Contents

1. CES 2009 Shrinks With Dwindling Economy
2. How Do You Manage Your SD Card Library?
3. Oprah Sued For Infringing “Touch and Feel” Patent
4. Obama Picks RIAA’s Favorite Lawyer For Top DoJ Post
5. Phishing Is a Minimum-Wage Job
6. A Peek At DHS’s Files On You
7. Researchers Hack Intel’s VPro
8. State Secrets Defense Rejected In Wiretapping Case
9. Groklaw Shifts Gears, Now Stressing Preservation
10. Israel, Palestine Wage Web War
11. Apple Intros 17” Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes
12. Dr. Dobb’s Journal Going Web-Only
13. Are My Ideas Being Stolen? If So, What Then?
14. DTV Coupon Program Out of Money
15. Using Your BlackBerry As a Modem On Linux
16. FreeBSD 7.1 Released

It’s the price of success - by Kupfernigk (Score: 2) Thread
Consumer electronics nowadays basically do everything consumers want, in an affordable way. As far as I can see there are currently something like 4 breakthrough technologies needed to change that, and they didn’t happen last year:

• Roughly a doubling of battery capacity for the present size
• Affordable large panel OLED or equivalent displays
• Cheap A4/USL size electronic paper
• a really cheap and effective universal home automation system

Apple releasing a large laptop with a non-user-replaceable battery is a sign of desperation on the battery front, not success. LED backlighting is no longer an expensive technology and has found its way into netbooks, so a new technology is needed there to create significant improvement. And e-readers are just too small. Everything else really works well enough. Consumer electronics is getting to be like plumbing, or refrigerators, or cookers. You don’t have Whirlpool fanboys or people who endless post on the Internet on the virtues of push fit versus compression joints. Perhaps it’s a sign of maturity of the industry.

Re:It’s the price of success - by rolfwind (Score: 2) Thread

Consumer electronics nowadays basically do everything consumers want, in an affordable way

Where’s my robot maid that cleans and robot servant that empties the gutters and takes out the trash?

So what? - by MikeUW (Score: 2) Thread

The lack of unabated growth in everything we do is not necessarily a sign of some impending doom.

Our culture seems to have this mentality that it’s a bad thing whenever something isn’t consumed more, or more popular this year than the last. But at some point in the long run, if it doesn’t stop, things will be far worse. It’s okay if fewer people don’t go to CES this year…there’s still next year. Plus can’t people keep up-to-date online? Isn’t that what the digital age is all about?

If you need a reality check re. growth, watch this professor’s summary of how continuing growth is ultimately going to hurt us (as most of us at least recognize in an arms-length, academic way): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

The video is 8 parts (sorry) and mostly focused on energy/economy, but it’s pretty interesting/eye-opening. Most people already recognize these issues, but mostly at an arms-length, academic level. This video really brings reality of our future into focus.

Re:So what? - by MikeUW (Score: 2) Thread

You should maybe watch the video then…growth (in its various forms) has more implications on our future than just economics (i.e., survival). Economics has little purpose if the day comes around that we have no oil or energy left without sufficient alternatives (leaving us with severly limited productivity/mobility), no food to feed billions, and/or no safe climate to live in.

I’ve minored economics…it’s a great subject, but as a predictor of the future, it’s no better than a weather forecast…that is, it’s only moderately accurate in the short term. What I think economics does best is fill-in blanks to explain past trends and observations (e.g., by allocating fictional/hypothetical values like ‘opportunity cost’ to explain why people make one choice over another), with the hopes of modelling what might happen in the future.

I wouldn’t argue that we shouldn’t take indicators into account in our decisions. But lets say this was the last CES, or the tech sector were to ‘crumble’. If that happens, something else will take its place - unless we all collectively decide to sit around on our asses moping about the situation.

Yes, but… - by djupedal (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
Dwindle the numbers of exhibitors and visitors all you want, but if you cut back on the booth babes, you’ve crossed the line…

I know how - by gparent (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I stored the info in a database on another SD card.  
 
However I mislabeled it and lost it.

No Subject - by Orphaze (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Like a lot of my colleagues and all of my three children, I have several white, black, and blue pairs of socks for various purposes: school, work, dress, etc. These things are handy to have around, offer easy and significant comfort, but are very easily lost. We have also have run into some instances where it wasn’t clear whose socks were whose, and have also started to see a need for a storage mechanism. I have seen sock ‘drawers’ and such, but have never seen anyone actually use one. So: How do you manage and keep track of your socks?

Treat Them as Garbage! - by Bruce Perens (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Treat your SD cards as garbage! No kidding!

You do this by using a hard disk copy as the “master”, and copying to and from SD, considering that the SD is always “ephemeral”, and may get bent, may pop out of the device and be stepped on and lost, etc. So, it is never the host for any critical data for very long.

And you make darned sure to back up the disk. These days my short-term backup medium is a couple of 1G or larger SATA disks, which I place in a front-loading holder and put in the fire safe after they’re written. Long-term backup media is currently DVD, but will probably go to Blu-Ray when the media gets cheap enough. Some of these are stored in a relative’s closet, because having all of your backups in one building is stupid.

Bruce

Re:Treat Them as Garbage! - by Psychotria (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Bruce, I have no reason to doubt you; but are you sure it’s OK to put SATA drives into the fire? I know it’s probably romantic to sit in front of a nice fireplace made from SATA disks, but wouldn’t logs be cheaper (NO, NOT the /var/log kind)?

