basis of the elements contained in this document? Or:
- Should a more restrictive approach be adopted? Or, conversely:
- Should more liberal conditions coming closer to the practice in the United States of America prevail in the future?
Almost all of the responses fell into one of the following two distinct groups:
Restrictive Approach - Opposed to most software patents Members Students, academics, engineers, start-up companies Concerns Threats to the open-source movement and SMEs, lack of patenting resource and expertise, fear of litigation, negative impact on standards for interoperability
Proposals Severely restrict the patentability of software Limit infringement liability for "open-source" software Reject all business method patents
Liberal Approach - Apply traditional patentability criteria to computer-implemented inventions Members Lawyers, established industry players, government agencies, Concerns Protection of development investment, equality with the US, opening up of global markets
Proposals Harmonise the application of European Patent Office practice Apply patentability criteria to software that are slightly more liberal than those proposed in the Commission consultation paper Take extreme care with patenting of business methods
It was clear that the group opposed to software patents (91%) numerically dominated the response. A large proportion of this group was explicitly from the "Open Source" movement including the Eurolinux "petition". 54% of responses that were sent directly to the Commission and were not from explicit "Open Source" respondents, supported software related patents.
If account is taken of the economic muscle and number of organisations represented by responses from industry and other associations it can be argued that there is an "economic" majority in favour of patents on computer-implemented inventions.
On the other hand, those opposed to software patents would claim that due to the size and fragility of their organisations, they require support. They would also claim that it is only the "open-source" movement, e.g. Linux, that can effectively take on the "Micro$oft"s of this world.
Ultimately, the weighting of the two points of view is a political matter.
The Impact of Harmonisation
The consultation paper asked for comments on the impact of the respondents' preferred scope of harmonisation under the following headings:
Innovation in software and underlying knowledge and techniques
All but the most radical of respondents agreed that innovation was fostered by patents in other areas of technology. However, those opposed to software patents claimed that software technology was sufficiently different to justify a different approach. Both the nature of the technology itself, for example, the incremental nature of the development process and the existence of a supposedly unique business model, i.e. open-source, were cited as key differentiators of the technology.
Impact on SMEs
Opinions were divided on whether the impact of software related patents was negative or positive on SMEs. Little hard evidence was provided of business failures or patenting triumphs, apart from Stac v Microsoft where an SME successfully sued Microsoft for infringement of a software patent.
Why not take the Symantec Sircam cleanup utility, patch it to make it self-propagating, and then e-mail it out with the message "Hi there! I send you this because you're a stupid fscking idiot. :)"
It's just like a library, but you get to pay, and you won't be burdened by actually getting a physical object for your money.