In April, a mother passing through heightened security at JFK was forced to drink from bottles of her own breast milk to demonstrate that the bottles were not dangerous. Apparently this demand conformed to federal guidelines at the time.
Priceless quote from a civil rights attorney in the article:
The number of middle-aged, lactating white women who passed through al-Qaida training is probably negligible.
[Posted by Noah:]
If you're a determined assassin of celebrities with a high-powered rifle, you may already be familiar with Ibis Tek's Instantaneous Personal Protection System, a set of bulletproof barriers that pop up within 40ms when an incoming bullet is detected. Luckily, they tell you how close you'll need to get to defeat their system (500ft) right on their web site.
The same company sells a variety of other products and services like military training -- and SUVs with a pop-up turret bearing a .50 caliber machine gun.
Bruce Sterling's OSCON speech (mentioned on Slashdot) is a good read, though it's mostly cute metaphor and a lot of whining. The basic message (corporations are evil and Open Source is hard to use) is true enough, but hardly news. It's also not the problem, as far as I'm concerned.
Too much emphasis is put on how accessible the Open Source world is to the average user. But Open Source isn't about being accessible, or being successful, or taking over the world. It's about freedom to do what you want with your data. And while it's important for the average user to have that freedom, it's even more critical that we--the developers, the researchers, the innovators--have that freedom.
Of course, freedom is relative. For example, I don't feel that it's my God-given right to access the source of all the software I use. If you want to offer me software without the source, go ahead. If I don't need the source for that particular product, then maybe I'll give you my money. If I do need the source, I'll go somewhere else.
Hell, if you want to licence your software to me instead of selling it, then go for it. I'll read the terms, do my best to understand them, and decide if I can live with your restrictions. If they're reasonble, then maybe I'll give you my money. If they're too draconian, then I'll go somewhere else.
It is unfortunate that most users don't understand the rights they're forfeiting when they click "I Agree", but hey: they're the ones clicking. It's sleazy that some companies attach license
revisions to security updates, but hey: caveat emptor. Under U.S. contract law, it doesn't matter what rights the consumer thinks he has--it only matters what the contract says. So as long as customers put up with your ridiculous terms (or are too lazy to read them), I say "exploit away!"
We still, today, live in a country where consumers have a choice. If ubiquity and polish are more important to you than flexibility, then use Windows or OS X. If freedom is more important to you than convenience, then use Linux or FreeBSD. You get to choose.
The problem is not that Linux hasn't captivated the nation's grandmothers. The problem is that we--the people who care about freedom, the people who refuse to give up our rights in exchange for convenience--may soon lose our ability to choose at all.
The CBDTPA--being considered in the U.S. Congress now--will make it illegal to develop hardware or software that doesn't make provisions for copy protection. This doesn't just mean that their hardware and software will behave the way they want. This means that if your hardware and software don't behave the way they want, you will go to jail. Even if your hardware never touches their data. Even if all you ever use it for is to manage your own data, that you create in your own home.
This is a very real threat, not just to the success of Open Source, but to the existence of Open Source. It's hard to imagine how the Open Source world could incorporate such measures. And even if it's possible, there's no reason to believe that the proponents of this bill will choose a version which could be compatible with Open Source. After all, they're not pushing this stuff because they think it's right--they're pushing it because they think it will protect their profits.
If you use Windows or OS X, then the fate of Open Source might not seem very relevant to you. But surely you've noticed how your rights are dwindling, with every new release and security patch. Licence agreements are becoming more restrictive, not less. Their programs are getting more powerful, but your freedom in how you use them is weakening. Perhaps you can sleep at night thinking "These terms are bad, but they're not unbearable. I can still live with them, and if they ever get really bad, then I'll look for an alternative."
Well, any minute now, there may be no alternative.
I still only sort of understand what .NET is. When I first started hearing about it, it was portrayed as a way to phase out software licensing in favor of pay-per-use web services. This sounded sufficiently evil and ill-concieved that I stopped paying attention. (I do that a lot with Microsoft technologies. I still understand ActiveX mainly as a feature that I should disable if I want to keep my computer safe.)
The current Microsoft spin on .NET says nothing about pay-per-use. It's all about "services" and "experiences" and "interoperability". I'm curious, now: was the pay-per-use aspect of .NET ever emphasized by Microsoft, or was that just ruckus raised
by Microsoft detractors?
Investigating this issue, I ran across a priceless quote in one of many Microsoft hype articles:
.NET matters for two reasons, one "selfish," one tied to the profit motive.
Uh. How are those two different reasons?
Flutterby
points out a new version of Hot or Not for blogs. Unable to resist, I've registered MonkeySpeak.
I bought some new bud earphones
to go with my mp3 player (which came with larger, less portable headphones). The earpiece labeled "L" feels more comfortable in my right ear, and the one labeled "R" feels more comfortable in my left ear. I'm worried by what this means about me.
As I drove to work this morning, the marquee-light-board sign on the side of the road (which sometimes mentions accidents or road work) said
My first thought was that "amber" referred to a terrorism Threat Condition, which was unsettling. When I got to work, though, I googled "amber alert" and it appears to be a kidnapping response system. Yikes.
After I saw the sign, I couldn't help noticing (and checking) every white SUV I saw. I wonder if accident rates go up while alerts are in progress, because of all the people craning their necks around, reading each others' license plates.