Re:Fire safe won’t do much - by Bruce Perens (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Fire safes are generally designed to keep their contents below the combustion point of paper. Hard drives will melt at much, much cooler temperatures.

Good point. You don’t want to be in the sort of situation where it’s necessary to call Kroll Ontrak to recover the drive. The fire safe will probably reach an unacceptable temperature in a structure-destroying fire. That’s why I have off-site backups.

Instructions to my wife and child in case of a fire are get out first, do not concern yourself about any disks. This even though some of the forest fires we are subject to give warning before the structure must be evacuated. My critical business data gets backed up out of the state every night, via the net.Bruce

Summary of the patent - by Michael Woodhams (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

I’ve just skimmed the patent. The basic situation is they have the entire book on computer, you can choose any pages to view, but once you’ve viewed a certain number, it won’t let you view any more. There was also a bit of stuff about supplying image and text in different formats/resolutions, and (I think) using keys to scroll around the image of one page.

How do they know that it is you, not someone else asking for more pages? They specifically include the use of cookies, but allow for other methods. There is no mention of (e.g.) using IP addresses, but I expect this would be covered. The interesting problems (How do you know the user isn’t deleting the cookies? How do you know whether there are 200 people behind that single IP address?) are not addressed.

IANAL, and I didn’t read it carefully, so I might be wrong about some details.

Only in America. - by joocemann (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

The land of too many lawyers without enough viable work to find.

Oh the opportunities that have been missed or shut down for fear of litigious people and the grinning lawyers that represent them.

As true as this is, I will probably be modded a flamer.

Wide? - by Gothmolly (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Did anyone else read that as : “It would be entertaining to see Oprah get very wide” ?

Re:Would she fight it? - by _Hellfire_ (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

It’s more likely she’d just give him a car.

Oprah and this guy are in the pre-trial conference…

Oprah: “Look under your seat!”

Re:Would she fight it? - by muridae (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
While she may be a media icon and corporate power in her own right, do you think her handlers are silly enough to let her counter attack this guy? 
 
She makes money from the media, and the media companies like the current patent and copyright laws. No one in that business is going to step forward and say ‘the system is broken.’ I hope she does, but I don’t consider it very likely.

I’d like to say that I’m surprised here, but… - by Gandalf_Greyhame (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Firstly, I am not an American, so please forgive me for any mistakes that I am about to make here.

From the outside looking in, at least to myself, it appeared to be more a case of who could amass, and consequently spend, the greater amount of political donations.

I could be wrong here, and I am perfectly willing to accept that, but that is how it appeared to be to me.

Political donations, or more accurately “bribes,” (because that is what they are, regardless of what your government tells you) are used during the campaign to pay for speech writers, spin doctors, and also to pay off the media so that they are cast in a favourable light.

Then once the vote has been carried out, and the winner decided, all of those people who have donated substantial amounts of money to the campaign, then start demanding their dues. After all it was they who ensured victory, therefore they should be rewarded for their assistance.

$712M (Banking on becoming President) dollars was spent on the Obama campaign, and you can rest assured that very very VERY little of that was given by your average citizen. So once again, the corporations have elected a president, and now they want something in return.

I know that democracy is “government for the people, by the people,” and I believe that that is what the intention was. However in recent times it has wavered from that ideal, and we are all having our freedoms stripped by our governments on the behest of the corporations (lobbyists, etc) who financially support the campaigns of the political parties.

He’s unworthy - by HermMunster (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

So far the only questionable selection that concerns me.

The RIAA have been misusing the DMCA for the longest period of time. The person that drafted the law even admits that the RIAA is abusing the law.

Now we have a lawyer, however intellectual, that has acted utterly un-smart, being appointed from “a lobbying organization”; which are supposed to be an antithesis to the Obama adminstration.

I mean, really, listen to those videos that made it to the net from those lawyers that were part of the RIAA; those that lobbied to convince law enforcement that copying music is contributory to money laundering. And now you have Obama appointing one of those crazies to an important position.

It does not work like that… - by denzacar (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

It is very much different than here on Slashdot.

You get moderator points only once every 4 years. 
Everyone gets moderator points at the same time. 
You only get 1 moderator point. 
It lasts only 1 day (half actually). 
You get to moderate posts of only 2 posters.

Rest of those 4 years all your posts are automatically moderated as -1 Overrated+Troll, and nobody reads them.

But if you happen to have shitload of money - you can buy yourself golden undemoteable +5 Insightful+Informative posts.

Republicans=oil, Democrats=Hollywood - by smchris (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Years ago, I wrote Saint Wellstone that I thought it was ridiculous that I could buy a DVD and be a felon for playing it on a linux machine. The reply I got from Saint Wellstone’s office said the DMCA was a great thing and he would vote for it again if he had the chance. Just look at where the money comes from.

Dear Mr. President: - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
It deeply saddens me that you have chosen to appoint Tom Perrelli to be the third in command at the Justice Department.  
 
This is a man who has represented an organization that has hunted down and victimized children and college students using the legal system as a weapon. He has knowingly and willingly attacked America’s supply of future skilled labor, and potential doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, and more have all been forced to go into debt to pay off what they have been blackmailed out of.  
 
And all of this was not done in the name of profit, but of control. Proof has been shown that the RIAA has done nothing but lose money by attacking their customer base, calling them pirates and thieves, violating their rights, and leveraging out of court settlements out of families who do not believe that they have what it takes to fight this injustice in court.  
 
