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Comment Re:Copyright Infringement? (Score 1) 335

by seandiggity (#45388317) Attached to: GCHQ Created Spoofed LinkedIn and Slashdot Sites To Serve Malware

Hm, /. may have a valid case to chase after.

After all, they duplicated the site/logo/etc without the permission of the actual copyright owners.

They could also make a case for monetary damages and damages to their reputation (trademark?), especially when you consider lost advertisement revenue (if we do believe that the advertisement business model for the Web makes any sense).

Comment Re:Problems in the license, and an alternative? (Score 2) 233

by seandiggity (#45142847) Attached to: Security Researchers Want To Fully Audit Truecrypt

Given all of this, plus the problems with TrueCrypt authorship etc. I think the best course of action is replacing with a free implementation, maybe starting with something like this?

Ah, I see the current TrueCrypt license has undergone substantial changes since the early days. Looks like a complete mess to me :/

Comment Problems in the license, and an alternative? (Score 5, Insightful) 233

by seandiggity (#45142763) Attached to: Security Researchers Want To Fully Audit Truecrypt
From http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/06/msg00295.html:

...if you distribute modified versions of TrueCrypt, you cannot charge for copies. That is non-free...
...nothing in the license constitutes a promise not to sue for copyright infringement. Our counsel advises that a plain reading of this indicates that if Fedora complies with all the requirements of the TrueCrypt license, we would nonetheless have no assurance that TrueCrypt will not sue me for my acts of copying, distribution, creation of derivative works, and so forth...
TrueCrypt seems to be reserving the right to sue any licensee for copyright infringement, no matter whether they comply with the conditions of the license or not. Based on this, our counsel advised that above and beyond being non-free, software under this license is not safe to use...
Our counsel advised us that this license has the appearance of being full of clever traps, which make the license appear to be a sham (and non-free).

Given all of this, plus the problems with TrueCrypt authorship etc. I think the best course of action is replacing with a free implementation, maybe starting with something like this?

Comment Re:Google is in partnership with the NSA (Score 1) 216

by seandiggity (#44827155) Attached to: Google's Encryption Plan To Stifle NSA's Dragnet Will Raise the Stakes
Replying to my own thread, which I realize is bad manners...I want to avoid a flamewar joined by Google employees and I refuse to respond to them individually (I also wouldn't reason with the Stasi). The parent post is upvoted by my peers for a reason...we're living in a totalitarian surveillance network in which Google is the primary player and I think we're finally realizing how much the most public advocate of FOSS has become a spook agency in conjunction with the NSA. Let's shun them as we should, for embracing (and making piles of money off of) FOSS and then acting against the interests of freedom. As the weeks go by, we'll continue to learn how Google has betrayed even our most basic freedoms. Beyond that, they've done some work on the ground, the same work a spy agency would have done in the past. Who's holding the shit-bag now?

Comment Google is in partnership with the NSA (Score 4, Insightful) 216

by seandiggity (#44816521) Attached to: Google's Encryption Plan To Stifle NSA's Dragnet Will Raise the Stakes
This is a joke and amounts to nothing but a smoke screen. We now know that Google is an active partner of the NSA and the U.S. government...we should treat them *as* the NSA. What does any of this matter when Google has whole division(s) dedicated to preparing data for use by the NSA. They'll give keys, they'll give data, they'll give metadata, they'll give educated guesses, they'll prepare 3D topographic maps about that data.

Comment Re:All Jokes Aside... Still No. (Score 5, Interesting) 250

by seandiggity (#44335561) Attached to: MIT Uses Machine Learning Algorithm To Make TCP Twice As Fast
We should keep investigating why it works but, to be fair, the history of communications is implementing tech before we understand it (e.g. the first trans-Atlantic cable, implemented before we understood wave-particle duality, and therefore couldn't troubleshoot it well when it broke).

Let's not forget this important quote: "I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy."

...that's Isaac Newton telling us, "I can explain the effects of gravity but I have no clue WTF it is."

Comment Re:How about this (Score 1) 279

by seandiggity (#44192129) Attached to: Disney's Titling Problem With Its <em>Star Wars</em> Movies

come up with a new idea.

Disney? Come up with a new idea? Hahaha, oh wow, are you kidding? They've finished sucking classical childrens stories dry, and now they've moved on to modern culture, Disney hasn't had a single original idea since the ink dried on Steam Boat Willy.

Actually, Steamboat Willy was a cartoon parody of a Buster Keaton film.

Comment Re:Web Programming (Score 2) 641

by seandiggity (#44175981) Attached to: Things That Scare the Bejeezus Out of Programmers

Seriously, web programming is for chumps, and it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Having worked on websites since '97 (and learned "on the job", so to speak), I can actually say it's getting better quickly. Standardized approaches like responsive design and Bootstrap are helping tremendously. Also, most of the technologies you mention are used in a small percentage of Web applications...for better or worse, most Web developers are dealing with the LAMP stack + HTML + CSS + JavaScript.

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