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Comment Re:Windows !!! (Score 5, Insightful) 93

Why they didn't use Linux, BSD, even the Russia or RedFlag version ?

Ask Siemens. They designed the equipment the Iranians are using and wrote most of the control software to operate in a Windows environment. Not that it would have mattered, once you've got an agency with the resources of CIA or Mossad after you it's only a matter of time before they find a way in. Linux is not proof against malware delivered via HUMINT assets.

Comment Re:Comcast and Time Warner, a match made in . . . (Score 1) 112

Where I live they haven't bothered to make any provision for back up power to the repeaters on their coax plant. Power goes out? Kiss your phone service goodbye, even if you've got the battery in your modem. They finally did upgrade us to DOCSIS 3, about eight months ago, so now our peak hour speeds have gone from atrocious to tolerable FWIW.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 302

A better approach is to make the copyright holder a legal steward of the work until it enters the public domain. That is, they have a legal duty to maintain it in the best possible form and make sure it gets handed off to interested parties when it enters the public domain. Failure to do so is a breech of the contract resulting in handing all profits from the work during copyright to the public (that is, a massive fine).

If the cost of maintaining the work exceeds the value, they may choose to terminate the copyright early, but must give sufficient public notice.

Submission + - Microsoft, Chip Makers Working on Hardware DRM for Windows 10 PCs (pcworld.com) 1

writertype writes: Last month, Microsoft began talking about PlayReady 3.0, which adds hardware DRM to secure 4K movies. Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm are all building it in, according to Microsoft. Years back, a number of people got upset when Hollywood talked about locking down "our content". So how important is hardware DRM in this day and age?

Comment Re:Benjamin Franklin got it right (Score 1) 230

I disagree. They aren't mutual, they are absolute opposites.

Absolute freedom is anarchy - everyone can do what they want, and nobody has security.
Absolute security is freedomless - one's actions are circumscribed in every possible way to reduce risk.

Of course, reality is always a compromise between such theoretical poles.

If you take as a hypothetical the TV show Lost: the characters in that drama had essentially no government, no police, and the freedom to do pretty much what they wanted. Concurrently, they had very little security.
Alternatively, if you have a society in which the government is expected to mitigate every risk, to protect from every harm, you have substantial security (ostensibly) but very limited freedoms (sacrificed on the altar of the "greater good" or "protect the children" or "fighting terror").

We seem to want the latter; we just spent 10 years at war and trillions of dollars over an attack that cost the US a (relatively trivial) 3000 lives. You say the modern police-state has failed? I'd disagree - we are getting *precisely* the state that we as a body public have voted for. I'm a libertarian, I truly would prefer a country with more freedom, cognizant that this means fewer safety nets, but I recognize too that I'm in a far minority, and will be outweighed by the masses that want single-payer health care, massive social safety-nets, and a society that weeps piteously over every sparrow that falls from their nest.

Read up on social contract theory, and then read John Campbell's Tribesman, Barbarian, and Citizen. (I found the full text of the piece quoted at http://www.baenebooks.com/chap... )

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