The man you have chosen for this position is the wrong choice. Please revert this decision. I and others are deeply afraid of what it means to see you appointing him.

Irrational expepctation - by fermion (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
It is this way any time someone waves huge amounts of money at a job people think anyone can do. It is likely that some spammers make huge amounts of money, so why not me?

For instance, some football players make a lot of money, so families, schools, colleges spend huge amounts of money to get people a position where they can make this money. In fact, even if one only considers colleges that are regularly recruited, the expectation value of income for these players are minimum wage. Of course, they can make money if they have others degress or skills, but the expectation if the rely on the game is very small.

As mentioned, many people prefer a small income with criminal activity rather than an honest, if perhaps uncomfortable job. People also prefer jobs they think they can have fun with to jobs where they actually have to put a honest days work.

We see this with the Madoff case, where it is better to be rich and work at a dishonorable profession than honorable and not so well off. Why would Madoff, or his criminal kids, be more respected than a person who is on time and does a good job at McDonalds?

Having taken Econ 101… - by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (Score: 4, Funny) Thread
And thus being a perfect master of all questions of human economic activity(except for currency related theory, which is why I’m just going to parrot gold-standard talking points until we get to that chapter next semester in Econ 102) I have a solution! 
 
Clearly, since phishing shows the classic signs of being a tragedy of the commons(if I were serious, I would put a patronizing link to the wikipedia article I had read just moments before in this spot) we must divide up the world’s computer using idiots and make individual blocks of them the property of particular phishers, thus aligning incentives and ensuring optimal exploitation of the Lusers. I call all AOL usernames that start with “a”!

Economically rational, isn’t. - by QuantumG (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

You have the choice:

1. earn minimum wage at McDonalds 
2. earn less than minimum wage selling drugs

Which do you choose? Selling drugs of course. Why? Cause you’ve got respect for yourself and refuse to work a demeaning job.

Before you object, whether or not you agree that working at McDonalds is demeaning is irrelevant. Many, many, many women have been given the choice:

1. work as a stripper 
2. work as a waitress

and decided that working as a waitress is less demeaning than working as a stripper. You may disagree with that, also but that’s also irrelevant. The facts are that you can make a lot more money working as a stripper than as a waitress, and yet so many people choose not to.

The economically rational human is a myth.

Not really all that big a surprise - by Sycraft-fu (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

I mean for one thing, a lot of crime really doesn’t pay well. Sometimes even less than a minimum wage job. I remember a few years ago there was a problem of newspaper machines getting broken in to and the change stolen. They finally caught the guy and estimated he’d been making well less than minimum wage. It wasn’t a trivial job to get in them and it isn’t as though a ton of papers are sold from those. While there certainly are criminals who make bank (like drug lords) often you’ll find that really criminals would do just as well to get honest work.

Another thing is that you are talking about something where your success rate is very low, and even when you do have a success in terms of getting info, you don’t necessarily get anything with it. Just because you steal someone’s account and try to use it, doesn’t mean it works. For example I had my credit card stolen. Wasn’t a phishing scam, just someone that had got a hold of the number, but either way they had it. As soon as they tried to order something, I noticed. I had the card disabled, the merchant stopped shipment on the goods, and so on. The thief didn’t get squat. So even though they were successful in getting my card, they weren’t successful in getting anything with it.

So all in all ti doesn’t surprise me that phishing is a low paying job. You aren’t going to get many bites, some of the ones you DO get will be fake (I love filling out phishing forms with fake data), and even when you do get legit info, you might not get to use it.

This has been pontificated about before… - by PCM2 (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Steven D. Levitt addresses this in his book, Freakonomics. Chapter 3 is titled Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?

Stupid, expensive, and ineffective. - by jcr (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The billions of dollars spent on the security theater we put up with at airports would buy a hell of a lot of good old-fashioned counterintelligence work, infiltrating organizations that mean to do us harm. The idea that a perp won’t go through with an attack if you just suck down a couple more terabytes of data and feel up every woman in the security line is nothing but fantasy.

-jcr

Should have used the Privacy Act, not FOIA - by karl.auerbach (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

The person made his request under FOIA. That was not the best vehicle for this.

A much better law to use to get information about yourself is the Privacy Act.

The two laws have confusingly similar numbers: 5 USC 552 for FOIA and 5 USC 552a for the Privacy Act.

The Privacy Act is a much bigger hammer for getting information about yourself. Agencies have many fewer excuses and the deadlines are far shorter. And agencies generally can’t make you pay for you to get their information about you.

Yes, the Privacy Act has many loopholes, but they are much fewer than those in FOIA.

So, if people are going to do this they should make sure that they make their request under the Privacy Act. They can still use FOIA, but they should do so under a separate cover because the agencies will intentionally conflate the two laws so that they can avoid fully complying with either.

See: http://www.cavebear.com/archive/nsf-dns/laws.htm

Sent off for mine this morning… - by (H)elix1 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

I was curious to see what was in my file, as I’ve had a devil of a time trying to come up with my travel via stamps in the passport. The airlines were not helpful past 2005. I sent in for mine, based on the notes in that article, like this…

U.S. Customs Service 
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue 
  NW., Washington, DC 20229 
January 6, 2009

To: Freedom of Information Act Request 
From: [helix] 
Subject: INFORMATION RELATING TO ME IN THE AUTMATED TARGETING SYSTEM

I am requesting information relating to me in the Automated Targeting System. My request is made pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552). I wish to have a copy of your records made and mailed to me without first inspecting them.

[helix]

Born [redacted] in [redacted].

Passport number: [redacted], issued [redacted], expired [redacted] 
Passport number: [redacted], issued [redacted], expiring [redacted]

Please mail the information to my home address:

[redacted]

Sincerely,

[redacted]

and addressed to

Freedom of Information Act Request 
U.S. Customs Service 
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. 
Washington DC 20229

Nice… - by gillbates (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Officials use the information to prevent terrorism, acts of organized crime, and other illegal activity.

Does the DHS have even one documented case of this information preventing said activity? Maybe I’m setting myself up in the wrong way here, but AFAIK, the DHS and TSA combined have never thwarted a terrorist attack or busted the mafia. Perhaps they’ve used to convict people of violating those administrative rules which no one is allowed to see, but I’m not aware of any evidence which suggests this information actually prevented terrorism or organized crime.

I mean sure, the FBI has busted criminals, but with regular gumshoe detective work.

With journalists like these, who needs a terrorist?

Elephants! - by kbahey (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

This one is easy …

Ever since the DHS has been setup, there are no terror attacks on the USA. So, obviously what the DHS is doing prevents terrorism.

Is is the same up here in Canada. We sprinkle black pepper on our lawns to prevent elephants from messing then up.

But there are no elephants in Canada you say? See, more proof that the black pepper works …

Wrong Wrong Wrong - by Glasswire (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

vPro is mostly about AMT OOB management which is secure and is in it’s 5th generation. TXT is relatively new component which is implemented virtually nowhere yet and has virtually nothing to do with the AMT functionality that has been and is being implemented hundreds of sites. AMT management is 97% of what vPro really is and is what the industry system OEMs generally mean when they say vPro. TXT is a future technology waiting for ISV enablement whereas core AMT/vPro is real and here now. Saying that because TXT may be compromised AND suggesting that the primary, working part of vPro is insecure is outrageously misleading.

Invisible Things Labs is J. Rutkowska (Blue Pill) - by paleshadows (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
“Invisible Things Labs” means, more or less, Joanna Rutkowska, discussed in these related slashdot stories

• VM-Based Rootkits Proved Easily Detectable
• Blue Pill Myth Debunked
• Hacker Defeats Hardware-based Rootkit Detection
• Rutkowska Faces ‘Blue Pill’ Rootkit Challenge

Another repeat: the unlockable lock - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Never a lock has been created that can’t be broken.

Any time you see “unbreakable”, “unsinkable” or similar claims, call your bookie: they will. The question is when, not if.

Thank you! - by Just Some Guy (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

RMS calls this “treacherous computing”, and I have to agree with him. This is a good development as it demonstrates quite nicely that DRM (which is probably the #1 use of VPro et al) in simply not possible. Thanks, ITL, for showing this as folly!

Re:Thank you! - by IamTheRealMike (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Keyword, at Intel. TC is the work of a large committee, with many companies. If you read the specs the conflicting goals are obvious. Simple question - is the TPM meant to resist hardware attacks or not? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. It’s not very good at this currently, you could beat 1.1 TPMs with a piece of wire (literally), but Intel are moving them inside the south bridge, where hardware attacks will be much harder.

In theory at least TC can be used to implement better DRM, because it makes it harder for people to debug the implementation. But there are still many unimplemented features needed to make this work, eg, trusted I/O, and no real roadmap to implement them. And even when done, it’ll be years before the technology is widespread, and it’s so complicated I’m sure Joanna and friends will be able to find many more problems with it.

The real promise of TC is a way out of the malware quagmire. Being able to run a web browser and know - for sure - that it’s not been compromised by a password sniffer or the like, well, that’s a useful thing and that’s what TXT lets you do (when complete). A remote voting app that can prove to the server that it’s a real human casting the vote and not a bot? A very useful thing, perhaps even a necessary precondition for digital democracy. TC can make this happen. DRM? Well if you want a crappy inferior very complex form of DRM then sure, go ahead, but it’ll be less secure and more expensive than the equivalent implemented in controlled hardware like the PS3, Xbox360, mobile phones etc …

Remember folks… - by Brandybuck (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Remember all you folks who argued for greater presidential powers: Every power you gave Bush is a power Obama now has. And ditto for you Obama fans who will be arguing the same in the next few years for your guy. Eventually there will be someone you don’t like in office. There’s a very good reason for limiting the power of government: malchiks and nitwits frequently find their way into office.

Re:Remember folks… - by SydShamino (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

…but I trust the guy who’ll replace the guy who’ll replace Obama a lot less with them. So let’s start now to limit those powers while we have someone in office who might (I said might) be willing to voluntarily relinquish some power to restore balance.

Ok, let me get this straight… - by orzetto (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

… so first we have a president whose second name is Hussein, and now Muslims are bringing freedom to America?

Re:Ok, let me get this straight… - by commodore64_love (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

P.S.

Proposed Amendment (the XXVIII)

Any Person, regardless of rank or position, found by a State Supreme Court, State Legislature, or the Supreme Court of the United States to be committing acts in violation of this Constitution shall be charged with treason, with appropriate penalties as determined by the Congress.

* 
* example: illegal wiretaps or searches without a judge’s warrant 
* all of the persons who committed that act would be charged

Why this proposed amendment? Because I’m tired of seeing government officials violate the Constitution and “get off” without any kind of consequences. There needs to be a deterrent, with corresponding fear of punishment, otherwise these bozos will just continue breaking Constitutional law again-and-again as if it didn’t exist.

whos next - by He who knows (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I bet the judge is going to be wiretapped now.

Formal recognition of PJ’s contribution to law - by Nefarious Wheel (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I think this would be a good time to seek some formal honours for PJ. Granted she has all the respect she has earned from the community over the course of the SCO epic, but it would be nice to find some appropriate gesture to show her in some tangible way just how valuable we believe she is as a person.

I don’t know what she includes in her formal qualifications, but an honourary doctorate from some high profile law school (whether she has an LLD already or whatnot) would probably not go astray. For that matter, I wouldn’t think a Presidential Medal of Freedom would be inappropriate either, but that’s just me. PJ has not been just a breath of fresh air, she’s been the only air we had. To honour her appropriately for that accomplishment would also be to honour an example of where people exercised their democratic right to resist bullying by people who see the courts as just another business tool.

We need Groklaw for the next war, not the last.. - by phrackwulf (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I understand the need to draw down, but I certainly would hate for PJ to totally throw in the towel. She’s accomplished something by harnessing the output of the legal system to an FOSS platform in a way Geeks can understand. That is elegant and original and incredibly, incredibly important. What about net neutrality and invasion of privacy and the next organization that decides, “Who cares about legality, we can get away with it.” Groklaw is the 11th commandment. Thou shalt not get away with it. The legal system as it is, is the OS of our society. Groklaw is the repository for documentation of that OS and the ways it can be played with or corrupted, the same way exploits can be carried out in computer operating systems. It’s stretching a metaphor naturally.

Groklaw isn’t the only resource… - by argent (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

There’s groups like the EFF, sites like Chilling Effects, and individual blogs like NYCL’s, news aggregators like Slashdot, magazines like Wired, and many others… I can only begin a list of the categories, let alone the sites themselves.

Groklaw has been a rallying point for part of the online civil discourse, but it’s not the only one. Perhaps the community that has grown around Groklaw can keep using it as a touchstone, as they shift their own emphasis to other parts of the web, but that doesn’t need Pamela’s continued engagement and daily involvement, does it?

Re:We need Groklaw for the next war, not the last. - by causality (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

The legal system as it is, is the OS of our society.

That’s pretty damned scary.  
 
I have finally understood it! Society is running Windows! That’s why the legal system is slow, overly complex, buggy, expensive, designed by marketing I mean campaign contributions, applies itself to things that are not legal problems, and not under the control of the average end users! Suddenly it makes sense.

The legal system as it is, is the OS of our society.

Yeah, that’s still pretty scary.

I’m a bit confused by this. - by Bootsy Collins (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I read PJ’s post on Groklaw, linked to in the article summary. It seems as if she’s effectively defining Groklaw’s purpose as being to deal with the threat to free and open-source software brought on by the SCO cases; that being so, if the threat from SCO is over, there’s not much to do except to make sure that the tons of archived information is correct, and to work to make it easily accessible to those who might come to need it in the future.

1. Is it really the case that the SCO cases are over? It’s true that SCO’s cases against IBM, Autozone, and Red Hat are moot if SCO doesn’t hold the copyrights they use as the basis for their claim; but SCO plans to appeal the judgment in Novell’s favor. Until that appeal is done, it doesn’t seem to me to be over.

2. Even assuming the SCO aspect of this situation is over, the fundamental issues here haven’t been decided. Essentially, the judgment against SCO means that SCO doesn’t have standing to bring a lawsuit against IBM. But if Novell were to become evil, then who’s to say they couldn’t bring such a lawsuit? The fundamental question of whether Linux infringes on UNIX copyrights has yet to be decided on in court (however ridiculous any of us may feel such a claim to be). That was the issue when Groklaw originally got started, and it’s still out there.

3. Furthermore, it’s not the only legal issue that could threaten Linux or other FOSS projects in the future. Groklaw has at times addressed issues associated with patents and trade secrets, and those aren’t going anywhere. And we still have yet to finish cases in which software companies attempt to invalidate the terms of the GPL, to exculpate themselves from appropriating code from projects licensed under the GPL — also a topic occasionally covered by Groklaw. I understand that it’s PJ’s blog, and her life, and the focus of Groklaw is whatever she says it is. But it’s still sad, because the decision to define the focus of the resource (for that’s what its archives and especially its participant base are) narrowly leaves behind a vacuum at a time when there are still real threats to oppose.

YOU MORONS YOU LET IT ON /.! - by Eli Gottlieb (Score: 2) Thread

Great, now I have to post Middle-East comments on here? God damn it, how much longer are people going to keep arguing about this?

OMG A Voluntary Botnet?? - by Arancaytar (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

That’s so cool, where do I sign up to turn my computer into a zombie controlled by a shady Command Central? Does that cost anything or is it free?

Idiots - by Britz (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

There is no winning this war. As much as I support Israel and their right to exist without rockets being fired on them left and right they are the bad guys in this case. They usually are these days if you look at the body count. The Hamas was provoked into breaking the ceasefire. The IDF sent a special forces unit into Gaza to break up a tunnel for smuggeling. They could have done that on the Isrealy side. 
But elections are coming up and Baraks popularity (Ehud Barak is a former PM, currently heads the defense department and masterminded the war) has surged. The whole thing could easily backfire as we have seen with the war in Lebanon and the political end of Peres.

The blockade of Gaza for such a long time should be considered an act of war. The whole Gaza strip is practically a prison. And Egypt is not helping either.

Back to the web: The occupation of former Jordanian areas (where the Palestinians now live) is being used by all the nationalistic arab governments of the region to divert public interest away from their corrupt regimes. So there is always a lot of propaganda going on. And that propaganda has moved to the web. There are a lot of very ugly anti Israel webpages out there. With tons of very ugly lies.

Re:Idiots - by antibryce (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

*before* the ceasefire ending Hamas fired almost 3000 rockets into Israel. I’d say they broke the ceasefire well before the IDF “provoked” them.

I agree they should open up the borders, the problem is the people in gaza voted for a terrorist group to run things. Now they have to live with the fact that Hamas uses any opening in the border to bring in weapons.

Body count is no way to judge these things, as Hamas deliberately hides their weapons and members amount civilians to inflate it. In an ideal world the should be blamed by all for those civilian deaths as well. Even this girl gets it.

Re:Idiots - by mabu (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

*before* the ceasefire ending Hamas fired almost 3000 rockets into Israel. I’d say they broke the ceasefire well before the IDF “provoked” them.

Many others report Israel broke the cease fire - the bottom line is that both sides have continued to fight. It’s a red herring to suggest one side acted in an unprovoked manner - that’s simply bogus.

Who shot first is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that Israel has been condemned by the United Nations more than 50 times for refusing to follow various agreed-upon conventions. Israel has been systematically driving the Palestinians off their own land and taking it over. That’s a fact. That’s not something you can accuse the arabs of doing. If you bulldoze someone’s house. If you make them have to pass through armed checkpoints and hostile guards to get to work. If you break their cities into little pieces by building an illegal wall around their settlements, you shouldn’t be surprise if some of these people react. The irony is that Israel is slowly committing genocide on the Palestinians and nobody’s doing anything about it. The United States is funding the genocide to the tune of $6,000,000,000.00 a year now in an elaborate kickback scheme involving military defense contractors and the US’s most powerful lobbying group: AIPAC. There’s no motivation for Israel to make peace with its neighbors when war is profitable for them and for the American corporations that aid money gets funneled back to.

Still no Linux version - by MikeBabcock (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

While the music itself is now DRM-free, it is still inaccessible to non Windows/Mac users. I realize that we Linux-only households are few and far between, but as a cross-platform version of iTunes already exists, why not make a version for Linux too?

While they’re at it, could they just move the store entirely to the web, and let me access it with a normal browser since I don’t need to ‘activate’ the downloaded music at all anymore?

True Road Warriors Need Removable Batteries - by damn_registrars (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread
Sure, some people can get the nonstop flight from LA to NYC, and survive on a single battery. But not everyone is that lucky. Many of us have to go through one or more layovers to get from where we work to where we are having a meeting. And as the airlines consolidate, and hubs lose their hub status, the layover will become more and more commonplace for travelers. 
 
Add to that the lack of available wall outlets at so many airports - as well as the lack of any sort of outlet on most planes - and you’ll see that it is not unusual for a single trip to require more than 8 hours of battery power. 
 
A trip I took recently that was just less than 1,000 miles “as the crow flies” took me over 8 hours of real time. And I’m sure I’m not the only person with a laptop who has experienced this.

Re:True Road Warriors Need Removable Batteries - by damn_registrars (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread

For one thing, it is worth noting that “8 hour batteries” often get 8 hours when you’re playing solitaire or typing a word document. If you are doing anything that is intensive in a computational or storage manner, you are generally lucky to get half the expected battery life.

Power in the seats? If I had the option I would take it. I don’t think I’ve been on a plane in the last 4 years that had that as an option. It is not unusual for me to fly over 10,000 miles per year, and not a single mile of the last 4 years has been on a plane that had power available in any seats (minus perhaps in the cockpit). 
 
If you’re home and/or destination airport isn’t regularly served by large aircraft with power in the seats, then you are just SOL in that regard.

Worked up? Not really. I’m just saying that if they are really concerned about real road warriors they’ve missed the mark. There are plenty of people for whom an expensive laptop like this is a great way to go, but there are plenty of people who would still be better served by a removable battery.

Turly DRM Free? - by TheNinjaroach (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Sure the tracks are going DRM free, but will iTunes still prevent me from copying music from my iPod to a new iTunes library? It’s incredibly annoying to me that any time I move PCs or operating systems that I can’t easily move songs off of my iPod. The tracks may be DRM free all the way through, but it still exists if I can’t move my library as I see fit.

Re:Turly DRM Free? - by DragonTHC (Score: 3, Informative) Thread

red chair software.

nuff said.

Bittersweet - by digitalhermit (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread

I’ve been reading Dr. Dobbs for a few years.. Same with Linux Journal, Linux Magazine, SysAdmin magazine. Though I enjoy thumbing through the magazine while I’m - uhh - busy, keeping the back issues is a pain. They’re not easily searchable, take up a lot of space, are not cut/paste friendly, etc..

The era of the print computer magazine is in its last throes. I raise a glass to Compute!, Antic, Byte, SysAdmin, and all the others that entertained me through the years.

Re:I’m Sorry, but Good Riddance - by thePowerOfGrayskull (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
Good in theory. But…

I used to read books and magazines on my Palm tungsten. Then I switched to blackberry, and I have nearly $1000 in ebooks that I can’t read. At all. Why would people want to run that risk? The capabilities are there, but after /years/ of ebook publishing there’s still no standard that will ensure this can’t happen. Print media can always be read, no matter what platform you’re using.

Of course, there’s a much more practical concern: after 12-16 hours, I want to /stop/ looking at a monitor for a while.

Nostalgia is longing for something past for its own sake. In this case, there’s a measurable difference in quality. I can count on one hand the number of web sites that deliver the kind of quality technical information that DDJ and CUJ used to provide.

And among those web sites, it’s still a challenge to find the valid, useful information hidden amidst blog entries where folks will hold forth on topics they know little to nothing about.

In other words, “I don’t use this, and therefore nobody else does either”?

Re:I’m Sorry, but Good Riddance - by VJ42 (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
Paper’s going nowhere fast. We’ll still use it for archival purposes, will your RSS feeds, PDAs and Kindles last a thousand years? Paper originals of the Magna Carta still exist today. If it had been written in an early .doc format I would already have trouble reading it, I can go to the British library to read a copy of the Magna Carta written in 1215.

Print is expensive - by mgkimsal2 (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread

Capt Obvious here. :)

I recently started http://groovymag.com as a PDF-only publication, and have had interest from people in print versions. At the small numbers we’re at, it’s probably about an extra $5 per copy just to cover print and postage, which I don’t think most people are willing to pay that right now, though maybe I’ll be proven wrong.

We’re in a niche market, so we don’t rely on advertising, and have no plans to do so. I suspect we may see more products forgoing the advertising model altogether, and focusing on providing value for ‘micropayments’ - $2-$4/month for access to content. I think the ‘micro’ in micropayments has traditionally had people thinking about “2 cents per page view” sort of thing, but that’s never proven feasible.

What might arise from this downturn in advertising-driven publications are content networks of like minded publications that offer access to content from all sites for a set fee. Aren’t there some industries that already do this (ahem - adult?)

Re:Seriously, dude… - by Farmer Tim (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

…just use your iPhone while you’re on the can to read it.

Sure, that’s possible, but what good is an iPhone if you run out of toilet paper? 3G won’t help you there.

There are no truly new ideas… - by master_p (Score: 2) Thread

…everything “new” is just an evolution of previous ideas, usually discovered in the 50s or 60s. So, don’t worry much about it.

Rely on incompetence - by Metasquares (Score: 2) Thread

University admissions committees in general are fairly poor at keeping track of paperwork. When the university forgets to give you your housing application and other welcome materials, just don’t remind them about that paper that says your ideas belong to them.

It worked for me :)

Don’t worry about it. - by JustNiz (Score: 2) Thread

Invent something world-changing first then worry about it, as the chances are it will never happen.

Bottom line: if you invent something world-changing then don’t tell anyone at school. 
Then decide to either quit your course or wait till your course is over before you capitalise on your idea. 
Don’t ever admit to anyone you even had the original idea during the time you were at school. It all happened after you left.

Re:Cut funding - by Dolohov (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread

I assume you mean the school’s endowment by “hoarding large pools of cash” — in most cases, the schools are not allowed to touch the cash itself, only the interest/dividends off it. And while tuition is going up, most of those same schools are using endowment money to fund scholarships, so that relatively few students are actually paying full tuition. (To some extent, I suspect that this is a shell game. To qualify as a non-profit, they have to spend most of that interest, and the endowment rules frequently are strict about what it can be used for, but paying themselves “tuition” on behalf of a student lets them move money around and spend it on salaries and infrastructure)

Check with the University - by Gribflex (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread

Each University has their own policy on this, and will make it pretty easy to find. Most University policies that I’ve looked at look something like this:

‘Any work that you submit as part of your course requirements is the property of the University. Any work that you do while working on a research project for the University is the property of the University.’

Not surprisingly, this is the basic premise of many employment contracts as well.

‘Anything you make while working for us is automatically our property.’

There are always exceptions, of course, for work that is done by you, on your own time and equipment, that has nothing to do with your coursework/job.

I’ve never really felt that these policies are that obscene, and I think that if you take a few minutes to think about it objectively, you may feel the same. In no case is someone laying claim to anything that might fall out of your head, only the material that you will produce at the explicit request of someone else (either your instructor or employer).

Internet Killed the TV Star - by girlintraining (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

The truth of DTV is that it’s an excuse to force most of the population to cough up $500-$900 in a short period of time. It creates an artificial demand spike so that a select few corporations can profit from mass-exploitation. The fact that the vouchers are running out just confirms that people don’t care about the Great New Wonderful High Definition Quality Orgasmic Display Technology Of Much Goodness BUY IT NOW. And why did it run out of money? Because they told the FCC that everyone wanted new TVs… I mean, who’d want to be saddled with last year’s technology, right? Well, that would be us poor mother frackers who don’t care to spend that much money for some passive display tech when we could just as easily go and buy a laptop and watch videos on THAT instead. And, big surprise, what’s the major advertising point right now on a lot of laptops? Multimedia and a DVD drive. Go. Figure.

I hope television dies right here and now and consumers start downloading massive quantities of video online, choking the crap out of our ISPs and prompting a digital crisis as the commercial infrastructure of the internet burns. Those same corporate interests then will be scrambling to explain to congressional oversight committees why everything went to hell. And the beautiful part is that by strangling the internet, it’ll force companies to compete for a limited resource — they won’t be able to ally themselves against consumer interest anymore.

The digital transition means less for television than it does for the future of the internet. Interesting, isn’t it? Maybe they’ll make a song about it — “Internet Killed the TV Star?”

Quinky dink - by cjjjer (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
I wonder if this has anything to do with it? 
Scammers Exploit DTV Coupon Program

Digital TV: inferior in some ways - by Gizzmonic (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The bad part about digital TV is the method of transmission they used is inferior in some ways to analog TV. It requires a very strong signal to get any video at all, and it’s very suspectible to multipath interference. Analog TV would degrade gracefully, so that if you didn’t get a strong signal you could at least hear it, and see black and white video. Digital TV is all-or-none. Also, portable TV antennas no longer work (at least, not while you’re moving), so you can’t stick one in your car or your Sony Watchman. Digital broadcast TV is a pain at this point…

Perfectly good CRT TVs - by RevWaldo (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
If the converter box coupons help keep perfectly good CRT TVs out of the wastestream it sounds like money well spent. 
(Relevent report on that from 60 Minutes)

Maybe kids will play outside, - by psnyder (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
or people will start to read books.

Welcome to the 21st century - by Albanach (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

9 years late, we can welcome RIM to the new millenium.

Seriously, most geeks will have used cell phones as modems for years. I certainly did it back in the last millennium. In the old days, IR was the way to connect. Then when you got fed up trying to keep the phone pointed at the computer you got a cable.

Bluetooth replaced all that nonsense. And, today, we have software that turns your phone into a Wireless access point, allowing you to share your connection with the entire room.

Here’s hoping I never have a job that forces me to give all that up for a Blackberry!

Re:Modem use forbidden by corporate policy? - by betterunixthanunix (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread
Cell providers also routinely filter data traffic, because they want to charge extra for mobile Internet and fax plans. Verizon definitely does this, and T-mobile kills fax but not dialup users. How this is not a violation of the Sherman act is a mystery to me.

Re:Modem use forbidden by corporate policy? - by Zerth (Score: 4, Informative) Thread

I just got a Storm with an All-you-can-eat(but don’t go over 5 GB/month or else!) data plan, but I think it explicitly excepts using it as a modem.

Re:Modem use forbidden by corporate policy? - by Shadow of Eternity (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread

They have lots and lots of money.

Re:Modem use forbidden by corporate policy? - by qmaqdk (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Sorry, but how can this comment be modded +3 Insightful?

Better mod this one +5 Informative:

“The Universe is very big!”

SMP + Stability = Win! - by urbanriot (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
I’ve been sticking with the 6.x branch (6.4 most recently) as it’s given me extremely reliable uptime with my Squid proxy servers. FreeBSD 7.0 excited me with their SMP updates and ULE scheduler aiding in performance, however I wasn’t convinced that the long standing FreeBSD stability was there after reading a number of newsgroup discussions, and due to its immaturity. Now that 7.1 has been released, I’m going to start taking it more seriously for production use.  
 
That being said, regarding some of the comments here, FreeBSD (in my opinion) is more suited to uptime, stability, and reliability in servers than it is to offering a performance oriented desktop experience. Want a good starter project? Try to make a FreeBSD stateful firewall with transparent proxy server (pf / squid) for your home using some spare parts you have kicking around.

Contributions - by coryking (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

And don’t be nervous about making contributions either. My first ports looked like shit, but the port guys were patient and over time I’ve gotten the hang of the system.

FreeBSD (and probably the other BSD’s) are much easier to work on then the other guys. For starters, since you are using a *system* and not a collection of libraries, all your patches and bug-reports go to the same place. In other words, you aren’t talking to “the website and the people who maintain the ‘tar’ utility”, you are talking to “the freebsd guys”. Your patch for “tar” goes to the same repository as the code for “libc”.

Plus since it is licensed as BSD, you can actually contribute modifications and not worry about the nasty side effects found in other licenses. I’ve never contributed to a GPL project, but I’ve contributed tons to BSD projects.

Bottom line, FreeBSD is a great place to get your feet wet contributing to open source stuff. Good times.

*Finally* DVD media - by jaredmauch (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

This is one of the better parts of this release. The lack of speed/clue on putting out both CD sized and DVD iso images has been highly frustrating, telling the users to basically “roll-their-own”. I’ve already upgraded a few systems and things appear to be going well.

Benchmarks?!??!!!!11one!!? - by CarpetShark (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Benchmarks between competing free software projects? Don’t be silly! Next thing, you’ll be advocating some sort of sane system, like choosing the best of breed technology based stats like benchmarks, and uniting behind it! Think what kind of chaos Free Software would be in, if everyone decided that OpenGL was THE low-level graphics layer, that gstreamer was THE codec API, that Vala was THE high-level language, that Git was THE modern version control system, or that FUSE was THE place to develop filesystem stuff. Why, you’d have a straightforward stack, with very little bloat, and tons of people honing a single implementation.

Pandemonium, I tell you.

And that is the best niche for FreeBSD - by coryking (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

As a lover of FreeBSD, I hope the guys in charge never try to “win the desktop”. They’d never win and they’d stop paying attention to the stuff that makes it so good for servers. FreeBSD, and the other BSD’s for that matter, belong in the data center. I’d argue the same for Linux, but that might get me slaughtered in these parts…

Signal to Noise ratio over time